Social Media Project

Social Media is the driving force behind customer relationships with the brand. I was excited to choose the Starbucks brand for this particular reason. Social media is old enough to pique business' interest in creating value, yet still new enough that many people can't grasp its importance. This project was useful because it made us research every social media aspect of a particular company. Its almost eerie to think how certain brands seem to penetrate our lives through word of mouth, advertising, and promo items. Exploring their social media tactics reveals just how they do it.

Research showed that search engines show Starbuck's main pages as the first hits--their website, Facebook, and wikipedia entry. Beyond that, it was interesting to see that most hits were all links to news articles. Starbucks' wikipedia was quite extensive and concrete, founded in 2003 and recently updated within the last month. Even though Starbucks keeps up with traditional social media like Facebook and Twitter, they go above and beyond by making a separate website with a completely different concept. My Starbucks Idea is an online "suggestion box," which allows consumers to communicate with the brand with their personal ideas. The neat thing is that the company responds with their reactions to ideas, and which ones they are implementing and which ones they have already done. Their YouTube channel has videos announcing new products and welcoming back old favorites, and their Twitter account has one new tweet every day with a quirky fact or announcements on products. It's nice that they include cute sayings, not just constantly bombarding people with coffee advertisement. Their Facebook has two separate pages, one for the company and one for their Frapp, both of which are updated regularly. 

Some very positive findings about Starbucks was their overwhelming presence not as an annoying advertiser, but rather an approachable company creating a great customer experience. SOme recommendations included the creation of a social media policy to ensure that their messages across all mediums remain consistent. Creating incentives to visit their numerous social media sites would also boost online traffic even more, although Starbucks has strong numbers already. All in all, Starbucks is the epitome of a social media- savvy company. 

Wikispaces Starbucks Page: https://ism3004.wikispaces.com/Starbucks

Graphic Source: Flickr user Paul Papadimitriou

Access Database Project

Access, you are a pain in the butt.

Access looked so easy to use during the lecture, but I found it a little difficult to use. Thankfully the project was straightforward and matched the lectures. I had trouble going back and forth going between Design and Table views because I kept getting error messages about my validation criteria. When I tried to go to Table view to check the data, it wouldn't allow me to leave Design view without deleting my validations or deleting the actual data. Aside from pesky issues like that, the project went smoothly. I learned how to create reports, forms, and queries. I think the tool I would get the most use out of is the form tool, its a quick and easy way to store and add information that can be easily read and/or retrieved even by someone who is not familiar with Access.

For the first part of the project, I tried to add a lot of validation data and text, exploring different criteria options that were explained in the lectures. To make the database less prone to mistakes in data entry, I'd suggest using those tools through the various projects like the forms or reports. I definitely liked how easy it is to design reports, not many programs offer that kind of layout flexibility. Overall, Access is worth learning in conjunction with Excel, it just takes a little patience.

Excel Project

Surprisingly enough, this turned out to be one of my favorite project of this class so far. It was quick and easy, especially since I had the lecture videos to refer to as well. (Now watch me get a horrible grade or something).

Just kidding. I've had experience with Excel before, but it was mostly self-taught, or shortcuts discovered through trial-and-error. I've never had to deal with large amounts of data before though, so learning the keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl+home to return to the top left of the worksheet or how to zoom down to the end of a data block was quite useful. I also brushed up on long-forgotten basics like equations, which I rarely have to use. Pivot tables looked a little scary at first, but they are a useful tool to see quick results on bulks of information. I also liked the neat conditional formatting--decorating with a purpose! (As you may see in my lovely picture, pink for girls and blue for boys. Although I must say I really hate pink).

Normally I use Excel to organize information, but I never had a need to analyze anything. Now that I understand how equations works and see how simple they really are, I'll probably venture out to establishing budget books or something to that extent. As much as I really don't look forward to class projects and homework, I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciate this segment on learning how to use Excel. 

Graphic Source: Me, myself and I.

Presentation Self-Evaluation

When I first read about this project, I literally seized in fear. I've never made a video presentation before, and I certainly didn't even know how to start. After hours and hours of searching different video editing tools, I settles on a free trial of Camtasia. I also played around with Toufee and the Youtube Editor. My first instinct was to choose Toufee, but it froze on me constantly and the interface wasn't as logical as the one offered by Camtasia.

One thing I will take away from this class is the importance of copyright and Creative Commons. To search for video clips, I used the YouTube editor and searched for videos licensed under Creative Commons. Surprisingly, there are actual commercials that are allowed for reuse, and are of much better quality than home videos. After collecting all usable clips, I paired the videos with PowerPoint slides to combine everything into one presentation. 

Critiquing another presentation made me more aware of some key factors in an effective presentation--no clutter, good points, clear and concise. I also enjoyed watching just how many different topics there were, and the different styles students used as far as editing and graphics. 

I do believe I avoided clutter very well, keep to the time minimum and provided great media. However, I feel like my main points became confusing and often veered in different directions. 

A frustration of mine with this project was the constraint of using different media. I was limited to the video clips I used, which 90% of the time didn't flow with my concept. Because I was trying to make such a media-rich presentation, I ended up having to sacrifice my concepts in order to accommodate the available videos and the emotions they conveyed. In the end, I learned that even though I did find some amazing clips in terms of quality and copyright-free terms, I created a downside for myself by not having a clear and concise point. I felt like I tried to go in too many directions and confused the viewer. But all in all, I happy with the fact that I now have some knowledge in video editing, which can certainly be applied to future projects. I also amassed a new collection of tools and useful websites, like dig.ccmixter.com for Creative Commons licensed music; saveyoutube.com, which allows the user to save YouTube videos; and of course, Camtasia, which I found was very easy to use. 

Here is the final project: SR Diamonds

Music by cdk, "Baby", found on dig.ccmixter.com