At the end of last school year, Ian McVitty, a colleague of mind at Algonquin College, shared with me and a few other professors how he is using mind mapping to teach marketing in the School of Hospitality and Tourism. Ian’s talk and passion for this simple yet powerful tool was inspiring and awakened the mind mapper in me.
Since that time, I have used mind maps to plan new course designs, communication plans, share roles and responsibilities and even produce todo lists. I am now sold on the power of mind maps to convey information and most importantly allow you to make connections with information. Click to continue
The public relations program is piloting WhyHire.me this term. I have been fortunate enough to meet and work with this class of graduating PR professionals. I’d like to introduce you to a few who have chosen to make their WhyHire.me profiles public. Click their names to see their WhyHire.me profiles. There will be more coming soon!
Femi Fasoyinu - Taking a proactive approach to building relationships, Femi makes his teamwork skills an asset to any organization. Femi takes on assignments with enthusiasm to deliver his best work. Being an organized, professional, and energetic communicator, Femi takes on challenges with more than the required effort every time.
Mae McCrae - Mae is a compelling speaker with a passion for positively influencing lives. A former youth leader, she now manages a young marrieds group, drama, and music department for her church. Mae has a flare for giving a project a unique and recognizable stamp. Her way with words and great listening skills will be valuable to any organization.
Ziem Phala – A hardworking and energetic communicator, Ziem has a passion for public relations and fashion. Her drive and creativity have helped her succeed in a team managing musicians and as a self starter . Her background in mass communication and public relations give her a unique outlook on communications and social media and their uses in fashion.
Samantha Dumas – Samantha is a positive, motivating force on every team. She thrives as a collaborative leader and is a confident problem-solver. These qualities allow her to take on big projects such as coordinating urban arts festival, House of Paint. Samantha is both intelligent and intuitive. She has a passion for learning, writing, dancing and singing.
Yael Santo – A love for the written word serves as the driving force behind Yael’s commitment to perfect her writing skills. Her creativity outside the page is found in strategy development, while her commitment to quality work is reflected in her grades. High organizational skills, strong communication skills, and bilingualism make her an asset to any project.
Sarah Shirey – I am a vibrant, forward-looking, and passionate public relations practitioner interested in building a career focused on achieving impressive results for an organization with a bias for action. I have significant, hands-on training in various PR roles, including issues management, event management, project management, and relationship management.
Samantha Hartley – Samantha is an energetic self-starter committed to growth and believes hard work is the path to success. Her thirst for knowledge has transformed her from a small-town girl to a young woman ready to take on the world. A three-year honour student, she’s a natural communicator and believes in maintaining relationships through respect and trust.
Amy Campsall – Amy strives to exceed expectations while creating new opportunities. Her compassion makes her an excellent team player, while her independence and ability to adapt allow her to face challenges with enthusiasm. Amy has experience in event management and social media and is looking to build a career in communications, while continuing to learn.This week the Algonquin PR students and I focused on understanding product branding, personal branding and developing their ‘Positioning Pitch’. In a WhyHire.me profile, students have 350 characters to develop their clear concise message which sets the tone of their personal brand. It should highlight their keywords which could include personality traits, skills, strengths, or values which they discovered in Dig Deep. Additional ingredients for their pitch include a ‘splash’ of proof to provide validity and a target which could be a position, industry, value system, or location they have in mind.
At first it seems easy to write a paragraph but soon into the process I start hearing: ‘this is hard’, ‘I don’t feel comfortable writing about myself this way’ and ‘I really don’t know what makes me unique’. These are initial thoughts that many people have when they start this process. However, it’s so important to put in the time to craft a message that is clear, unique and strong for not only your profile but your overall personal brand which will be used in meetings, interviews, emails, career fairs, resumes and more. Employers want to know what grads have to offer, what makes them different and how they can solve the organization’s business problems.
I look forward to reading their pitches as they start to pop up in our social network and I hope a few of these students will get a chance to use their pitches at the upcoming Algonquin College Career Week (Feb 8-12). Career Week features a job fair and a series of information session and networking opportunities for past and present students to connect with industry.
The Story:
Thomas Lynn was a student of mine three years ago in my Marketing 1 class at Algonquin College. I remember that Thomas was a mature (returning to school after having a careering in social work) from PEI, with 2 boys and he was an excellent student that asked questions, participated and had a keen interest in Marketing. Turns out that he has majored in Marketing at Algonquin.
Last summer, we briefly ran into each other in a hallway and swapped ‘hey how are yas’. At the time, Thomas was working on a project for the business school.
I recently stumbled upon Thomas on Twitter a few weeks ago when I was looking for an update from the Ontario Colleges Marketing Competition which was held at Mohawk College on the weekend of November 19th. I went to Twitter Search and was looking for anyone commenting on what was happening at the competition. That’s when Thomas and I reconnected. These were the Tweets I was following that night:
With Twitter you read from bottom to top. You can follow Thomas on Twitter @thomaslynn.
After I read the post, I congratulated him, connected online and proposed that talk more about social media marketing and networking in Ottawa. We ended up meeting at the first ever Gen Y Ottawa event at the Mercury Lounge along with close to 100 motivated Gen Yers.
At the Gen Y event Thomas and I talked at length about his experience with social networking tools, his win at OCMC and what his WhyHire.me experience would be like next term in his Transition to Marketing Professional class. We also talked about my upcoming speaking engagement in his Integrated Marketing Communication class. I needed to understand what level of knowledge the students had prior to my talk.
Our discussions have continued and Thomas is recently started a WordPress blog which we will help him attach to his WhyHire.me profile next term. The story will continue as the pieces of Thomas’ social media marketing strategy for his personal brand evolve. The icing on the cake will be pulling the pieces together and further explaining the potential next term.
The Experiment:
This post is legitimate post but also a test of SEO for student Thomas Lynn, Business/Marketing student at Algonquin College in Ottawa. I will reveal the story as the experiment progresses.
Phase I – I googled Thomas Lynn and Algonquin College and in 1 minute after completing the post I found Thomas on the first page of Google in our blog. I then googled Thomas Lynn and Ottawa and I found him in 1 minute on the second page of Google. I tried Thomas Lynn and checked 10 pages and couldn’t find my blog entry.
Phase II – I added tags to the post including Algonquin College, Thomas Lynn, and marketing student. I also added the first phase of our story, the past. The results were that in 5 minutes Thomas Lynn and Algonquin College was the first entry on the first page of Google. When I searched Thomas Lynn and Ottawa the blog post showed up on the first page as the 5th entry. I still can’t find the post on the first 10 pages of when I just include his Thomas Lynn. I guess I should point out now that my Thomas Lynn is fighting for search with a man that is on death row which makes this experiment more interesting. Now to add to the story above; the present.
Phase III – I added the Twitter connection to the story which which included links and some new tags. The results of the search did not change in 5 minutes but I will check again later this afternoon. Google bots need some time to find your story. Phase IV will come tomorrow.
Phase IV – Results are the same. Phase V will occur as part of his WhyHire.me profile next term.
It’s been week since I have written a blog post. Once again, breaking the blogging golden rule but I’m giving myself some latitude because we have been in the middle of officially launching WhyHire.me. Although in theory, I should have been writing more. But moving on…
Over the last month, we have launched the second version of our WhyHire.me portal, finished up a 70 page eBook which is embedded in the portal and produced 7 interactive presentations which will be used by teachers and students either in the classroom or as stand alone interactive learning modules. It’s been a lot of work but rewarding on so many levels. I really feel that what we have developed a product and program that will has tremendous value for those preparing for their professional lives. I wish someone had pushed me and asked me the questions we are asking of our students when I was 20ish. We are giving them a leg up on their careers and a perspective which all knowledge workers need in this economy.
WhyHire.me is being used in 12 classrooms this term. We are getting the professors up to speed on the technology (social networks) but they will all be ready to fly with the content by the end of the week. Everyone involved in the program has been very positive, and like ourselves, believe that this program has great value to our students.
Over the next couple of weeks, we will share feedback from our users here. I will be team teaching at Carleton in the Sprott School of Business alongside Leighann Neilson, so I will have first hand input from the ‘trenches’.
I want to once again thank all our partners who have taken the next steps with us.
At Algonquin College, we would like to thank Wendy Threader, Jim Kyte, Dave Donaldson, Wayne McIntyre, Terry Frederick, Marc Johnstone and Noni Stukel. Algonquin piloted our program last year and showed great leadership and a real understanding and interest in helping their students. The Algonquin students in the School of Business are lucky to have people like this behind them.
At Centennial, our thanks go out to Liz Smith, David Johnson, Michael Vourakes and Linda Donville. These faculty members saw the potential associated with the curriculum and the associated outcomes. Their students get to learn how to use social media tools for research, collaboration and online communications – plus the added bonus of each student being able to fire up a comprehensive portfolio of experiences gained at Centennial College.
Guest Blogger: Emma Van Steen, Student Algonquin Sport Business Management Program
The Algonquin College Sports Business Management Program is proud to be hosting the Official Canadian Olympic Team Warehouse sale. This retail event is the result of a graduate studies project that worked in partnership with the COC. The sale is a clear out process for the COC, in preparation for the Vancouver 2010 games.
We are selling everything from Official Team jackets, t-shirts, boots, flop-flips, hats and luggage from these 3 major international sporting events – with items starting as low as $5. Hundreds of products in all different sizes. One sale only!
This event will run Friday, July 17th from 9am to 9pm, Saturday July 18th, from 9am to 5pm and Sunday July 19th from 9am to 4pm. The sale will be Algonquin College, T building, room T102. Payment options are cash, credit card, and cheque with proper Id only.
This blow-out sale has super deals featuring beautiful clothing items from Beijing (2008), Torino (2006) and Rio Pan Am (2007). Team Canada Athlete gear are available at discounted prices (50% to 75% Off) that are not available anyplace else – ever!!
For more information, clothing pictures and other updates you can visit our Facebook page or take a look on YouTube.
It was my turn in class this week with the SBM students at Algonquin. I was thrilled to see a few students whom I had taught 3 years ago in a Business Skills class when they were in the 2 year Marketing program. Andrea Hutchinson, Warren Hovius, Andy Lancefield, and Graham Pelletier were a few of my very first students at Algonquin. They were stunned to listen to the few stories that I remembered about them from our first class together. I explained that marketing is all about stories and as a marketer I love stories.
We started the class with an overview of the personal branding process will be following over the next few weeks. My first goal was to get them clearly committed and engaged in the process of branding themselves. I had the class stand up. When these students are asked to stand their ‘engagement’ with me changes completely (especially since it’s a laptop class). Their senses intensify, they are engaged on a higher level, and they don’t quite know what I am going to make them do which makes them more vulnerable. My point was that these students need to stand up when it comes to their careers. They need to make a commitment and be engaged. It’s not going to be easy out there and they need to do their homework in order to stand out in a changing market place.
We then started the process of ’self discovery’ or the research phase of our personal branding process. You would never launch a product without research to understand how you are going to position the product. When we are looking at branding a person, it’s important to ‘Dig Deep’ and ask the big questions in order to define their brand. We started by diving into personal values and personality traits; the cornerstones of many personal brands.
Next week, we will continue the process of self discovery and move into the process of crafting their positioning pitches in WhyHire.me.
