Several people have contacted me since I began this blog. Wow, who would have known I would be using an internet tool to do a little socializing. Perhaps I am getting the hang of this, I guess time will tell. Many of you have contacted me through email or by phone just to say you were happy to hear from me and surprised I was pursuing a communication degree.
Well what better way for me to introduce my next entry. I will start with an explanation of my choice along with a little philosophy. When I decided I was going back to College and it wasn’t going to be in medicine I had to ask myself, where is the action? What appears to be the big thing and will it keep going long enough for me to get educated, hired, and potentially retire from my next career. If you know me, it’s no surprise; I started asking everyone their opinion. A few people gave me great advice and said figure out what you want to be then see what education is required to do that job. Advice like that was great because I decided my dream job would be to work in the marketing department for OSU athletics. I am also interested in working in the health industry doing health awareness and promotional campaigns. If those choices don’t work out then hopefully I will find a government job working with parks and rec or child services. Once I targeted some positions I began to see what education was needed. They all listed various BA/BS degrees sometimes focusing on business, marketing, or humanities but all of them allowed for like disciplines. I felt like I was getting closer, but I just couldn’t find a business or marketing degree that appeared to be at the heart of where I thought the action was or was going in the future. Even though I was fairly committed to going back to school a job that interested me came open, so I decided to apply. Unfortunately I did not get it, but I did get some amazing advice. When I received feedback to why someone other than myself was offered the job I was told their education was a better match. I asked if I would have had a BS in business or marketing would I have gotten the job. I was told possibly, but the majority of the candidates had those types of degrees and the committee learned they were happier with someone who had business and marketing experience combined with an education they called the foundation for success. It turned out that foundation was “communication.” I have always been a talker, but communicating is so much more.
Immediately I went in search of communication degrees. It turns out this is a field that has had a lot of evaluation in the last two years. When I finally settled on the college and degree of my choice it was because an advisor said we just modified our program for 2010 to be what some have termed “a modern marketing degree.” It focuses more than ever on means and methods, which I have coupled with a double minor of business and entrepreneurship for my very own educational combination, I call “modern marketing.”
During the first week of my media and society class I realized even if I don’t get my dream job upon graduation I would have an education that interested me and built on my skills and experiences. On the first day of class we watched one of the “Did You Know” videos on YouTube and one of the screens said, “we are educating today for jobs that haven’t even been created.” Isn’t that fantastic news for me! Then I started reading What Would Google Do. If you haven’t guessed by know I am quite fascinated with Jeff Jarvis, the book What Would Google Do, and especially Google.
Every day I read more of what Jeff Jarvis has to say, I checkout ways to be “googlier”, and I think about the internet and how I interacted with it. Personally I have begun to form a fairly strong opinion that storefronts are going to be a thing of the past. They may only remain for perishable items or items that cannot be shipped. I guess it will be easier to always stop by the store to pick up milk. Although I could be wrong, my parents told me stories about the “milkman”, who I believe delivered the milk regularly. There are companies like U-haul that specialize in moving. Currently they are a do it yourself company, but they have the means to be a shipping company. Perhaps even the perishable and non-shippable storefronts will also disappear!
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3 hours ago
Working at Hewlett Packard I felt that I would have no problem continuing my education. Wrong! There is nothing advailable for my working experience or what education I have already earn. Even better, I have discovered I am weak in the compter/internet knowledge. After almost 25 years and raising one child on my own, I have decided to work on a AAS in the Medical field. I have been given this wonderful opportunity to retrain in a differ field at my age. The TAA is helping me to reach this goal - something that would of been impossible on my own. I have learn a lot in just one term and I enjoy having the opportunity to learn once again.
ReplyDeleteGreat blog Rita. I enjoyed reading about your history, your life career aspirations and your look into the future.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I have found is that as internet use increases, especially for ecommerce businesses, the level of difficulty of competing in the e-world gets greater and greater due to competition from every nook and cranny of the country. Oh, and outside the country, as well.
Possibly brick and mortar stores (B&M's) will become extinct over time, but more likely it will require them to have a web presence to avoid going under. The playing field has changed drastically over the last 10 years and small businesses (SMB's) need to be active in the new market environment.
Google, Yahoo & Bing have all recognized the importance of local searches in their results pages by putting Maps and local listing at the top - using your IP address to serve you local information even when you did not enter a city or state.
Consider this: 84% of U.S. Internet users search for something locally; 61% of those make a purchase; 52% said they were specifically searching for a business phone number or address; 82% of local searchers contact a local business after a search, A local business is 430% more likely to convert a customer from their own area (ok Doh, but interesting).
The plight of the SMB is serious. E-tailers need to use an ever increasing set of tools to compete locally. The formulas Search Engines (SE's) use have become more sophisticated to weed out spammers, which in turn makes it more difficult for SMB's to compete, again. Where once it was just natural search optimization, now local maps optimization and pay-per-click has been added, and it is different over the 3 major SE's. That is enough to make you wanna bang your head against your B&M wall! Then add social media that can affect the sales of the SMB's. All of these things take time that the SMB never really had anyway. No wonder it is so hard to compete.
just some thots. Keep up the great work!
Nice blog, Rita! It is a nice tool to use to communicate to a wide audience and receive their input as well. I am not a blogger myself - just don't have the time right now (family, work, school...). I do think it is an interesting concept and maybe once I am done with school I'll look into it.
ReplyDeleteThe only blog that I view on a regular basis is Guy Kawasaki's - How to Change the World. http://blog.guykawasaki.com/ If you haven't already, you might check it out. He has many postings about media methods. In fact his most recent post is about how to use social media. I haven't had a chance to look at it yet but you may find it relates to the course you are taking.
You have me interested in what Jeff Jarvis has to say. I plan to read one of his books over the Christmas break.
Keep up the blogging, Rita! I'll keep checking back. Have a great Thanksgiving!
Rita - I am not at all surprised at your pursuit of a degree in Communication Studies with minors in Business and Entrepreneurship. These describe you to a tee & I know you will be able to use the knowledge you are gaining to be even better at what you do naturally.
ReplyDeleteYour blog is the first I have ever read. My husband reads them all the time but I have never thought I would would be interested in this type of communication. However since reading through your posts I see the value in them & how they can help share information quickly to others who are interested in what you are interested in. Thank you for introducing them to me & keep at it. I will check back in from time to time to see what new thoughts you are sharing.
I do think of you often.