Author: juneleal

Shannan Bowen is an editorial product strategist for McClatchy and is also an audience development strategist and journalist. She is passionate for local news, innovation and media strategy and her jobs positions have always combined those passions. Some of her past positions include working at the National Journal, which is a division of Atlantic Media, Atlantic Media Strategies, The Hill and more.

She first started working as a reporter for Wilmington StarNews and covered topics like regional politics, tourism and coastal issues in North Carolina. She is a graduate of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and got her Master’s in Media Entrepreneurship from American University.

Amanda Zamora is Chief Audience Officer at the Texas Tribune. Her previous work includes working at The Huffington Post Investigative Fund, The Washington Post and ProPublica. She first started off working at the Austin American Stateman and now is at the Texas Tribune. With her extensive background, she uses her skills to help draw in her audience with creative journalism and makes sure it’s important to the audience as well.

Questions:

1. Where does your inspiration for creating content stem from?
2. What are the most important things you’ve learned from working at The Huffington Post and The Washington Post?

Our guest for this week is an amazing person and I have been lucky enough to have shared some classes with her. Vera Fisher is the founder and CEO of Austin based marketing company, 97 Degrees West. Her company helps small and medium businesses to multimillion dollar company’s with branding, marketing, business and customer support problems. She is also a mentor at Capital Factory. She also has her own podcast show that she started last year.

Vera does all this and is currently a graduate student at Texas State University. She’s really an amazing person! Some questions I have are: What inspired you to start your own company? What has helped you the most with your company by attending graduate school?

 

 

Tim Levy is a motivational speaker, coach and the CEO of his own strategic marketing agency. Hailing from Australia, he has had his fair share of working with big companies in Silicon Valley and Australia. Also, he has published five different books and he’s even done some stand-up comedy. His resume is definitely quite impressive.

Questions:

1. What advice would you have to a new graduate wanting to get a job abroad?

1) Which is more important, function or design? Are they equal? Under what circumstances (for example, is one more important in a phone, another more important in a car or computer)?

I think function is definitely more important than design, especially in things like cars and computers. Even for an iPhone, sure I love the sleek design and how light it is, but at the end of the day, I am going to need something that I can use for everyday use. Design is important but for advertising and marketing purposes. Consumers always take the design into consideration. I know some people who always buy certain colors of iPhones because they look prettier or they already have a case in mind and a certain color goes with it better. I think it’s different with things like cars though. Function is something that needs to be the most important because it’s not only for everyday use, but also for your safety. You don’t want a car that’s only pretty, but will break down on you constantly.

2) Has design influenced a purchasing decision for you? Or is something high on your wish list because of design?

It definitely has influenced a purchasing decision for me. As someone who once worked for Apple, the design was always something I looked at first and then the function. When I purchased my new MacBook Pro, the fact that it was slimmer, lighter and the screen was so vibrant is what sold me. It was after that when I went on to decide what I needed on the inside of the computer, the RAM, storage, etc. Same for when I bought my new iPhone 7 Plus. When they announced the jet black phone, I was instantly sold. The headphone jack wasn’t a problem for me either because when I really thought about it. I rarely listened to my phone while it was charging anyways.

Jeff Wilson is an entrepreneur, professor and was this week’s speaker for our class. He has quite the experience with a Ph.D under his belt and attended Harvard University, Texas State University and even Texas A&M University. He has worked at Ernst & Young, IBM, Huston-Tillotson University and is currently the CEO at KASITA. KASITA was born from one of Dr. Wilson’s social experiments, where he turned a 33 sq. ft. trash dumpster into a living space for a year. This project landed him on various media outlets like the New York Times, The Washington Post and more.

Anna Tauzin is the Vice President of Marketing and Innovation at the Texas Restaurant Association. She received her master of arts in journalism from American University and her bachelor of arts in mass communication from Texas State University. Some of her other experience  includes being the Senior Marketing Manager of Innovation & Entrepreneurial Services for the National Restaurant Association, on the advisory board for South by Southwest, the Manager of Digital Innovation for the National Restaurant Association and so much more. In her current position, she focuses on promoting the Texas Restaurant Association and restaurants.  

Questions:

What was the most important thing you learned while at Texas State and how did it help you with your career?

What advice would you give to someone wanting to work in marketing for the food industry?