My last blog post for class

That's it! Wrote my last final today, school's almost over and this is the last blog post for the Mcom 63 class...

Wow, time really flies! And as a result of this fast passing by semester: I improved a lot! Compared with the first day of class where I could hardly spell Photoshop I do so much better by now! Also I discovered the options the web and its tools gives (including iMovie, PodOmatic etc.). Therefore I asked my boyfriend if we could buy a video camera sometimes so I can keep on making little fun movies of whatever. He was not to thrilled by the proposition... yet!

Further, the class and the project helped to socialize with people. After moving here in December I did not know anybody - now I have some email addresses and phone numbers : )

So thanks for teaching, Mrs. McCune, and your patience! Hope you had a bit of fun with us, too. I guess if you only had half the fun I had, you had a blast : )
(And I also hope this post is not too late for being graded...)

I will keep on writing blog posts - maybe in this one, maybe I start a new one and I will surely improve the frequency of my German blog posts for the people back home.
And who knows? Maybe that little video camera might motivate me to create the next vacation video!

Thanks,
tanja

A look back

So the final project is presented and therefore done with.

Looking back there are a few things that come to my mind I want to give some thoughts about:

- working with Trisia was not only fun, but also very productive. I guess we had a good communication going on so both of us knew what needed to be done by whom and until when. We also emailed lots to make sure we both were on the same level of knowledge concerning the project.

- I guess we could've made the Sharks project a bit more fun. After watching the other projects presented, ours seemed a bit boring... Maybe I think this way because I feel like we did not really use all the media in the most fun or entertaining efficent way. For a next project I definitively will bring in the fun factor!

Other than that I felt confident with our project. We tied everything in that was requested and did not a too bad job after all. At least in my perception it worked. Hope the others liked it, too.

In between

The title of this weeks blog post has a double meaning.

So we’re in the middle of our project: Adding, changing, discussing, trying, giving up, laughing, creating… a great process over all. It’s interesting to actually do – create! – something with all the stuff we learned in these past months.
And I learn: It’s lots of fun. Of course, not everything goes as smoothly as I want it to be. And it’s mostly not as easy as it looks when the pros do it… Guess there’s some more practice required. But this also means: Room for improvement!

In the middle. Right. Sometimes it seems as if the media project is in the middle between two other final projects that are themselves again in the middle between work and a class… The end of the semester – which is my first one at SJSU – seems to be a bit crazy. A creative, motivating craziness somehow. Weird – I feel that way even thought I am older than the average student. So maybe this means that I am not that old in the end. Or maybe I’m just in the middle – between 15 and 30 somewhere : )

Social Networks

I've have been having a Facebook account for a while now - actually only because my best friend kept bugging me about it. She was right thought, after having moved over here, Facebook seemed like a great medium to stay in touch. So I filled in the gaps and added some pictures.

After a while (I actually gathered some friends) I started receiving those mails from Facebook: "Someone wrote on your Fun Wall!", "Someone has sexy flirted with you!" and "You've been poked!". Hhmm... I wondered: What is a Fun Wall and where would I possibly have a thing like this? Flirting? If someone flirts with me, I usually realize this. And poke?? When did I get poked? So I ignored those mails for quite a while and deleted them. Just did not make too much sense to me.

But! Last week in class w got assigned to "go further" or "try new things" concerning social media. Instead of opening another account on myspace or any other of these platforms, I was going to actually read all the Facebook emails and see what's behind them.
Turns out: Some of them are games that can be played over time with friends on Facebook. Others are applications that - not sure, but I think - allow you to goof around with other friends having the same applications in their profile. So I spent about two whole hours replying all those requests, pokes, Fun Walls and anything else that piled up in my Inbox on Facebook.

Honestly, I got bored after a while. Especially since I seem to have two different kinds of friends in my Facebook: The ones I can send all kinds of crap to play with and the ones that might get annoyed by me forwarding all that stuff. So I had only a few possibilities to choose from when doing all those games and applications. Since the game often requests that you forward things to 8 - 15 friends, I got 8 - 15 friends now who have several requests from me in their mailbox.

Bottom line: Facebook (and I guess it's the same with other social media) is a great tool to keep in touch and see what's going on with some close and less close friends. But if you want to take part in ALL the games, applications and requests, you end up spending soo much time online, that you really only have the Internet and its social media platforms as a social connection to the outer world...

Reflection on a start

The end of the semester is in sight - finally. But with the joy of this fact and the almost reachable summer break, a tide schedule, short nights and smoking brains come along. It's almost the end of the semester - it's test and paper and final project time.

So for my Mcom63 class we ought to do a final media project. Gladly I found someone in class that shares the same interest and was willing to form a team with me. Thanks Tricia!
Starting off with this final project was not too hard so far. We decided on a topic pretty fast and since Tricia is a very passionate hockey fan (as I consider myself rather as a casual one), the ideas about content and the usage of different media came into our minds quite easy.
I guess the both of us want to create a fun project that's fun to watch and/or to participate in. I must say it's maybe not the most creative or most unique project ever - but I am convinced that with our content ideas, we will spark this thing and make it interesting.
Actually, I'm pretty excited about doing this. It's not a final project like in the other classes - it's actually a fun one (sorry to all my other instructors - nothing personal). So I don't think doing this is a waste of time, not at all! Even if the project itself will not be the greatest ever, it still will give me some good basic knowledge, I can gather some experience, learn something and actually show what I learned so far in class. And that's been quite a bit - I started off with only a clue of what's possible.

Compared to the in lab projects and assignments, the final one seems like a big firework of all we did so far. It's like puzzling: Gathering all the single parts, bring them together and we will get one picture of something bigger. I like that.

With Tricia as partner this teamwork has turned out working great so far. We divide up different tasks as we go along the project, add or remove ideas and just take one step after the other after each fulfilled job. So we will be working quite equally, splitting jobs according to talents and know how, time and possibilities. Actually it doesn't matter how much we spend on the thing - we just want to reach what we picture: An interesting, watch worthy, diverse media project.

Not enough!

Mass media is also a mass OF media. That there are media everywhere we look and don’t look is no news. Sometimes it gets really annoying to have a 24/7 full media coverage over a topic that does seem important to some of us, but not to most of us. Or to receive breaking news that are not that big of a deal (I remember canceling my CNN Breaking News E-Mail alert after having received the ultimate breaking news that George W. chocked on a pretzel…).

Anyway. Have you ever felt you just don’t get enough media coverage? Probably not. You might have experienced not getting a story about a topic you really cared fore.
And this is where I come in. That’s exactly my problem right now and might remain until end of June.
Here’s the deal: This summer, the worlds second largest Soccer event takes place, it’s called "EURO 08".
The Euro is the soccer championship among 16 European soccer teams competing in 4 groups. If your are just a little bit of a soccer fan, you know what I am talking about. This years tournament (it’s held every 4 years) will take place in Switzerland and Austria. And as you might have learned from my former blog posts: I am Swiss…
Very bitter to have a huge event taking place in your country – and you’re not there. But even worse is the fact that I haven’t found a TV channel yet that will broadcast the games!

So what I want to point out: Even if we have so much news coverage from around the world at every single minute of the day – there are still gaps, large gaps! At least in my book… Not sure if anyone shares this, but I would say you just can’t have enough media coverage.

P.S. If anyone has an idea where I could see a live stream of the games, please let me know…

Video Project

My school video project had several stages; stages of productions, stages of frustration and finally stages of satisfaction.

Making the footage was a bit difficult. Since I don't own a video camera I used my regular photo camera. Turns out: It's hard to stay stable while taping with such a small camera...
Editing the whole material I had on the other hand was fun. Got to play quite a bit with imovie (the 2008 version that I have not figured so far...), added some text and other features. The result was a happy-maker, even thought it's not the greatest home video in history. But hey, it's my first one at all : )

A bummer was the exporting-and-uploading-to-the-class-blog-thing... Just couldn't get the movie exportet in a propper, website friendly way. So as last solution I uploaded the thing on youtube...

See how the movie from the Sharks game turned out.


And who knows? I might get more familiar with imovie 08 and become a professional home video maker... : )

Not so bad at last

So I spent some time thinking about what a good topic for this weeks blog post could be... something with media.
Media. The word media is often mentioned in a negative sentence. "The media makes a hype out of this." "The media adulterates the story." "You can't trust the media."

I don't want to get too deep into this subject - it would overdraw a simple blog post. I rather pick a specific little niche that affected me today.

As mentioned before, I'm an international student from Switzerland. This makes a distance of some 4900 miles or so between me and my family, my friends and practically my former life.
Ten years ago, I was an exchange student up in Minnesota. The distance then to Switzerland was - of course - the same. But then, one minute of a phone call back home cost about $2.-. So I got to talk to my family about once a month and even then for only 20 minutes or less. This was just expensive! So we worte lots of letters and sent faxes which were pretty convenient then.

Today, the distance between Switzerland and me seems to have decreases. Not by distance - but by reachability. I talked to my parents today over Skype, like I do pretty much every other day. I got a few e-mails from my best friend, former co-worker, one from my brother and some from buddys back home. None of them was important in its content - but it was important to me to get them.

Skype is one of the greatest inventions of the last couple of years - at least in my opinion. Not to mention e-mail...!

To support the positive influences and aspects media can have, I want to add another example; this time it doesn't affect me that much.

You might have heard or read about the $100.- Computer or the project called "One Laptop per Child" . Briefly summarized it's the vision to make the Internet and the knowledge and source of information that comes with it accessable to everyone, especially in third world countries. The motivation: If poor, underdeveloped countries have access to the Internet, they can use the data autobahn to look up information about sickness, health, prevention, learn languages, get education, get in touch with the rest of the world... You name it!

Imagine this would work someday. Thanks to the Internet. And therefore thanks to the media.
Frankly: Media is not all bad, evil and negative influence. It depends on what you make of it, how, when and what you consume. So actually if you have a bad media experience, you might just have made a bad choice.

BBC goes digital

The plans BBC has concerning the Internet and the expand that comes with its use upsets not only workers but also private media companies.
The BBC employees fear for their jobs after board members approved salary concessions and job cuts.
On the other side there are the private media provider such as NBS Universal as an example. Companies like this fear for the loss of viewers and advertising revenue. Since BBC is financed by tax payers, the media corporation does not depend on income made by advertising which gives BBC an advantage that could be lethal to its competitors who depend on advertising revenue which is hooked on the viewers.

If BBC does put its entire content online, the advertising industry will certainly not be untouched. As mentioned, BBC does not depend on advertising money - at least up until now. Time will show how the UK government thinks about this very fact if BBC makes a fortune with its expanding plans.
Therefore BBC could easily dump prices for TV spots on BBC America and endanger competitive corporations who ask for lots of money for theirs advertising space.
Further, BBC will be able to offer a very fine geographic – maybe even behavioristic – segmentation for advertisers. Depending on what show is seen where in the world, ads can vary and addressing a message to a target group that it might be simpler as 1 + 1 in the future.

But then on the other hand I don’t see any danger as of today. Not to workers – BBC created 700 new digital jobs – and not for competitive corporations. At the end it will be, just like always, the viewer who decides if BBC’s Internet- and expanding plans will be a success – or just another try in a hype.

Weekly blog post: The World Is Flat - isn't it?

All right - I'm honestly not really sure if I got this right…

Let me start over. I watched the speech Thomas Friedman gave at the World Bank; the topic was his book “The world is flat”.

At first I thought this might be interesting. Interesting being defined, as something I did not know yet, would catch my attention, maybe would even astonish me.

The whole speech is 53 minutes long. Actually, after about 20 minutes I started to wonder: What is it that this guy wants to tell me?
The speech and therefore the book are about how technology, meaning the internet, the globalization and the constant worldwide communication made the world flat. Well, I kind of agree on this. But I would not call the world as flat but as very much smaller than 10 years ago.

Friedman explains why the first chapter of the book is called “While you were sleeping”. And basically this is the key sentence to the speech and therefore the book.
I feel like Friedman is a bit complaining. That he has missed the whole process from 1980 to today. That everything is faster, closer, technological. I can’t help it – but it seems like he just woke up two days ago and starts to realize what has happened over the last couple of years.

Of course it’s a big thing that has happened! The Internet and its technology changed the world – maybe even revolutionized it. And yes, we could start wondering what would be if this didn’t happen “by accident” (quote Friedman).
But frankly: You could ask this question anywhere. What if penicillin wouldn’t have been discovered – by accident, too? What if Gutenberg wouldn’t have come up with the printing machine at the time hi did?

Big stuff like globalization or the worldwide wiring does not happen over night. So I just don’t see why Friedman actually gets to talk 53 minutes about a process every listener and every reader could witness himself.
I wonder if Friedman tries to explain the last 10 years plus a short preview of the future to people who did a) not pay attention or b) just woke up from a comma.

The world is not flat. It has gotten smaller. Is it a good thing? I don’t know. But from my own personal experience I learned that those people who complain most about the globalization (i.e. unfairness), the technology (big brother is watching you) and the nonstop, constant communication (like cell phones) use the advantages these things bring the most (cheap flights, the web, etc).

So if you’re wondering, too about how the world has changed – I wonder about you.

What I eat last...

This class project is about what the last thing was I eat.

So if you're curious: Watch the movie : )

Weekly blog post: Engagement!

Obviously, „Engagement“ is the new word in advertising. Meaning, it’s not enough to just attract, inform, educate or interest a target audience.

Today, it’s more about getting potential clientele to actually get involved with a product – whether they (meaning we) are aware of this or not.

Of course, nobody can be forced to engage with anything. So therefore, the engagement itself must be attractive and/or fun to make it beyond the first obstacle.

A very nice example – at least in my point of view – is a game created for the California Milk Processer board. Realizing that the consumption of milk decreases, their advertising agency (Goodby, Silverstein & Partners) was challenged with an interesting fact: Everybody already knows that milk is healthy and good for us. So how to remind people to drink more milk again?

The result is the online game Get the Glass. Not only is it done very well in a graphic point of view with its sweet, loveable characters. It provides the player with useful and probably not yet common facts about milk with every field the figure advances on the virtual game board.

A challenging, not too easy to play game that catches interest and draws attention to milk itself… Honestly – what more do you want? In my opinion, this is pure engagement.

At the end, the game offers a special glass and/or a certain amount of money if one participates in the marketing research questions. I like this part very much, too. But this time with the view of a student majoring in advertising.

Go try it out – and let me know how far you got! : )

Some things should remain unpublished...

I have to admit: While checking out “Links that redefine news” I got lost... Meaning lost in virtual space, the internet. Once I started, clicking here and there, reading this comment and checking that link, I lost track on what I was actually going to do.

I like Sholin's site and the motivation behind it. I absolutely agree with the statement that internet changed the news: The way we get them, how we consume them – and how we make them. There's a parallel to “We the media” by Dan Gillmor: The audience became the editor. We don't only consume news anymore, we make them. By blogging, setting up websites with all kinds of topics and with our comments to other peoples sites and comments.

The site I liked the most was actually Wikileaks: I got really captivated to it, even thought I am not really sure why. Probably, because the content is beyond daily business, mainstream news and boring blog posts. The topics draw attention and make you wonder – actually I assume one could get addicted to the site. Whenever a story gets big in the regular news (meaning TV and print), Wikileaks is the place to get more background infos.

Next to the extremely interesting Wikileaks-page there were several other news links on Sholin's site that did not meet my desire at all. The one I disliked most Marketplace:
I guess I would argue that there's no point behind this site except giving the person who maintains it something to do. I mean what's so great about knowing what drink special is offered in what place for what price? If you go out, you go to your favorite bar or you have your favorite drink wherever. If you have to start scheduling your night out according to drink specials... Well, I don't know about that.

Some thing should just not be spread out into the world. Just because internet gives us the option to create and distribute news does not mean that there's an interested audience to everything.

The Cluetrain Manifesto

I read the 95 theses of the manifesto. Some seem all right, some actually came true, others seem weird and a few of the 95 don't make any sense anymore at all. Of the wide variety, two popped into my sight.

Thesis 22: Getting a sense of humor does not mean putting some jokes on the corporate web site. Rather, it requires big values, a little humility, straight talk and a genuine point of view.

I do agree with this thesis. The way I see it, a company trying to sell its products to a large community can not be or stay boring, common or dull anymore. Maybe 10 years ago it was sufficient, if you as a company even had a website. It was less a matter of content but one of presence.
Today it's different: If you don't have (great, addicting, funny, interesting) content, you don't get any presence. At least not in your customers mind and in its habits to surf the web.
I guess, the more humor in the way described in thesis 22 a company lives after or provides to (potential) customers, the more acknowledgement you get - at leas in your target group.


Thesis 74: We are immune to advertising. Just forget it.
I believe this thesis is just crap. I guess, nobody really wants to admit that advertising has any influence on our customer behavior. But let's face it: All these thousands of decisions we make every day when buying thins as groceries, a new laptop, a cup of coffee or anything else - it's based on information we get from advertising!
If it's the price that's been marked red on the shelf in aisle 7, the bright glowing Starbucks-sign just across your parking garage exit or the really cool song that plays during the TV ad of the newest MacBook... it DOES influence us.

Maybe even the opposite happens: Ever hated an advertising so much that you didn't buy a product just because of their awful ad? Even this is being influenced by advertising...

So we are not immune to advertising. We never were - we never will be. Even if not all of us like this fact.

It's a header - homemade!

Not that it's the best one ever made, but - hey, it's homemade!



I kinda like it... : )

Superbowl = super ads?

For some viewers, the game was the thing to watch last Sunday. For others, it was the TV ads.
I guess a bit of both drew me into a bar the past weekend.

And after the 4th quarter, not only the winner of Suberbowl XL II was determined – I also had decided which my favorite ad was.
The Bridgestone Firestone one with the frightend, fury forrest animals I liked best ("The Scream").
Haven't seen it? Do it now:
http://adage.com/brightcove/single.php?title=1398215789

Why I decided for this one? For one, I really loved the squirl, the owl, the bunny and all the other creatures. They are very well made and emotionally appealing. I mean – you just got to like them! Further, tI gave credit to the fact that this ad did not use any celebrity to sale a product.
To me, this ad had a clear, simple message that everyone understood – therefore I see this as a working and entertaining ad.


The spot I decline most were the four by Careerbuilder.com.
I thought, these were just not funny, not entertaining and not appealing at all. Especially the one where the girl sits at the computer when suddenly her heart pops out of her chest... (http://adage.com/brightcove/single.php?title=1397797729)

What is this all about? Following your heart is a good advise – but the implementation was just aweful... I'm not sure how succesfull the four ads were. To me, they seemed rather contra productive. Frankly: I defenitively have better websites to look for jobs than the careerbuilder one.

Photoshop: the 2nd

Cropped a picture today after removing a few dust spots : )
Learned to work with layers, too!


Here's what the result looks like:


Frankly: I'm excited to learn more about how to handle the magic tools!

Blog - linked!

Found some blogs dealing with the media - or better with advertising. 

I don't have a personal favorite yet, but will keep track on all three of them. The reason I chose blogs about advertising is, because they are just fun to read. If you're just a bit interested in ads (TV or wherever), then all the critics, different views and opinions about a couple of paid messages is really entertaining - and every one in a while you learn something, too!

Check out the ad blogs:

http://adweek.blogs.com

http://adage.com/garfieldtheblog

http://sethgodin.typepad.com

Maybe you like one of them. Make sure to check them after Sunday when all the Supberbowl ads are criticized!  : )   

Got to start somewhere

Learned some basics in Photoshop today: Adjusting brightness and size as well as save pictures for web publications.

What might seem boring to a Photoshop pro is pretty cool to me... This program has been a miracle tool to me so far : )


Want to see how I did?


(low res)
Made this picture brighter - now you can tell the number on his shirt and it's clear he's in sports. Before it was so dark that the sun was the only thing really recognizable.


(medium res)
This picture has been brightened and darkened. Before it was very bright on the right and a bit dark on the left.


(maximum res)
Made this one a bit more sunny (meaning brighter), it looked like it was about to rain before. It's actually my favorite.

After this slow but solid start, I hope to get better with PS with every time using it. And frankly: I like what I learn!

Everything new

Here we go - 2nd day of class at all.
As an international student not having been here for even one month, start of classes is actually another exciting thing. Glad I picked (or was made to) the MCOM63 class. I hope to get some basic knowledge of the wohle web-stuff so I don't have to depend on the pros for every little thing I need to get done. Especially the whole design things will be very interesting.

Having worked in advertising and communication for quite a while, I assume to know quite well what I need to learn and what I can bring in to group assesments. And as a news junkie, I am online on a frequent base. I guess this isn't too bad of a mix : )

We'll see - I am definitively motivated and look for ward to what's expecting me this semsester!