Internship, and recent happenings

I will start with recently I took my Google Analytics individual qualification exam, and passed! This to me I see as beneficial and maybe open a few more doors. I recently have been accepted as a intern for a company called Internet2. I will be doing their online marketing and web analytics and being certified makes me that more confident that I can do what I have been accomplishing for the past couple semesters. I will post a video on what more they are about and what their mission statements.
This new opportunity I hope will help me get myself established and my foot in the door.

Last of the networking events for the semester

This month I went to two networking events which were both sponsored by SPARK the agenda was simple as stated on the site: 1. Drink coffee 2. Network 3. Eat bagels 4. Network 5. Drink coffee Seems simple enough I managed to talk to a few people but still working on "breaking the ice." I am much better then I have been when I started at the beginning of the semester. The second event was marketing round table where they talked about selling smart and how to pitch your business to make a impact. The big thing about pitching a business is to make sure you know it about them and not you. These networking events have really opened my eyes and helped me "break the ice" and I believe I will continue going to these even after this class just with all the people and experience you can get out of the event.

The benefits of Google+

When Google+ first came out it was by invite only, to me I thought great another Facebook clone. Now in the business world their spikes a huge explosion in Google+. From an article I read Google+ is having people spend longer amounts of time on the site and that means increased traffic. Another perk for users is authorship. By having a Google Plus account allows you to claim authorship of your original content. This keeps your unique and original content valuable and accredited to you, even if content thieves scrape your work. This increases credibility and power, and also increase your search engine recognition. As a business person this can work in your favor. Increasing online presence is not only easy but beneficial in the end if they search you or your company that's what will come up on the first couple searches.

CGI killing movies?

As technology advances The use of CG in movies continue..but is it becoming too much? As long as their has been movie around their has been special effects, I have no problem with them its the fact that are they being utilized to their full potential and can the over use *Michael Bay* ruin the movie going experience? Yes and No, computers have allowed us the people to enjoy many new feats taking us to a new world in Avatar even bring the entire world of Toy Story to life. These are good examples of CG use in movies. No the criticism, as much as I do not like the series The Star Wars prequels are heavily CG based taking much of the credible story and overpowering it with CG and taking higher priorities style over substance and that was never the case with those movies. Another case would be think if the towering franchise of Transformers didn't utilize CG it would be a huge flop because once again style over substance. As the summer blockbusters are coming to a end a array of 3D movies come out hopefully with a CG dominated industry the writing will catch up.

killing two birds with one stone

As the month is coming to a end I need to make up 2 networking events and to my luck 2 events happen on the same day in Ann Arbor I will attend 2 SPARK events to fulfill my networking requirements and hopefully get something out of it. This can be a great experience all the networking events I have been to have been unique and different all in their own way. I recommend that anyone go to these events even if you're not a business major. I had the luxury of bringing my room ate who is a teacher to one of these events just so I had someone I knew there but it helped and led to meeting any different and interesting people. I will do a follow up blog post on how the events went and go into more detail about future events.

Bright future rough road

Recently we had an alumni student from the search marketing come in and talk to the class Alex Merz who now works at Google. He works as the analytical lead for Google LCS team. his big statement was being behind of the learning curve. It is true unfortunate as tech savvy as many people can be the technology that we have is changing everyday. It can be hard to keep up and stay in line with the "next big thing." The main part of his talk was about the industry and how it evolves over time. As I prepare for this internship I have applied for if I am not certain about something the best part about technology is it can be fast learning. The way of showing people how to do things is over as Youtube is slowly taking over the educational platform. I can look it up and learn it fast. In all honesty no business can stay ahead of the curve as most people learn their place in the business what they need to do and how they act upon that way of doing it. As the evolution of tech it is much to hard to stay ahead of the new innovative thing.

Organic vs. Paid which is the best route?

I have been re-reading a text Conversion Optimization by Khalid Saleh and Ayat Shukairy *ill link the book at the end of the blog for those who are interested in purchasing it, I find the most interesting is organic search vs. paid search. Which is the best route to go? For those who do not know what the difference between organic and paid I will break it down. In organic search's that is go to be web pages the closest to the users queries based on relevance. Paid searches are websites owners are paid to display their websites on certain "keywords" the question is what is the best way to go. My research has discovered that organic search is the better way to go as it will be the most relevant to what you are looking for. People tend to end up going with organic to as it is the first thing that pops on on the search engine. This does not rule out paid searches, it is on how you display and sell yourself, to show what you are looking for and that goes into persona's which is another topic. Here is the amazon link for the book if you are interested in finding out more about organic vs. paid