All Good Things Must Come to an End

Last night while trying to complete an assignment for my Social Media as Mass Communication class I ran into a very interesting article shared by one of my classmates. The article titled “Prezi versus PowerPoint for presentation visuals,” basically broke down the pros and cons of each. Until just a few months ago I had never heard about Prezi before, now thanks to my Social Media as Mass Communication teacher, not only do I know what Prezi is, I know how to work it and I am obsessed with it. Even though I am still exploring and playing with the site, I am conscious of the great tool Prezi can be as long I know how to use it and apply it correctly.

This also made me think of all of the things learned during this course. The semester is coming to an end, and as every normal person does when coming to the end of something, I have been looking back at all the things that I have learned and shared with my teacher and classmates.

When it comes to social media, everyone considers themselves an expert. It is really hard to find people who really understands the power that social media can have when used correctly. During this course I have had the chance to get a glimpse of what can be done with social media. Even though I had a presence in social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, I never really understood the power of these. In addition to that I was able to experiment with sites like Pinterest, I created a blog and I even created a LinkedIn profile which has already helped me make some very good connections.

I used to think social media was an entertainment thing. Knowing how to strategically and successfully use social media could be a very important tool in my career, and I am certainly glad my teacher helped me realized this early on. 

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Phone Vs. Email

I recently started a job as an executive assistant in which I am going somewhat crazy. I was only trained for the last 2 days of work of the previous assistant. Basically I was thrown in a shark infested ocean with barely a boat.

When I am asked by my boss to contact someone it is so easy for me to find an email address and transmit my full on charm through a quick email. When I have to actually call someone my hands get sweaty and as the person on the other side of the line answers, the phone slips my sweaty hand and bounces across my desk. And then I die. OK maybe I don’t die but it is really nerve-wracking thinking I am talking to very important people and at any second I could say the wrong thing. That is why I love the warm embrace of my keyboard.

However, for some people, the fact that phones are being used less has been a step back, losing the warm embrace of a human voice over the phone. It is no secret to anyone in the planet that the traditional role that telephones and mobile phones once played in our lives is long gone. Specially that of the mobile phones.  

However I never really realized how technology has also been changing traditional roles in the workplace. As I read the article “Are phone skills a thing of the past?” by Christie Melby I could picture myself being the person who prefers the usage of email to a phone call by 1,000,000 to 1.

Even though Christie Melby sees it in a way as a negative thing, I don’t necessarily agree. Communicating through email, besides effective, allows me to do other things in between. Communicating with someone through the phone means stopping what I am doing and devoting my entire attention to a conversation that might last more than intended. While I do somewhat agree with the fact that a phone call has an added personable quality I do not think the increased use of email as a preferred communication method is a bad thing.

Technology is a beautiful thing and even though some people do make wrong use of it, it is something we should all embrace. 

 

Two Minute Notice

Everyone in the world has experienced at least one job they hated and couldn’t wait to get out of. I have experienced three of them. The only thing that kept me going on all these jobs was the hope of maybe one day being able to quit and get out of there running.  Now, let’s be realistic here for a second, it wasn’t so much the hope of leaving that kept me alive, it was the desire of one day being able to tell my boss what I really thought about the company and his leadership and leave the place with a fist in the air. Isn’t that a fantasy alive in all of our heads?

Of course I haven’t gotten a chance to do so, mainly because I care about my career enough to not want to burn any bridges. So far not telling my boss off has paid off. I have been at my current job for a year. A year full of joy, learning, excitement, stress, frustration and anger among other. A couple of times I felt like what I needed to do, was tell my boss a couple of my thoughts and fist pump my way out the door. Luckily I didn’t. I am on my second promotion at this place, the boss that made my life miserable is no longer there and I have a team that adores me and fully supports me, and I adore them for that.

Among the very creative ways that I came up with to leave my job, none compare to the one used by Marina Shifrin while leaving her job at Next Media Animation. To make the story short for you, she made a video dancing while quitting her job. Basically she got to live all our fantasies. The video has had 14,478,934 as I am writing this. A “two week notice” gone viral, let’s see if Sandra Bullock can come up with a movie for this.

The video has created mixed feelings from the public towards the company, but they were very open to answering any questions and even wrote a statement regarding the video. In addition to that they came up with their very own version of Marina Shifrin’s video.

If you want to read a full article covering this story follow this link

WARNING: You may get some ideas out of this…

http://prdaily.com/socialmedia/Articles/15325.aspx

As I see her dancing I feel inspired, but I also feel lucky to work where I work and thankful that I didn’t follow my impulses as she did. For me it has clearly paid off. 

Social Whaaa..?

What is social media? If a friend would have asked if I knew what social media, was my response would have been “pfft of course I do!” But when my social media class teacher asked this same question my mind went blank. And there was more, as the class was going on and my teacher was mentioning site after site I kept getting even more lost. Here is to me finding a path through the everyday growing social media discussion.

My first exposure came when I was still in high school, at that time I was introduced to emails and chat rooms. Whoa, did my mind explode at that time. How was it possible that I could be talking to people half way across the world instantly through this small device?

Since then I have been aware of some of the latest trends when it comes to social media. I used a couple of networking sites like msn and Netlog where I was meeting new people from different countries around the globe. What an incredible feeling.

Later on came Facebook and I said “Why not?” I created an account right around the same time I moved here (6 years ago), and at that time I could count in one hand the people that I knew where in this social networking site. Once my friends from back home and the new friends I was making here started creating profiles and interacting with me I was hooked. Checking Facebook became one of the regular activities I would perform on a daily basis. Around two years ago though, when I started going to school and was at the same time working my usage of Facebook declined enormously.

At some point I created a Twitter account, mainly because one of my best friends was talking about how she was following some of our favorite singers and actors. I wanted to know what they were saying too! But after some little time I got really bored with Twitter as my interaction with friends on Twitter was not vast.

To recap, before entering this class I was having close to zero participation on social networks and I hadn’t been utilizing social media to its full advantage as I should have. I never really imagined the actual power social media could have, not only for socializing, but for creating my own personal brand and in the future for my business.

I still have long, long ways to go until I can say I am fully using social media to the fullest. I can start by saying I have re-activated my Twitter account, I am working on cleaning up my Facebook, I created a LinkedIn profile (which I cannot believe I didn’t have before) and I am trying to learn and grasp as much as I can about the subject.

In my search for information about some of the other social media sites I haven’t discovered yet I came across this really helpful article that gave me a quick guide into some of the biggest social media sites: (for beginners only)  http://www.socialquickstarter.com/content/10-where_to_begin_which_networks_matter

Check it out and stay tuned to see how I learn to use social media to the fullest!

La Colombiana! ;)

Hey guys!

Welcome to my blog, please make yourself comfortable. Mi blog es tu blog.

The blogging concept is very new to me. Both publishing and reading them, but I am taking on the challenge with a smile. Why should you read my blog?! fair enough, let me tell you a little bit about moi.

I was born and raised in Cartagena, one of the most beautiful cities in Colombia (and not only because I was born there), trust me. I grew up part of a big loving family with a lot of happy and sad memories. But I will spare you the sad ones, you’re welcome. Went to a private catholic school which I am forever thankful for, and 6 years ago I moved to Orlando with my mom and my brother.

I work in hospitality, well, this IS Orlando. Who doesn’t, right? Currently working at Holiday Inn by Downtown Disney. When I left Colombia I was about to start at the University of Cartagena, but once here it took me 3 years to settle enough to be able to go back to school. I attended Valencia College for 2 and a half years, and currently I am attending UCF full time pursuing a Bachelors in Ad-PR. My goals for after graduation have yet to be established. I want to learn a little bit more about the field before I decide what exactly what I want to do. In the mean time I plan to win the Lotto and become a young millionaire, so stay tuned.

On a more realistic note, I plan to work really hard in school, get a killer internship, ‘WOW’ my employer with my hard work, charming personality and my quick wit and hopefully find a job I can count on when I finish school.

It could be said that I am pretty laid back. I enjoy the simple things like a good movie or TV show, I love reading, going to concerts, eating at a good restaurant and of course the occasional rumba (party). It could also be said I am very nice, except when someone annoys me (just a heads up). My one good and bad attribute is my sarcasm which can be both hilarious and offensive, gosh, got to work on that.

Since no get-to-know-each-other gathering can be complete without seeing some baby pictures I give you one of my childhood pictures. Not so much a baby picture since, God knows where those are, but here I am next to my cousin, I miss her like crazy! I wish I could say I’m the cute one on the right, but in fact I am the skinny and awkward one on the left. 😀

Enough about me. Also, is time for my novela (Corazon Indomable) and today’s episode is killer!

Before I leave here is a treat for those who have never been to south America. A quick tour of one of the most beautiful and full of culture cities in Colombia…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIt_suO8Kok

Till next time!