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I am what many may call a “natural learner”. That is, I have never had problem learning or taking tests or doing assignments. In general, I am and always have been a great student. In fact, the first time a studied (like, reviewed material for a test) was in college.

With that being said, one could see why as an adult working 2 jobs during pandemic, failing a class might be an understandable thing. I mean, to be fair, I have had track record of about 20 years of straight A’s and B’s. WRONG!

This month is my second time taking AEL and it seems as if the universe just does not want me to get an A in this class. My usual “good at school” self is now missing deadlines and forgetting to do discussion boards and at this point I think I’m about ready to be done with school.

I always dreamed of getting my PhD but that might have to wait until I have more time an energy because right about now, I’m pooped.

I am in no way, failing this class, but I am just utterly…tired.

In month 1 of this program, I was pretty unsure of what to think about this class. I had pretty vague ideas like “learn distribution models” and “learn about digital rights and managing those rights”. I honestly, didn’t know what that meant, but now I do .  This month I learned a lot about the rights that an artist has over their work, but in a working sense. I knew about copyrights and trademarks and all of that but understanding how that translates to music and tv and videos games and books, especially when those things are created for mass media consumption. There are. Lot of way to get your protected work out to people, and I learned quite a bit about how all of that works. I knew about certain things like PRO’s but had no idea how to publish a book, or how to get a movie deal.  Knowing the basics all of those things will help me depending on what I might want to do in the future. I truly appreciate the free textbook from our professor (shouts out to you Ms. Craft) because there is a lot of useful information that I could use if I ever decide to try an pitch a tv show or a movie. It’s also very useful to know the full scope of an industry. I for one, had NO IDEA that video games were produced on such massive budgets. I remember hearing that Drake’s label spent $2 million on one of his albums and thinking that was a ridiculous amount of money, not realizing that to make a mass market video game, $30 million is a normal amount of money to be used. I am very grateful for this class because it has really opened my eyes up to different pathways I (or my friends and family) can take to get an idea out to market. 

I kind of expected this class to be easy and boring. I wasn’t really sure what I wanted out of this class. I figured that I knew a lot about artist management and I don’t plan on going into the music industry, so I won’t get much out of this class.

I was wrong.

I did get information about product planning, which will help me in my business. The business I’ve been working on during this program is a fashion brand. When planning a new product understanding how a product fits into the brand and how it matches with the wants and needs of the target audience.

The product management information will really help as I move forward with this business. I have family members who work in merchandising and I can pass on this information to them to help them in their work.

I got more out of this class than I thought I would, and I’m glad I did.

Growing up my mom would always say “Be a duck”. Of course, without context, that makes no sense. What she meant by that statement was to let your problems roll off your back like ducks and water. When ducks put their head under water and come back up, their head doesn’t stay wet, rather, the water beads up, and rolls off their back onto their tail or back into the water and if it gets on their tail, they just shake it off. So whenever I or my siblings would get upset about something, she would say “Be a duck” meaning, let it roll off your back and move on. This was good for my anger management skills and in turn has made me somewhat of an easy going hippie.

I came into this class thinking that the professor was going to tell us to be aggressive and go in for the kill if you want to make a deal. I was expecting “Don’t take no for an answer!” “Stand your ground!” and “Take charge of your deal!”. This scared the crap out of me because, as I said earlier, I’m a duck. Very few things really get me riled up enough be as aggressive as I see the people on tv and that was genuinely what I thought my professor was going to tell us to do. The only experience I’ve ever had with negotiations were pushy sales people and that one job I had where they wanted me to be a pushy sales person. Negotiations and making deals – I thought- was just not in my blood. I assumed that I’d have to exaggerate and stretch the truth to get through this class but I was pleasantly surprised.

What this class did teach me was how to come to an agreement. “Duh, Jada that’s what a negotiation is.” said the reader. Yeah well, no one told me that. This month we went of communication styles and underlying interests, BATNAs, bargaining positions, and so on. All of this terms and nuances that explain the science behind a good negotiation where everyone comes out happy. This has put me at ease moving forward because now I know that when I inevitably have to go through some form of form negotiation, I know I won’t be expected to come in guns a-blazin kicking ass and takin names. Rather, to be there for the point of a negotiation, no to “win”, but to come to an agreement.

The original goal that I had for this course was to learn more about social media marketing and digital Marketing in general. I didn’t realize how much I already knew about social media marketing so I was surprised to find myself already understanding some of the concepts. I think social media marketing in general is still a rather new field so the basics are important to understand. Social media platforms are also al a little different in their purpose, how their algorithms work, and how you can post on them.

In a sense I think my goal was met by this course but not so much in the way that I thought. I was looking for a “how-to-grow-a-fanbase-overnight” guide book that doesn’t exist. I learned I that I already know the basic principles of digital marketing and that it’s all in how you use and apply those principles. I learned more about the importance of long tail phrases and timing. Election years, especially this election year is a social media frenzy. With ads, counter ads, register to vote ads, ads about other ads, and on and on it can be really crazy. For small businesses, it can be very easy for your ad to get lost in the sea of red and blue. This is a perspective that I hadn’t thought about but it makes so much sense!

I will use this new information in my small business as a start to grow and push my business forward. The different concepts taught this month will really help as I plan the official launch of the company. I’m someone who tends to wait until I have all my ducks in a line, but this month I’ve learned to stop waiting and just go for it and feel that this class in particular has given me the tools and confidence to do just that.

This month, I learned more about my one true love social media marketing – and other things too. I love social media in general so as imagined, I was very excited for this class.

I planned on posting some of my hypothetical ads and real ads. I unfortunately, don’t have any real ads to post. But I do have some hypothetical ads that I made for my winter campaign. This campaign was to promote a gift wrapping service and though im not good at mockups, I still really like the idea of this campaign and pan on pursuing it in real life. This has given me a better idea of what I am and am not going to include in my winter campaign. This class also gave me a better understanding things to posts when and how.

For example, the fact that this year is an election year didn’t occur to me. Social media, especially this year, is going to be crazy around election time and trying to promote a company around all of that noise, is going to be hard. But after the dust settles, getting out ahead, on the holiday rush is a good idea. 🙂

This month, I’ve retaken a class for the first time ever. My entire life ive never failed a class for grades and now, in my master’s degree program, ive failed and weaken my first class.

Not a bad academic run f you as me.

I will say, there is something great about re-learning and re-reading information that I would have otherwise glossed over and forgotten.

In my case, this works out very well because of my small business.

now that I’m starting to actually take orders and money is changing hands, its great to understand how to handle that money. If I had just taken this course once, certain things would not have stuck out to me the way they did. Things like annuities and how to read an invoice, I would be drawing a blank on trying to remember. Now that I’ve got this refresher, I can go full speed ahead with the information that I was able to retain.

Overall, ive been very pleased with this class and im ready to see what the rest of the program has in store for me.

This month, I’ve honestly been going through it!

Without giving away too much personal information, this whole pandemic has been taking quite a toll on me personally. I am an “essential worker” ( I work a donut shop) and am having a hard time balancing work and school and general wanting-to-get-out-the-bed-edness.

Anyway, this month I planed to really go hard and put in a lot of work, and take a lot away from this month as I am genuinely interested in pursuing my proposed company.

This isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy this month. I got a lot out of this month but I may go back re-study the information presented in this course so as to make sure I don’t miss anything.

overall I have enjoyed this class, and got what I was hoping to get out it, just not in the way I expected.

This month, for project management, we made a whole project management plan.

Now, to be fair…this wasn’t my favorite subject. I really love the creative aspects of marketing campaigns and what not, but planning out the budget, and work break downs and blah blah blah isn’t always exciting. I think I really enjoyed it this time though, because it was something that I was interested in. My Marketing campaign plan is pretty solid now thanks to this class and I can’t wait to get started on it.

A lot of my classmates did “hypothetical projects” that they don’t really plan on carrying through but I fully plan to carry through with this campaign. I think the biggest takeaway is even if it’s something you don’t necessarily like, in my case, the boring business stuff, give your all and it something amazing might comet of it.

I’ll update you on how the project goes but for now, this is what my finished product looks like.