Finished!

I've finally finished all of my classes and I only have one day left with my internship. I figured the only thing I can do on the last blog post is reflect on what I've learned this semester.

Overall I've learned to understand nonprofit management in a much more intricate way, especially for a nonprofit that is so young. I've learned a ton about communications and media and press releases and how to handle social networking. I've learned about public relations and experienced a great firm in action first hand. I've learned about the immigration process and gotten a look inside the Department of Homeland Security. I've learned how to expand a clientele base and outreach to specific groups using strategic messaging. I've learned the values of networking and how important good connections are. I've learned about the educational value of civic ideals, and about the current status of civic education in the state. To be honest I've even learned the value of reflection, and debriefing my work occasionally using ths blog.

I didn't think I would enjoy writing about what I do on a day to day basis, but even if it hasn't been interesting to anyone else, its been very interesting for me. Going back and reading my posts I am able to recollect details I'm sure I would have forgotten previously. And it helps to analyze and track your progress in a process of learning and growth.

Next steps:
I am a finalist for the Student Regent position and am looking forward to continuing that process.
I have applied for internships with the City of Phoenix, and the Arizona Association of Counties and a job with the City of Chandler, all of which would be exciting experiences.
I have finished my first semester in Grad School and am learning to really like my program, even though I fell into it on accident.
I will be taking some interesting classes over the next few semesters.
I will continue my hobbies and part time jobs and hopefully continue to be successful in them as well.

Overall it was a good semester, but I'm most excited for a well-deserved break!

Next Interns

As my internship is wrapping up, I recently found out that a friend of mine will be taking my place with Citizenship Counts next semester. I'm very excited for her and I know she will do a great job. As far as the transition goes, I'm sure knowing one another will help the process to be smooth and effortless. In past internships I have taken over and had almost little to no information given to me on unfinished projects. The different organizational means and so on, simply made everything very difficult.

Here is a list of things I need to do in order to prepare for the turnover:

1. Collect all computer files in one place
2. Label all computer files using common sense names.
3. List my current unfinished and on going projects and where they are at.
4. Send my blog URL to her.
5. Organize my workspace in a logical way.
6. Throw away all the old and unneeded documents.
7. Make a list of tips and tricks I learned to share with her.


Hopefully if I do all of things the transition will be easier on her, on my boss, and on the company in general. I should look into the ways that other employees transfer information when moving on from an organization, and see if there are official or unofficial rules for doing this in the professional world.

Facebook Fan Page

My current assignment is to create a Fan Page on Facebook for our Founder, in order to handle all of the media requests and popularity she has received with her recent award. Its actually pretty interesting too. I go on facebook fairly often and update my profile when anything major happens in my life. But I've never used facebook to achieve business goals.

I read a post a while back from a fellow intern about the limitations to facebook and I certainly agree. Although it can certainly boost visibility to a degree, and also contribute to general interest, its rare that facebook will actually promote profit or generate business. We previously used a "cause" page on facebook, where we could even receive donations. But this was hardly successful. Facebook users rarely login to spend money, and are more interested in hearing recent news and enjoy wasting time in between projects.

The fan pages are unique however. They have the capability to expand marketing techniques to change format, layout, request donations, provide links, have an online store etc. all through the use of FBML. It is similar to HTML, but is a specific language used and developed by Facebook. This is in the process of being removed in exchange for another language which is more intuitive and a little bt more versatile called iframes. This is certainly a side of facebook I had not encountered before, but found fascinating. It took me a while to get the hang of it, and im certainly no pro, but I was able to adjust the settings of the fan page by inserting and writing some of my own code. In order to make the site really user friendly and appealing however we will need to use a professional writer or a generator of some kind. It sounds like we should maybe invest in Dreamweaver, although I don't think we have the money for it.

Business Travel Reflections

This weekend was a tough trip. Upon arriving in Birmingham I discovered my bag did not make it with me, not to mention I had been delayed by about 2 hours. Finally getting to the hotel at close to 1 am, with nothing more than my laptop and a pack of gum, I collapsed for the few short hours I had to sleep. I woke up the next day and was picked up by a good friend, and Jazz Professor at Samford University, Chip Crotts. We drove to the auditions and I was lucky enough to get to run things for about 2 hours before i had to leave to prepare for my interview. I quickly drove down to a nearby department store and bought a shirt and tie (since I was skyping into the interview I could get away with still wearing jeans and sneakers). I prepared for about half an hour and then did a sound and video check while the committee was eating lunch.

The interview itself went fairly well. I think I was able to answer most of the questions comprehensively and succinctly with only a few ramblings here and there. In all I was left back at the airport exhausted and in need of sleep and a shower. I was able to pick up my bag downstairs from the luggage counter, just in time to walk it upstairs and recheck it for my flight home. I paid $50 for the airlines to ship my bag to and from Alabama,  without ever once even being opened.

I think business travel won't always be this stressful or hectic. But it certainly hasn't given me much hope for the recent future.

Business Travel

This weekend I am traveling to Birmingham to run a clinic for a Drum and Bugle Corps I teach. Alysa is off to Minnesota for some business travel of her own and to continue to improve relations with immigration services there since this is one of our key communities to expand to in the coming months.

I never realized traveling for business could be so boring. I have only done this a few other times, but was always staying with friends. This time I'll be alone in a hotel most of the time. And tomorrow after my clinic I'll be skyping in to an interview for the Student Regent position here in Arizona. It will be a busy weekend, amidst classes and papers and finals, so I hope that everything goes smoothly. From trying to iron clothes in my hotel room, to making good first impressions in uncomfortable environments, there is a lot to experience with traveling for work. I hope I get to keep traveling, but in the future get to see the sights in addition to working, and maybe travel to more exotic places than Birmingham. But who knows, maybe I'll get to sample some great Southern cooking!

Getting Google’s Attention

Apparently one of the rising industries in technology and marketing is expertise in SCO Modules. Basically what this means is that people study and consult companies and organizations about how to get noticed by search engines like Google. These organizations and individuals understand the algorithms that Google uses to pull up results and understand the way to improve these ratings so that your web page can receive increased traffic.

So with the help of our Board Member and Marketing guru Carrie Martz, we had a meeting with an organization called Digital Dogs, who focus exactly on this. With the recent announcement that our founder will be receiving a Presidential Medal of Freedom, we expected to receive some additional web traffic, however this didn’t really happen. Actually, if you search our founder’s name on Google CC doesn’t come up until the 6^th or 7^th page. So Mike from Digital Dogs took a look at our website and gave us some pointers on how to improve this such as:

-Eliminating numerous pages with the same content or copy

-Putting key search terms in as many large places as possible

-Try to link to larger, influential websites, and have them link back to you

-Try to update your website frequently, especially while focusing on those key terms

-And many other complicated website building and html kinds of technicalities

What this means for me is a lot of time on our website putting key phrases in important places and restructuring the site map so that Google more easily understands the links set up on our page.

I never realized how lucrative and important this kind of knowledge was, understanding how Google’s algorithms work. It makes me wonder if I have useful knowledge that I don’t even realize is useful yet, and maybe I should try and find a way to make that impact the success of CC in more ways.

Recruitment Part 2- Pardes Day School

This week Alysa and I had a meeting with the administrators at Pardes Day School, a Jewish school in Scottsdale. As part of our outreach attempts we are trying to implement our program in a variety of environments. I worked earlier in the semester to reach out to home schooled children and their parents and attempt to provide our services to them. Now we are trying to implement our curriculum into schools with a variety of religious backgrounds as well as nonreligious private schools and charter schools.

The meeting went very well. We have a few board and staff connections with the administrators so the initial conversation was very casual and they were incredibly receptive to the idea of hosting their own naturalization ceremony in the spring. They even had ideas about how they could tailor the program to activities they are already doing with the children on a daily basis. They currently have a Jewish immigration section of study for eighth graders and they show a film by MacArthur Grant recipient Meredith Monk.  They promised to speak to the teachers within the next few weeks about implementations and the initial scheduling of dates.

One of the most exciting aspects is their interest in using our online curriculum, which should be up and running within a couple months. We knew this would be popular with many schools that have ample access to technology, but this is the first time someone has actually expressed direct interest since I’ve been with the organization.

They also asked us to look into possible partnerships with an organization called “People to People” which currently runs similar programs to one of our current partners. If the interests seem to align themselves this might serve as another opportunity to team together to receive additional grants and funding.