I'm reading this book, "101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think" by Brianna Wiest. In one of her essays, she said, "Happiness is a choice,". That, people would rather not believe it, so the blame for their stagnation in life is no longer their fault. It was something about how she phrased it that made me stop in my tracks and reread the page repeatedly. If you have the chance, I recommend it, for it truly changed my perspective on life.
In other news.....I got a mentor!!! He is the Head of Marketing at Text-em-all, Ron Kinkade. I'm very excited, considering I've already been able to go into the office twice, and both interview times were fun and extremely informative. In our recent interview, I posed Ron with an interesting question, and I will also put it here. If I gave you 100 billion dollars, could you take down Apple? Looking from a marketing standpoint, it would be extremely hard. Apple has done an amazing job appealing to not only their consumer's external desires (finding a new phone) but also their internal and philosophical desires.
As I'm writing about this, I realize, I think I just found the perfect example to use in my Research Speech. Speaking of which, my speech is this Friday. I've already gotten down a good presentational template, which is important considering I'm studying marketing. My only struggle is how I want to break up the content. I have to consider my audience, which is, truthfully, future business professionals that see the slideshow. So, it must look aesthetic and have digestible content that I could use on a social media platform or show in future interviews. It's a great way to practice communication skills essential to marketing.
This past Tuesday, I was able to conduct an interview with Erin Linville, AVP of Operations and Quality and AVP of Strategic growth at Vizient. She is responsible for two divisions within the company but states that she likes the challenge, and the combination of the two roles allows her to see the bigger picture and focus on strategic growth. Through this interview, I learned the difference between upstream and downstream marketing; Erin’s job at Avery Dennison focused on upstream marketing, meaning her strategy centered around long-term goals to help the business down the line. In contrast, in her current job at Vizient, she works in downstream marketing, which centers around short-term goals garnered to clients. This was one of my favorite interviews because more than half the answers Erin provided were distinctive and unique to her situation. We ran short on time but agreed to have a follow-up on November 15th! Furthermore, I just confirmed an intro interview with Michelle Jackson on November 14!
Overall this next week is extremely busy, we have 2 assessments due, one interview analysis and one related to our Original Work project. Regarding Original Work, I think mine will be about organizing my website and publishing it as a real domain. Then, learning about all data analytics and SEO and use that as my analysis. It's been stressful so far, but I've learned to take a pitstop every now and then and understand that everything will be ok. Until next time,
- Samantha Stein
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