My CDE Experience

Working on a single project with a single focus can be intense sometimes. The sole goal is for me right now is to create and deliver (4) amazing webinars on the subject of QR codes, how they might be making a comeback and bridge the gap between online and offline in 2019 and beyond. With that goal, I've studied and researched for hours and hours on the topic of QR codes. I know a lot about QR codes, maybe too much. This webinar preparation reminds me of my early days as a budding musician. I'd be excited to learn a new song and I would play a recording of that song on a loop to listen to over and over. Each time I listened to that song and studied it, it became a little less exciting and a little less fun. Around the time you have that new tune rehearsed well enough to perform in front of an audience, a paying audience, you kind of hate it. All that time and effort, practice and study, but if I had to listen to that song one more time... Here's the trick though, I'd p...

I had the opportunity to take on another company in my internship this summer. Yesterday I officially met Nicol at TechStak and it was great! Nicol describes TechStak as the Angie's List of tech providers. They certify tech providers to ensure a certain standard of quality and competence and on a job seeker side, they verify the qualifications and skills of the applicants. My task this summer, will be to become a specialist in  Drift  Conversational Marketing (play with the chat in the lower right corner, you think it's a person, but it's NOT, well... most likely not). We are using the Chat-Bot functionality to aid in on-boarding new clients, from both sides and ease the burden of human staff by automating and filtering with Drift. Drift's design software makes it pretty intuitive and there are plenty of easy to understand videos to get you started. Now that I've got my Drift pitch out of the way, it's on to mapping out and creating some workflows. Imagine w...

Crushed it again on QR research, man do I know a lot about QR codes now! My day at Spark- East was split down the middle today. As you may have guessed, I worked on my slideshow for my webinar. I I researched proven and concrete examples to share with my potential viewers, focusing on actionable strategies they can implement themselves. Included is a sample of these new, revamped QR codes. The second half of my day was spent on an exciting new project. Gavin came up with the idea of creating a small booklet on the ease and benefits of using QR codes for local businesses. We brainstormed the basic strategy and then located a Booklet Template online and started creating a really rough draft. Soon after we set out to find pricing from area printers. Within a short time we had fleshed out the booklet idea into a full-fledged project, which we can totally incorporate into my webinar series. Teamwork makes the dream work!

Today started out with my focus on building off my previous scaffolding with the Takeaway Video and fleshing it out into a full-blown, researched, in-depth webinar on the benefits of QR codes in today's digital landscape. What better way to generate content than a classic phone interview with some experts. After outlining my interview questions, I found a quiet space in a corner of Spark-East and prepped for my first call. It's called coincidence for a reason, as I set up to start my phone interview, my interviewee Tina, called me first! I'd left a message with her the day before, but never expected to hear from her so soon. I started the conversation, excited to talk all about the benefits of QR codes in today's digital marketing. Within the first 3 questions, I got the impression that Tina wasn't as impressed with QR as I was led to believe. So when I asked, "do you use QR codes yourself currently or with your clients?" Tina quickly said, "No, no ...

At Spark East for another great session with Gavin and ShopWindow. Today started off a bit different, we were locked out of the building! Through no one's fault, circumstances led to our second session being held at the cafe next door. Good music, good food and an understanding staff made it a fine substitute for a Spark workspace. To start this session, we recapped our individual progress in our assigned Shop Window courses. I'm becoming more and more familiar with the usage of their technology. Gavin has given me access to virtual replica of ShopWindow, to learn, create and explore in. Once I have sufficient experience, I'm going to create a series of Webinars introducing new customers to the benefits of ShopWindow and helping current clients with any issues they may be experiencing. In addition, I've been tasked with contacting Template Designers, to start the process of integrating templates into the ShopWindow webpage builder tool. After Nate took us through so...

Hello and welcome to the blog of my Center for Digital Engagement through, Ann Arbor Spark and Eastern Michigan University, internship. I'll come up with a different name for all that in future posts, shorter, definitely shorter. Day 1: I was assigned to ShopWindow.io along with my partner, Nate. We had our first meeting at Spark East, out in Ypsilanti. Prior to Day 1, I'd met Gavin, CEO of ShopWindow, at TechWalk a week before and it was a great. I was able to introduce myself and get to know what ShopWindow was all about. This was my first time meeting Nate, he was great! We gathered around a conference table and started talks about what type of project we wanted to take on, as part of our internship. After discussing our interests and desires, we settled in and started plotting out our specific plans to accomplish these projects. I was enrolled in the companies various on-line courses, to understand the workings of Shop Window inside and out. Then we had a chanc...