This blog explores how courses in St. Edward's University's dMBA program relate traditional business principles to the context of digital media. Check back often, and journey with me as I face the ups and downs, and the intensity of this unique MBA program at the intersection of media, business and technology.
Meet my friend, Parker Westbrook. Parker's a bad-ass... but don't take my word for it, she's just been named Krav MagaInstructor of the Year at Fit & Fearless.
Now, I'm not a "Digital Native" either, and I'm certainly not a natural-born "techie" so I completely understand the feelings of overwhelm with technology for those of us who haven't grown up on the Internet. But understanding that digital tools and platforms are critical to the new realities of our world, I've gone out of my way to embrace them. This has left me in an exciting role of being a bridge between the 2 worldviews (that of Millenials and Non-Millenials) and I absolutely love it! In being a "digital bridge" I relish being the calm voice, teaching and encouraging non-Digital Natives to harness social media for their own purposes.
Back to Parker. She's got the training side of things down cold, but she's more than just about teaching people to kick and punch. Parker is driven to empower people to take responsibility for their own personal safety and well-being. Moved by her mission, and since she can't teach 24 hours a day, I began pestering her to broaden her digital footprint to reach a wider audience.
To that end, for the last several months I've worked with Parker to develop her online presence. Together, we've developed an overarching strategy to communicate her message and I've trained her in using various online tools. For me, the most compelling tool she's using is podcasting. This idea was born out of Parker's unrelenting quest for knowledge exhibited by her habit of interviewing "people on the front lines of what’s happening in the world of combat sports, self-defense, and psychology". When I learned about these interviews, drawing on my background in documentary filmmaking, it was a no-brainer to suggest she begin recording these interviews to share with her audience so they could hear first-hand lessons from assault survivors as well as leading experts in their field. The results are inspiring podcasts published on her website. As a part of her digital repertoire, the podcasts not only set her apart, but serve to educate a wider audience.
Working with a tee-tiny budget, Parker's digital footprint is all DIY. Because of Parker's initial resistance to technology, one of the most rewarding parts of working with her has been encouraging and supporting her to embrace the tools to create and sustain her digital footprint. When we first started working together she was skeptical about creating and maintaining her own website, etc, but its been fun for me to increase her digital confidence and prove to her that she can do it!
In addition to working with Parker on the digital platforms themselves, its has also been exciting to apply the business principles that we've been learning in the dMBA program - especially the areas of Marketing & Branding. In fact, working with Parker has been a rewarding opportunity to put the Digital in Digital MBA!
Besides the content however, the how of getting things done is quite different this year. Laying that foundation last year required a lot of independent reading, writing papers and doing homework ensuring that we individually understand the core business principles. This year though, working in teams to get our projects done wasn't just assigned, it was critical to our success. From my fabulous teammates in New Venture Creation, to my awesome partner Tish in Digital Law and my tireless collaborators in Branding and Promotion, I've loved working in groups this term as the dynamic simulates what its like to be out in the working world again... working with different personalities & experience levels, negotiating compromises, balancing strengths and encouraging each other when things get tough... There were a lot of moving parts to manage but doing so made all the difference to our success. Aside from our assigned teams however, studying for Law... sheesh - I don't know how I would have digested all that content if it wasn't for my study buddies. To give you an idea of all the cases we had to master in a short seven weeks, here they are, shown w/ Basia's head for scale.
Anyhoo - its time for a break over the holidays before we come back in the Spring to wrap this thing up.
Until then, dMBA'ers congrats on a tough but valuable semester. Go ahead and strut... we've earned it.
The dust has settled and yesterday's euphoria has faded. Yep, we had a successful pitch yesterday - our team has even been approached by multiple people about making the business plan a reality... but its Friday night and I'm back doing homework.
I did take today off a bit. I was just drained after yesterday, so I slept in... did some family stuff... even caught part of the Tennessee Williams marathon on Turner Classic Movies.
But looming over the day were the three Branding & Promotion papers I wanted to get out of the way today so that I'd have the weekend free. You know, free to study for Tuesday's Digital Law final exam. Free to study for Tuesday's New Venture Creation final exam. Free. Yay. Free.
Well, two papers are down... one to go. After the 2nd paper I hit the gym to feel alive again. I admit it... I was pretty bitter about another weekend eaten up with school. But then I blew out my eardrums at the gym with this gem from Linkin Park and I'm ready to dig deeper... cause after the finals on Tuesday, I'm free.
PS - thank you PW for introducing me to this stress-busting song!
OK - not really. We've got one more semester to do this spring... then we'll officially have our MBAs... but today... we earned our stripes today!
New Venture Creation has been one of my favorite classes in the program. In this course we've taken just about everything we've been learning for the last year and a half... Marketing, Finance, Branding, Accounting, Law... seriously, ALL of it, and in a mere 6 weeks have applied it by creating a business from scratch... then today we pitched that plan to a panel of judges and potential investors for feedback.
Holy $#$%^. We've done A LOT of presentations and public speaking throughout this program, but this assignment was like fighting for your life. These panelists didn't hold back in their critiques so we had to come prepared to NAIL it. Throughout the course of this class we've had other professionals and entrepreneurs provide us with feedback as we've developed our pitches. From this it seems that 1/2 the lesson has been to stay open and flexible to this professional feedback and make adjustments as needed; the business plan my team and I pitched today was very different from that first pitch we did in the beginning - you know... back when we simply had a "good idea". In the interim, my hardworking teammates, Britni McCotter and Gabe Maldonado and I reshaped this mere good idea into a viable business plan with high earning potential.
Congrats to my dMBA cohort - it was a blast celebrating w/ you this evening on a job well done!
Digitial Law. Its like playing Angry Birds. Specifically, its like one of the levels where everything is made of concrete and you just keep throwing yourself at it hoping to break through.
For our Digital Law class we are each assigned a case to analyze with a partner which we then present to our classmates. Tomorrow my partner, Tish and I are presenting the U.S. Court of Appeals case of Comcast v FCC concerning issues of net neutrality and regulation. Important issues to be sure... but if you're not getting an MBA in this stuff, read the Wiki version instead - it'll spare you a headache.
OK, as much as I gripe about reading for Law, the truth is, my classmate, Crystal and I were just chatting today about how reading page after page of these court documents is re-shaping how we think about everything we now see. Not just in terms of the law, that's a given... and the promise of becoming issue spotters is already coming to fruition. But, also, really, its strengthening our mental toughness. To break down this FCC case, Tish and I have had to meticulously comb through this case (beginning over Thanksgiving Break... yay!!!) to tease out the issues buried in legal jargon and evaluate the dense assessment of the Appellate Court. To get through it I just pictured myself as a little Angry Bird just busting through the concrete and annihilating monkeys!...sheesh... I am really becoming a Digital Dork!
But, as Crystal and I were discussing today, this understanding of the law is already paying off as a recent digital/copyright case has hit the local news. Botticelli's, a small but popular Austin restaurant, has suddenly become embroiled in a lawsuit with corporate giant, BMI (shout out to my friend Vicky Garza for some awesome reporting!). What strikes me the most about this story, is that the business owner apparently ignored repeated requests from BMI to cease the copyright infringement. If this is true, it seems the Botticellis didn't understand the gravity of copyright infringment and perhaps thought they were too small for BMI to trifle with. But as we're learning in Digital Law, size doesn't always matter (I'm being nice, this is the Wiki version) ... so as painful as it can be at times, it makes me glad I'm learning this stuff... you know, so I can annihilate the monkeys! Yep... Digital Dork.
