Logo design has been on the brain for me for the last week. I am attempting to create an awesome new logo for the FPRA Student Capital Chapter. Currently their logo only represents Florida State University students, but they would like their logo to be more streamlined to include FSU, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical Univeristy and Tallahassee Community College students. Initially I had no idea where to start with this task.

I’m currently taking a course titled “Desktop Multimedia.” I hoped we would learn some principles of design, but I think the class is more about learning to use various Adobe programs. So when I was at Taproot Creative the other day I asked their VP of Creative, Jon Edwards, about possible logo design resources (books, websites, or blogs). He instructed me to look at a particular book on Taproot Creative’s collective bookshelf. From there I picked up a couple of books of examples of successful logos. I started taking pictures and sketching so I wouldn’t forget.

I think when you don’t know where to start it’s important to brainstorm. With something so visual as a logo sometimes you just need to bombard your brain with images. Get a feel for what you like. Don’t look at any one style, look at everything. Eventually the general shape of what I wanted to do just dawned on me, and I sketched it out so I wouldn’t forget.

The next day when I was in my Desktop Multimedia class I started playing with the design I thought up. I tried to recreate it in Adobe Photoshop for fun just to see where it would go. It ended up leading me to expound upon what I already had, and it somehow became more relevant to the organization than I originally intended.

I cannot yet share my progress or explain in depth what the logo looks like because it’s a logo design competition, but after the deadline for the competition expires and I get the results I will post it.

If anyone has any experience with logo design and has some resources they could share I would really appreciate the input. Just leave me a comment or send me an e-mail at rebecca@rm-newmedia.com.

The Takeaway

Basically I just wanted to talk about how brainstorming is essential no matter what you’re trying to accomplish. It isn’t always sitting in a conference room writing on the board so everyone can see and bounce ideas off each other, although that is a wonderful way to do it. Brainstorming can be bouncing ideas off yourself. It can be bouncing ideas off of how others that have gone before you handled a brand image, or whatever the situation was. Just make sure if you’re looking at other people’s work to use it to spark your own idea, and not just to help you avoid your own creativity.

Tags: brainstorming, design, logo

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been following about 25 people for the last 11 months or so. I need some Twitter Friends!

I haven’t felt like I’ve really been a part of Twitter because I could be following a lot more people and consequently a lot more would follow me. The whole point of Twitter is information exchange and relationship building: two things that are impossible to do alone.

However, I came across a blog post that I think can help people like me. Dino, a blogger for Social Media Examiner, discussed 5 important twitter utilities. I felt the most important tool he talked about was something called BlastFollow! Everyone knows if you follow a bunch of people you can bet most will follow you back, but I want to follow people of similar interests, more specifically people interested in public relations and communications. This seems like a great way to do that.

Furthermore, he discussed Tweepi, a service that helps you manage your Twitter account. With Tweepi you can also find quality people to follow in bulk, and you can find the people who are following you but who you aren’t currently following.

I’m just starting to experiment with these tools myself. However I would image that it would be a good idea to separate people into lists before you try to use these tools. Twitter lists are just a good way to be organized and get the best bang for your time, which lets face it time is money (cliche but true). After you start really getting into Twitter it gets harder and harder to keep up with your lists, so do it now!

I encourage you to check out the rest of Dino’s blog post, as he provides some great tips!

Tags: BlastFollow, public relations, social media, Tweepi, Twitter

I wanted to inform those of you who were following my second mini project blog posts for class that I got a 95% and an overall A in the class. I’m very happy with my grade and I hope you all are happy with yours too.

I’m really excited to be starting a new semester. I think one of the great things about being in school is being able to change my focus every three to four months. This next semester I will be taking 2 classes for my major, PR, and two for my minor, business.

I will also be continuing to intern with Taproot Creative. I will be assisting them solely with Florida Center for Prevention Research (FCPR) campaigns for a few hours a week. FCPR will be launching the FSU Measure Up campaign and revamping The Real Project this fall semester. I’m really thankful for the opportunity to stay involved with both campaigns.

I have recently been hired as a freelancer by Gunster’s law firm. I am responsible for their e-mail marketing campaign called Gunster’s Boardroom Brief. I also do web, blog and comment moderation for their Boardroom Brief. Check it out here.

Tags: e-mail marketing, self-development

Now that my second mini project is done I’m ready to move on to an entirely different subject, as I’m sure you are too. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about personal brands. This summer I realized that if I were going to have my own website, blog and social media accounts I may as well brand myself with them, for practice if nothing else. Part of branding is coming up with a logo and making sure all your collateral is visually consistent. However, personal branding is about so much more; it’s about your behavior.

Yesterday I was reading an article from CNN.com about how Scott Monty, the head of social media for Ford Motor Company, used his personal brand to benefit Ford. Scott Monty remained “himself” on Twitter as @scottmonty after he started working for Ford because of the value of his brand. Rather than being absorbed by Ford, he offered his expertise on behalf of Ford. The CNN.com article links to 5 case studies about personal branding. I found them interesting so I am going to provide you with the hyperlinks to them.

Case study No. 1: Don’t be overeager

Case study No. 2: The brand rehabber

Case study No. 3: Branding, not bragging

Case study No. 4: Edit thyself

Case study No. 5: Be sensitive to changing priorities

What do you find is the most valuable “takeaway” from the case studies? Have you seen anyone engage in poor or successful personal branding?

The Takeaway

The best thing you can do for your personal brand is to be concerned with self-development that will benefit others as well, not self-promotion. No one cares about yourself as much as you do, so make sure you’re talking about things that are helpful. Engage in conversation with others who hold similar interests; cultivating a two-way symbiotic relationship is more valuable than the number of followers you have.

Tags: branding, logo, personal brands, self-development, social media, Twitter

Smartphones have transformed the way we communicate because they combine advanced computing ability and connectivity with the basic features of a cell phone.

E-mail

One of the main benefits of owning a Smartphone is the ability to check your e-mail at any time. PCMAG.COM says that in the past decade technology has changed the way we communicate due to the evolution of the internet. This has been positive for many business people because they are able to reply to business e-mails on the go. E-mail promotes good business practices; it provides an instantaneous feedback tool for business professionals to communicate with anywhere. However, an unintended negative effect of the ability to check your e-mail wherever is obsessive behavior. Many people become conditioned to compulsively checking their phones. The obsessive need to constantly check e-mail and social networking sites can hinder relaxation time when work becomes all consuming.

There’s an App for That

There is an application for virtually anything you could ever want or need on Smartphones. These apps are usually relatively inexpensive or free and provide users with a variety of services. There’s an app for turning your Smartphone into a wireless internet router. There’s an app for calculating your estimated blood alcohol content. There’s an app for checking how many calories are in your lunch. There’s an app for pretty much anything you can imagine. The danger of apps is in their convenience. It’s like using a calculator; calculators provide a crutch for many people who wish to take the easy way out. The more people resort to using the calculator, the harder it is to do simple math in the future. Depending on apps can be equally harmful.

GPS Capabilities

It is debatable whether Smartphones have allowed people more freedom, or less. While the Global Positioning System has made it impossible to get lost, it also made it impossible to have the benefit of complete privacy. I think of it as a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year umbilical cord. Are we giving up our right to privacy for the safety and comfort of being able to activate GPS on our phones? Think about it. What do you favor more?

WiFi

According to Straubhaar, LaRose and Davenport, authors of Media now: Understanding media, culture, and technology, new cellphones that use WiFi networks whenever they are in range of one allow cell phone customers to make “free” calls. These free calls are made using the WiFi network for your computer or if you happen to find a WiFi connection without password protection. Some cities are trying to build WiFi clouds to offer low-cost broadband access.

The Takeaway

Smartphones are a technology that provides people with high connectivity via the internet and satellite. While Smartphones frequently make our lives easier and safer they have the potential to dull our senses and invade our privacy.

Tags: apps, convenience, e-mail, GPS, privacy, safety, Smartphones, technology

Technology has been a significant force in revolutionizing how we complete daily tasks. While these tasks can certainly be accomplished without the help of new technologies like cell phones, computers and the internet, it is certainly easier and more efficient to take advantage of the latest innovations.

Errands

Many people’s cell phones act as a PDA, personal digital assistant, keeping them organized and helping them to run errands. Shopping lists can be created, modified and shared on a Smartphone. Many people have switched from using a paper grocery list to a digital one stored on their phone because they already take their phones everywhere to go. It’s less to remember and less to carry.

Technology is a huge time saver. With the internet available, many small errands can be eliminated. You can engage in online banking. You can send a quick message to a co-worker or friend through e-mail, social networks and instant messengers. You can even buy things online and get them sent to your home or office.

Work

Many industries today depend on computers, even if they aren’t industries related to innovating, building or improving computer technologies. Personal computers and laptops have become an essential, all-encompassing tool for business professionals across the world because they save people time, money and energy. Within my industry people have learned how to use the internet to spread ideas and news much faster than ever before. For communications professionals this means both the way we distribute and consume media has been modified. Traditional news sources like newspapers have fell by the wayside for more convenient online news articles. The great benefit I have seen from this change is the ability to share news through social media and create news through blogs and microblogs. Technologies like laptops, cell phones and wireless internet connections are making the need for a static workplace obsolete. Internet conferencing and e-mail makes it possible to work from home at any time. To read more about the impact of new technology in the workplace click here.

Scheduling Issues

While cell phones are a convenient gadget to have, they have become a crutch for those who are indecisive, habitually late and otherwise irresponsible. In the past people were forced to make solid plans with each other. It was once unimaginable to be able to call someone to let them know you would be running 10 minutes late if you planned to meet them in a public place. People had to predetermine where, when and for how long they were to meet. Without cell phones there was a greater consequence for being late. The person meeting you may be waiting and wondering where you are; if you are too late they may decide to leave. Today people take for granted how easy it is to change plans. Very few situations warrant changing plans when you plan thoroughly. However, in emergency situations cell phones have proven to be extremely useful.

The Takeaway

New technology and the internet have made life much easier in a sense. You don’t have to go somewhere to get something done, which is great. However, it is important to recognize that the old system and way of doing things isn’t completely without merit. Even if we chose to use technology to be more time efficient and organized we can still try to remember what it was like without the technology, and perhaps each time we do we can be a little more thankful and a little more thoughtful about how we are currently handling our communication efforts.

Tags: errands, scheduling, tasks, technology, work

The entertainment industry has been greatly impacted by the internet. Specifically, new media technology has brought both paid-for and earned publicity to celebrities, filmmakers, musicians and artists everywhere. According to the article Convergence and it’s consequences by Pavlick and McIntosh in Living in the information age: A new media reader by Bucy convergence makes communicating digital content much easier. Convergence occurs when news organizations share different formats of information for multimedia news. Hyperlinks are the primary means of connection. In entertainment programming, “hyperlinked content allows a viewer to explore a story in a nonlinear narrative, where the outcome of a story may be unchanged, but the path one takes to get there is unpredictable.”

We have the ability to pick and choose with new media technology. We can take bits and pieces of the most noteworthy work in any industry and relay them to others with hyperlinks. Using hyperlinks on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Digg, YouTube and Flickr help people share their favorite entertainment material more fluidly and rapidly by allowing them to focus on attributes they find most valuable. This information is extremely useful in determining public opinion, and due to the abundance of it entertainment industry decision-makers have a better idea of what their target audience will like.

Facebook

Millions of people across the globe are using Facebook to connect with friends and family and to learn more about the people they meet. According to Facebook’s Online Press Room, the ability to connect with friends and family, both near and far, attracts more than 400 million people worldwide. This high level of connectivity provides a conduit though which people can share ideas and vent feelings about anything, especially entertainment related material.

Twitter

Twitter’s website touts that it’s a “real-time information network powered by people all around the world that lets you share and discover what’s happening now.” Twitter is a microblogging site that is both personal and commercial in nature. Kathleen Ellis from insurancejournal.com said, “More than 79 percent of the Fortune Global 100 companies are using at least one of the social media platforms, according to ‘The Global Social Media Check-Up’ released in February by global communications and public relations firm Burson-Marsteller. The report found that 65 percent of the Fortune Global 100 have active Twitter accounts, 54 percent have Facebook fan pages, 50 percent have YouTube video channels and 33 percent have corporate blogs.” To read the rest of the article click here.

Frizzolo.gy

Frizzolo.gy is a website that measures online opinion by monitoring social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. According to PR Newswire, this site is the first to measure the public’s opinions about entertainment using online conversations generated on social media websites. The abundant source of feedback made available by social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter is useless unless you can track and measure these opinions. Frizzolo.gy does just that. Jordan Levin, former CEO of the WB Network and current CEO of Generate, believes that real-time opinions provided by social networks are impacting entertainment choices for consumers. Levin became an early fan of Frizzolo.gy because it provides a look at the big picture; with it you can see how people are reacting to everything entertainment based. From this you can determine the most valuable thing to any marketer/advertiser: purchase intent.

The Takeaway

The entertainment industry has benefited from millions of people engaging in social media websites. The number of people using social media sites makes for an attractive target for online marketers. Anyone looking to promote their personal brand, film or music needs only to introduce their work and let it spread like a virus across social sites. It’s indeterminable whether the resulting buzz will be positive or negative, but it will always be useful in determining purchase intent, which is why sites like Frizzolo.gy have become valuable tools for entertainment decision-makers.

Note: A comprehensive list of social media sites, and statistics for each, can be found at Social Media Statistics.

Tags: entertainment, Facebook, Frizzolo.gy, social media, technology, Twitter

Technology has changed how we go about accomplishing many of our daily activities. Communication with friends, family members and colleagues has changed as technology has evolved. In many ways technology and the internet have provided people with another avenue to reach out with. However, in other cases it has provided people a way to cut themselves off from those around them.

Friends and Family

Many long distance relationships have been improved for those who have regularly invested their time in social media websites. Our society is constantly bombarded with information overload. We have ads, e-mails, direct messages, pings and notifications coming at us from every direction. Technology makes us busier, but it also equips us with the tools we need to get organized, sift through the information and reach out to those we love. There are many days that sending a Facebook message, e-mail or text message is the only way we communicate with family or friends. The introduction of webcams has helped people to connect on a deeper level from long distances, as video chats provide a higher level of interaction. A negative and unintended consequence of using technology to connect to distant loved ones is the effect it can have on the relationships you carry on in person. By connecting with others online we leave less time for our significant others, children and neighbors. All the time we spend staring at the computer screen can cause us to neglect our relationships with people in close proximity to us if we aren’t careful.

Colleagues

Online networking practices among professionals have strengthened many real-world contacts as well as enabled many to build new relationships. LinkedIn is a social networking website that provides a forum to exchange ideas and engage in meaningful conversations with others in a network you create. The daily upkeep of contacts that social media sites provide is meaningful way to bridge the gap with colleagues you rarely see or with those whom you haven’t yet met in person. Research has shown that the number of LinkedIn connections you have is associated with personal income level. A study by Anderson Analytics has shown that the greater number of connections a person has on LinkedIn, the greater the likelihood of higher personal income; users with personal incomes between $200 – $350K were seven times more likely than others to have over 150 connections. However, concentrating all of your professional networking efforts online is not advisable. It’s important to remember that social media sites are not replacements for real-world interactions, but help mediate new relationships and maintain old ones.

The Takeaway

It can be bad to place too much emphasis on using the internet to nurture your interpersonal relationships, but by neglecting to use technology to connect to others you miss out on the many benefits the internet affords. Just remember to live a balanced life.

Tags: communications, Facebook, LinkedIn, relationships, social media, technology

I will be starting a blog series on “How has technology changed how we go about our day-to-day activities” for my New Communication Technology class. Over the next couple weeks I will be sharing my thoughts about how the technology has changes us, and the inherent consequences, both positive and negative.

Please, please, please comment. Let me know what you’re thinking! Tell me my posts suck! Or tell me that you love them. Or tell me what you love about them! I don’t care. I just want to start the conversation. It’s up to you to become engaged in it.

Tags: technology

Hey guys!

I wrote another blog post for the awesome and totally impressive Taproot Creative! You should go check it out here.

Tags: branding, logo, slogan, social media, unique selling proposition