New Year..Big Dreams

It's been a great beginning to 2013 so far. I've begun my spring semester at WCSU and have one semester to follow, then graduation will suffice. I'm beginning to think and visualize where I'd like to be one year from now, and also in ten years from now. It's crazy to analyze how quickly the days go by. It seems like just yesterday I was graduating high school, now here I am in the highest course levels my BBA requires, analyzing annual reports, learning research essentials, developing communicative skills. I'm overwhelmed by the work load, yet prepared for it because of the growth and development progression I've experienced throughout my college career. Interestingly enough, when on the brink of college graduation, looking back at how each semester shapes and prepares you for the next is quite fascinating. My knowledge and skills come more naturally now than ever before. The motivation I'm gaining by coming up on graduation quicker and quicker is aesthetically pleasing. It's a beautiful thing to know what my passion is and what I strive for.

Lately I've been increasing my professional awareness through social media. I'm updating my LinkedIn on a daily basis, connecting with prospective employers and groups that provide information on job openings, looking for internships through FoxCareers.com and creating profiles on all different sites to submit applications through. It's a good feeling when you work hard and know that you won't stop until you achieve your goals. I'm constantly thinking about what I could or should be doing to better my chances of obtaining an internship for the summer, or how to bulk my resume further in order to be one step ahead of the other applicants.

I've always had a passion for racing, it's clearly a highly impacted background event that I've been involved in for many years. Recently I've increased my time spent researching and watching videos posted by Red Bull's Signature Series. I'm extremely interested in action-packed, endurance-related sports. My ultimate goal would be to work in the media department of SPEED or FUEL TV. When I'm watching an event, I analyze the names of the competitors, the marketing strategies involved in the environment, the broadcasters communication skills, and much more. If I don't understand something or don't remember what was said, I rewind and watch it again so the chances of my remembering increases. I'm aware that internships for Fox will be posted in February, and I have linked through several different sites to be notified when an opportunity is posted. I have a dream, and I won't stop until I get there!

 

"There is a calling for those who hear it.

A challenge for those who seek it.

A signature for those who own it."

-Red Bull Signature Series

Truly Living

As I come up to finishing this semester, I find I'm gaining more knowledge on the basis of where our society is today, and where it's headed. What do I mean by this? Well, by taking biology and ethics this semester, I'm learning a lot about how our society has come to live and the economic gap we've created as the years go on. Every week we discuss 'sticky subjects' that are debated in every day life. Things like euthanasia, abortion, economic justice, cloning, equality and discrimination, legal punishment, and global issues. Thinking about these moral issues in modern society is truly mind blowing. Often times it's hard to choose what side to take because there are subjective views from each standpoint. It's also interesting to learn all about our carbon footprint in biology, and the way that the world works and how we've come to destroy our own planet. If these are things you're unaware of, I highly suggest reading up on it or taking a course regarding them. It will change your life..

Besides enjoying what I learn about and being passionate toward school, I'd have to say it's nerve wrecking to know I graduate in one year from now. I would be graduating May 2013, but now I will be graduating December 2013. This is because I chose my minor, psychology, a little late as well as my other minor, communications, even later. Actually I recently discovered I only needed a few more classes to successfully double minor, so I chose to, thus attending WCSU for one more semester. This is fine with me, especially since I'm in no rush to graduate. The world can be a scary place due to the lack of job opportunities. I am highly confident in what I have to offer the business world, but I'm also nervous to think of where I'm going and how I'm getting there. I believe this is an aspect that many young adults my age come across, especially now. On the brink of graduation, laying out a conceptual plan as to how I am going to get where I want. I think the best way to achieve a goal is to have a step by step process laid out on paper for one to look at. If you can't visualize and have goals, then how are you going to be successful? I'm beginning to figure mine out, but it is difficult as every day you wonder where you will be most happy. After all, isn't LIVING being able to LIVE in TRANQUILITY? That's what I think, if you're not passionate, and loving what you're chasing for, then you're not going to be as successful as you'd hope..

A New Chapter

I've got to say, I haven't been the most reliable blogger! Completely digging my head into the internship I was granted for the Summer I found it difficult to find the time. I'm hoping those who are reading would be interested in hearing how things went!

The internship blasted off by welcoming me into one of the five events they hold over the race season. The Trans Am series stopped by Lime Rock Park for what I call my first experience as an intern. I was thrilled to be around all of the race cars, fans, and teams. The employees of Lime Rock are so welcoming, it's unbelievable the amount of work that goes into these events. I got to experience all sorts of interesting amenities by interning with Renea Topp, the marketing director of LRP. She was the one to hire me as her intern, and definitely put me to work! Trans Am is a popular series, but wasn't the most eventful out of the five that take place throughout the season. The next event was the American Le Mans Series, followed by the Ferrari Challenge, then the Historic Festival, and finishing off with Grand Am.

All of these event are coordinated by about 15 people, who work countless hours throughout the week building up to the weekend these cars come to LRP. They truly amaze me at how much effort they put in, for just a couple of days at the track. My favorite event was the Historic Festival. It was interesting to see all different types of people, THOUSANDS of people, joining together to show off their cars. The Historic Festival holds over 150 cars from 1985 and earlier. The oldest car we had dated back to 1909! As an intern, I was tasked with many tedious yet rewarding jobs throughout the Summer.

My first task was to organize contracts that Lime Rock had with corporation's, such as Crystal Rock, Ferrari, BMW, Hummel, and more! I learned a lot by organizing these, learning to create a contract of my own one day. I was also tasked with handling a lot of media operations. I'd e-mail the photographers, editors, publishers, writers, and owners of magazines, newspapers, websites and small businesses to organize when they would be coming to the track, where they would go, what passes they'd need, and all of the details that go into getting these people to LRP on time and ready to take pictures! It was a lot of e-mailing 24/7 but I enjoyed it! Another job that I aided in was creating excel spread sheets of information. There were all sorts of spread sheets that needed to be made whether it was for contact information for businesses, schedules for the race weekend, or tedious information that needed to be documented in an orderly fashion. One of the spread sheets took me about a month to complete. I had to research all of the Grand Am teams and their information, such as the team name, owners, drivers, cars, contact numbers or e-mails for the drivers, PR, traveling agents, or managers/owners. It was difficult to collect all of this but I got it done! Mind you there are over 30 race teams, some of these teams have 3 to 8 drivers. It was tedious work for sure.

The entire summer I was also told to organize all of the media that is done on Lime Rock Park before or after events, such as magazine or newspaper clippings or website articles. I would scan the clippings or save a PDF of the website document and organize them into folders for our media records.
I also papered about 20 surrounding towns to Lime Rock with outreach to the public of upcoming events! I had hung over 350 posters.

One of the days I'll never forget, I had to call over 50 businesses and ask them if they were interested in purchasing a spot in the Daily Rev - a mini magazine given to all fans when they walk into the track. This taught me a lot about the ups and downs of telecommunication.

Toward the end of the Summer, before I went back to school, I was given a list of entrants from the previous Historic Festival event held in 2011. All of these entrants were race car drivers of old school cars that would be competing in the upcoming weekend. I was to look up contact information of local and out of state newspapers that were near these drivers. There were over 200 entrants..
I was to contact the newspaper, such as The Newtown Bee, and see if they would be interested in writing an article about local drivers that will be participating in the Historic Festival. If they contacted me back I would then contact the driver(s) and see if it was okay to forward their information through to the newspaper. Again, a lot of e-mailing and calling, but rewarding publicity for Lime Rock Park.

My final task was to create 250+ concours signs for each car registered into the Historic Festival. This was complicated because there were a lot of additions and resigns right up to the very day of the event. Each sign listed the class the car was in, the name of the owner(s), class slogan, and the year and make of the vehicle. Creating these took over 12 hours, which I completed in about two days. I then printed them on special paper, and laminated each one by hand. The laminating took me 10 hours, which I completed in one day. The following day my co-worker Rick and I put each sign on a single wooden display board and organized all 250 of them into their class so the next day it would be easy to locate the cars concours sign.

Finally, one of the things that I personally brought to the table for LRP was a product called Status Bandz. They are materialized like the Livestrong bracelets but have sayings on both sides, therefore it is reversable. I know the owner of Status Bandz and thought it would be cool to have them for sale at LRP. Renea thought it was great too! Therefore we had a meeting, came up with some ideas, and things were looking up. Renea took control of the ordeal, and I guess she'd like to do it for next year if Skip is willing to invest. I thought this was a great idea that I put together, as an intern.

I must admit, through all of the work I got to do the most valuable thing I learned is to pay attention to all of the details that goes into theses events. Every little thing matters, especially in contracts. Through the many hours put in, it's rewarding to meet some corporate owners of Ferrari or BMW and have them congratulate everyone on their hard work. Skip Barber, the owner of LRP seemed pleased with my internship over the Summer. I was happy to have been welcomed with open arms. I would've loved to continue working there, but it's too far of a commute to handle while going to school.

My junior year began a few weeks ago, and I am pleased to say I love all of my classes and professors. It looks like I will be having another successful semester here at WCSU.

Lime Rock Park INTERNSHIP!!

Back in October, I decided to apply for an internship at Lime Rock Park, a popular East coast road course for auto racing! "Lime Rock is unique and cannot be compared to any other track, arena or sporting venue. Its fans are loyal, vocal and knowledgeable. It delivers what it promises: Great, safe racing at an historic but modern track, in a beautiful yet easily accessible setting." Visit their website by clicking here.
I've always been one of those loyal fans they speak of, ever since I was a little girl my family would go up and watch the races. As you may know from reading my blog, I'm all about racing and have grown up around it ever since I can remember. By being an auto racer myself, I know the ins and outs of the sport. Having a driving experience gives me that edge that some employers may be looking for when it comes to marketing for NASCAR.

Everyone knows that most people don't get the job they hope for when they get out of college, because a lot of times we hope to be a corporate owner, general manager, marketing executive, lawyer, etc. These jobs take time to reach. I call what I recently received news about a STEPPING STONE.

Definition of stepping stone in my book: A scholarly environment to which one can learn and grow in order to progressively move closer and closer to the position one hopes to work.

As I said, applying for the internship back in October gave me a sense of relief, knowing that I could possibly be chosen to take part in some beneficial experiences at a popular, beautiful, well-grounded raceway. Being the enthusiast I am, I decided to e-mail the central office in Lime Rock a few weeks after applying. They e-mailed me back, stating I won't be notified until the end of March. Within the time period from October til now I had time to create a Twitter, this blog, and a LinkedIn. The LinkedIn has shown great success. I was able to post all of my quality attributes, some recommendations from fellow students and friends, as well as a brief description of who I am and where I hope to be. In the part about myself I stated I'd hope to intern at Lime Rock Park. An old racing friend who used to help me market myself to gain sponsorship saw that I wanted to intern there. He offered to help me out by e-mailing the head marketer at Lime Rock Park, Renea Topp. Both he and I know Renea from previous racing experiences, but he was generous enough to send her an e-mail saying he think I'd be great for the position. She got back to him within the next few days, telling him to have me call her! This news was some of the best news I've ever receieved
in my life.

Mark Hann, owner and CEO of Victory Motorsports, was the gentleman who aided me in being granted the internship. I am so grateful to have made the connection I have through auto-racing. It reassures my decision to be a marketer in the auto racing industry given my background and personal experiences.

I ended up going to a meeting that Lime Rock Park was attending at Heritage Hotel, a recent partnership was made between the two. I met a bunch of really amazing people who I will be working with while interning. I can only hope this internship takes me to new levels and positions offered at Lime Rock Park. My ultimate goal is to work with a race team by being their marketing representative.

All I know is, this internship is the best thing that's happened to me in a long time! I am completely thrilled that I have the opportunity to show my passion and knowledge through marketing for a raceway. I will most definitely be posting blogs as I go from one experience to the next during my internship at one of the most popular track's of the East coast, Lime Rock Park.

Online Fundraising

The Land Trust of Danbury, as I have spoke about previously, is looking to fundraise money and gain membership. The RSS feeds that I read up on allow me to expand my ideas and gain intellect on how I can help the organization out as a student in the marketing world. I found an interesting blog that states why it is important to be ONLINE and fundraising. Here are some of the tips the blog had to offer:


"1) Free Platfoms – Facebook, Twitter and emails literally don’t cost a dime! In the time it takes to compose an update, post a Tweet, or write a letter, you could reach thousands of donors. While direct mail is certainly beneficial to older supporters, it can be costly when you take in to account the price of production, postage, and assembly.

2) Expand Your Audience – I can honestly say that the majority of my friends under 40 years old have Facebook accounts. I think that one of the biggest mistakes that nonprofits make is not appealing or nurturing the next generation of supporters.

3) It Doesn’t Take a Techie – With all of the new technology out there, it can be intimidating to enter the world of keywords, SEOs and Tweetables. One thing that I’m really impressed with concerning these new platforms is how user friendly they are. Get on the website, sign up, spend an hour playing with the system and you’ll quickly become a pro. There are also great tutorials on YouTube that can walk you through the process. At Fundly, we also have a team that strives to make an online giving website quick, easy and accessible for both nonprofit and donor use.

4) Expanded Opportunities – Building the bridge to create a simbiotic relationship is key to garnering and expanding donor support; you need hands and finances to achieve your goal and your supporters receive affirmation that they are needed and making a difference. Social media only strengthens this bond through opening more outlets of communication such as updates, calls to action, and success stories.

5) It Just Keeps Growing – Currently Twitter has over 300 million users and 1.6 billion search queries each day. Facebook boasts of having more than 845 million users and more than half of those people log on each day. This is a huge market with unlimited potential! Furthermore, this past year showed a 13% increase in online giving which equals a 35-55% growth rate over the past year. Fundly can help you utilize social media in your arsenal of marketing strategies by connecting your organization to potential donors and making the process of giving social." 

- Click here to go to the ONLINE FUNDRAISING BLOG and learn more about innovative ways to ensure your organization is impacting those who are reading and hopefully donating.

All of these valid points helped me in reassuring what I am doing for The Land Trust of Danbury is correct. It is a great path to take when dealing with social networking these days and creating accounts for the top notch social networks is what I've done, so now it's implementing them to make sure we can use them to their greatest advantage!

Non-profit Organization Blogging

In my previous post I talked about RSS and what it's all about. I had mentioned I'd be posting about a blog or two that sparked my interest and how it may help me with The Land Trust of Danbury (a non-profit organization).

Katya's Blog is one of the feed's that shows up when I go to my google reader to gain some information on non-profit organizations in social media and more! One of her blogs talks about how it is important to have a great donation page. Some of her tips include:

• Having impact levels
• Listing donation amounts
• Other ways to give
• Reassuring text (to hopefully eliminate cognitive dissonance)

I actually sent the link to my client for The Land Trust of Danbury, allowing her to read up on it and see if this is a possible avenue for us to take. I think that this could really help in increasing membership for the organization.

Click here to learn more about 'Elements of a Great Donation Page.'

Reading up on RSS

Recently, I was assigned a project for my MKT315 course. It had to do with RSS feeds, if you've ever had experience with RSS it's really helpful and interesting. Click here to go to google and get started! Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it. RSS solves a problem for people who regularly use the web. It allows you to easily stay informed by retrieving the latest content from the sites you are interested in. You save time by not needing to visit each site individually. You ensure your privacy, by not needing to join each site's email newsletter. By doing this project, I was able to centralize many blogs and web links that I found helpful to aiding me in my internship with The Land Trust of Danbury.


The Land Trust of Danbury has a blog you can read to learn more about. My RSS feeds are mainly about non-profit organizations, and what people who are promoting and running these organizations can do to create a buzz and increase awareness.


I will be posting about a few blogs I found interesting and helpful, they may even be of interest to you as well!