Political Signifiers

In Natalie's video her music is the signifier and it signifies a positive and heroic figure. You get the vibe that this canididate is a good choice for America. Another signifier is the red, white, and blue shoes that make-up the V in VOTE. These shoes look liket they belong to a small child which could signify that this candidate is a good and safe choice for our children. Anything relating to children is going to target feelings with parents and make them feel good about a candidate. The signifier in the beginning is the White House, with Rick Perry plastered underneath it signifies that the White House could already be where Rick Perry belongs or that this is his home.

Brie's video opens up with the state of West Virginia with the words "Almost Heaven" written in it which is sure to catch any West Virginian's eye. This picture signifies everything someone from this state stands for. Blue and gold and John Denver's Country Roads. The song playing in the background is also Country Roads which signifies that this candidate knows what it takes to get the people of West Virginia listening to him and he can relate to everyone in this state. Another picture that stands out to me, is the candidate holding the flag with another flag in the background. This signifier signifies that maybe this person has what it takes to not only help the state of West Virginia, but maybe even the rest of the country.

With Jeana's political ad, she opens up with a photo of Ground Zero, which signifies everything our country stands for. Ground Zero hits emotionally with so many people, which shows maybe this candidate could do the same. Her photo of the grave site signifies that this candidate realizes the things that can go wrong, but he wants to help change that while still allowing American's to keep their rights. The last signifier is the Statue of Liberty. With her holding a gun she signifies that guns are as American as her, and if she can hold one, so can the rest of our country.



Photo From: Sean MacEntee



Event Planning Websites

The first website I came across was Merryl Brown Events, this website is set up with eight different navigation searches. At first, I thought that was a lot, but once I went to my other two websites, they had eight also. The choices on the first website are Who We Are, What We Do, Testimonials, Awards, Gallery, Press, Blog, and Contact Us. I like the What We Are, Who We Are, Blog, and Contact Us, however, I do think the Gallery, Press, Awards, and Testimonials seem to be a bit repititve. I would have liked to have seen them set this site up with either less and combine the few that are similar or even combine them and add something a little different. Once I started clicking through the different pages there were some things that I felt didn't flow. In general, for being what they make look like a top event planning company on the West Coast, their website if very poorly done. It's very boring, and just BLAH.

The second site I visited was Sasha Souza Events, which was also my favorite. They broke up their navigation structure by About, Services, Event Spaces, Awards & Press, Gallery, Get Inspired, Floral & Decor, and Contact. I like that you can see the spaces that they tend to use most often for their events and also see the floral arrangements and decorations they have designed. I feel like this website truely shows a person what they are going to get if they were to use this company. They also give people the breakdown of colors, and what a color can represent in the event setting. I really like that a person can use this website even if they are not necessarily looking for an event planner because it has so much useful information for the necessities of a big party or wedding.

My last event planning website belonged to Dream Wedding & Event Planners. The eight ways this website's navigation structure are broken up are Home, About, Services, Weddings, Press Releases, Endorsements, Our Blog, and Contact. Something I love about the first and last sites were that they had a link to their blog. I think a blog is an excellent idea for a company like this because you can't fit every single event you host on a website. A blog allows an event planner to write and reflect on something they have created as well as giving future customer a refrence to their work as well as ideas for something they may like to incorporate into their special event. I think the big picture of this navigation structure is done well, however once you click on each link somethings do not make sense to me. Such as, under Endorsements, there is a link to an Emergencies page that includes horrible situations the company has found themselves in and how they fixed it. I personally would have nothing like that anywhere on a website.

Overall, I think there are obviously a few choices that you need in a navigation structure regardless of what your website is about, but when it comes to an event planning thing, its very important to have information that makes your cutomers feel comfortable, see your work, and know you're a professional.  

PowerPoint IS Evil

PowerPoint to me is worthless in ever aspect of teaching or presenting. Therefore I am definitely Team Tufte.

In high school I use to think "sweet, all we're doing is a PowerPoint today", but now that I'm in college I hate doing PowerPoint's and I hate when my teachers use them. Whenever I see I a PowerPoint I think to myself, "you couldn't email that to us?" or "just print it out and let us leave".

I don't understand PowerPoint because if you put to many words on a slideshow it becomes hard to follow and you're teacher ends up letting you write everything down and not listen to a word their saying then at the end of class they say "OH!, by the way I printed this out for you!" Or if it is simple talking points for the teacher it becomes nothing but a distraction or I end up writing whatever is on the board and go back and take my own notes in a book.

I would much rather write a paper then design a PowerPoint. To me, a paper is simply graded on your content and skill. Something that won't change as long as you're writing papers. However, with PowerPoint, it's constantly changing and you're always trying to keep up or learn the latest trend. Knowing that I'm being graded on what kind of animation or picture I choose freaks me out.

Photo Credit: Scott McCloud

I can't really speak for the business setting because I'm not sure how it might hurt or help some situations. However I do agree with Tufte when he points out that "a PowerPoint slide typically shows 40 words, which is about eight seconds' worth of silent reading material. With so little information per slide, many, many slides are needed." I feel like an employee could spend their time doing something better then making a PowerPoint with a cute little background and some sweet animations.

Gatorade Ads

I spend a lot of time looking at sports magazines and watching ESPN, which means I see a lot of Gatorade commercials and ads.

My favorite part about their ads is that they are able to incorporate so many famous people into their ads and commercials. I also like that most of their ads don't have a lot of color other then the actual Gatorade bottles.

The effects of making their athletes sweat the color of the Gatorade they are drinking amaze me.

Their most recent commercial advertising the Prime, Perform, and Recover drinks incorporates all of the most common activities people are taking part in. Such as, the gym and social networking.

Photo by: BetsyWeber

Event Planning Website

For my future website, I would like to develope something that would outline all the things neccessary for event planning.

I would like to start my own event planning company with my mom when I graduate, but she's not all about the idea. So I feel starting a website would show her I'm very serious and she might jump on the bandwagon with me, because without her I won't be able to start a company.

I'd like to have pages that would say things that are needed for birthday parties, weddings, school dances, retirement parties, etc.

Different tabs or pages might outline different themes for parties that include what balloons, flowers, or other ideas that may be useful to the theme.

I would also like to inclue a promotional page as well as a contact page.

Photo By: Ryan Smith

VALS Survey

The VALS survey rated me as a Striver type. And judging by the description:

"Strivers are trendy and fun loving. Because they are motivated by achievement, Strivers are concerned about the opinions and approval of others. Money defines success for Strivers, who don't have enough of it to meet their desires. They favor stylish products that emulate the purchases of people with greater material wealth. Many Strivers see themselves as having a job rather than a career, and a lack of skills and focus often prevents them from moving ahead.

 

Strivers are active consumers because shopping is both a social activity and an opportunity to demonstrate to peers their ability to buy. As consumers, they are as impulsive as their financial circumstance will allow."

..I would say that this would be the best option for me out of the other types. Ever since I joined a social sorority I feel I have most definitely became more of a striver. People are constantly judging you and looking at you differently just because you wear certain letters. I strive to be better not only for myself but for the people I am representing every time I put on my sorority letters. My sisters and I love to shop, so we are very active consumers, as well as impulsive shoppers, but we do not spend more then our budget will allow.

Ending Blog for Comm 203

As the semester comes to a close I am wrapping up my writing until next semester. It has been interesting using the same site for two polar opposite classes. Keeping up with blogging has been a challenge for me because I don't usually go on rants about a particular topic, but I feel blogging is going to become more popular in the future and now is good practice for when the time comes that I need to blog more frequently. However, learning how to use blogger.com has been fun, and I would recommend it to anyone who says they enjoy blogging. Hopefully I get to continue blogging for other classes in the COMM department, but I guess we will see come August.

A World Without Sports?

To think of a world without sports is unreal to me. However the first two downfalls that came to my mind if this were to ever happen were the lack of students who would attend college, and there would be no Olympics.

Sports in colleges are a huge reason kids go to school. For many students sports is a source of income to even go to college. Without scholarship money some of the best athletes wouldn't be able to go to their dream school, or maybe not even go to college at all. And for those who would still would go to college there would be less to be involved in. No matter the season, when you're at college you can always attend a sporting event with your friends.

If we didn't have sports, my current major wouldn't even exist. Sports play a huge role in colleges, along with high school. For many student athletes it's the reason they want to wake up and go to school or classes each day. What would be the motivation if we didn't have sports?

The Olympics are something people are always looking forward too, but think of the nation's that wouldn't be recognized if they hadn't hosted the Olympics. To host the Olympics different areas will spend billions of dollars getting ready for the games. The 2008 Olympic games in Beijing hosted about 3,000 athletes, 1,900 team officials, 2,000 technical officials, 200,000 spectators, 5,000 VIPS, and 6,500 journalists. Imagine finding a place to put these people each day. A city needs to practically be rebuilt to be the site of the Olympic games. However, without the Olympics many places would be unnoticed. I am visiting Vancouver in less then a month and the first thing I related Vancouver to were the 2010 Winter Olympic games.

The thought of a world with out the Olympics is sad, but to think about how many children wouldn't experience college or get a college education is even worse.

The Web at 20

The line that I found to be the most striking is:
"Governments—totalitarian and democratic alike—are monitoring people’s online habits, endangering important human rights."

My thoughts on this are if the government is going to invade our rights they should atleast do a good job at it. There is so much illegal activity going on through the internet with child pornography, identity theft, and scamming that the government should be doing more to end these issues.

People may be a little okay with the government tracking our internet activity if these issues are coming to an end. However, with the boom of social networking and more and more people using the internet these problems only seem to get worse.

So what's the sense in taking advantage of our human rights if you're not doing anything with the capability you have?

Blog 5

For me, the most interesting thing in Comm 203 has also been the most beneficial. I enjoyed working on looking up different career paths that relate to my field. I have no desire to work with any type of design or media throughout my career other then the basic requirements since I am a Recreation and Leisure major. So, sitting down and reading about different sports programs also helped me look into a possible internship.

Career in Sports Communications

This week I spent a lot of time just trying to figure out the technical name of my dream job. Throughout my research I got into contact with the only person who could help me, but still haven't heard back. I researched many of the top schools to see if they had the position I was looking for, however I didn't find anything.

The HYPERS Department requires all students to become a member of different professional organizations. I am most interested in CoSIDA or North American Society for Sport Management, because of all the benefits to students.

I struggled with the book assignment, because I don't know the title where I would research a job when I don't know the name of it. However, I did find a find a few thing interesting in the public relations sections.

http://www.nassm.com/InfoFor/Students/Careers
http://cosida.com/
https://sjobs.brassring.com/1033/ASP/TG/cim_jobdetail.asp?jobId=401372&partnerid=25017&siteid=5172&type=search&JobReqLang=1&recordstart=1&codes=IND
http://www.hr.duke.edu/jobs/job_descriptions/campus/select.php?ID=2151

A Girls Love for Sports

Growing up I was a "tom-boy". (I didn't mind until I started looking back at old pictures.) I was always the girl with baseball cards, the one on the blacktop playing basketball with the guys, or asking for jerseys for Christmas instead of dresses.

I guess I never really understood my love and appreciation for sports until I got a little bit older. Throughout middle school I played basketball, softball, and even tried cheerleading. Sure, I knew I was athletic and coordinated enough that I could do anything, but cheerleading? I was good, but the girly-girl stuff wasn't my scene yet.

Going into high school I decided to go back to basketball. As much as I liked having a reason to make myself look cute, I didn't want to cheer even though all of my friends were going to continue.

When I started "dating" is when I really found out how sports would play such a huge role in my life. Since I enjoyed sports there was always something to do or something to talk about with my boyfriend. Perfect?

I was lucky enough to find a guy who a) plays baseball and b) is really cute. Throughout high school I found myself attending more sporting events. I was always going to school games, professional games, or even his games. Since I decided to quit playing basketball I had a lot of extra free time, but I wanted to fill that free time with sports.

Some of my greatest memories throughout our relationship involve sports. We've had the chance to sit front row at a Yankees/Orioles game, take a road-trip to sit with the Cameron Crazies at Cameron Indoor Stadium for a Duke game, see JJ Redick play for the magic, see his college team play, and even skip school to spend Valentine's Day weekend in Florida for the Daytona 500.

From my experience and those around me, it seems sports can truly better a relationship. There's something to talk about and experience other then work, school, or drama. I may not have a Valentine if it weren't for sports, would you?