Videos

Do You Remember the Harlem Shake?

In 2013, I lost two days of my life when I discovered the Harlem Shake. The original concept was quite simple: There's a 30 second excerpt of a song, and these four costumed weirdos danced to it. The video went viral, and the people of the internet lost their collective minds.

The Original Harlem Shake Video - not exactly the most thrilling

Thousands of other versions of this 'dance video' were quickly uploaded, and I (like so many others) became addicted to watching them! The public really ran with the idea and very much made it their own. 

Even the US Army got on board!

To save you some time (because I know you have now been convinced to search for and consume way too many of these, just like I did!), here is a compilation of the 'best of' Harlem Shake videos:

C'mon - you know you want to make one of these!

Reflections

My Experience with Dr. Brewer's Social Media Marketing Course

I needed another elective for my marketing major, and Social Media Marketing was appealing to me not only because it was being instructed by Dr. Brewer or that it was offered online (I am taking a full load of classes this semester for the first time while also working full-time - so an online option was a big plus!), but also because of the content of the course. If I am considering pursuing a career in marketing in 2018 and beyond, I felt it was a good idea to take a course in Social Media.

One of the more relevant things I learned is how the different SMM tools work. I am actually quite interested in obtaining the Hootsuite certification so I may place it on my resume, and I think it was a great idea to include the certification as a component of this course. I also enjoyed learning about ideal days and times to post across various platforms. I have been paying closer attention and considering the days and times I post, in hopes of strategically increasing engagement. I have also been thinking more in terms of marketing my 'personal brand' when posting on SM by going back through my Facebook feed and reflecting on the types of articles, memes, etc. I have posted.

Overall, I have enjoyed this course. The workload and deadlines were reasonable, and the textbook was a fascinating read. I purchased the modified version of the book before I learned that the full version either cost the same or was quite similarly priced. I would have gladly purchased the full version and kept the text as a reference. I still plan to hold onto the modified text, especially as I begin exploring this potential new chapter in my career.

The only area in which I would recommend altering the course, is by considering making the blog post requirements more structured instead of allowing us to post anything we desire. Don't get me wrong - I have enjoyed being unleashed so I can say I *must* blog because it is a course assignment. I miss having the time I used to be able to dedicate to my personal blog. But here's the thing: I am almost 35, and I would categorize the blog assignments as quite 'easy'. If I am able to easily handle this, I feel confident that most students could handle posting something more challenging. Since we do not have a course project, a more challenging blog assignment should be manageable.

Also, while I enjoyed the convenience of an online version of this class, I missed Dr. Brewer's lectures this semester. This is my third course with Dr. Brewer, and I would like to request that future classes (with students who have possibly not had the chance to experience her lectures) get to view them for SMM, even if the course is online. I would consider creating videos of her lectures and letting the summary slides supplement the lecture, much how Dr. Brewer does with her classroom-style courses. Those are my only recommendations.

And of course I would recommend this course to a friend (and I already have!). The course is fascinating and there's great information contained within the text, regardless of whether you're a marketing major or not. Nearly everyone participates on social media, and there are things to be learned about marketing your personal brand as much as managing a company's brand. It is a meaningful and worthwhile elective, and I am glad it was available to me.

Photos

Can You Be Happy for 100 Days?

Three years ago I completed the #100HappyDays challenge for the first time. The rules are simple - select a social media platform, and post a photo of something that makes you happy for 100 consecutive days. It's that simple! It could be a photo of an especially spectacular cup of coffee you're enjoying, an outing with your best friend, a new pair of fabulous shoes you ordered that arrived, some beautiful flowers that are growing in your garden - anything that brought you happiness that day. I started the challenge for the first time at the beginning of January 2014. Upon completing the challenge, I wrote about it on MY REAL BLOG to share what I learned going through this exercise in happiness.

I enjoyed the challenge so much that I opted to go through it a second time, except this time I began in September 2015, a year and a half later. It was fun to catalog 100 days of happiness through my favorite season, autumn. Here is a photo montage of some of the photos from that exercise:

Visitors from out of state and country, and the triumphant return of Bluebell Ice Cream,

were definite highlights from my second round of the #100HappyDays challenge

Focusing on a moment of happiness each day can alter your frame of thinking to seek out that which makes you happy. As I mention in my blog post (linked above), I learned that, while not every aspect of every day will necessarily be happy, I could always identify something each day that brought me happiness - even if it were something quite simple. 

Knowing that this semester would be perhaps my most challenging yet - taking a full-load of courses while working full-time - I opted to go through the exercise for a third time. Some days it has felt like one more thing I have to remember to do, when I already [often] feel overwhelmed by the amount of what is expected of me to accomplish; however, it has served a beautiful purpose in forcing me to pause for a moment each day this semester to remember something that brought me happiness. An additional benefit of doing the challenge this third time is that it has served as sort of a countdown towards the end of this semester. My 100th day will be this upcoming Monday, May 1st. At this point, I fully intend to do the challenge a fourth time, likely a year from now, when my husband and I go on our trip to Europe.

http://100happydays.com/

Microblogging

Entry 1: Picture tweet
I can't believe we adopted Vinnie from the shelter 8 years ago today! Where has the time gone!? This is from the day we got him!

 

Entry 2:Mission Accomplished tweet
It's 9pm on a Friday, but my Marketing Research team and I just finished the development of our project survey! Now I can begin the weekend!



Entry 3: Opinion tweet
Funny: Trump naysays unemployment reports during Obama presidency, but he Tweeted to boast about the first BLS report of his presidency...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/03/upshot/trump-said-unemployment-rate-wasnt-real-here-are-some-other-options.html

Introductions

I am Julie Lively, a senior at UTA, dual majoring in Management and Marketing, and I am expected to graduate this December. My reason for enrolling in Social Media Marketing is three-fold (and in no particular order):

1. I needed another Marketing elective
2. Social Media Marketing was available online
3. I am a fan of Dr. Lauren Brewer

Before the semester began, I was hopeful to learn more about marketing through the use of social media in general. I know firms utilize various social media platforms to get their message out there for brand awareness, but I did not yet know that their presence is more about relationship building than it is about advertising. I have also been pleased to learn more about ideal days and times to post for optimal engagement on various platforms. I, myself, do not have a business to market, but I help manage my husband's personal brand as a freelance cartoonist and humor writer - so everything I am learning is relevant.

I have worked for The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center for close to nine years, and I changed jobs eight months ago. I am now the Division Administrator for Pediatric Emergency Medicine. What does this mean? It means I oversee our academic office operations, which includes administration, education, and research - and I manage all non-physicians in the division. I have four staff who report directly to me, and three staff who report to one of my direct reports. Together, we collectively provide comprehensive support to our 26 physicians who staff the Children's Emergency Rooms in Dallas and Plano. Since this is an academic medical center, our physicians are also scientists, educators, and authors.

 

Day to day, my job consists of coaching the staff so they provide the best support possible. I manage the division's finances, track and interpret performance metrics of our faculty physicians (patient volume, billing, collections, quality metrics, patient satisfaction, etc.), oversee the hiring and promotion processes of our physicians and staff, monitor our complicated shift schedule (ERs are staffed with docs 24/7/365, so the schedule is like a Rubic's cube) for both ER locations, and generally try to keep the physicians and staff out of trouble. I am tired at the end of the day, which does not always end at 5 p.m.

 

Our Division Chief is in his late 60s and wishes to step down from his leadership position, which means our division is in a period of transition. I do not know who my boss will be six months to a year from now - and I am still relatively new. There are staff in the office who have worked for him for 5+ years, so I feel my role right now is to continually strengthen and unify our team, and to help manage the big changes to come. Once I have successfully helped onboard our new Division Chief (whoever it ends up being, and whenever s/he finally arrives) and gotten the office settled, I will feel my purpose here has been fulfilled. If an amazing opportunity comes along before then, of course I will have to consider it, but otherwise I plan to stick around until I feel I can leave the division in a good place.

 

Beyond that, I still do not know what I want to do post-graduation. Career-wise, I imagine I will continue working in the healthcare industry, but I am not necessarily determined to spend my entire career in the field. Going back to school has helped me see a much bigger world beyond the university, and it is exciting to think about exploring my options and anticipating the potential for starting something completely fresh.

 

After graduating in December, I plan to take most of 2018 off from school to enjoy myself and decompress/feel like a human again/contemplate the future. I would like to get another puppy, which I have wanted to do for a couple of years but haven't had the time to dedicate to training it because of school. Next summer, my husband and I are planning our first trip to Europe! Some of our best friends live overseas - one couple lives in Sweden, and another lives in the Netherlands. I would love to spend several days in each of their towns, exploring and living the way they do - visiting their routine grocery store, walking their streets, dining in their favorite restaurants, hanging out in their favorite bars and things like that. We plan to align our trip with their plans to go on holiday, so we have an ambitious agenda which includes: Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, and possibly the Czech Republic and Poland, if we have time while there. Of course, I would love to see the more western countries, too - England, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Scotland, Spain, etc., but I believe those will have to be their own trip in the future.

 

I plan to begin graduate school in the fall of 2018, but I am still up in the air about which degree to pursue, which school to attend, if I have the mental strength (and enough of my sanity still intact) to handle another round of school, etc. I am pleased with getting an undergrad degree in business, especially in Management and Marketing, as these are broad enough to plug into many different fields; however, I would like to get more specific with the graduate degree. My problem is that I am curious about, and interested in, everything. I also am unsure about what I would like to do long-term. I know I would like to work with and help people, although I am unsure of in what capacity. I am hopeful that my education and studies, contacts, and experiences will help direct my sail on the path that is intended for me.

My Personal Brand

I am a 34-year old college student. I went to College: Part One when I was the traditional college age, and since I knew everything there was to know in life (except what I wanted to do for a career), I quit going to school just two courses shy of my Associates Degree. Brilliant. Nearly four years ago I came to the realization that I was topped out. I have the potential to make a great career with my current employer, but finishing school had to become a priority before the door to future professional growth would open. Working at an academic medical institution really can light a fire under your tush - it feels as though everyone has credentials behind their names.

I returned to my original college to take care of those last two courses to finally complete my Associates Degree. For me, it was important to finish what I had started there, and then I was ready to pursue my Bachelor's degree. In College: Part One, I was on a path to the nursing program. I would probably be making a great salary by now (half my life later), and who knows, I could have very well ended up loving that career path - but the person I am today has no desire to be a nurse. With my work and life experience leading up to going back to school, I decided that business is where I would like to focus. And after working at a medical institution for nearly nine years, I find the business of healthcare to be quite fascinating.

Enrolling at a university as an adult was intimidating, likely as it would have been at the traditional college age, except I didn't have my parents there to help me get settled in. You can build an entire story in your mind about how things will be - how you will be perceived, stress about whether your performance will be what you want it to be, stress about whether you will be able to figure out where you need to go, etc. And don't get me started about the stress of getting back into the "student" mindset again. The good news is that everyone was quite helpful on campus and pointed me in the right direction.

I selected Management for my major, signed up for my first two courses at UTA, and so began College: Part Two. My first semester was not fun - I took a Business Calculus course (reeeeeeeally should have done that one at a Community College, btw), and the instructor was a disgruntled PhD candidate who clearly did not want to be there. He would yell at us (yes, yell at us, adults!), threaten us with extra difficult problems on exams, and humiliate us if we asked questions in class. It was a nightmare, but thank goodness that has not at all been my experience beyond the first semester. My second semester was infinitely better than my first, and my third was even better than my second.

My weekends are quite different from how they used to be - I try to mix things

up by studying at coffee shops for a change of scenery from time to time

I signed up for Principles of Marketing because it was a required course, but I will admit that I was excited about it. Several of my friends are marketers, and while they all do different types of things within various areas of the field, one common element is that they are all happy with their career choice. Principles of Marketing went so well that I decided to enroll in a second marketing course the very next semester, Retail Marketing.

Out on an observation excursion for my Retail Marketing project in Spring 2016

I learned that I could earn my Business Administration degree with dual majors, and there would be no additional hours required. I would just need to declare that I am pursuing a dual major, and my degree plan would be refreshed with a more focused list of course requirements. I placed myself on the Management and Marketing dual major plan, and I am glad I did. Since then I completed Consumer Behavior, which is something I could see myself diving into even deeper - the psychology of marketing - love it. And now I am half-way through the spring semester with Marketing Research and Social Media Marketing. The giant nerd in me is especially enjoying the Marketing Research course because we are going through a semester-long research project as we learn about the marketing research process itself. Everything I have learned from my various marketing courses directly feeds into the research course, and it satisfies my general interest in digging deeper for further understanding. Working around physician-scientists, I am immersed in a culture of the constant quest for new knowledge and problem solving through research.

Three years at UTA have completely flown by. I started out lacking 22 courses for my undergraduate degree, and now I only lack 5. It took nearly no time to learn my way around, and I even found TWO Starbucks locations on campus! It turns out I am not the oldest student here - in fact, since I take evening courses, I would estimate I am the median age. I feel it enriches the learning experience even more, having 20 year olds and 60 year olds in the same classroom. The conversations are richer, and we all learn from each other's unique paths and diverse experiences in class discussions. The coursework, while challenging at times, turned out to not be too difficult overall, and my biggest hurdle has been time management and developing the self-discipline to stay home and study when my real desire was to be out socializing. Speaking of socializing, I have met several new friends in my classmates, and I even have budding friendships with faculty!

To make light of parents who post a pic of their kid on the first day of school, I have
posted a photo of myself (wearing the same outfit, no less) on the first day of school
each of my four 'first days' back in College: Part Two - I can tell I have aged!

I plan to take two courses over the summer, then I should have a manageable final semester of three courses this fall. And I was able to accomplish this while simultaneously continuing to grow my career. When asked about my experience of going back to school, the one word that consistently comes up is 'meaningful'. Most people complete their college education immediately after high school. I may have taken the scenic route, but I found my way back.

I would love nothing more than to do this across the stage at graduation