Prezi: “it’s a PowerPoint on steroids”!

So here is my tip for this week: use Prezi!

Think about in high school, or even now in college/university, when you’re forced to sit through slideshow after slideshow of the same generic themes.

It can be so boring! Well do I have advice for you (said in the most obnoxious advertising voice you may imagine me to have).

Prezi is a “PowerPoint on steroids” as my Ad teachers say. It is interactive and bounces from each point keeping your attention throughout because it isn’t your same-old-generic slideshow.

The best way to describe Prezi is to show you it, so here is the link to my personal brand Prezi for an advertising assignment. Enjoy!

Personal Branding of Sam Sommerfield  (hopefully the link works!)

 

Get out of bed…Check!

Two weeks left. Two weeks left. Wait, seriously only two weeks of school left…

That normally would be awesome right? Try again. It isn’t quite appealing when you have something due everyday next week. Who would have thought I would actually like to freeze time right now and stay in first semester school for a bit longer.

The little kid in me has had a heart attack.

The stress is mounting and thinking about it makes me fear I am getting an ulcer. I just want more time.

So my tip for this week, to deal with that stress, is to make a checklist.

At first figuring out what all is due makes you want to revert into the dark and hide, or play I-can’t-see-you with it like you do with your baby cousins. The problem with that is it isn’t planning on going away till you confront the list and start chipping away.

I did this throughout my time at UofW and it always helped. I could plan my time efficiently and my stress was minimal. However, in CreComm that routine was thrown out the window.

It is a little different, I can’t really make checklists here cause things get thrown at you last minute it seems. But now that there is two weeks left, and there aren’t that many surprises left around the corner.

There are different ways to do it but I like to do it chronologically. (Seems the most efficient and logical to me).

There isn’t anything really to explain about checklists just that they work and keep you on track.

One of my favourite tips about them though is to put something on your checklist that you have already accomplished. Whether it be a small assignment or getting up that day, with two weeks left it is nice to cross things off that ever long to-do list.

It’s not a tip; It’s a perk!

CreComm opens your eyes. Plain and simple but I’ll elaborate to make this post more interesting.

Woven throughout all of the assignments and projects you are doing are amazing actual lessons. Who would have thought, eh!

There are many examples with all the classes, but for timeliness I am going to focus on the assignment all first year CreCommers handed in today: the Remembrance Day article.

Whatever school you went to as a child you probably had an assembly around this time to honour soldiers who have fought in war conflicts.

Maybe you spent the assembly sitting there fidgeting with your clothes, maybe you made the poppy into red lips, or maybe, for us tall people, you were too focused on trying to find a way to sit and not block the view of others. It was a free hour or two off of school for you, but for the people speaking during the assembly it was an afternoon to share their stories.

I always paid attention to these stories when I was little but for some reason this year it really sunk in as I interviewed my Nana to hear her view point of war.

Her father fought in the First World War, and her two brothers fought the Second World War. They all survived their tours and came home to Theodore, but I was curious on how the war effected her and her mother.

Interviewing her seemed like a scene from a movie.

– She told me about the cigarette case that stopped a piece of shrapnel from harming my Great Grand-dad, and how it probably saved her father’s life during the fight in Passchendaele. (I would like to thank this cigarette case cause without it I may not be here. As an anti-smoker it’s kinda weird thanking my Great Grand-dad for smoking).

– She told me how much she cried during a town dance when her brothers left for war.

– She gave me four songs that her and everyone in town would sing to the young boys as they headed off for war at the train station. She told me that these songs still give her goosebumps and makes her tear up when she listens to them.

– She told me about the ways her, her sister, and her town helped out and thanked the young boys who sacrificed so much. (She would sew parcels made of hardened flour and sugar bags at least once a month to send to them. Parcels so tough it took two people to sew one bag together, one to thread the needle and one to pull the twine through).

– And this is what she told me when they heard the war was over, “When we got the news that the war was over, a parade started immediately around our little town. Everyone came out of their homes and we banged wash tubs with sticks or wooden spoons. Some played their trumpets or other horns and we had an impromptu parade around the town. Something I’ll never forget.”

Now I know this is a crazy long blog post and I love you a little bit more if you read it all, but what I wanted to get across with this is the fact that CreComm doesn’t always need tips cause it has perks.

—-> You get a glimpse into peoples lives in Journalism, and get to hear some wicked opinions or some powerful stories.

—-> You get a massive amount of knowledge in PR, and start to understand why things go about the way they do in society.

—-> You get to be crazy creative in Ad, Creative Writing, and Electronic Publishing and make some wicked commercials, stories, and designs to blow off steam.

—-> Lastly, in Media Production, you get insight on the workings of an area many listen to and watch but few completely understand the hard work put behind it. (This kinda overarches among all the classes).

Again, long post I know, but BLEEP-ya CreComm!!!

The Franken-assignment

This tip is one I didn’t think of until my fellow CreCommers, Alex Wenger and Sara Shyiak (Shyiak like Kayak), put on a presentation for one of our classes.

In that presentation they said keep your original copy of your work and when you start editing it do so on a new document.

Sara went on to say that it is beneficial because when you are done editing you can look and compare between the two. Then you can ask yourself, “Is my new copy really better than my original?”

Light-bulb moment! Why didn’t I do this before?!

You now have something to base your new work off of to make this decision comfortably.

I have started doing this now, and will continue to do so, because sometimes your original is better than your revised copy. Sometimes your revised copy is better than your original. Then sometimes you can create a Franken-assignment between the two. That Franken-assignment may just be A+ material (no guarantees though).

Never underestimate the power 6 degrees.

If you don’t believe that there is 6 degrees of separation in Winnipeg look at your Facebook page. Some of you may have 500+ friends on it. Now if you look at it closely do you know each one of their middle names, maybe, but the majority of you probably will say you don’t.

What I didn’t really take into consideration before this program is the power of those 500+ friends and the people around me. They are all a part of a massive web of connections that could aid you when you are in a pickle.

A quick status update and your answer will most likely be answered by one of those 500 friends. If they don’t have the answer you are looking for start looking to the people around you. Most likely someone will be able to help you out in some manner, even if it is a friend of a friend who’s brother worked with Bob, and Bob just so happens to have your answer. It really helps when you are in need of an interview or a source for something.

Keep your connections alive though and keep those relationships going, preferably not just for selfish reasons, because knowing someone could not only benefit you it would help one of your classmates. Also karma may get on your side and that classmate could help you in the future.

The bottomline here is that relationship building is a huge part of this program and of life. Being a social butterfly is a good thing because people know people, and talk spreads quickly. If they like you and you have been there for them, or vis versa, you are closer to having your foot in the door than most.