(@JakeAveryWhite)

My name is Jake White and I am a professional storyteller… well I guess most people call it motivational speaking.  So before this  weekend’s ceremonies, I want to share a short story of how the Journalism Department at UW-Oshkosh launched my career before I even graduated.

To give you an idea of what I do… I basically travel to schools and conferences, meet awesome people, and talk about the importance of depending on ourselves for our own happiness. Others might call me a health educator, substance abuse speaker, or hopefully even a peer educator.

This all started because my freshmen year I got involved in clubs and organizations. I was so involved that the staff asked me to speak to hundreds of incoming freshmen each year about student leadership and involvement. It took me awhile, but I finally realized that this could actually be my profession. So I decided that I would use my journalism classes to build a business. Here’s how I did it:

• Step 1: Gather Materials

In order to spread the word about my service I needed marketing materials. My friend Michelle (also a Journalism major) took some killer photos for me, and my other friend Nathan (Radio TV Film major) helped me put together a demo video.

• Step 2: Create Marketing Basics

I used the materials to create a website in my Online Publishing class. I had learned some basics from my Worldwide Web Site Development class and this one gave me a broader skill set. The main project was to publish our own website. While working toward an A, I was contacted by a school that found my site on Google and wanted to book me for a speaking gig!

• Step 3: Build a Platform

Since the website would be good to reach administrators and those who booked me, I needed a platform to connect with students who I hoped to influence. I started a business called Party.0 Sober Parties with my buddy and built a strong social media presence in my New & Emerging Media class. After just a semester we had a blog and Facebook page that was reaching people from all over the U.S. (and even Australia!)

Now this doesn’t pertain to my current career direction but I owe the proudest moment of my life to Dr. Hansen from the Journalism Department as well. Her projects always have pushed me and expanded my network. The summer of my sophomore year I traveled across the country to take an internship I wasn’t given, hopped from house to house each night for a place to stay, put on an amazing music festival, and had the best experience of my life. I found this opportunity because of an interview we had to do for her Principles of Public Relations class.

Thanks UW-Oshkosh for having a sweet Journalism department and great people to keep it growing! I couldn’t have done all this without you!

Jake White

-Alcohol Safety/ Motivational Speaker

-Co-Founder of Party.0 Sober Parties

-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence Winner 2013

 -Call or text me at 920.216.1827

These professionals, all 2009 graduates from the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh Department of Journalism, will discuss their experiences during the last five years. They will discuss what to expect in job interviews, how to get an interview, when to think about changing jobs and when to consider graduate school.

Via a panel format, students may ask about concerns or issues. The event is particularly geared for students graduating soon.

The panelists include:

Craig Bollig – Digital asset management advisor, Widen Enterprises

As a student, Bollig participated in the Bateman campaign and Advertising Club, and also served as president of the Dr. Julie Henderson PRSSA Chapter. He held internships with EAA, Zeppos & Associates, and E-Power Marketing. After graduation, he was hired as a search engine marketing specialist for E-Power Marketing. In 2010, he joined Widen Enterprises, where he consults with companies like Mercury Marine, the Atlanta Falcons and Trek Bicycle, to deploy cloud-based solutions for marketing managers.

Jessica Faris – Account executive, Clear Channel Media & Entertainment

Faris also was active in department groups and events, including the National Student Advertising Competition, PRSSA, SPJ and the Advertising Club, for which she served as secretary. She held various internships, including social media roles with Reeve Student Union. After graduation, she worked at Coalesce Marketing as an account coordinator / social media specialist. She moved to Madison in 2010 to work as an account manager for Florida Communications Media Group. In 2012, she joined Clear Channel Media & Entertainment as an account executive.

Jason Disbrow – Online marketing specialist, Acumium

While at UWO, Disbrow worked in internships with Career Services for graphic design and Clarity Care for marketing. After graduation, he worked as a sales representative for AT&T until landing a position as marketing brand manager for Walnut Hollow in Dodgeville, Wis. He helped launch a new product line, while also engaging in promotional work related to the web, advertising, public relations, social media and SEO marketing. He recently started a new position as online marketing specialist for Acumium.

All journalism students are welcome to attend.

The 40^th annual National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC) is coming up! On April 12-13 the campaigns class will be traveling to Minneapolis, MN to go head to head against other “agencies” from many universities in the nation.

Okay sounds exciting, but let’s back it up and see what NSAC is all about! NSAC is an annual competition where a brand will provide students a history outline of a product they sell along with the target audiences the students must advertise to. The students have a limited amount of time to study the product and the competition and find any problems they may run in to.

Tyler Kerns, a student currently in the campaigns class said, “This class truly shows how much work goes into an advertisement. It most certainly isn’t about being the funniest. It’s tracking trends, building and reading research and then executing a creative plan to make the audience feel their needs are being fulfilled.”

Then once the students complete the research, they must build a series of ads and place them into a booklet and perform a presentation for the audience, and more importantly the judges to see. The judges are made up of professionals from the communications industry. I couldn’t even imagine the amount of stress built up for that presentation!

This year the product is Glidden paint, specifically the Brilliance line exclusively at Wal-Mart. The Ad Club has been putting forth efforts to come up with ideas for the campaigns class. As being part of the Ad Club I was able to work with the campaigns class and go through the creative process to come up with the final pitches.

One important part of the class is making sure the ads that are being created are unique. “Well we made them from scratch.” Kerns said, “Much later in the competition we got a memo saying we were supposed to use the original ‘Glidden gets you going’ tagline but we obviously didn’t get that. So we came up with (from scratch) an idea to fit the individual needs of each target segment in a quirky way.” 

Wayne Parmley spoke at UWO to Dr. Lee’s ad copy layout class to give the class his thoughts on the creative process recently. Wayne Parmley was once a freelancer in northern Wisconsin, and now is the creative director for ACP, a business located in Neenah.

Parmley did a great job of explaining to the class what all goes into making finalized products or ideas in the creative scheme of things. He told the class that the major characteristic that CEO’s are looking for in today’s age is “creativity”, and stressed just how important it is to add your creativity to the project at hand and not to worry about multi-tasking because that will add stress and reduce the efficiency of the creative team.

Taking time is crucial in the creative process, not everything is going to come to mind at ease, so it’s okay to go ahead and take time, imagine and daydream and let the creative juices flow naturally and let the ideas come to you, versus rushing the concepts and losing full potential.

He made the point that there are three questions you should be asking yourself when it’s typing up a resume or heading into an interview.

1. Who are you?
2. What do you do?
3. Why do you matter?

Question number three is the one that will really help you succeed and hopefully set you apart from other competition. As far as asking questions goes, “Make sure to always keep asking them.” Parmley said to the class.

Listening to Wayne Parmley’s speech was nothing short of motivational, it surely helped me think more about my future and how to separate myself from others and I hope by reading this it also helped you learn the same.

Digital marketing is one of those careers that most journalism students may not completely picture.  The New and Emerging Media class recently hosted Tom Wolf as a guest speaker to talk about his career at Rocket Clicks, a digital marketing agency located in Milwaukee. According to Tom, “Digital Marketing is exploding.”   Tom graduated from UW Oshkosh in 2011 with a Journalism degree in Advertising and Public Relations.  He was able to shed light on what he does in his career and what he did to end up where he is.

Tom is a digital marketing professional.  “What is that?” may be a question you would ask.  Tom’s answer is simple – “We make stuff show up on Google.”

Rocket Clicks is a company that helps businesses develop an online strategy and improve SEO (Search Engine Optimization), PPC (Pay-Per-Click Advertising), CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization), and UX (User Experience Design).  All of these things are ways to track, improve and measure how many people see web content along with how often and how high that content shows up in search results.  They measure these things on sites like: Google/Bing/Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, and other major online ad exchanges.  They use Google AdWords and Google Analytics to help them measure and keep track of searches and key words.  Here’s a funny video to help visualize what these sites do.

Tom talked about his time at UW Oshkosh.  Through his classes he learned a lot of fundamental skills that he is constantly using in his career.  But he brought up the fact that a lot of what he is doing now, he didn’t learn in school.  He’s constantly adding to the foundation of his knowledge through either training or online research.

One of his last pieces of advice was to become a “Utility Person.”  A key talent for digital marketing is to be a problem solver, and be good at a little bit of everything.  These skills make you more appealing to employers.  Also it’s important to be able to figure out new media as it comes along – it’s a fast moving field that is constantly changing and you need to keep up with it.

Students ask Tom some questions after his presentation.

Document your personal experience through photography!

Every two years, the UW Oshkosh Journalism Department offers students a great opportunity to study abroad during spring interim.  As it turns out, 2013 marks the next experience abroad! This spring, students will join professor Dr. Timothy Gleason on his Travel and Documentary Photography trip to London, England.  In London, students will focus on documentary photography, the photographic study of places, people and rituals.

So let’s get this straight…the study abroad is all about taking pictures in a foreign country?  Well…not exactly.

On this trip students will learn and develop photo techniques and video skills all while gaining firsthand knowledge about the English culture and how to use ‘the Tube’ in London.

Piccadilly Circus in London, England Photo credit: visitlondon.com

Here is a taste of some places and activities that are on the itinerary for 2013:

• Piccadilly Circus
• Portobello Market
• Trafalgar Square
• Buckingham Palace
• Blenheim Palace
• Cambridge walking tour – Oxford train trip
• Suggested punting on Cam

With all of the amazing sites to see in London, Dr. Gleason has incorporated a lot of free time for students to explore the city on their own.  The most popular must-sees include: The London Eye, The Tower of London, the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben.

Aside from being a great experience for students, study abroad is something to put on a resume when applying for jobs or internships. For aspiring photographers, the photos you take while on this trip can be included in your portfolio.

Pre-requisites for participating in the course are Intro to Journalism (JOURN 141) and Media Photo I (JOURN 239).  This unique experience is available for all students; not just journalism majors or minors. Students without the pre-requisites noted above can be accepted into the program by the instructor.

Already signed up for this program? Check out some of Dr. Gleason’s travel trips here!

For those who are interested or are unable to sign up for this year’s trip, be sure to look for it again in Spring 2015!

UW-Oshkosh’s Ad Club recently toured Arketype, a small advertising agency located in Green Bay. Although the agency itself is small, it handles a lot of big clients such as Goodwill, Bemis and Kimberly-Clark. Seeing as I am a member of Ad Club, I went along with the crew and gathered a wealth of knowledge and saw what exactly all goes into an ad agency and the process that it takes to satisfy a client’s needs.

When first approaching Arketype from the exterior you wouldn’t think it was an ad agency. The building is actually a renovated church with large stained-glass windows.  When walking inside I noticed the agency was laid out with several large rooms on the first floor. These rooms are used for brainstorming, conference calls and other projects in the making.

We then spoke briefly with Ross Mollet, a copywriter at Arketype. He showed us some of the final products they created for events such as brochures, pamphlets and creatively done newspapers. The president of the company Jim Rivett was there with a quick hello as he was about to have a conference call with a client. This gave us a sense of size and personal touch the company offers.

Then we ventured upstairs to meet with some of the creative team. We were able to take a look at the workspace, which was very wide open and laid back. We met with some of the graphic designers who were working on a logo for the new restaurant Bleu by Chives, located in Green Bay. The designers had close to what seemed like 100 or more ideas and sketches that were made just for this one restaurant. It was nice to see how extensive the process really is for narrowing down logo ideas.

Then we went on over to a pair of young employees who were working on a video promotional piece. It was quite relieving to see familiar software programs in use, similar to the ones we use right here in the UW-Oshkosh Journalism Department.

After leaving Arketype, I can safely say that the Ad Club and myself were more than ready to go out into the working world and start getting hands on. So next time you’re in Green Bay and you are driving around Stuart Street, look for the pixelated “chillax” penguin. In that building you’d be able to see the Arketype crew hard at work designing and creating for major businesses.

Great internships can be difficult to come by. I would like to share my unique experience as an intern for motivational speaker, and personal friend, Ronnie Bachman. In my junior year of high school, I was taken to an assembly about bullying and harassment, hosted by Ronnie Bachman. Ronnie was born with a severe birth defect resulting in the amputation of his legs. Having grown up in inner-city Detroit as a double amputee, he has been through a lot and had much advice to share. I saw the faces in the room change as he spoke; the tears glistening under the house lights. Ronnie changed my life that day, but I had no idea what was to come.

I had the opportunity to interview Ronnie on behalf of our student newspaper, The Rowdy Report. That interview became a friendship that will last a lifetime. Late last fall, I decided that I wanted to help to promote Ronnie and his company, Walk This Way. Inspired by the Aerosmith song, the “Walk This Way” message stands for walking Ronnieʼs way: taking a path of kindness and respect despite the negative influences we may encounter.

Because of my efforts, Ronnie has given me the opportunity to be a part of his Walk This Way team as his Media and Public Relations Assistant. While he tours to hundreds of schools and companies this year, I will operate his Facebook page, his recently activated Twitter page and his personal website. Ronnie has an amazing number of people reach out to him. Kids who are bullied in school and their parents are thankful for his inspiring message that changes their children’s lives. I have hired Ronnie to speak here at UWO on behalf of Communication Club this semester. It is my responsibility to solidify all funding for his presentation including co-sponsorships from various campus organizations. He will be speaking on Tuesday, April 9th, at 7:00 p.m. in the Reeve Ballroom in honor of Disabilities Awareness Week. Ronnie will share his inspiring story, explain the importance of acceptance in diverse communities with emphasis on breaking stereotypes, and give tips for overcoming adversity for a successful future.

Thank you for taking the time to read this! I encourage you to attend Ronnieʼs presentation in April. There will be extensive marketing for this event, so check your emails and the posters around campus! Please follow Ronnie on Twitter and check out his Facebook page: Walk This Way Ronnie Bachman. If your organization would like to co-sponsor Ronnieʼs presentation or help with the marketing for his event, email me at anthot18@uwosh.edu! Meeting Ronnie was pure happenstance, but this internship is an example of what great opportunities that can happen if you network and work for a cause that you really care about. It has been my pleasure working for Walk This Way, and I wouldnʼt trade my experience for the world.

Taylor Anthonsen, Steven Tyler from Aerosmith and Ronnie Bachman

Post-holiday and New Year sales are inviting consumers to hit the shopping centers and spend on all of the gifts they just can’t live without.

So when you’re thinking about how to spend that hard-earned holiday money, consider investing in some gear that will not only advance your journalism career, but will be something you actually enjoy. Here are five items that every journalism student should start out the new year with:

1.     A subscription to a newspaper.

Having a newspaper delivered to your home or apartment will not only give you something to do while sipping your morning coffee, but it will keep you up-to-date on all of the daily news and happenings that you should be aware of as a journalist. Staying knowledgeable about current events is essential for any journalist who wants to be successful.

2.     An SLR camera

Many journalists, even those in the writing field, are expected to know how to shoot a high-quality photo or two. Photojournalism is a skill that will make you stand out from the crowd against other writers and reporters, so why wait?  Start sharpening your photo-taking skills while the deals are hot.

3.     A Book From Barnes and Noble

Read, read, read. Journalism students should always be reading, no matter what the material is. Explore the aisles of your favorite bookstore and pick up a few novels to keep you busy this winter.  It’s a fact that the more often that you read, the better writer you will become in the long run.

4.     A New Wardrobe

When you start interviewing for jobs, you will need professional clothing. As unfortunate as it is, your wardrobe can influence whether or not you will land a job. Use your gift cards to add some professional clothing to your wardrobe. There are great sales on items such as blazers, suits, button-up shirts and dress pants. Just imagine how much use you will get out of the clothes when you finally land a job!

 5.     A Nice Notebook or Sketch Pad

As journalists, we should always have a paper and pen nearby, but it can look bad when the spiral notebook is falling apart at the edges.  Having a nice notepad to write and sketch ideas and jot notes will not only keep your thoughts organized, but you will find it unleashing your creative side and it will help preserve your ideas for safekeeping.  Start the year off with a professional moleskin notepad such as this one:

So if you’re a journalism student, consider starting off 2013 by advancing your journalism career with some of these items. Happy New Year!