Week 13: What's In It For Me?

The Last Supper... Oh oops, I meant Lecture*

The last lecture was given by a very funny man by the name of Steve Molks.

He was incredibly interesting and amusing. His witty comments and personality is just like I would have imagined from reading all the stuff on his website (but luckily I didn't have to imagine because I got to see him present the lecture in the flesh which was a very enjoyable experience). I listened to him for that reason, and also the fact that with 4,588 twitter followers, I feel he knows what he's talking about.

He talked about our personal brands and how we can start developing them now and it really got me thinking about how that is exactly what I'm doing. Prior to this JOUR1111 I had my own tumblr account but I hadn't really thought about my 'brand' very much. I had looked at my blog often and tried to analyze whether it was flowing nicely and not looking like a bunch of random posts thrown together but I hadn't really recognized that, in doing that (analyzing it, etc) I had actually been formulating/maintaining a form of brand that I was trying to convey through my blog. Now, with every blog post I write on here and every tweet I've sent out on my class twitter account, I've always thought carefully about whether I'm sticking to the style I'm aiming for. I finish this class having made my own twitter account and so far I've been trying to give due thought to what 'brand' I am presenting through it. Particularly how I can make it work for me.

I liked what he said about having access to people on TV, journalists, politicians, etc. His point was exemplified by the fact that the other day when I wanted to ask Steve about the D'Arcy/Monk story (see last blog post) and so I tweeted to him and got a response back within a few hours. It's true that we have access to people like never before and it's up to us (the journalists of the future) to use this to our advantage.

Not only that but we have a range of mediums at our finger tips. WE CAN BE JOURNALISTS... NOW! For example, if I want to start writing, I don't need to be hired to reach an audience. I can write a blog, I can tweet about it. I may not reach a large audience in this way but it's a start, and who knows? If I'm any good at it, it might lead to something. But the point is that I can reach people with my thoughts and my content. And that's exciting!

I also appreciated that he said that he'd improved - that's what I'm aiming for and it's nice to hear from someone, who has been successful with their work already, that they're trying to improve as well & that they've gotten better over time.

In conclusion: good times.