Put Technology To Work!

I feel that my group could not have completed this project without the help of technology. We used technology throughout the entire project. We originally started using our "Group Page" in BlackBoard to post our meeting Agenda. Since I was the person responsible for doing the secretarial work, I was responsible for posting these type items to BlackBoard. Once I posted the Agenda (or Minutes) to BlackBoard, I would send out an e-mail through the BlackBoard website to the rest of my group. This email would alert the rest of my group to let them know that I posted a new article on BlackBoard. My group members could then login to their BlackBoard site and see the article I posted. I did this same process for the Minutes that I posted for my group.

I feel that e-mail played a very important role in our group, even outside of alerting group members of new articles posted on BlackBoard. If a group member missed a group meeting, they would often e-mail some of the other members of the group to see what they needed to get done and what they missed in class. We would also use e-mail to send different drafts of items before we completed them and posted them to BlackBoard for the entire group to see.

My group did not hold any virtual meetings, but a lot of our work was done through online by e-mailing one another with item drafts and communicating. If it was not for BlackBoard and e-mail on this project, our group would have had to complete all our work in the classroom. This would be very difficult since my group did a large majority of our work outside of the classroom. It is very rare that we completed items inside the classroom. Most of the items we completed were delegated out in class and then completed by an individual on his/her own time.

Let's Talk Ethics...

Discussing ethics is a very touchy topic in today's society, especially after the fall of corporate America giants such as WorldCom and Enron. When there are ethical lapses in business or government, the people participating in the ethical lapse are not the only ones affected by it. The effects of ethical lapses are felt by common citizens, such as those who held stock, purchased their products, were employed with the company, etc. After all the publicity surrounding recent ethical lapse events and what we discussed in class, I have taken on a whole new perspective of corporate America.

After actually seeing several excerpts from memos that were a part of ethical lapses, I have come to a conclusion that you (being in the management position) have to be careful about how you interpret memos. If you were to overlook the sudden termonology used in some of these memos, agreeing with what the memo seems to say on the surface, you could be help responsible in a ethical lapse case because to a jury, it could appear as if you knew about the crime. So, when you receive a memo from someone, take a few extra minutes and make sure you fully understand what they are saying. Furthermore, make sure you read into any phrases or sentences that might not make sense to you initially.

As I graduate and head into the work force or graduate school, I will need to have my ethical principles established. I believe a good way to set your standards is to ask, "If I were to do this, would I be ok with someone else doing this exact same thing?" If the answer is yes, then you are most likely ok to do whatever you were going to do. If you answer no, the subject would require closer examination. If what you choose to do will have a negative impact on anyone, you should probably think long and hard before you act on this. Also to mention is that what you are doing may seem like it won't harm anyone, but as the scheme escalates, it could cause greater harm. It is important also to not get caught up in schemes if one were to develop; you need to learn how to cut your ties with the scheme and move on, releiving or at least limiting yourself to any obligations for the outcome. These are just things I would keep in mind when deciding whether an issue was ethical or not. Specific ethical issues I would never get caught up in is stealing (in any form, including accounting fraud), lying to further my company or I, killing someone because of known information that was not suppose to be disclosed, and I am sure there are many, many, more that I would be able to handle if the time were to arrise. I think the two biggest ethical issues in companies are fraud and lying to further one's company or themself.

Miscommunication...Oops!

Several of my most memorable experiences I have of miscommunication come from when I was the editor-in-chief of my high school yearbook staff. With this position comes a lot of responsibility for making sure tasks get completed on time. It is very common for their to be miscommunication between staff members, and it usually ends up with something not completed.

The one instance of miscommunication that stands out to me the most to me was when we had a miscommunication of who was suppose to complete a group of pages for one of our deadlines. Being the editor-in-chief, it was my job to post the names of people who were assigned which pages. After assigning pages to people, I would then tell the section editors how many pages I needed them to have complete by a certain deadline. These could be any completed pages, as long as they totalled to that amount. Then, each section editor would assign each person when those pages were due to them so they could double-check the pages before they got sent to the plant for production. This was a miscommunication that probably occurred over a week time period. But, it started by me not communicating clearly to one of the section editors how many pages I needed for that deadline. We had such a large staff that staff meetings were usually around 30 people. Either this editor was not present in the meeting, or was not paying attention to me talking during the meeting, and she missed the information about how many pages I needed from each section by the deadline. Since she did not hear that she needed pages due for this deadline, she just assigned her staff a small portion of pages, just so they would have something to do over the next week. A week later, it was time to submit the pages for the deadline. I approached that particular section editor because I had not received enough completed pages to mark her portion of the deadline complete. After asking her when she would have me the rest of the pages, she responded that she didn't realize she needed that many pages for this deadline. Since she did not have these pages completed, I had to personally go through and complete several additional pages to make up the difference between the pages she had given me and the pages we needed to have completed for the deadline. It was a pretty big mess at the time because completing a page can take a lot of time. It forced me to work on the pages during school, and then after school, continuing into the night. Needless to say, we met the deadline, but not without me having to go through a lot of additional stress that could have been avoided. I made sure from that point on that I talked to each editor individually before each deadline to make sure they knew how many pages I was expecting from them. This problem could have been avoided through several ways. One way would be that I should have confirmed that each person was at the meeting and ask them to repeat how many pages they had marked down that I needed by a select deadline. Another way I could have prevented this problem was speaking with each editor individually after the meeting to clear up any questions that they had and reaffirm that they had recorded the correct number of pages I needed for the upcoming deadline. Another way this problem could have been prevented would be if I would have checked on the specific progress of each page before the actual deadline date.

When this miscommunication occurred, it was one of my first deadlines in the first year being the editor-in-chief of the yearbook staff. After this incidident, I was wondering what I had gotten myself into by being the editor-in-chief of the yearbook staff...lol. Just kidding. I learned from this mistake and I fixed it from that point on, making sure that communication was a focal point for me. I went on to successfully complete my first year as editor-in-chief, and was then selected to serve as editor-in-chief for a second year, my senior year of high school.

Final Presentations and Online Portfolios

Out of the final presentations that were presented, I enjoyed Kyle Cook's the best. Kyle did a presentation on the "Top 5 Clemson Dunks from 2008/2009 Season." I thought this was a very relevant topic since basketball season is coming to an end and we have already played our final home game of the season. I am a pretty big basketball fan and if I can't be at the game, and it's televised, I'm watching it! I enjoy pretty much anything "Clemson." It's something about the school pride and spirit that runs through my blood! So with that being said, this was a great topic for me to relate to! I saw all the dunks that he presented in person except for the dunks that were at the University of South Carolina. I would have to agree that his presentation was pretty accurate with those being some of the best dunks this year! I really enjoyed the media that accompanied his presentation. He did not just stand up in front of the class and show us pictures of the players and tell about their dunk, but he found the actual video clips to go with each dunk. Kyle did a very good job at incorporating visual aids in with his presentation.

I have only created one online portfolio in my entire life and that was for BIOL120 my Freshman year. In my BIOL120 class, we had to create a portfolio and keep all our documents in it so we had an online portfolio at the end of the year. This portfolio was then graded by our professor as a percentage of our final grade. This portfolio was simply an e-portfolio that was hosted by BlackBoard. We did not use any external websites to produce this portfolio, just BlackBoard. That worked out well because it helped me get a jump-start on creating my e-portfolio which I have to create through Clemson in order to graduate. A link to my BIOL120 e-portfolio is located here. I thought that the BIOL120 portfolio was fairly easy to create; thus making it a positive experience with using an online portfolio. I think it is a lot easier to create a portfolio online rather than a hard copy portfolio. With an online portfolio, you can keep it for a long time and share it with as many people as you would like. The hardest part for me was just figuring out how to get everything uploaded onto the website and linked to the right category. For this online portfolio, I don't know if I will need any additional help with figuring out how to work everything. What I might like to see is an example of what you expect our portfolio to look like when we get through with it. This would give me an idea on how I need to arrange my online portfolio.

Class Presentations

I have really enjoyed listening to the various presentations that have been presented so far! I am looking forward to Monday when I get to present my presentation. The presentation I liked the most was the "Top 5 Best Real Men of Genius." There were a couple reasons why I enjoyed this presentation. The main reason I enjoyed this presentation is because I was laughing almost the whole time. The second reason I enjoyed this presentation is because in high school, I downloaded every Real Men of Genius commercial ever created and listened to them all. So this topic was appealing to me since I have had interest in it before. I don't know that I actually learned anything from this presentation. I learned little facts about the company like changing the commercials from Real American Heroes to Real Men of Genius after 9/11. I also learned many other little interesting facts. Bryson was an effective speaker because he brought humor into his presentation. He was able to effectively use the PowerPoint and audio, while also being able to speak about the subject. He did not rely completely on his PowerPoint, but let his PowerPoint supplement his presentation.

The second presentation that I really enjoyed was the "soccer celebrations" by Keegan Priest. I found this presentation very appealing since I have played soccer for practically my whole life. The presentation was also humorous, which made it more enjoyable. I can personally relate to this presentation because growing up around soccer, I have seen many of these celebrations first hand. I learned many new styles of celebrating in soccer that I had previously never heard of. One of my favorite new celebration styles that I learned from Keegan's presentation is putting on a mask after you score a goal and running around. I thought that Keegan was an effective speaker because he incorporated humor in telling the facts about how to "celebrate" in soccer. He could have just stood up at the podium and spoke about being people doing dances, flips, wearing costumes, etc. But instead of doing this, Keegan added videos and pictures that gave the class examples of what he was talking about.

The third presentation that I really enjoyed was the "Coffee Options" presentation. I will be the first to tell you that I do not like coffee at all. I guess it is this strong dislike for coffee that made this presentation interesting to me. This presentation was enjoyable because it informed me on information that I previously did not know or understand. Since I had no background with understanding the different types of coffee, I was drawn into listening more about the various types of coffee. I can definitely say that after listening to the presentation, I am much more knowledgeable about the various options you have when ordering coffee. I found that the presenter was very knowledgeable about the subject, which helped me to establish creditability. The presenter showed that she had much knowledge about coffee and the various options when ordering coffee. It is this credibility and knowledge that helped the presenter to be effective. I also feel that this presenter was effective because her PowerPoint slides were a good mix between facts, statements, and pictures. By adding pictures into the presentation, she gave variety to the presentation. This variety in the presentation kept the audience from getting bored with the presentation.

Reviewing Collegegrad.com for Cover Letter Advice

To start out, I have already written a draft of my cover letter for this class. So, with that being said, I have already done some research about cover letters on my own. There is one section of the collegegrad.com website that stood out to me: the sample cover letter section. This section stood out to me because it's easy going website to website reading about what you SHOULD do while writing your cover letter. It's more difficult to find real life examples of cover letters that you can read to make sure you have a good basis of how your own cover letter show flow.

There was a part of the collegegrad.com website that I disagreed with about writing cover letters and that was the information the website gave about the postscript technique. I will say first, before I critique this method, that I am not a professional at writing cover letters, so this advice could very well be good advice and I am just not accustomed to seeing it in use. The website said that it would capture your reader's attention if you put a "P.S." at the end of your cover letter and then followed the "P.S." with an interesting fact or atribute about a previous accomplishment. This, to me, seems like it might seem as if you are bragging on yourself a little much. It seems like the "P.S." goes beyond just discussing how you would be good for the job to just making yourself big-headed. I personally believe that the person reading your cover letter might be turned off to the fact that you think so highly of yourself, like you are flaunting it in from of that person.

I found it interesting that collegegrad.com claims that most employers do not look at your cover letter first, they look at your resume. I found this interesting just because I have always been told to make sure my cover letter did not have any gramatical errors and that it was written in the correct format. I was told that a cover letter is what an employer truly focuses on because it contains the highlights of why you would make a good candidate for the job. After I read this article on collegegrad.com, it makes sense that employers might just jump straight to reading your resume because it ultimately contains all the information on where you have worked. Employers often rate previous experience highly when deciding which candidate to select for a job. So after reading the article, it makes sense to me that an employer might read your resume before reading your cover letter. After all, your cover letter sometimes contains more information than is relevant for an employer to determine, initially, if you are a possible candidate for a job.

The cover letter checklist is definitely something that I found helpful. The checklist was helpful because you can just glance at your cover letter and make sure you have completed all the items that are on the checklist. After you complete the cover letter checklist, you know you are not leaving anything technical out of your cover letter.

Thoughts on Our Group Project

First off, I think this group project idea for Redfern is a great idea! This is a perfect example of the types of problems that we (the class) could come across in a couple years when we enter the workforce. As I listened to our speaker describe the program and what our goals were, I had several thoughts. The one thought that really stood out in my mind, which I will discuss with my group during our first meeting, was the idea of how to make the buildings around campus "green." There are many buildings around our campus which were built more recent than others. These more recent buildings are more "green" than most of the other buildings around campus.

The one things that stands out to me is the lack of energy efficient light bulbs that are being used around campus. I lived in Geer Hall (one of the shoeboxes) last year, and there was not a single energy efficient bulb in the whole building. Each room had six light bulbs in it, one in each closet (2), two bulbs for the main light in the center of the room, and two bulbs over the sink. Replacing existing incandescent light bulbs with energy efficient bulbs is an easy way to make our campus "greener." I do understand that fact that incandescent bulbs are much cheaper than compact florescent bulbs, but looks at the pros that go along with using compact florescent bulbs. Compact fluorescent bulbs last much longer than regular bulbs, do not produce as much heat, and use less wattage which leads to lower power usage. In addition to the simple costs, think about how costly it is to send maintenance staff out to the dorms each time a bulb burns out. The maintenance department could save money by putting in compact fluorescent bulbs which would reduce the amount of trips maintenance staff spent back and forth to dorms. Yes, maintenance staff would still have to replace bulbs as they burn out, but it would be much less frequent trips.

Another thought that stands out to me is replacing old windows such as those in Lowry and the surrounding older buildings. I had several classes in those type buildings my Freshman year and it appears they still have single pane windows in them. These windows are extremely old and out of date. Double pane windows would make much more sense to the University because it would conserve on the costs of heating and cooling the buildings.

There are many little things like this around campus that could easily be changed to produce a "greener" campus. I understand that the University is facing financial shortfalls in the current economic state, but as a group, we could hopefully produce a viable strategy to raise money for these upgrades and additions. With working with my fellow classmates, I feel that we can create a viable strategy that could be implemented on campus to make our buildings "greener." If this plan was successful here on the Clemson campus, there is no reason why we could not build a universal plan that could apply to colleges across the country.

Interview Mistakes

After reading the article on common interview mistakes, I realized how easy it would be to make some of these mistakes in an interview if you were nervous. When you go into an interview and you're nervous, you are not in the best state of mind. I think the first interview mistake is probably the biggest, "Don't ask stupid questions!" Like I said, when you are nervous, you are not in the best state of mind, so you have to watch what you are thinking about saying to make sure it is a relevant question. I do agree that treating the secretary poorly is a big mistake, but I don't know if I would rank it #2 biggest mistake. I think I would put lying in an interview above lying to a secretary. I think the #4 biggest mistake for me would be interviewers not being ready for the interviews. It's easy to just go into an interview thinking you will be able to rattle off answers off the top of your head, but when you are nervous, there are a million thoughts running through your head. The website said, "not asking people for help" ranked as the #8 biggest mistake, which I think corresponds with my #4 biggest mistake of not being prepared.

I have never had a job interview. I have worked one job in Greenville, SC with RealtyLink, LLC. It is a real estate development company that specializes in commercial real estate. I did not have to interview for the job because I knew one of the owners pretty well. Although I have never had a job interview, I have had a different kind of interview. My freshman year at Clemson, I was considering joining a co-ed business fraternity, Delta Sigma Pi. I went through the process of getting a bid, which consisted of an interview. For the interview, there was a panel of four fraternity members at a table. I sat down at the table with the four members. The four members took turns asking me questions in which I would answer. It was not a difficult interview, but there were several questions that I stumbled on. Being a quick thinker, I was able to recover, but the interview could have been better if I would have prepared. Just from going through this interview, I see the importance of preparing for a job interview. Needless to say, I received a bid from Delta Sigma Pi, but I turned it down a few days later due to personal reasons.

I think an easy way for a person to get prepared for an interview is to go online and read through popular interview questions. You can go to google and search "popular interview questions" and it will return thousands of websites. Yes, most of these websites contain similar type questions. But, you can easily take two or three websites and just read through all the questions and make sure you have answers for them. Take these questions and try to tailor them to the job position you are interviewing for. Maybe print these questions off and sit down with a friend. Have your friend ask you different questions in a random for you to answer. In your interview, there will probably be questions that you did not practice on the internet, but at least you had a good bit of preparation. It is impossible to determine every question that an interviewer will ask you, but you do need to be as prepared as possible.

My Semester...at a Glance!

I decided to write my "free-topic" post on how my semester is going and what all I have going on. To get things started, I am taking 15 hours here at Clemson and 3 hours online through Tri-County. My 15 hours here at Clemson include: MGT 310, MKT 427, MKT 420, ENGL 304, and LAW 322. My 3 hour class taken online through Tri-County Tech is the equivalent to ACCT 202 here at Clemson. It has worked out pretty well so far because all my classes this semester seem relevant to what I am trying to get done anyway. For example, I would like an internship this summer with a Real Estate Development company (hopefully in Greenville, SC). In my MKT 420 class (Professional Selling), we have a project coming due next week that is called "Employer Database". My "Employer Database" is suppose to list 25 prospective employers that I could possibly apply to in the future. So for this project, I found 25 Real Estate Development companies located in the upstate and listed those in my Employer Database. So now, I accomplished the task of finding companies that I could possibly work for this summer, and I completed a project for a grade! It's nice when assignments in your academic classes overlap with your personal and professional life. Another example is English 304 (Business Writing). We have a portfolio coming up that we have to complete by mid-March. In this portfolio, we will have cover letters, resumes, etc. All of these things are a necessary part of the business world. These items will come in handy for me over the next few weeks as I get ready to send out my resume to try to get an internship. It just seems to me that academic assignments are a lot easier to work on when they have relevance in your life. When the assignments are relevant to your life, you have something to work toward because you know you are going to get more out of that assignment than just turning it in for a grade. As for my other classes (MKT 427, MGT 310, ACCT 202, and LAW 322), they are preparing me for when I enter the professional field in a few years. I might not be able to get benefits out of these classes immediately, such as being able to use academic assignments outside the class room, but I will see the benefits of these classes in a few years. All of these classes are stepping stones to get to more advanced classes. It has just been on my mind lately how much more fun it is to work on assignments when you can use them out of class. That is why I thought I would blog on it; to let people know that classes aren't always boring and busy work, because sometimes you can apply them immediately outside the classroom.

The Many Possibilities...

As I thought about what to write for this post of where I will be in ten years, I realized how many possibilities there are. I could be living at any place from the West Coast to the East Coast and as far North or South as I wanted. I could work a nine to five job or I could work third shift. I could work outdoors or I could work behind a desk. Thinking about all these possibilities, I discovered what and where I would like to be in ten years. I plan on getting my Masters in Real Estate Development here at Clemson upon my undergraduate graduation. With that being said, I see myself living on the outskirts of a large, Southeastern United States, city. The two cities that instantly pop into my mind are Atlanta and Charlotte. So I would like to be living on the outskirts of one of these two cities. I would like to own my own Real Estate Development company but I don't care how big or small my company is. My main goal would be to provide a good standard of living for my family. I will hopefully be married in ten years and possibly already have a kid or would be having one in the near future. As you have read on a little further in the post now, do you see why I wanted to live on the outskirts of Atlanta or Charlotte instead of in the city? I would much rather raise my children in a house with a little bit of land than live in a condominium in the downtown area of one of these cities. Another reason why I would like to have a little bit of land would be so I can have a dog. Even if it is an inside dog, I would still like to have a small backyard that the kids can play with the dog in. So, that is just a little snapshot of what I hope my life will be like in ten years...but only time will tell!

Web 2.0 -- "The Machine is Us/ing Us" Response

I really enjoyed watching the video on Web 2.0 because it challenged my typical thought pattern. I think the title of the video "The Machine is Us/ing Us" means two things. I think first, it is saying that we are the "machine" because we are ultimately the one's who program computers to act the way they do. We (those with expertise in the computer field) write programs that direct computers how to react to certain commands. So in a sense, we are the machine because we are ultimately the one's who teach the computer how to respond and act. The second meaning in the title is saying that the machine is using us. If you are just a typical person, you think a computer is responding to your computer commands when you click certain buttons. In reality, humans have programmed the computer to act in this way, but most people do not think of this. So in a way, the computer is using humans because the humans program the computers, but the computers get all the "fame and glory" of being able to do great things. We take pride that our computer can run certain programs and do it at a certain speed, but we must remember that although the computer is doing this, it is only doing this because of human programing. Web 2.0 affects people who are looking to enter the workforce in several ways. Web 2.0 allows people looking to enter the workforce an opportunity to look for jobs online. It is much more convenient to search for jobs, submit your resume, and ask questions concerning job postings, all online. There is also an advantage to being in the workforce using Web 2.0 because Web 2.0 allows for the opportunity of more flexible jobs. This means that jobs could become work from home jobs which use the Internet to connect to the main office. It also means that employees in companies could reach a large number of employees with a single email message over the Internet. There are many possibilities for people using Web 2.0 that are looking to enter the workforce or are already in the workforce. When the video says we will have to rethink everything, I believe it is saying that we will have to change the way we think. We currently have this mental image of how society works, with jobs, communication, etc. Now with Web 2.0, things are going to keep changing from the perception we currently have. We will have new ways of communicating with our employers, fellow employees, customers, etc. We will also discover new ways of performing job tasks, such as work-at-home jobs. With Web 2.o, there are endless possibilities out there, we just have to discover these possibilities and put them into action.

Just me!

My Girlfriend and I.

My Girlfriend (Bethani) and I.

About Me!

My name is Jimmy Williams and I am a Junior here at Clemson. I am pursuing a degree in Marketing with a minor in Economics. I have been very academically focused since I got here and I will actually graduate a year early. I am planning on graduating August 2010 and I hope to go on to get my Masters after this. I would like to get my Masters in Real Estate Development. I have worked for commercial development companies in the past and I am currently working on lining up a similar job for this coming summer. Development is something that changes every day, so it's a job that never gets old.

I graduated from Wren High School in 2007. While in high school, I was on Student Government and Yearbook Staff. I have two younger sisters, Ashleigh (17) and Allie (11). My favorite sport to play is soccer. I played Varsity Soccer in high school all four years but gave up playing soccer when I came to college. I have a girlfriend, Bethani, who I've been dating for 3 1/2 years. I am a strong Christian and I really enjoy attending Campus Crusade here at Clemson. I've also gotten involved with a Bible Study through Campus Crusade and it's been a great experience! I attend CrossPoint Church here in Clemson when I'm at school and Rock Springs Baptist Church when I go back home.

Overall, I'm a pretty laid back guy. I enjoy going to any Clemson sporting events (when I'm not studying)! I guess that's about it, just let me know if you have any more questions for me!