Career Milestones – Work Anniversaries

Career Milestones – Current Position

A few career milestones occurred to me recently. January 28th marked my 2nd anniversary of working as a marketing specialist in the B2B industry for a national packaging distributor and part of a team to grow with, share knowledge and learn. Since starting, I’m thankful for the help I’ve received to learn new skills and to apply my marketing experience from past positions for continued growth.

Working From Home Career Milestones
Career Milestones – Working From Home Setup March-November 2020

Over the past few years, I’ve learned more about Microsoft 365, Windows 10 and learned another content management system in my career. (I’ve been exclusively working on an iMac and primarily using Adobe Creative Suite – Media Encoder, Premiere Pro, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign – since I graduated college. Additionally, I’ve adapted to working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic and have become more comfortable with video chat software to work remotely. Over these two years, I’ve enjoyed adding to my career experiences and look forward to more adventures!

Career Reflections

2021 will hold a few other career milestones. January 28th, 2021 was also the 2-year mark of starting in the B2B industry. October 2021 will be the 3-year mark of leaving the outdoor industry. I enjoyed engaging with and building social networks and website audiences for a leading outdoor TV station and legendary fishing brands. The engagement between an outdoor brand and its audience is what I enjoy about the outdoor industry. The passion for the outdoor lifestyle is very evident and builds strong relationships, even amidst controversial topics. The outdoor audience likes speaking their minds. This unity and camaraderie are present at tradeshows, conferences, and on social networks. It was a joy to experience as one who is also part of this adventurous lifestyle.

The TV network continues to be one of the best places I worked at due to the camaraderie and a large amount of work accomplished as a smaller company. I feel I could contact any of my previous colleges, and we’d pick up as if it were yesterday. (Had the TV network not been acquired and relocated outside of Wisconsin, I see the possibility of still being there today.)

Career Enjoyment

I’m very grateful for my current opportunity to learn and grow in the B2B arena and the team-oriented culture I enjoy. It’s also one of the best places I’ve worked at! I’m looking forward to using more of my marketing/creative skills in the future! — Remember, behind every challenge is a reward.

Basement Office Career Milestones
Career Milestones – Basement Office November 2020-Present 🙂 (We moved to our new house in November 2020.)

Thoughts On A Bus

I took a trip to Minneapolis, MN by bus February 15 to visit my girlfriend and jotted down thoughts as they came to me on the five-hour bus ride. *Note I wrote this in the present tense.

“Thoughts On A Bus” are thoughts organized into a list of topics. Often times while driving my  mind starts thinking about songs; phrases in songs. I think how I relate to those songs; and start drifting off into perspectives on life. Let’s ride through the thoughts I had on this bus:

Some background about this trip: I get carsick while trying to read in automobiles, limited service prevents me from being glued to my smartphone, and, I must conserve battery life. So, pen and paper are my entertainment. And since I always carry a notepad along, I’ll jot what comes to mind. 

Observation and Thinking for Yourself

Thoughts On A Bus

Technology will never overtake the natural world.

You must observe the natural world to get a sense of reality. Don’t let technology stop you from observing what’s around you. If you do, you’ll lose sense of your reality and what it means to think practically with your own mind. You still need to think for yourself no matter how technologically advanced our world becomes.

Web technology allows you to look at how the world thinks, and how the friends in your social networks think. But, where do you stand?

To learn about the natural world means observing the natural world. We still need to be out in the natural world to learn the most from it.

Here’s an example: you can post, tweet, or pin about “dirt”. But, to grab a handful of dirt and feel it get under your nails; this is reality.

 

The simple things in life 
Part of Zac Brown Band’s song

Chickenfried  is stuck in my head during this trip:

“Simple things in life mean the most,
not where you live, what you drive, or the price tag on your clothes,
no dollar sign on a peace of mind”

For me, the simple things are having a job to pay the bills. It’s an accomplishment to be able to send in that check for rent, and to pay my bills on time.

More importantly, “No dollar sign on a peace of mind.” I think back to this phrase often. Also remember, our troops have fought and are fighting to maintain a peace of mind. Freedom brings peace.

What you learn in work and school
School teaches how to learn, work teaches how to adapt to others’ style of communication

Pioneer Days 
Think of how it was traveling with horse and wagon.

  • You had another living creature with you. Horses need to eat, show emotion like you.
  • It was you exposed to the elements
  • Maybe you had something to read
  • No electronics
  • No gas stations
  • Sometimes no clear path, you made your own as you went.
  • However, you did have God

God
God gives us something to grasp in a world uncertain, faith in Him.
It’s like a handlebar you can grab and hold on to, God gives us faith to do so.
He’s the solid foundation.

Casting A New Line

Hi folks, just imported my blog, hookjsboard, to WordPress. I was using Blogger and wanted to test drive WordPress and some of the plugins as well.

With this switch over to WordPress, I will be expanding my blog to cover topics in the technology realm, such as web design, and WordPress. However, the bulk of my posts will be around my outdoor lifestyle and life reflections.

Looking forward to bring you guys writings using WordPress!

What blogging platforms have you used and why are you with the current platform you’re using?

Simple Or Techy, It’s Hunting

Let’s talk technology and hunting. It’s always been a part of hunting. Sometimes, I get an attitude where I don’t need or desire the new technological advances we have to hunt with today. This is not always the best attitude because man always will look to improve hunting techniques and often times looks at new technology to use in the field with him to make him more successful at bringing home his query.

However, knowing the fundamental skills are crucial. Playing the wind is an excellent example of how fundamental skills are necessary even with the advent of the 21st century hunting technology.

Though new technology can make a hunter more effective, the latest technology is not needed to be successful. You still need the basic skills of hunting to go with the latest technology.  And this, my friends, is often what I put my time and energy doing. For if I master the basic skills of hunting, I can do without the latest technology until I can afford the latest technology. The price tags can be ridiculous.

This may put me at a disadvantage at first, but over time I will have honed my skills and sharpened my senses of the woods, and knowing the basic skills of hunting will allow me to appreciate what the technology can add to my arsenal and learn how it improves basic skills.

In a way you do need both. You need the basic fundamental skills so if your techy gear fails, you can still be successful. And gadgets can fail, so I feel it’s harmful to become dependent on technology. Therefore, technology should maximize the fundamental skills you have learned, not replace them.

Thoughts? Jot ’em in the comments…

Your Brand

Managing your brand on twitter, your blog, and just simply online, is a job.
How do you manage your personal twitter account? Do you receive Google alerts about topics to write about in your blog, or to gather articles to support for blog writing with? Do you find it best to blog first thing in the morning? Do you manage daily or weekly?

Ask yourself these questions; think about your responses.

Does the internet provide power to make your character, your personality, yourself, a brand? Essentially, could a person promote themselves and get paid for it? You know write passionate blog posts to get eyes and then start accepting ads for their blog. After all, personal branding is a full-time job?

Rethink. Optimize. Initiate.

ROI. Every industry/company defines it differently. We know ROI is the bottom line or end result.

What varies is what the bottom line means to you and to a company, and how it will affect your business. For insurance agencies ROI may be the number of quotes, for retail the number of sales. If you are a marketing or communications consultant, you will want to know how your client defines their ROI.

Rethink, optimize, and initiate your definition of ROI. Rethink what your ROI means to your company. Optimize your marketing, communication, social media strategy to meet your ROI. Initiate your strategy once you understand your ROI.

Calculate the interest of your brand and the messages; calculate the interest internally as well among employees and departments. This way, you’ll know what to initiate.

Too many marketers, and perhaps other departments in charge of social media, are operating without a social media strategy. Knowing your ROI definition helps create a strategy. Your strategy is your ROI definition that will help guide your social media practice.

A social media plan is similar to fishing for freshwater fish with saltwater tackle, or vice versa. There are different baits and strategies for fresh and saltwater fish, just as there are different social media strategies depending on the ROI definition.

Again, think that all companies define their ROI differently. As an entrepenuer, thinking this way will help you tailor marketing plans for specific goals and objectives. If you represent a company it will allow you to tailor your specific goals and objectives to your company’s ROI.

What do you think ROI, the bottom line end result, means?

More Than A Status


Photo Credit: www.amitbhawani.com


What is Twitter? How does Twitter work? Think Twitter’s just status updates? Well, yes and no. Yes you are updating your status, but it’s what you’re updating your status with.
A Tweet Promotes?

What’s a tweet? Twitter is more than a tweet. A successful twitter page will allow your target audience to find you on twitter and follow you. In the land of Twitter, you can research your target audience and learn their lingo, who they follow, and what they say about your brand.

Word Of Mouth Power

Photo Credit: leneberlin.wordpress.com

Twitter helps you viralize your content. Twitter is more than just a username and password social media website. It’s more than social networking. It’s branding; it’s relationship building.

Sharing Info

Viral marketing is passing along information. Twitter can help with viral marketing because Twitter makes it easy to share information. A simple click on the retweet button creates viral marketing.

That’s what you want isn’t it? Viral marketing is word of mouth. It’s other people marketing for your company. When you share information, the more people that know about it the better. Therefore, Twitter harnesses the power of viral marketing to a point.

Twitter can help you share your blog posts to a mass audience. Take your niche market to a mass audience – or- In that mass audience find niche markets. Twitter is about building relationships and even more than that, it’s about communicating with business partners.

Your Twitter Tools

  • Retweet

Retweeting is a tool that you can use to support your clients, your partners in business. If you’re a B2B company, you can communicate with your buyers and sellers; with your venders, distributors, wholesalers.

When your wholesellers sell something or post pictures you can reteweet that. Retweeting shows you support that tweet, person, or organization behind the tweet.

  • Hashtags

Use hash tags in your posts. If popular trends relate to your post add them. These are trending topics and your information will be seen by the masses and there’s a good chance your message will be read because people will be checking trending topics frequently.

  • Trending Topics

Trending topics are not advertising in the sense that people are pushed with information. Trending topics are phrases, holidays, terms that are popular NOW! Now meaning in real time.

Because trending topics are filled with people who are interested a specific subject, so people actually will want to read.

Hashtags and trending topics work together. Using a hashtag with the trending topic bumps your tweet into the popular tweet stream.

Use this not only as a strategy to promote yourself in the stream, but when you retweet or @reply to someone, use the a trending hashtag to complement their post as well.

Free Way To Socialize

Twitter’s service is free. Free publications such as mashable and eMarketer are helpful to guide you during your twitter experiment. During this digital age, it’s important to learn the new technology and be with the times.

You can socialize your website by posting twitter to your homepage. Don’t stop here, add a retweet button to your blog. Doing so will make your content sociable.

Twitter helps build your brand. It helps people get to know you, how you communicate and what you communicate about. Simply, Twitter gets your name out. It’s a form of networking on the internet. Viral or cyber networking.

“Join The Conversation”

Have something to share? You can share interesting articles that your target audience may find interesting to gain followers.

Maybe you’re an entrepreneur. Now you have a place to go with your ideas; a place to gain followers of your ideas, building a tribe in the process.

With so much social media hype, perhaps you’re disgusted and don’t want to be a part of it. Don’t let it pass you by. Twitter may come and go, but the internet will be moving forward with the technology of Twitter.

Updates on Social Media From Weeks Ago

Phishing Attacks. 80 Million Users. 400,000 views Live Stream. Building Trust.

A Twitter Phishing attack spread by direct message. Twitter use by businesses has grown exponentially. If a phishing attack disables an account it could lead to a decrease in followers, since it’s said to tweet often.

It’s not a surprise that Farmville achieves 80 million uses If you think about it, during the past year how many of you have walked into the library and seeing Farmville being played on Facebook? What surprises me is that Farmville has such an appeal to college kids. Guys and girls play the game too.

Alice in Wonderland Live Stream Attracts 400,000 Viewers This shows democracy and the free market economy thriving on the web. MySpace is differentiating itself from Facebook

The most insightful article goes like this: The Science of building Trust with Social Media

A few points on building trust:

Responsiveness is key because it shows you are active and you check your email often. It shows a sign of responsibility with your communication habits.

Video proves best way to build trust. In video your nonverbal and verbal communication is shown. Reflecting both gains credibility, and is more intimate with the audience than just having a voice or reading blog posts.

An interesting point was brought up. It questioned why Facebook didn’t use video to respond to privacy changes.
It surprises me too. Facebook = social media giant. Why wouldn’t they build trust the best way in their industry?

Pondering question, Is building trust and relationships on-line an art or a science? A science because it is the study of human communication – OR An art because people are in experimentation mode with the best ways to use Social Media?

Revving up

During the past week I browsed across articles on social media. I’m seeing companies incorporate social media more now than ever. I have a feeling social media is just revving up.

Seth Godin’s book teaches about Tribes and starting a movement. A movement begins with an idea, an idea that changes. Twitter is forming Tribes. Starting a movement means upsetting people and finding true believers.

Want ot save time with your tweeting, checking your bank account online, and sending out that print job on Kinko’s? Saving time from such tasks is near…Hail to Virtual Assistants, appearing in an estimated 3-5 years.

 

Tweet and Share, Post and Comment.

^ Such words describe social networking. Social media sites, Twitter and Facebook, are suddenly popular with companies.

I see Career Professionals and Leading Businesses have realized the power and are grabbing the reins of social media. Social Media provides businesses to harness the power of Web 2.0.