Social Media Project: The Wally-World at Wiki Example

Screen Shot: http://www.facebook.com/walmart - 04/17/2012, Hawiane Tidwell.

Wal-Mart by Group#8 
Over the last couple of weeks, we have been learning about peer production, Web 2.0, and on a much broader scale - the pros and cons of social media and social media networks.  Our social media project was a group project which I will admit to dreading.  Not because I thought the assignment itself would be difficult but because sometimes working in groups with people you've never met and have no ties/connection to, can be very, very difficult.  Well, I am relieved to say that I worried in vain.  Group#8 was awesome, we worked really well together, we divided and conquered the assignment and we finished early!  Below I will share details about the assignment and more about the collaborative experience. 

Screen Shot: http://ism3004socialmedia.wikispaces.com/Wal-Mart - 04/19/2012, Hawiane Tidwell. 

The assignment: we were tasked with choosing a company to 1) research its social media activities, 2) create a group report with our findings, and 3) share the report with the other groups by creating a wiki for the company and adding the report information to the wikipage. 

Coming together as a group was a little rocky in the beginning - everyone was trying to figure out which team they were assigned to, find out the best way(s) to communicate and who was doing what as far as the specifics of the project.  One thing that I did find remarkable about this phase was the fact that right from the very beginning 86% of us were on the same page in that we all wanted to complete the project as soon as possible so we could focus on finals. 

We spent the most time selecting a company. Several companies were nominated; we narrowed our choices down to three (3) companies - Facebook, Wal-Mart, and Google. And I'm sure you know by now, we chose Wal-Mart. Once we chose the company, the rest of the project just flowed. 

Screen Shot: http://www.walmart.com/ - 04/16/2012, Hawiane Tidwell.

We used the divide and conquer mode of attack to get as much done as quickly as possible - there were eleven (11) tasks that were assigned to individuals (I was responsible for our wiki and I helped keep our efforts organized and on schedule).  Also there were three (3) tasks that were assigned to the group as a whole for collaboration.  We mostly used the discussion board in Sakai, email, text messages, phone and Google+ to communicate.    

About Wikispaces - I think this is a very useful tool in that it does make collaboration possible in situations where getting together physically is just not a viable option and the learning curve was as low as you can get - it was very easy to use and to navigate.  However, I did find it to be somewhat antiquated and very laborious as you can only "copy and paste" text.   You cannot "copy and paste" images, docs, etc.  So anything you wanted to embed in your page other than text had to be first uploaded to the site folder and then inserted into your page.  This really sucked up an enormous amount of time as our page has 40+ screen shots. 

About the company - Wal-Mart has some pretty interesting, engaging customers who use social media extensively.  Although Wal-Mart has a strong presence on some of the more popular sites like Facebook and Twitter, there is no official presence, nor published guidelines for monitoring content referencing the store or engaging customers that use some of the other social media outlets like Instagram.  Here's a link to our wiki:  http://ism3004socialmedia.wikispaces.com/Wal-Mart 

Screen Shot: http://ism3004socialmedia.wikispaces.com/Wal-Mart - 04/19/2012, Hawiane Tidwell.

And speaking of Instagram, I will make this final comment - Attention: Wally-World Shopper's beware, someone in isle 9 just might be taking your picture...

Access Project - More Power and Functionality Brings Complexity

Hawiane Tidwell, 2012.

Microsoft ACCESS - Serious Business Tool, Much More Powerful Than Excel But Not As User-Friendly...

Microsoft Access can do so much more than Excel, as Access provides more power and functionality.  There is one small drawback though, and that is that this attribute in and of itself, makes Access less user-friendly and much more difficult to learn.  However, the benefits businesses gain from utilizing Access far outweigh the high level of difficulty Access's learning curve can present. 

Hawiane Tidwell, 2012.

This past week Access was the project assigned for ISM 3004.  Time only allowed for limited hands on experience but the project requirements weren't overly easy.  Even though we only touched the peak of the iceberg this project was still challenging and I'm very thankful Dr. Olson had mercy on us as this could have been a very, very difficult project. 

Over the past week I have created databases, imported data into Access (data from Excel files and from CSV text files), created tables, queries, forms, and reports.  As I stated before, this is only the tip of the iceberg of what Access can do, however, with these limited skills, I still possess the knowledge and ability necessary to facilitate the needs of most businesses. 

Also, with the additional information provided in Dr. Olson's "Access Skill Track", I was able to enhance the functionality of the database that I created by using features in Access that increases the integrity of the data or increased productivity: 

Hawiane Tidwell, 2012

• After I created (per the project specifications) the "Members" table and the "New Members Entry Form", I cut down the potential for errors by adding validation rules to the "gender" and "membership type" fields. 
• After I created (per the project specifications) the "New Members Form", I added an informative text label and I changed the "tab order" of the form so that Access would not tab through the "ID" field and only tabbed through the fields provided to enter new member's information.
• After I created (per the project specifications) the "Recently Departed Individual Members" report, to make all pages of the report more informative I moved the "report header" to the "page header" section and I changed the formatting so that "section headings" repeated.   

To further enhance the functionality of this database, it could be used to house and analyze the results of a survey designed to determine how services currently being provided could be improved to increase membership and retention rates.  Survey would be provided to current and past members.  The database would also be used to retrieve the contact information for previous members.

Hawiane Tidwell, 2012

Access is so extensive each time I'm exposed to it I never remember everything I learn to meet the requirements for a class assignment or even to get through a project for work.  I can however say that the number of my core skills (skills I consistently remember) increases each time.  So who knows, I might just become an Access Expert e-v-e-n-t-u-a-l-l-y... 

Excel Project: Why Work Harder When You Can Work Smarter?!

Use "EXCEL" - One of the Most Powerful Applications in the Arsenal of Business Tools  

Hawiane Tidwell, 2012.

Excel is one of the most useful software tools available today!  VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet application which simply crunched numbers, provided bankers, accountants, financial managers and others with the power to work more efficiently with numbers.  Making it possible for users to not only perform simple, mathematical calculations like addition, subtraction, division and multiplication more quickly but to also do it accurately - even when handling a large amount of information. 

Hawiane Tidwell, 2012.

While Excel still provides the same functions provided by VisiCalc, Excel also provides users with so much more.  With Excel, one has the ability to perform much more complex mathematical functions which utilizes logic, financial and statistical formulas.  Excel also provides the tools necessary to analyze and comprehensively display information using charts, graphs, tables and pivot tables.  Excel is very user-friendly and provides a function library which makes it easy for users to find the needed syntax (correct format) for any formula.  Or users can press the "F1" key for access to Excel's built-in "Help and How-to" library.     

Hawiane Tidwell, 2012.

Over the last couple of weeks I have used Excel to complete a class assignment and it was obvious to me that Excel's functionality is one of the reasons why it is such a useful and popular tool.  Excel is utilized by many different entities (charities, schools, hospitals, banks, and businesses of all types - large and small, etc.) and also across all industries.  Excel gives entities the power of processing and analyzing data with just a few key strokes. 

Hawiane Tidwell, 2012.

I used Excel's various methods of displaying information to create all the images shown in this blog.  The first one is the result of a pivot table and the others are that same information displayed differently.  This is my favorite function of Excel because it is so flexible and it only takes a few seconds to display information in a very useful way - which is why Excel is also the top choice for anyone who needs to analyze and display information. 

Excel definitely allows users to work SMARTER and not HARDER...

Project: Presentation - Effective Presentations - Still Holy Grail for Some in the Business World Today...

My Presentation:  How to "Be the Change that Makes the Difference"

It is crystal clear to me that the ability to create and give an effective presentation is a very valuable skill desired and heavily relied upon in today's business world.  However, if you say the phrase, "Death by PowerPoint", why is it that we all know what the phrase means?  Most of us could even share experiences of an incident(s) where we've been either the giver or receiver of a torturously, boring presentation filled with cluttered, unreadable slides which lasted way too long for any human to endure - no matter the age or maturity level. 

Well, help is here!  Over the last three (3) weeks I have learned some TIPs - DOs and DON'Ts of Presentations that I think should be in every savvy business person's arsenal of tools.  I'm going to share this information with you via my experiences as I completed this project. 

The first of which is a Storyboard, I have prepared many presentations but I've never used a storyboard and this project required one be created prior to beginning work on the actual slides in PowerPoint, etc.  Initially, I did not like this idea, I thought it would be a total waste of time and I will admit to procrastinating but I was totally wrong.  The storyboard helped me stay organized which allowed me to more quickly collect my thoughts regarding key points and how to present them.  This made the rest of the presentation process a breeze - the only remaining task that took any significant time was finding the right images that would help convey my message.  Check out my storyboard:

Hawiane Tidwell, 2012. Storyboard Page 2

Hawiane Tidwell, 2012. Storyboard Page 1

Hawiane Tidwell, 2012. Storyboard Page 3

Hawiane Tidwell, 2012. Storyboard Page 4

                              

Hawiane Tidwell, 2012. Storyboard Page 5

Once I completed my storyboard, I began working on my slides in PowerPoint.  Since I had the completed storyboard, I already had the text for all my slides so they were a breeze to complete.  I had the text on them all in no time.  Next I worked on the slides to which I was only going to add an image - TIP: as I mentioned before, this did take a significant amount of time because I had to look for just the right image.  As images are important and should support your key point(s).  Once I found and inserted all my images, I began to work on animations.  TIP: work on and set your slide transitions as you go along and after you make major changes, watch your presentation as a slide show.  I used an egg timer so I knew where I was within the three minute time limit.

Once I finished my transitions and animations, on the first slide, and using the storyboard as my guide, I recorded myself presenting my key points.  TIP:  Synching the audio with the flow of the slides took a little more tweaking of the transition times and the delay of animations.  Finally I had the slides and the audio synched and I saved it as a Windows Media Video (WMV).    I then used YouTube, Web 2.0 Tool, to share the video of my presentation with others.  I have added a clickable link to the video on the YouTube website, as well as, the video below - so check it out: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llAd6UNsg3c&feature=youtu.be    

"Hawiane Tidwell, 2012."

Now we've come to the 2nd to last step of the presentation project assignment, critiquing yourself and a peer(s).  I watched many of the videos and for the most part, I was really proud of the Gator Nation talent that's out there!  Watching other presentations also helped me to formulate a mental note of things that I should and should not do.  The young man's presentation I chose to critique did a great job.  There was a logical flow to his presentation.  He really was able to 1) anticipate and answer questions, 2) to grab my attention, 3) to set the context with concise explanation, 4) to avoid clutter by presenting readable slides and 5) he said it then showed it.  He didn't use any slides with bulleted text, most of his slides contained one (1) word in large font. 

My presentation (MP) was also critiqued by my peers.  The feedback MP received was very favorable and from it I've learned that I am more critical of myself so I will share my view of my MP.  MP had a very logical flow and sequence to the content:  I started out by asking the audience a question, explained why I was there, told audience what was in it for them, told audience my story, called audience to action and then closed.  I feel that I appropriately anticipated and answered questions:  TIP: I opened with a question to create common ground and to grab the audience's attention and curiosity.  I also asked questions periodically to keep the audience actively listening and involved. 

In MP I set the context with a concise explanation that made it easy for the audience to clearly understand what MP was about.  I did avoided inconsistencies, errors, and typos and I did not make any unbelievable claims.  However, I do feel I could have improved on validating the claims I made within my MP.  I chose to use my personal experience to validate one (1) of the claims I made - which was fine.  For the other claim I made reference to multiple studies that actually support my claim but I did not actually reference a specific study because again this claim could also be validated by one's personal experiences but I didn't directly state that in MP.  Yep!  That was where I was harder on myself than my peer(s) - they didn't feel the claims needed additional validation...  Another issue regarding MP which wasn't mentioned by my peers but I feel could be improved was the quality of the sound.  I didn't have a microphone other than the one inside the laptop so there was some unavoidable background noise.  For my next presentation, I will definitely find a better solution for sound. 

And to wrap up my critique of myself, to avoid clutter and ensure the readability of my slides, TIP: I used the "10/20/30 Rule" - Never 1) use more than 10 slides, 2) speak more than 20 minutes and 3) use a font smaller than 30 pt.  I had eleven (11) slides which included the title and references pages.  The presentation was a little less than three (3) minutes and I used a 32 pt font or higher on every slide - most having a font size 54 - 80 pt.  I chose images which supported my key point(s).  And I also stated the point(s) then showed the supporting text or slide.  There were a couple of places where I paused a little too long, I would have fixed had time permitted. 

I hope this information has been helpful to you and will be a source of reference should you be required to give a presentation.  TIP: Just remember to keep your audience in mind, approach the presentation from their perspective, and remember the 10/20/30 Rule - you will give an awesomely,  effective presentation!!