Weekly Update 6/25/10

Personal Progress: This week has been crazy. I was able to go to Utah this weekend for a job interview. It went very well. I was able to catch-up on some of my interview skills and ask the company some pretty insightful questions. I also was able to go over my resume again, and correct or fix any problems it may have had.
Team Progress: This week I am assigned to look over bigsquirt.com. I will look at how they market, advertise and their pricing. Anything that is useful and or relevant for our comany.

6/19/2010 Weekly Update

Personal Progress: This week I had the opportunity to re-design my resume. I started thinking about my future and the opportunity to be able to work for a design company would be really exciting. However if I was to work for a company who places a lot of emphasis on designing I would need to take it up a notch in my personal designing and make myself look more marketable. So I decided to take my resume and revamp it, make it look more artistic and fun. I had a lot of fun deciding what to do with it, and I thought that I would make a completely new layout and design, and play around with it. Hopefully this week I can make the finishing touches on it because I have a job interview on Friday 6/25!
Team Progress: This week I have been assigned the topic of marketing for A Toy Company; they finally came up with a name. In particular I was asked to look up gorilla marketing. What is it that we can do to get the name and brand out into the market. I have also been researching the different chemicals and issues that a lot of toy companies have with recalls. This will help our client to better know what he is getting himself into, and what we can do to help him market his new toys and make them profitable.

6/12/2010 Weekly Update

Personal Progress: This week I had the opportunity to sit down and learn a couple new skills in designing. I have always been a little interested on how people always look good on the cover of magazines and in the magazines. Their faces look flawless and so I knew it was airbrushing but I thought it was only special computer software that you could buy that helped in the airbrushing technique. But I decided I wanted to learn how to do it for myself and I have the Adobe Creative Suite and just figured why not? So I looked up a tutorial on YouTube about airbrushing, and watched it first to see if it would be at all possible for me to do and I realized that I could do this. I found a picture I really liked and I went through the video tutorial step by step and was able to airbrush a photo. There is still so much more practice I can do to become better at airbrushing, but I have the basic knowledge of how to do it, and someday this could come into handy in my future job, and it is a definite portfolio builder for know.
Team Progress: This week I we are learning the different aspects of the manufacturing side of the toy industry, specifically with our new toy company, and how we are going to manufacture our new toy line. I am responsible for the idea of manufacturing our toys domestically. I am learning on what it will take to manufacture our toys here in the U.S. and the cost and benefits in doing so.

6/5/2010 Weekly Update

Personal Progress: This week I have had th opportunity to research and study out different internship/career opportunities. I am very excited for the chance to finally graduate from college, and to go out into the world to start a career of my own. I was able to research  into an advertising company The Ad Group (T.A.G.) I found a couple of opportunities for employment and applied for the positions. I am also emailing back and forth with a company, Del Sol for a possible internship. I hope that before graduation I have a solid offer for employment.
Team Update: This week I am in charge of researching and looking into how to form and register and LLC. I think this is an excellent opportunity because one day I might might want to create my own company and I will have to know how to register the LLC.

5/29/2010 Weekly Update

Personal Progress: I had the opportunity to research what it takes to get a job in the music industry. A Mr. Howard details his experience of how to find your niche in the "what looks like the exclusive club of the record industry." In the outside world, that not of the music industry there is usually a clear path on how to obtain a job for lets say an accountant, or a hair stylist. These standard paths lead you to you destination. In the music industry it is completely different. It's all about who you know. If you know someone in the music industry you could ask them for help, and talk with them to broaden your network and get to know more people. So if you don't know anyone in the industry what are you to do? First of all don't get discouraged. Just because there is no easy path doesn't mean there isn't a path. Here are some of the things I learned about what to do to increase your chances of getting that dream job in the music industry. You HAVE to do an internship with a music company. There is no way of getting around that. To get an internship think of fun creative ways to express yourself to the company to be able to get hired. During an internship you also have to be dependable, go beyond the call of duty, ask questions (but don't talk too much), be confident but not cocky, energetic, offer suggestions very cautiously and be very humble and always ask what else. Through my research and efforts on how to get a job in the music industry I feel a little more confident and not so timid about what I need to do. This has helped me to progress towards my goal of one day finding a job within the entertainment industry.
Team Update: We had the opportunity to meet again as a team, and go over some of our findings from last week. I was able to research specifically the workings of Mattel and their history. We decided to wait into the research of the manufacturing aspect of the business because we felt that it was more important and end up more beneficial for our team to know a little bit more than what we already knew about the toy industry. I was able to look a little bit into the financials of Mattel, their selection of the different toys and products they offer. All of this gets me so excited about what we are doing as a team to hopefully help Schneider Toys break into the business.

5/22/2010 Weekly Update

Personal Progress: This week I had the opportunity to research what it takes to get a job in a magazine of the entertainment industry. What I did was research and contact a couple human resources departments of some well known magazine companies and asked them their opinion about what it takes to work at a specific magazine. After I spoke to the HR departments I dove into researching online what I should do to prepare myself for a job in the magazine industry if I so desired.
These are some of the things I found to be most important: Getting a job at any magazine is really hard. There are hundreds of thousands of applications and resumes sent to any one magazine a year, and it is very difficult to get an internship with any company.
I was told that researching and planning is the most important thing to do when looking for a job with any magazine. Know who you are dealing with. Magazine companies are looking for people with a strong character, who are hard-working, dedicated, passionate about the magazines services, self-motivated, experience, knowledge or a desire to learn.
I was also able to learn some of the basic important skills or course to take while in college. Some they recommend: programming, designing, creative writing, literature, journalism, humanities, history, politics and business. It is almost a must to have a personal blog and web site outside from the social networking sites.
If you find out that you want to work for a magazine the next step is to get work experience that will benefit you in the long-run. Get a low-end, starting job with a magazine of newspaper, this will help to know who the important key players are in the industry. Start networking and getting to know people, because it is about who you know.

Team Update: This week I was able to do a little more research into what it takes for a small toy company to break into the business. I was able to find a great source detailing some of the important facts about the toy industry, and what  makes some companies more successful than others. I learned that marketing is considered the most important step in the business, because you have to know to whom you are trying to appeal to. So I was able to write-up about 2 pages of notes on what Schneider Toys needs to do at this point to try and break into the business. Next week I will hopefully be able to research the pros and cons into the manufacturing of toys; locally and abroad.

5/15/2010 Weekly Post

Personal Progress: This week I was able to research and discover what it takes to become a Television Executive. There are two types of executives; first there is the "Current Executive" they are in charge of the projects that are currently on air. The current executives work with the writers, produces, directors and cast of the television shows. They kind of serve as the liaison between the network, studio and actual production. The next type of executive is the "Development Executives" these executives are the ones who work on the development of new television material. Whether it be to create a new series, or to work with a specific writer. The development executives are also the ones who fill in all the gaps with the cast, writers, production, they fill out the staff when a show goes from a pilot to an actual series. I found out that the best way to become an executive is to become an assistant first. This will help to have hands on experience meeting with the managers, producers, writers and so forth to be able to understand what goes on to create something great.
Team Progress: I have been placed in the "Schneider Toys Project" group. I am excited to have the opportunity to work with a new and upcoming toy designer and help Schneider Toys enter into the toy manufacturing industry. As for a team we just met for the first time this week and we have our first consultation this Monday. We have been assigned to research the toy industry and get a little insight on the expectations of a start-up toy company.