Life So Far

I think it's been a while since I've actually posted an honest update about my life.  I tend to avoid these, but here it goes.  

This semester has been busy to say the least.  I was offered a position as a Business Analyst with my brother-in-law's software development and consultation firm at the very beginning of it and I accepted with honor and excitement.  Here was someone who recognized potential, and decided to gamble, take me on, and give me legitimate clients from day 1.  While I started with only 1 client, that has quickly grown to 2, and potentially 4 in the very near future.  I've spent my Thursdays leaving work from here at Clarion around 4:30 PM to head to Pittsburgh for more work obligations and some good ole family time.  I have to say, without the latter factor things may have been a bit overwhelming, but the mix is the perfect cocktail.  The kids allow for a perfect release of my pent up zany tendencies.

On top of this, and I know this is somewhat sequentially backwards in terms of narrative structure, I've taken on a wonderfully exciting and demanding position with the Center for Applied Research and Small Business Development Center up here at the Clarion University Barnes Center.  What does it consist of? A little bit of everything.  I'm part of a team of extremely talented students and professionals.  Our goal is to market and develop the structure of the NWPA Innovation Support Program, a brand new project dedicated to economic stimulation via the industries of Biotechnology, Nanotechnology, Manufacturing, and Pharmaceutical technologies.   We just had our first open house for the program this past Friday, and it was a smashing success.  It made me realize just how lucky I am to be surrounded by the people I work with and have the ability to do the work I do.

Did I mention I'm still a full-time MBA student?  I think I lucked out here, because the class load this semester is relatively manageable.  The classes are in fields I never had much trouble in, and course content is interesting considering a lot of it correlates to the work I currently perform.  

But even with all of this, there is still more that I'm absolutely ecstatic about.  Faith, luck, or whatever you prefer to call it has surrounded me with some of the best co-students and friends up here.  My fellow MBA students and I feed off of each other and keep each other on track in terms of school demands.  Moreover, a few of us are progressing through the channels to present one of our Organizational Behavior projects at some Graduate and Economic research conferences.  We just landed an amazing faculty sponsor in Dr. Sandra Trejos, and I know with her to assist us we can potentially turn what started as a course assignment into a legitimate academic contribution within the annals of management research. Fingers crossed.

To top it all off I've been able to pursue one of my longest standing passions, music. Near the end of last semester two friends and I discussed the idea of getting together and playing.  But what started off as an idea transformed into the perfect social and creative outlet.  I don't get many moments where I can just enjoy time for myself.  But these few nights of meaningful conversation and music have meant the world to me.  Through all of it, they're the moments of my week where I feel right at home, where I know inside that I'm on the right path.  We just laid down a high-quality audio track and also recorded an amazing video to accompany it.  Even better we've been practicing for what I guess you can call our first, "show," but it's really just an acoustic set for a friends' local business event.  As for the video, it should be popping up sometime soon within the next week.  Stay tuned.

So I guess that's my life and you know, lately I've been thinking a lot about how people constantly focus on the future, how they tell themselves that someday, I'll get to where I want to be, and when I'm there, I'll finally be happy.  Well, the future has been the furthest thing from my mind.  I get to wake up every day and engage in work that challenges and excites me, and I'm surrounded by some of the most meaningful people I've met in my life.  

It's funny, as a kid, I used to dream of this moment.  But I think what turned it from a dream into reality was that I decided to use my imagination as fuel to drive my work ethic all while focusing on enjoying every day as it comes; I suppose you could say, seizing it...   I think if you follow that code, one day you'll look around you and be mesmerized by just what passion and honest intent can bring to one's life.  

In closing though, to paraphrase from one of my favorite philosophers and theologians, Alan Watts, I will say this: life is a song, a complex symphony of sonorous ups and downs, and just like a song, you're not supposed to focus on the finite aspect of the inevitable end, rather, you're supposed to sing and dance while the music is being played.  

To me, that's what life is about. Don't believe me? Well then honestly  look around you, open your ears and listen, and feel, then you might see that we're all playing part in creating the wonderful harmony that keeps the world spinning.  

Google and Technology

The other evening my cousin shared an interesting video with me regarding the recent activities of Google.  Now, I'm an avid technologist, so this video was right up my alley.  It went through the various aspects of the company that really help differentiate itself from others in the industry.  But what really stood out was the groundbreaking frontiers Google itself is entering.

First and foremost the video highlighted some really interesting products and services Google's been developing for commercial purposes.  The one that stands out the most is probably their recent acquisition of Nest Labs, a small-start up   co-founded by two Apple Engineers,  Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers. What does Nest Labs do?  Well, they essentially create smart houses.  They've found a way to deliver smart thermostats and smoke alarms; devices that can automatically learn heating and cooling preferences, coordinate it with monthly costs and budget restraints, and accomplish all of this with the extra comfort of being able to be controlled from any device that is capable of running the correlated application.  Pretty cool, right?

So great, Google is on the verge of making Disney's 1999 made for TV-movie, Smart House, a very real possibility, but that's not all they're up to these days.   What I'm about to discuss next though may alarm some people, for there's always someone to sound the dystopian alarm, and proclaim we're on the verge of seeing Schwarzenegger like machines coming for our day of judgement.

Over the last few months Google has gone on a shopping spree of very large and small companies within the advanced robotics industry, and when I say advanced, I mean it.  Just take a look at their biggest acquisition, Boston Dynamics, and see what their machines are capable of doing.  On top of all of this, they've been buying up companies that specialize in all sorts of robotic parts, from optics, arms, to legs. 

Moreover, it was recently announced that Google was partnering up with NASA and D-Wave, a company who is making waves (no pun intended) within the field of quantum computing.  What's quantum computing you may ask?   Well, computers run off of bits, small tiny pieces of information that either exist within a binary state of a 1 or 0.  Quantum computers operate off of qubits, pieces of information that exist under the conditions of quantum phenomena known as super-positioning and quantum entanglement.   What does that mean? Essentially qubits can exist as both a 1 or a 0 at the same time, allowing for greater optimization of power, since these qubits would also be entangled with other qubits, exponentially increasing said power.   It is believed that these computers one day will assist in tackling some of civilizations greatest issues; from climate change to global poverty, advanced algorithms could be used to solve tough questions and benefit society.  

The last bit of recent news was that Google acquired DeepMind, a London based AI firm that was started in 2010 by child prodigy Demis Hassibis.  What does DeepMind do?  Well, the website is rather terse, with just a simple home landing page that states," We combine the best techniques from machine learning and systems neuroscience to build powerful general-purpose learning algorithms."  From what I've gathered a lot of what they do will allow computers to critically analyze images and semantically interpret its content.  Google hopes to utilize this to improve services such as Google Images, but with augmented reality devices such as Google Glasses in the works, one can only wonder what ideas they may have up their sleeves. 

Now take all of this in, Google is making large advancements within the fields of machine learning, robotics, computing power, and on top of all of this, they have one of the most prominent futurists and technologists at the helm of their engineering;  Ray Kurzweil.  A man that Forbes. Inc magazine has called, "the rightful heir to Thomas Edison,"  Kurzweil has consistently made headlines for his accurate predictions of what technology would bring to human civilization, and he's positive his biggest prediction is only years away; the moment of the singularity, when artificial intelligence achieves a conscious like state parallel to human ability.  

In the end, it's clear no other company is in a better position to usher in a new-age of technology, in fact, it very well seems that they're already on the verge of it.  Still, there comes a point, I believe, where humans will have to make a decision under their own volition and decide to what extent we want technology to exist within our lives.  I believe if anything, technology should be there to improve our existence within our environment, to makes us more efficient, to better our relationship with our ecosystem, and allow maximization of knowledge, sustenance, and welfare for citizens across the globe;  but we have to ensure we do not perceive this as a justification for us to become dependent upon technology, rather, it's sole purpose should be to improve our lives, not define it.  

Clarion University's Social Media Presence

Now, I know I spoke of Clarion University in regards to my post on how to use Twitter within the Higher Education marketplace, but I feel there is more that can be said in regards to how and why I feel their utilization of Social Media is one of the best when it comes to the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education.

Clarion University itself had an early jump on the Social Media scene, with a Facebook presence for about 3 years.  Moreover, they use their Facebook page in both creative and effective manners.  They ensure that there is a consistent line of communication with their audience by having a designated social media strategist at the handlebars at all times; summer, fall, winter, or spring.  They also focus on creating collaboration between other inter-department university related offices as well, such as athletics, student organizations, and so on.  They capitalize on creating the most effective posts by ensuring a consistent stream of interactive and consumer related content, as well as using it in a manner to disseminate pertinent news topics.

This same type of philosophy has landed them success within the Twitter world. The most important aspect to their success here is that they also know how to differentiate their content for the platform itself.  They ensure presence of brand consistent meta tags, and they also use search methods to ensure the highest levels of audience interaction.    Furthermore,  they know how to deliver messages within the succinct manner Twitter itself demands.

The most important aspect to their success though is the leadership and organization behind their endeavors.  Every Wednesday the University's Marketing and Communication Department hosts a Social Media round table in which the Director of Marketing is present to assist in any marketing related questions.  Furthermore, the presence of such higher leadership keeps the student leaders who are in charge of creating the content focused on important aspects such as metrics and other methods in which they can gauge the success of their content.  This brings up another important facet to their success, which is the fact that they have students of a wide variety of backgrounds, ranging from Marketing and Communications, to Advertisements and Film, in charge of brainstorming for content creation.  Social Media itself is a marketing channel that is overwhelmingly dominated by demographics of a young age.  By ensuring the creators of your content are demographically similar to the market segments in which the University is targeting, they mitigate potential dissonance issues between content creators and consumers while simultaneously gaining insight on what type of Social Media channels are being utilized by said consumers.

Such organization has led to their recent expansion into the field of LinkedIn, in which Clarion University was one of the first PASSHE systems to take use of LinkedIn's brand new University Page feature.  This endeavor, while elicited by upper level management, was taken on by a student named Paul Yi; a young professional student who was in the process of studying the marketplace and identifying key industries he desired to work in.  By having someone with such a mindset at the helm of their expansion into LinkedIn, they were able to directly match the exact ways in which the University Page feature was supposed to be utilized; as a gateway for current students to match up with alumni and businesses of which they are interested in.

Overall, Clarion University's Social Media presence has continued to strengthen over the years, and this is in large thanks to the proper leadership and organizational structure that is in place.

E-Marketing : Why I Don't Use Pinterest

Last night (I'm starting to wonder if all of my  blog posts are going to begin that way...)  I found myself searching Google for an electronic copy of a book by one of my favorite 20th century American philosophers and theologians, Alan W. Watts.  Specifically, I was trying to find a Kindle version or at least a free library PDF version of his book, "Beyond Theology: The Art of Godsmanship." For those who don't know whom Alan W. Watts is, just click here and please, enjoy!

Anyways, I stumbled across a link that posited to be offering a digitally free licensed copy of "Beyond Theology," but what I actually found was a Pinterest page that simply had the book cover.  I was confused, baffled, angry, and somewhat let down all within what seemed to be a matter of seconds.  I wanted to read! I had no need for some website that could show me how to make delicious puppy shaped peanut butter pretzel cookies or watermelon infused mojitos from scratch.

But suddenly, after a few short breaths and click of my Chrome's back-page button, I realized the irony in the moment. I had to make a blog post (this post) about Pinterest for my E-Marketing class, and I also had to highlight why I did or did not prefer to use it.  If one can gather from my unabashed and terse tirade  not but just 2 sentences up, I think I perhaps indirectly gave away my position.

To be honest though, I have a very limited understanding of what Pinterest is; sure I know it is a social media site in which individuals can share, or "pin" images covering a virtually unlimited variety of interests, but I suppose I really don't know what it is because I'm not really interested in it. In fact, my rudimentary understanding largely stems from my cousin's girlfriend, Simi, visiting us in Pittsburgh and always making us desserts and or wonderfully tasteful mixed drinks, that when I ask where she found out how to make these amazingly delicious treats, I always here, "Pinterest."  Or my sister, Jamie, she'll show me some cute craft idea for my nephews' and nieces' elementary school holiday parties, and once again, when I ask where did she come up with the idea, what do I hear but, "Pinterest."

Maybe that's why I don't have an interest in it.  Not that I don't like cookies or drinks. I'd be absurd to say I don't like cookies or drinks! But I think it more or less has something to do with a gender stereotype I have developed since any users of Pinterest that I know tend to be women.  Thankfully though, after once again utilizing the all-mighty search engine Google, I have come to find that my perception is statistically verified. According to an article from the Huffington Post, 72% of Pinterest users are women.  

While this explains my perception of Pinterest, it doesn't fully explain my lack of use.  As for that answer, while I'm well experienced in a myriad of social media platforms, such as Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, and StumbleUpon; I try to spend as much time as I can on other things I enjoy, such as music, art, books, and films.  To me, these social media sites are a great means to attain those interests, but I think sometimes we end up focusing on the means themselves too much.  I try to avoid this over indulgence of social media as much as I possibly can, and rather I prefer to focus on the content, or the ends themselves.  But that's just me.

In Addition: A Comment on , "An Open Letter To Those Never Touched By Addiction," by Kelsey Westbrook

It was around 2 AM when I found myself wrapping up some work and plopping over on Facebook to casually scroll through the myriad of posts fresh upon my news feed.  Usually I just find myself "liking" a few posts that are particularly interesting or funny before I power down my computer and let darkness engulf my room as the last pixel from the screen disappears.  But this evening, or should I say morning, was different.  I saw an article my cousin-in-law shared.  The title itself is what caught my eye, for it contained a word which will forever hold an august weight within my life; addiction.

The post was from a girl named Kelsey who recently lost her father to drug addiction; heroin overdose to be specific.  As I read I found myself in an empathetic and understanding state of melancholy.  Here was someone that has gone through the ups and downs of what addiction can do to a family, and she found herself on the oh too sad end it very well takes sometimes; losing someone who means the world to you.

Her second paragraph is what truly struck at my core, "I share this with you, not because I am in search of pity, on the contrary, it's because I yearn for the moment when those that suffer from, and have fallen victim to the horrific disease that is addiction will one day be given the memorial that their souls truly deserve."  

What marveled me was that the second post I ever made here had a similar line and similar theme.   This is where the coincidence comes into play.  I spent this past Sunday evening with a friend and we began sharing our life stories.  She told a tale of her family's history and how she ended up in Clarion, and I shared mine. Now some of you may know about my family's history, yet, from what I'm gathering thanks to the words of my friend, most of you may not; nor would you even suspect it.  But from a very young age I grew up in a household where addiction tore apart the very bricks of my family's foundation.

My father, the man who was everything to me, changed from being the one who laughed, smiled, and hugged, into the man who came home late whom I barely saw.  My mother, the strong, passionate, and artistic caregiver, lost all the colors to her once vivid palette and became a shell of the person I once knew.  My sister, my brother, myself, we lost our parents, not in the physical sense, but in a way unique to itself. I think the only way I could describe it would be by calling it a secular state of purgatory; caught between life and death, never knowing what the day would bring next.

Now I stand here today as a man who went from being a troubled teen that could care less about school to being merely a semester and a half away from graduating with an MBA.  I stand here today having a sister who through it all grew and become a wonderfully successful and hard working human being and mother of 2 absolutely brilliant nephews, 2 amazingly beautiful daughters, and wife to a husband I'm lucky to call my brother-in-law.  I stand here with my brother, Joseph, who had his own troubled paths, but now finds himself further away from taking the wrong steps in life.  

Even with all of this though, all of these wonderful amazing things,  there are two things I'm most proud about in my life.  The fact that I can say my father has been clean for almost 2 years now and my mother for over 7.

Here's the thing, as I'm writing this, I find myself wanting to echo again the words of Kelsey, that I'm not writing this for some sense of pity or attention.  And I find it particularly interesting that it is a common concern of those who have grown up where addiction was an unwanted family addition.

 I'm writing this because of what I value. Because I believe the most important aspect to existence itself are the relationships we have with each other, the networks we exist in.  I believe that every single one of us leaves an impression upon each other, a memory, forever guaranteeing eternal legacy.  Through our interactions, we have the capability to enrich each others lives.  

Now I have no idea what tomorrow may bring for my parents, but I do know qualities I'm sure many friends and family members enjoy about me come from my mother and father, and no matter what happens, the memories I will always have of them are the ones that bring a smile to my face. 

Still, it kills me whenever I see a man or woman walking into the local clinic with a child holding his or her hand.  It kills me because I've seen how awful addiction can be, and I know too well what it can do to a family.  But I've also seen the miracles that life can bring.  I've seen what can happen just by keeping your head up, fighting what may seem like incredibly arduous up-hill battles, having the faith and confidence in yourself, and being able to surround yourself with ones who truly love you.  

Because of all this, I find it hard to explain the happiness I get from being able to go home on a weekend and do something as silly as read to my nephew.  Now I'm sure any Uncle would feel the same way, but for me, everything has a little bit of a different weight behind it, because at one point in my life I never would have imagined I'd be 24 years old, laying in a Super Mario themed bed, reading The Time Machine to a 7 year old who shared my blood.  I never imagined I'd be driving home from the Lego Movie sharing with my nephew and niece the wonderful joys of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody.  I never thought any of the things that have occurred in my life would have ever happened.  But they did, and I don't see why they can't happen for other people as well, people who have their own battles, because in the end, mine and my family's story, objectively, are no different from any other; there were ups and downs, but everything turned out alright. 

I wanted to write this for Kelsey though, because I know what she's gone through to a degree.  And I know that sometimes people have their demons, but that doesn't mean they're not people; wonderful, curious, people - grandfathers, fathers and sons, mothers, daughters, and loved ones. 

Twitter Tips for Higher Education

Over the past Summer and Fall semesters I took on a primary leadership role as a Social Media Strategist with Clarion University.  What does this mean?  Essentially, I analyzed processes and best practices for how to engage our various target market segments; potential students, current students, and non-traditional students (individuals pursuing Higher Ed later in their career or life path).  This involved seeing what our competitors (other Universities) were doing in terms of channel utilization and gathering data via surveys from potential and current students at on-campus open houses and other various events.

What we saw wasn't too surprising, an overwhelming majority of people are on Facebook.  From Universities, to students, to parents, they all have a profile.  For the sake of capitalizing on market channels though, it's important to note that the next largest Social Media channel people use is Twitter, the micro-blogging platform.  But how do you reach out to an audience in 140 characters or less, and more importantly, how do you measure your impact?  Let me share a few tips and tricks I picked up during my journey.

Content, Content, Content, but not too much...

The first thing to understand is the rate of consumption and thus limit to said consumption Social Media users expect and experience on their favorite platforms.  People get on Facebook and twitter and they expect to see updates from the various individuals or organizations they follow, but the last thing you want to become is a troll on their feed.  What does this mean ?  I'm sure we all have that friend who constantly posts about every little detail of their life. It gets to the point now matter how much you like the individual, you may find yourself un-following them.  You want to avoid this at all costs!

From a Higher Education standpoint, 2-3 posts a day is the maximum unless contingent situations demand otherwise.  If it's during the semester, try to share any exciting events that are going on campus.  Perhaps you're running a promotional event?  Make sure to give everyone an update on the status of that event. Remind them if it's starting up, or perhaps it's closing soon, either way, make sure you get the message across without flooding their screens.  You have to tweet at the right time with valuable information.  If you tweet too much, no matter what you post, people will tend to see less value in what you say.   Which brings up my next topic of discussion.

Timing is Everything!

Put yourself in the shoes of your consumers.  The average individual will check their Social Media channels a few times a day.  Once in the morning, perhaps at lunch, and then later in the evening.  If you have something great to share, focus on getting it up between 8 AM to 10 AM, 12 PM to 1PM and 5PM to 8 PM.

If you follow that rule, you're posts are going to get exposed to the highest audience.  If you miss those times, the world isn't over, but you risk getting flooded away in the sea of tweets.  No matter how strong of a swimmer you think your post is, try to avoid playing in the water when the tide is going out.

# Branding

One thing I found to be great is creating a consistent set of hash tags.  What's that you may ask?  Essentially it's search engine optimization, a meta tag if you will.  It creates a staple on your post that cascades and connects to any other staple of its exact kind that has ever been posted before.  For Clarion University, I made sure to follow most of our tweets with #ClarionU.  It helped create a unique, but appropriate Social Media brand, that allowed consumers to become acquainted with our content and presence.   Furthermore, it's a great way to start a trend and measure your impact.  What do I mean?  Well...

Finding and Engaging Your Audience

Twitter allows you to search for anything that is currently trending.  But by using hash tags, you can specifically search for the staples I just mentioned above.  For example,every morning I would log on and search for #ClarionU or potential variants such as #Clarion #ClarionUniversity #CUP and so on.    If you do this, your eyes will instantly light up with the amount of people talking about you or your organization.  Furthermore, you can now directly engage these people.  For the sake of Clarion University, a lot of students would share exciting stories such as their acceptance to the school, or perhaps they received an award, or just had something nice to say.  Either way, this was the perfect time to reach out to them. A simple tweet back to them saying, "Congratulations!" or ,"Way to go! We're excited to have you here!" could make their day.

 Don't believe me?  Well, let's say I tweeted at someone in the morning saying something along the lines of what I just spoke about and then did another #ClarionU search later in the afternoon.  There was almost a 100% rate of direct engagement afterwards.  Sometimes they would "Favorite" the tweet, "Retweet" it, or say something back, either way, I just engaged Clarion's audience. Better yet, if they perhaps retweeted back with your #ClarionU, our exposure rate just exponentially increased by having everyone in their closed audience (their follower list) see it. Success!

Be Social!

Lets not forget that Social Media is not the run of the mill marketing channel.  This is your chance to show people your personal, fun, yet professional side.  People don't want to always see serious posts.  I'm not saying you shouldn't, for all means you should have tweets with links to interesting and important articles, but it shouldn't be the basis of your strategy.

The most successful tweets and posts I've seen in the history of Clarion University's Social Media years mostly consisted of something exciting with a photo attached to it.  Whether it be a picture of people walking across the stage to grab their diploma with some text saying, "Congratulations to the #ClarionU #ClassOf2013.  Spread your wings and take flight!", a neat photo of people cheering at a volleyball game, or even a photo of Founders Hall during a wonderful winter snowfall, people will love it.  It helps foster school pride and social solidarity, and in the end, that's the best ROI you can ask for in a Higher Education Institution.