Weekly Connection: Last Chance for Crystal Awards Tickets; Building Your Brand on LinkedIn
MarketingProfs.com: Powerful Business Lessons from Four Classic Marvel Superheroes [Infodoodle] I, too, was inspired by the recent premiere of The Avengers movie. I’m just glad this blogger draws better than I do! Check it out!
TopRankBlog.com: It’s Like Deja Vu All Over Again: 4 Tips for Improving Marketing Many organizations have faced and continue to deal with “marketing deja vu” or ending up in the same situations over and over again. What can you do to avoid making the same marketing mistakes more than once?
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Weekly Connection: Crystal Awards Tickets; Mobile Site or App?; Google+ Hangouts
FastCompany.com: 3 Ways to Work Smarter Using Google+ Hangouts Here are a few ways Google+ hangouts can be used to grow and enhance your business.
MarketingVox.com: Google: Why a Mobile Site Over an App? Aren’t apps the step-change evolution over mobile sites? Not necessarily, advises Google’s app expert Tuyen Nguyen, who offers some questions to consider.
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Why Community Colleges are Important
The speaker at AMA’s May Luncheon is with Lone Star College, a local community college here in Houston. Laura Morris will be speaking to the re-branding of the her entity which was previously known as North Harris Montgomery Community College District. Re-branding was important to their future success; and more importantly reflects a need for our entire country to re-brand community colleges. We have become a country overly focused on four-year degree programs especially in Liberal Arts tracts.
As a whole, we need to recognize that skills based training for specific trades is critically important for our future growth. In fact, the obsession with four year degree programs is fueling a Student Loan Debt “bubble”. If you haven’t been following the Student Loan Debt discussions, there is an excellent summary in this article from BusinessWeek.
An excerpt: Roughly 36 million Americans have attended college without earning a degree, says Anthony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. The median lifetime earnings of someone who gets a bachelor’s degree today will be about $2.3 million, while those with some college but no degree will earn $1.5 million, the center reports. Those with only a high school diploma will make $1.3 million—but likely won’t have student debt. “The worst case is if you go into a low-earning field, don’t graduate, and accumulate debt,” Carnevale says. “In the end, what you get is the debt and no real increase in earning power.”
The point of this: Come hear Laura speak next Wednesday (May 9th); understand the vital role that community colleges play in moving young people into the workforce; and consider that not every teenager is destined for a four year program and the accompanying student loan debt burden.
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Congratulations to our April Board Members and Volunteer Member of the Month
Board Members of the Month: Marketer of the Year would not have been as successful without two key board members, Matt Ross, Ventures Marketing Group and Susannah Griffin. As chairs for this year’s MOTY event, they worked to elevate the program to greater heights. Thank you for your commitment year-after-year. Please congratulate Matt and Susannah, our April Board Members of the Month.
Volunteer of the Month: Join us as we recognize Marketer of the Year’s sponsorship chair, and our April Volunteer of the month, Bill Krull, Atlantic Communications. Bill sourced nearly $14,000 in cash sponsorships and coordinated sponsor activities the night of MOTY. He’s been managing this aspect for five years. We are lucky and thankful to have him. Congratulations Bill.
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May Member Spotlight – Angela Randall
Where do you work, and what does you company or organization do?
I work at Normal Modes, a user experience and usability company. We conduct usability testing on enterprise websites and applications, as well as training in user experience, usability testing and customer experience. Recently we rolled out a beta version of our first software-as-a-service product. Brainiac is a learning content management system (LCMS) that allows organizations to market, deliver and manage online continuing education with a self-service platform. Brainiac’s been a labor of love, and we’ve had a blast working with early adopters and putting just about every aspect of our experience to use on our own product.
Briefly describe your job.
As the founder of the company, I wear a lot of hats! On the usability testing side I meet with clients to figure out how we test problems, develop a test plan (called the moderator’s guide), conduct testing with users, and write reports. Unlike focus groups, usability testing is one-on-one with a highly structured script taking the user through a prescribed series of tasks to be completed. There’s a lot of rigor that goes into testing, and part of my job is ensuring we meet and exceed standards for excellence. I’m also an instructor in our training workshops and write a newsletter called “UX Tips” that offers lessons from the trenches for free. It’s published about twice a month, and I spend a lot of time putting together content that’ll add value. Of course, I couldn’t do it all without my fabulous team. I love them like they’re my family (some of them even are!)
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Weekly Connection: Crystal Awards Finalists; New CMO Series Announced; Create Stunning iPad Apps
TopRankBlog.com: 4 Tips for Becoming a Better Influencer Why should you want to be an influencer? There are many benefits to being an influential member of a team including flexibility, trust, decision making power, and proof of ability just to mention a few.
Mashable.com: 5 Ways to Create Stunning iPad Apps The iPad has been on the market for two years now. With a second milestone of 200,000 iPad applications on the App Store nearing, there’s no better time than now to reassess how to approach the user experience of iPad applications.
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