My Social Media Policy

1) Connecting: Most poeple should know a little bit about me from my profile. I want to connect and network with people to see their ideas and find out what’s different in the world. People are so creative and willing to share this with the world. People should try and introduce themselves when they follow other people. It is nice to read a little bit about a person that wants to follow you.

2) Follow, add, friend: 3 words to online networking (follow, add, friend). You should only do these 3 things if you know the person, truley want to follow their ideas or comments, or can offer somebody something such as job networking or social invites to concerts. Some people are less welcoming to people who want to friend them on Facebook or MySpace.

3) Privacy, boundaries and safety: My personnal space; please – Telling people things about your life could be good sometimes and bad sometimes. Good to let people know that you do interesting things on a day in day out basis, but don’t tell people about what you did at the club last night when you met this cute person. Some people go into to much detail about there social life.

4) Signal to noise: To much is to much – I dislike when somebody is repeatdly updating their status on Facebook. I understand that your bored at work, but I don’t need to know about the 10 customers you just helped. Tell me about your fun weekend on spring break in bullet point details.

5) Personal data and sharing: Thank you - I don’t mind sharing career ideas, becuase you never know who can help you out in the future. But I don’t like sharing my personal life with the world. I’ll tell them I’m at a game, working, or about to go to a movie. I will not tell them details about a party I went to or an arguement I got into with my girlfriend.

6) My networking needs and uses: connections – I use my Facebook account to catch up with my friends life, and comment on some good qoutes. My Linkedin account is for business and who I can meet, I don’t have a MySpace account because it took to much time to keep up. Twitter is still new to me, so I will drop a couple of lines just to say something.

7) Your criteria here: I would like for people to have respect for individuals; either if it’s in line at a fast food place, driving, or even waiting for the microwave to finish.

8) Your criteria here:

Professional Internship at Disney Sports Attractions/ESPN Wide World of Sports

Like I have mentioned before in my blogs and profiles;  I am on a professional internship with Disney Sports Attractions/ESPN Wide World of Sports. What a great real life work experience! Everyday is a learning experience, and I get to work in the happiest place on the earth.

I work on the Education Team which deals with AAU/National Organizational Clients. We deal with a lot of 3rd party clients who want to host a sporting event at ESPN Wide World of Sports complex. I have worked closely with the AAU (Amateur Athletic Union), and even new clients such as adidas Nations basketball camps. My first big event was hosting the Harlem Globe Trotters for our re-opening night for the re-branding of the sports complex (check it on YouTube). What a great night with celebrities, superstar athletes, and of course Disney characters.

Majority of my work is with event management, but there are plenty of opportunities to work the sales side of the business and even with new business development. I am currently working with our soccer team on a MLS Spring Training contract to host 4-6 MLS teams each spring at the complex. We are already the home for the Braves Spring Training and are looking to expand to other sports.

We want to become the “Amatuer Sports Capital of the World” with our affiliation with ESPN, great location for training, and hosting sporting. We are even in talks to create a Bowling Alley for the PBA tour to begin taping on ESPN3 (ESPN360). And we want to expand to more fields for baseball and football. Also we created a marketing pitch to the Osceola County broad of commissions to build a amateur sports area in Kissimmee. With new arena we can expand or basketball and volleyball tournaments to vast numbers and possible have an eye on hosting the NCAA tournament in the Central Florida region.

The great about my internship is that I am only half way through it, so I will post another blog towards the end of the internship.

How to succeed in an online class; good luck!

Here are a few tips that I have learned from taking online classes at Georgia Southern University.

1) ALWAYS READ THE SYLLABUS!

If you read the syllabus from the first day in class will almost guarantee yourself of a passing grade (C). You can learn about most professors teaching styles from their syllabus and how they date their deadlines. If you have an assignment due by or quiz due by “the end of the class period” that means you need to be keen on time management and make sure you have all your bases covered before the deadline. If the assignment is due before 8 pm or midnight; than you need to take that extra time to study and prepare quizzes or have your assignment polished. Professor do not like extending deadline because they have given you the extra time in the day to complete your task.

2) Time Management is KEY in online courses.

You could be blowing off your online class because you think the assignments and quizzes are too easy to complete and you can rush through and believe you will receive an A. WRONG!!!!!! Manage your time so you can spend 2-3 hours on the computer completing your online tasks. Some assignments call for you watch TV to write a report or even surf the web while taking a quiz that is time-consuming. If you wait till the last-minute to complete an online task than you are swimming in the ocean without a life vest looking for land.

3) Take online test or quizzes in a quiet place.

There is nothing more distracting than taking an online test in a packed library with groups doing online research around and screaming out their findings to their group members. Being in a quiet area will allow you to be calm and review your notes about the test.

4) Do not think if you miss an assignment there will be a way to remake it.

A professors pet peeve is when students say they missed an online assignment because the computer was acting up or they were at work when the assignment closed. That is why professors post the assignments like 2 weeks before they are due for students to complete the task. 90% of online assignments are a 1 time thing, I like to do an online assignment as early as possible. That way when the deadline comes I can relax and focus on other tasks in the class or study for really hard exams; than trying to cram all my work together.

The reason I am writing this blog is because I am out-of-state on a professional internship and unable to attend a campus event. I have missed a couple of assignments because days have gotten away from me, but I stay true to my tips either if I am taking an online class, in a classroom, or on an internship. You can learn a lot from taking online classes that can help you succeed in your future career path.

twitter for me?

I have never held a twitter account until I took FYE: 1220. This has given me an excuse to create an account (come follow me) and belong to the world of twitter. I have been so use to Facebook that when I log on to twitter I think I’m in a different world. I am still getting use to people just putting anything that comes to mind on my twitter page compared to writing full out novels on Facebook. It will take me awhile to understand some of the symbols on twitter, but I have asked some of my friends that have accounts to help me along until I get into the flow of things.

Social networking is very good in ways, especially if you know how to act professional and take advantage of the opportunites. For instance, when I first got Facebook I would say almost anything and didn’t care. But after learning the negatives of Facebook I have cleaned my page and kept it professional by my standards. Now that I’m with twitter also, I see this as a quick way to voice my opinions or ideas and get quick simple responses instead of drawn out messages. There are a lot of famous people on twitter who actually use and welcome people to follow them throughout the day. It’s cool to see that you can live an almost normal life like a movie star or singer.

With this new twitter experience I hope to continue to stay in touch with friends and just see what they are up to on a daily bases without tyring to call and only getting voicemails. I will also get up to the minute news feeds from around the world on just one site. More importantly I look forward to expanding my network through twitter and gain new followers on my account.

My take on BP oil spill

The big topic in world news is the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Natives in Louisiana are taking a hard hit on the economy from this oil spill, and this is the 2^nd major disaster to hit the coast of Louisiana in the last 5 years. You would think oil companies would have safety procedures in place if their oil pipes bust in the oceans to quickly fix the solutions and have an explanation on the accident. It has been nearly 2 months since the pipe broke and no clear solution on how to fix the problems. Other states are worried about the effect on their economy if and when the oil spill will hit the coast lines. In Florida, you have beaches all along the Gulf coast and Atlantic. During the summer time is the biggest attraction of tourist who come down to Florida to take vacations on the beaches. States like Alabama have to worry about fishing companies halting their business until the oil spill gets cleaned up. They are losing hundreds of dollars each day since they cannot go out and fish.

Now there is news that President Obama is attacking the British investors of BP for the oil spill, and the Britain’s are worried that America is bashing British.  They are pointing fingers at Obama because of his verbal attacks are hurting the BP dividends. I agree with both sides on the matter. For the British, America should not be bashing another country with a war still going on overseas in Afghanistan when countries should be pulling together to solve a world problem. At a time when the American economy has gone through a terrible recession and now trying recover we should be looking to gain help from other countries on trying to recover from this. On the American side, citizens in Louisiana need an explanation for the lack of containment of the oil spill. We should be pointing fingers at the BP executives because they have taken a quiet stance on the matter. Here we have a live feed of the broken pipe, and the best solution that BP has come up with is a cap to slow the leak! Why not bring another pipe down over the broken pipe and have the oil filter through the new pipe to save some of the oil. Where are the clean up boats for the oil spill? Shouldn’t they have been out there as soon as the pipe busted to try can contain the spill? The PR department needs to take over CNN for a few days to talk to the world, since the oil spill will have an effect on more than 2 countries.

Expansion in college football

I was asked today in my monthly intern meeting at Disney Sports; “What have you seen from sports over the past few years?” The first thing that came to my mind was money and TV network deals. It’s on all levels like the pros, collegiate, and even is having an effect on the amateur levels. All these organizations have turned into a mainstream on how to bring in more money and viewership. Every year it seems that sports are drifting away from great fan experience and more into how to get fans to buy season tickets, become boosters, add more athletes to amateur teams for organizations. On the pro level, owners are willing fork out millions on top of millions to single individuals who can strap cash their franchise for 5-7 years if they do not win a championship or drive fans to arenas/stadiums.

On the college level, NCAA commissioners of football conferences are worried about expanding their own conference to gain revenue from TV deals and gain automatic bids to bowl games for sponsors to pay them more money. The current conferences that are trying to expand at this moment include the BIG 10 & PAC 10 conferences. These conferences are not just looking to invite teams from lower ranked conferences to in more competition; they are currently going to other power conferences and take teams away. Nebraska has been linked to the BIG 10, and Colorado has accepted their invitation to the PAC 10. If Nebraska leaves then sports writers and some college coaches believe that Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A & M, and Oklahoma will be right behind them leaving the BIG 12 in shambles with no true powerhouse to contend for a national title. With this in mind some of the other powerhouse conferences SEC in particular are looking to add from the ACC; namely Florida State and Miami because they are in the southern region and they can expand one of their divisions.

Only time will tell what lays ahead for some of college’s football conferences, but conference commissioners are not looking on the impact of the strength of competition if they want to form a huge conference with powerhouse schools. There will be less big time bowl games to play for schools that have been each year to the big games and recruiting will be even more difficult than it is now. Some athletes will go to lower in schools to dominate and make a name for themselves instead of competiting against other top star athletes in the conferences so they can make money in the pros. Only time will tell.