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...

It took most of my day, but I finally made it to Spark Central to work on my ShopWindow Webinar. Aside from participating in two internships this summer, I also run two additional side businesses. Gotta have a Side-Hustle and mine is fixing/ repairing fitness equipment at a couple of local Cross-Fit Gyms. Trouble starts when all of those schedules collide, causing priority shifts and unintended overlapping of time. I'm still working on these Webinars for ShopWindow and the Re-Birth of QR Codes. Having broken them down from one, massive presentation into 4 targeted and smaller webinars was tricky. What I had created originally was like a musical album to me. I made a bunch of 'songs' that I wanted to be played in that order. Like listening to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, in order is so much more engaging and encompassing. To break up the 'songs', they're still good, but not as impactful(IMHO). To split up the Webinar into parts, I had to group all ...

Like King Henry said, "Once more unto the breach dear friends, once more..." The King was trying to rally his troops and again attempt to break through the tiniest weakness in a wall or if they fail, clog that hole with their dead bodies. Why do I bring this up? Just when I thought I was hitting my groove, getting all my tasks managed, it turns out that I was on the wrong track. If you've read my blog before now, you know I've been working with TechStak to develop Chatbots to help conversion of website visitors and I made one. I made the wrong style Bot! All my logic flows and choose your own adventure design was made to be a landing page. A landing page is a specially crafted webpage with the sole purpose of capturing a visitors e-mail, name, contact info, ect. I was suppose to be designing a "Pop-Up" Chatbot, something that lives in the corner of a webpage and pops-up when you need help. Basically, I have to create a brand new Chatbot, in the pop-up styl...

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...