Week 6 EOC - Me x 3

1.) League of Legends -

One major hobby I invest a lot of time and interest into is League of Legends. It is a free to play MOBA game, which is essentially five players on two teams in a 5v5, or 3v3, game to conquer objectives and ultimately the goal is to win. The more time you play the game the more you can get out of it. You get currency called IP per game played which allows you to purchase champions which allow you to play different roles and have different abilities and attractive traits and also mixes up the game. The way the company makes its money is through vanity items. Included in the picture is an example of a skin. A skin is literally a character model re-skin which you can purchase for real money. It adds no edge to the game, gives you no extra ability to win in combat it is purely for vanity and just changes your look and abilities look which keeps the company in business and is apparently a good marketing item considering it literally costs 5-30 dollars per skin depending on the detail that went into it.

2.) World of Warcraft -

Another major hobby I had invested a lot of time in over the years. This is an expensive hobby with an expansion every 1-2 years at 40-60 dollars a game pack then you add the 15 dollars a month for just paying to play the game itself. It takes a pretty dedicated brand fan base in order to keep a franchise like this going for over a decade of 15 dollar subscriptions and over 1 million users on average with even higher peak amounts and no signs of weakness in the franchise or series itself. The game does provide a staff of consistent updates and constantly releasing content within the expansions to keep players interested along with various seasonal events and whatnot. Overall the main factor of their success is the brand loyalty of their fanbase which spills over into their other games that they release as well.

3.) Supernatural -

Another major part of my life is more anything involving the fantasy genre than anything else. I like some other people find that when stressed out to living hell it is best to just escape to a different world all together. For me fantasy genres in general work best. Whether it be a crazy horror zombie game involving a T-Virus and a zombie apocalypse or to the actual Fae elves and their devious ways and interesting abilities. My consistent fantasy genre that encompasses a ton of fantasy over the past ten years however is a show called Supernatural. Still going strong with powerful storylines in season 10 which starts this fall the show itself has had crazy good research and writing and diversity over the years in its show over the years. Even though it hasn't been as branded by t-shirt and merchandising companies like some movies and other TV shows out and about there are people that have tattoos... I actually know a childhood friend with one from this show, and I personally own a tank-top from this TV series.

Week 5 EOC - Social Networks and Job Hunting

In the past few years job marketing itself has greatly changed thanks to social media sites. Companies now use a combination of recruiting techniques to not only find new employees, but people to help promote and market their brand for them in the form of brand ambassadors. “Marketers select their brand ambassadors very carefully, based on customers’ devotion to a brand and the size of their social circles. They sometimes search blogs and online social networks to identify individuals who are already functioning as brand advocates. Once selected, the ambassadors are trained with real brand knowledge to go along with their passion for the brand. The ambassadors then tap into friends, family, groups, and broader audiences through personal conversations, blogs, live events, and online social media.” (Armstrong, Gary, and Philip Kotler. Marketing: An Introduction, 10th Edition. Pearson Learning Solutions, 2010. VitalBook file.) Another location they find brand ambassadors in is “[m]arketing agency RepNation identifies and manages college student ambassadors for companies as diverse as JetBlue, Microsoft, and Macy’s.”(Armstrong, Gary, and Philip Kotler. Marketing: An Introduction, 10th Edition. Pearson Learning Solutions, 2010. VitalBook file.) The employee recruitment changes have gone from the more well-known sources as Linkedin and other famous job recruitment websites to being more in favor to Facebook recruitment. “Facebook's use as a job-recruitment tool remains small, but its appeal may be growing. Some recruiters say they have all but eliminated their spending on job boards, which can charge a few hundred dollars per job posting, depending on volume. Others note that while LinkedIn contains a more comprehensive résumé database, candidates tend to value referrals from their connections on Facebook more.” (Wall Street Journal, Recruiters Troll Facebook for Candidates They Like, Joe Light, 8/8/2011) I don’t know how accurate the article itself is, nor have I ever personally seen a company recruit people through Facebook for hiring services. As a previous manager I personally wouldn’t look for Facebook to be a hiring reference, nor would I expect someone to let me impose on their personal privacy in order to hire them. I believe in keeping work and personal life separate as do most other companies to some extent and therefore I believe that there needs to be separate places for finding professional experiences in comparison to the personal feelings and random things that are on most peoples’ Facebook accounts which do not show their professional capability in any way, shape, or form.

Week 4 EOC - Making a Smartphone App

I personally don’t use smartphone apps and think that they are a complete waste of time. The internet can give you pretty much all the same things that a smartphone app can, except for games from Facebook that everyone and their mother are literally playing. Since I have to come up with an idea for a smartphone application anyways, and ignoring the fact that I would never take a job requiring me to make or market said apps, I would probably come up with an application that involved something useful and ready to have for select individuals who had very specific needs. I would personally make an application for tips and tricks to deal with mental health issues in any situation that people could take with them to remind themselves how to process and deal with the issues at hand that they deal with on a daily basis due to their mental health problems. I would include some of the most common diagnoses along with some of the more rare ones, but all ones that would fit within the parameters of a mental illness that would allow a person to still function within society who may not have access to constant mental health care and help on a consistent basis depending on their personal situations. The app would not only include a medical staffs professional input into what to do for varying situations based off of your mental disorder diagnosis, but would also include various quotes from people who had the disorder and have been considered to successfully handle it in their own ways through the proof of published books, blogs, etc. I would also set up a contact form and include all of the various information about helpful resources including numbers to the free help hotlines for suicide prevention for extreme circumstances. However, most people with mental illnesses know how to find websites with all this information already posted from national and international government agencies, and I still don’t see a point in needlessly recreating the wheel.