Responses to Guest Speakers

During my introduction to professional writing class, we listened to a few guest speakers who specialized in various areas of social media, publicity, and brand guiding. Below are introductions to each speaker and my initial reactions to their thoughts, experiences, and opinions.

-Reginald Ponder is a advertising and marketing professional who is currently focused on his career as a movie critic. Questions I asked him include:


What marketing techniques do you use specifically for the internet that you don't use in print work?

How does your marketing and advertising experience benefit your movie critic career?

What are some helpful hints for giving a successful sales presentation?

How does your degree in sociology give you an edge over other marketing executives?
What makes a film great?

Ponder did not have the time to answer all of my questions, however he did stress the benefits of understanding sociology when working in the advertising business. Sociology involves studying people's behaviors in specific community, which plays a roll in advertising to target audiences and brand guiding. Ponder also touched on the idea that understanding society and people allows him to critic the messages movies are sending about social justice and media in society.

-Lena West is a social media strategist who helps individuals and company to use social media, such as blogs, twitter, and facebook, to brand themselves and gain clientele

I found Lena to be the most interesting speaker thus far! As a speaker, Lena markets herself as a confident, powerful female executive who has the edge over big businesses in her overt compassion for the industry and dedication to her clients. She really inspired me to learn more about the popular social networks: whether or not I personally use them, I can better market myself in the industry if I am familiar with the technical processes and client markets behind these tools. Lena helped me to realize the many factors involved in freelance, including taxes and accounting. Most importantly, I really got a sense of how important it is to strive to become a leader in your field, both by going above and beyond expectations as well as surrounding yourself with the most qualified and dedicated experts in the market.

-Liz Henry is a writer, blogger, literary translator, and technology usability instructor. Liz writes about technology, feminism, disabilities, and the importance of blogging as a form of communication.
What interested me most involves Liz's struggles with copyright laws and translation. Henry convinced me to take the time to review copyright laws and focus on the laws that will appeal most to me as a writer and as a blogger. It is also important to understand the difficulties that occur when attempting to translate a work: who has the rights to this work? what country's copyright laws protect the work? How will it be distributed? What is the purpose for translation?
This concept also applies to the push for a free software movement, aiming to allow user's to access and modify various computer programs. This is ultimately a battle for control over the technology that is steadily consuming our lives. We are now entirely dependent on technology to run our schools, business, and forms of communication.

-Randall Rothenberg is the President and CEO of the interactive Advertising Bureau, also known as the iab. The IAB consists of more than 375 media and technology companies who compromise 86% of online advertisements in our country. These members have collective goals, which the hope to achieve through the use of such an union. IAB researches and recommends standards for interactive advertisement after completing research in the field. Rothenberg's experience with the rise of technology, liberal education, and writing for the New York Times makes him a unique individual capable of running such an agency. The IAB has six core objectives, the most prominent being an attempt to stop adverse legislation and regulation from the government. Rothenberg, like Liz Henry, believes that new laws are needed to govern rapidly growing technologies, but these laws should help, rather than hinder, these growing fields.

-Anaezl Modu is the founder of ReBrand™, a website with examples and studies of techniques for effective brand transformations. Anazi has an interesting background as an architecture and design graduate from Princeton and Harvard. Her company hopes to expose great ideas from small companies that lack the resources to adequately publicize their brilliance. She really emphasized how amazing it is than in twenty years, we have grown from computers the size of large rooms to computers that can fit in the palm of a hand! Everyone has the ability to run an entire company from one computer screen. This involves creatively, planning, marketing strategies, and perseverance. In order to succeed in this current business world, one needs to have at least a basic understanding of technology and a strong understanding of how to market oneself as a leader. Modu inspired me to really focus on the word choices used in my resume: words are very powerful and should be marked by action and individuality.

i enjoyed all of these speakers. While they each have a unique career and position about social media, all of these influences agree that in order to succeed, one must use technology to brand oneself as a capable leader