Media Literacy and Research Methodologies was the first course I took on my journey at Full Sail University. Basic projects such as building a professional learning network were paramount throughout my journey at Full Sail and beyond. Within the first week of this course we sought the advice of professionals in our future industries. Using social media and other online tools we were able to connect directly to experts and peers.
A key to this course was the introduction of the APA format for writing papers. This format is the writing technique that is accepted universally when writing scholarly material. This preparatory introduction to APA became beneficial in nearly every course that I took in my masters program.
How to interpret leadership was a core value that I gained from Executive Leadership. Currently in my career I’ve implemented several principles learned in this course. I seek to lead many in my current position in addition to my future endeavors. To get people to follow you in the business world a leader must be able to navigate a sea of emotional people. Understanding the dynamics that work interpersonally while getting results to foster your follower’s beliefs can be an entertaining challenge.
One project in particular that peeked my interest during this Executive Leadership course was the first assessment project the professor assigned. The instructor provided some case study type information. Then we determined which law or which concept should be applied. Applying Greene’s Law or Maxwell concepts proved beneficial to my understanding of leadership overall.
Below see a video created by my team during my Project and Team Management course:
In my next course Business Storytelling and Brand Development I learned some important factors to build and maintain my company's brand. Implementing the use of certain colors when designing a logo, or determining the strength of the name of a product are a couple of vital lessons learned during this course. Building a tagline that covers your products identity in a few words was a challenge that was worth its difficulty. Early in this course students presented a company overview that became a staple of the business plan that students constructed in later courses.
The brand development aspect of this course revealed the impact of competitors driving your company. Until this course I never realized the direct correlation between our company's strategies coupled with competitive outlook. Being introduce to a standard of acknowledging competition and devising a differentiation between your company is paramount. My company brand was built primarily on beliefs and a mantra that was designed for this course in particular.
Entertainment Business Finance (EBF) became the first course in which I felt my comfort zone. As an accountant for one of the largest journal publishers in the world during my time at Full Sail, I had a clear understanding of finance. Using new tools to look at smaller business was a delight in contrast to the massive accounts I handled professionally. Currently as I'm writing this post I have a 3.95 GPA as I wait for my final course grades to post. However, EBF is the class that I excelled in when compared with other courses of different disciplines.
The break-even analysis and pro forma project I completed in EBF were backbones for future financial projects pertaining to my business plan. Most courses after EBF in my program's timeline insisted on some knowledge of our company’s finances. Having templates to build additional assumptions for our business plan was ultimately helpful. By the time I made it to this course I had a professional blog that grew in viewership significantly. Looking back to this place in my academic timeline at Full Sail this is when I realized I indeed was a scholar again. I had a sense of being prepared to be active in creating businesses and not just analyzing them.
Never in my previous academic history did I have a course that brought about interaction as much as Negotiations and Deal Making. Every week the instructor paired classmates together to partake in a role-play negotiation. These negotiations would vary in industry, dynamics, and roles. Each week would bring a new challenge with a new counterpart. This role-playing tool was helpful in keeping us in tune with the awkwardness of consistently negotiating in the business world.
As mentioned before my increased viewership on my blog increased steadily and I decided to do an article on a leader in the entertainment industry. Up to today this article is one of my personal favorites so you should read it at the link below:
Follow a Leader!! And Get the Deal Done!!
WarStation TV Exclusive Interview
“BI Bang”
The next course in my programs timeline was Product and Artist Management. This course seemed different in structure to some of the other courses. There seemed to be an emphasis on working with others to make your business work. Looking at products or artist that make your company profitable took the front seat in this class’s ideology.
The students designed an investor pitch that helped give us the experience to speak on behalf of our products/services. Also we created a mock live event for the artist of our choice. This mock live event was a great way to work outside of the constraints of my particular business. This allowed me to learn an additional tool that will be useful in my future business interactions.
It’s with great glee that I move on to Advance Entertainment Law. The course that broke my perfect GPA and the only course that I did not receive a perfect letter grade. I guess I can settle with the "A" that I got for completing this course but I feel that my instructor was consistently strict with the parameters for success in this class. As a lawyer my instructor had an amazing attention to detail. She pointed out minor areas that I required growth to be a perfect student. Needless to say I enjoyed this course with the direct look at legal matters within the entertainment business.
The IP Audit project I completed during this particular course is still a template I look at when making decisions for my company post completion of this program. Creating a written document of intellectual properties that my company owns was good in theory but essential in documenting properties that I’ve created. We also filled out forms for copyrights, trademarks, and company registrations during Advance Entertainment Law.
Entertainment Media Publishing and Distribution provided a business plan strategy project that is helpful in describing what my company does and how it is structured. Straying into aspects of marketing products, I created a detailed video game description that I used for my company. This project was the first time I was able to detail all the moving parts of the video game outlined in my company's business plan.
My instructor in this course provided multiple sample templates. In particular the sample press kit that we were given in this course will be used for future reference when creating a press kit. A sample document that I used in this course outlined the steps in creating a detailed game description.
An extremely helpful course during my masters program at Full Sail was Digital Marketing. The current technological era has forced small business to use the Internet to compete with bigger companies. Using social media was one major aspect highlighted during my time of instruction in this course.
One project of great interest to me at the time was my Marketing Plan Proposal A. In which I detailed my competitors, business concept, audience, marketing campaign and that campaign's budget. Students completed two portions of a marketing plan that showed each segment of marketing for my company.
The culmination of my masters program at Full Sail University was designed to help us create a thorough business plan. Business Plan Development expanded the information that students learned throughout the program. At this point we learned first hand how to build our business plan to be most attractive to potential investors. Being able to identify the structure in which to write our business plan was paramount to this program's completion. A core project during this course was our differentiation assignment. Which simply allowed us to magnify the differences between our company and its competitors.
The last course in Full Sail University’s Entertainment Business Masters Program is Final Project Business Plan Development. Building on philosophies learned in our previous courses students identified how to write out a business plan in multiple ways. Whether using hardcore financials or a virtual keynote presentation, students are now able to reach investors in different ways. I contend to not only to be a scholar based on my education at Full Sail University but I’ve now become a creative business leader.
No comments:
Post a Comment