Former students set standards for success

Former Vista editor Zach Nash after detailing the City of OKC's media programs

The rewards of long university careers as a professor multiply with the students, including those who become friends and respected professionals.
Such an example is Zach Nash, communications and marketing manager for the City of Oklahoma City. He moved from being editor of The Vista, to newspaper journalism and photography using that experience and constant learning.
One key to his success? I loved his comment to the students:
"If you're not learning, you're dull."
Always true, especially in these fast-changing media and other worlds. 
He now helps manage 71 different city media accounts, in a job that is never routine, and will continue to change.
Here are some student takeaways of his comments and advice for success in media and life, as we debriefed:

• Turn your notifications off
• If you don’t keep learning you’ll become dull
• Don’t over post
• Be sure to not profit off of others misfortune
• Plan in advance
• Make a social media calendar
• Wake up early
• Spell check
• Listen to what’s being said on social media and monitor the responses.
• Balancing the quality of your content.
• 3 out of 4 crimes are being solved on social media.
• Have two way conversations. listen.
• Try to reply to everybody
• Don’t take it personally.

My students' role model

Jill Castilla and her UCO fan club

@Okieprof 
 There's not much you can write about Jill Castilla, @JillCastilla,  CEO of Edmond's Citizens Bank that hasn't already been written. 

I'm thankful she takes time from her busy schedule this past week, to speak to my unique in Oklahoma twitter for media students at the UCO Mass Comm Department, time and again. 
 She is such a role model in many ways, not just in the use of social media, but in a time of much negativity, of positive living and influence and character. 
Jill and our other guests have made this class into something I never imagined...it's not really about twitter and social media...it's about life. Thank you, Jill. 

She shares how she's overcome numerous obstacles throughout life and business to become a national figure of leadership in success in business, and in life. Google her and you'll find the articles and awards. 
 For me and my students, she brings inspiration and advice illustrated with a contagious smile, personal stories about herself and the bank, and a vibrant, dynamic personality. After she left, we debrief, and my students' reactions show how important she is to them, dutifully recorded by @MadisonSturgill 

• I want Jill Castilla and Scott Williams as my mentors. 
• Be an early adopter.
•  GAP--Stay genuine accurate and positive, quoting @ScottWilliams as a mentor. 
• The great thing about social media is you have everyone at your fingertips. 
• You can find anything you want through social media. 
•  It's not about the numbers, it's about the engagements. 
• She took 33 hours in one semester! I'll not complain about my 12 hours ever again. 
• I was inspired that no matter how many obstacles came her way she embraced them and moved forward, not letting those things stop her. I relate to that personally because I have had some obstacles throughout my life and I have managed to get through some of them and am still working on others. 
• I think she has an amazing way of speaking and changing things for the better.
•  How Jill used Twitter to create a better bond with people. She saw Twitter as a place where people would be able to see her as a different version of herself. A mother, a wife, etc. not just Jill from Citizens Bank(the scary lady). 
• She was able to network with others through this and in a way also helped Citizens Bank improve.
•  Never deviate from who you are.
•   Take trips and opportunities while you’re still young. It only gets harder the older you get.
• When you change something, you will always have haters. 
• GAP...Stay genuine, accurate and positive.
•  Surround yourself with people who can elevate you to another level. 
• Also I didn’t know the best way to estimate how many portapottys to put out there was to count the trash lmao. 
•  One thing that resonated with me and gave me insight was when she began to talk about McGiver, “He has so little resources that’s why he’s so creative.” WOW! something we should all follow. 
•  Always be able to adjust to your circumstances.
•  Started Heard on Hurd, turned Citizens Bank around..

From Boston, tattooed with curiosity

@vargas1 Skyping in to #clarkclass from Boston

"Put community first," said 2000 UCO grad Lauren Vargas, one of the most astounding students I've been privileged to know, to #clarkclass. "No matter what form of media it takes," she added, Skyped into class from her home in Boston.
She is not an "early adopter" of new media; she's a "first adopter," and it's lead to multiple successes since she's graduated. Her Linked In resume will tire you out, moving from helping set up Department of Defense digital operations to her current position as director of marketing technology ad operations for Aetna in Boston.

She's a lifelong learner, currently working on a doctorate in museum studies at a university in England. With two masters degrees, one from Harvard where she's an adjunct professor, she started here as a Public Relations grad. Her first MA was in communications, with a thesis about  digital media changing PR forever, in spite of being discouraged by the powers-that-were who didn't believe it.
She's a voracious reader, and rattled off books to students to consider.  She's a self-described nerd, but more, and certainly not a traditionalist as shown by her collection of wild glasses matches her "Mad Hatter" moniker also.
I best enjoy, other than her friendship, her comment about everyone having a "digital tattoo," which she coined in speaking to school students about using social media (What you put out there isn't going away). Yes, she has real tattoos--my favorite "Nevermore" with a raven on her forearm. And all of hers have special meanings, she says.
Her outlook on social media, including twitter brings this great quote: 

"We don't understand the ripple effects. Using twitter is like designing, building and flying a plane, all at the same time." 

I deeply appreciate her emphasis on curiosity, which I think has tattooed her every success as a forward-looking woman and profesisonal. I hope it inspires my students; it does me.
Here are student debriefing comments, recorded by @AshleyNapier:

@Vargasl debriefing

• She’s a real go-getter. She is very involved in education and isn’t afraid to leave her comfort zone.
• She is accomplished and has gone head-first into everything
• It’s cool she sucked it up and took a government job even when it wasn’t glamorous
• Social media has remained constant, there hasn’t been a lot of significant changes
• She reads 3-4 books a week, it’s impressive
• She is tenacious
• She is vibrant and bright and works for an insurance company
• It’s cool that someone from UCO can go to Harvard and eventually end up teaching at Harvard
• She doesn’t follow the rules, it has allowed her to stand out
• It is important for everyone to understand and carry out the company brand
• Her awesomeness makes us feel inferior
• She is integrated and involved in everything that she does
• You have to build trust through conversation
• Always be curious
• If it happens, it happens- we should remember to take risks
• Even though her creativity was stifled at times, she was unafraid to try new things
• Everyone’s voice has an equal weight on social media
• Be the bridge to the community

Twitter views on changing media from a news junkie

@dezhill and #clarkclass

@okieprof

Broadcasting professor  Desiree Hill @dezhill is a news junkie, one of the most forward-looking, up-to-date professionals and teachers at UCO. 

Her presentation to #clarkclass  centered on how broadcast media are using, should use and should not use social media, specifically twitter, in journalism, based on her research with specific stations in Illinois, Kansas and Oklahoma. 

@dezhill

A highlight for me was her perspective on media in the past, changing technology and the way all media have used it historically and are now was critical to my students' understanding. 

"Don't use new media in old ways"

Established media tend to use new media in old ways, being slow to adapt, rather than taking advantage of new opportunities. It'll be up to our students to help invent how the next changes are best utilized.

For more reaction and tweets of her day here, search #clarkclass in twitter. Here are her some of her comments, and class comments, recorded by  @AshleyNapier21.

@DezHill Debrief

• You wear what you tweet
• Look at your last 50 tweets, it’s important to review them
• Behind the scenes is not all about us, it’s about the viewer
• You are your own brand
• We made Twitter into what we wanted it to be
• Twitter is a tool and is completely versatile
• Your social media posts are out there forever, even if they are deleted
• Don’t say something on Twitter that you wouldn’t say in a presentation in class
• Tailor your tweets to your audience and be specific as possible
• Who, what, when, where, why
• Information is supposed to answer questions, not raise them
• Say “thank you” to your followers
• Be mindful of your writing- those 140 characters are important
• You will never capture social media- it keeps evolving
• Be interactive on Twitter
• Tweet what is interesting to you. You can’t cater to everyone. Find your niche
• Tweets must be ethically newsworthy
• Twitter is not a diary

Twitter for Media 5/11/16

• Geotagging is scary, but it is great for advertising
• What works for one person does not work for another

 

Not everything is serious

Mad Hatter of media and learning, tattoos and all

@okieprof

What tattoos do you have? More than you imagine if you listen to Lauren Vargas.
Lauren, a UCO PR graduate and favorite student of mine, spoke to #clarkclass via Skype from Boston yesterday. She is one of the smartest people I've ever known, but not a nerd either; she is the epitome of combining, combining continual learning with practical everyday life and work.

An early adopter of digital media, she saw the Internet burst the PR and marketing fields when in Dallas working for the Department of Defense. She's now head of social media and community for Aetna, a fortune 500 company, and works from home, with several computer monitors on the wall in front of her desk. 
She's completed a second masters at Harvard--in Museum studies, where she is now an adjunct professor--and is working on a Ph.D. at a university in the U.K. Her dissertation will be about how the internet and big data and new digital media affected PR. Oh, she's also a wife and mother to two, and doesn't sleep much.

Lauren talking to #clarkclass via Skype

And, the tattoos we have? Lauren has many tattoos, including the cool one "Nevermore" on her forearm. Like those tattoos, she says, anything you put into the digital word is a tattoo--it's pretty permanent and hard to get rid of.
Her web page above leads you to her consulting, where she speaks and more. "Mad Hatter," because she likes to wear different hats.
By the time she signed off,  facing 14 meetings, and numerous conference calls, we sat there stunned at all she does and has accomplished, at her depth of knowledge and insights. I told you I have great students.
Here's some of her comments and student reactions, recorded with the help of @Cassjack12.

• Understand the communities that you serve
• Don’t let the telephone just ring and go to voicemail and then never check your voicemail—this is what is happening with social media, you need to hear these voices
• Loves to put theory into application
• Academic at heart
• Helped develop a curriculum for middle school and high school kids with the head librarian of the city
• Talked to kids about their digital footprint , helping them be a good digital employee and citizen
• You never know who or what you’re going to work for so be careful what you do and say online-don’t talk poorly about brands
• Self taught with most computer things
• Exclusive communities – built by groups, activists, or brands themselves that require some time of login or process to get access to
• Discrete communities-communities of conversations that flow through all social media-
• Nurture those conversation and create trust to get them down the funnel or in an exclusive community
• How you are fostering engagement
• Be Authentic
• Organic engagement
• One foot in academia and one foot in applying the theories
• Wants to share the information with others “spread the love”

Student debriefing comments

·      “If we never talk about what we fail, we won't get better”

·   Don't complain about brands-you never know who you will work for

·   When designing DOD digital media, described it as flying a plane and building it at the same time

·  Everyone is a digital contributor now, how you foster those relationships and conversations

·   Digital tattoo comparison- relating to what young people will know, tattoo is permanent and so is what you put online

·  “Social media has built walls of silence”

·   She like to give out the information for free, some of her peers don’t like to share the information they learn but she thinks everyone should know

·   To serve communities and serve them better

·   Make what you do your own

·   She does things not only to better herself but to also better the community and those around her--wants to teach others how to manage their digital print 

Student observation, from Casey McElroy:  "It seems like we're in this blizzard of twitter and media with so much going on, but these speakers seem to be on top of the blizzard looking down on it."