Communication as a Lifestyle on Prezi
The above is a brief presentation I gave at Lindenwood University about my passion; communication.
Communication
com·mu·ni·ca·tion - the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs. Key elements of effective communication involve more than just spoken word. True and effective communication for me is the multi-faceted sharing of information, thoughts, and ideas. Experts estimate that it’s something upwards of 60% of communication is non-verbal. That means that the majority of what we say isn’t coming from our words, so much as it’s coming from our visuals, our media, and our body language.
The Message
To be effective in personal communication, the message must be three things; important, personal, and honest. Without these elements in relational communication, we can’t effectively communicate. What’s important? Perhaps you have something to offer about collecting coffee mugs that no one has considered. That brings a level of importance to your message that reaches a certain audience based on it’s inherent importance.
Listen
Communication stops dead in it’s tracks when there is no listening. For a long time, my communication centered around my effectively communicating my message. Communication doesn’t work like that. To effectively communicate a message of any kind, one must listen, even if only in order to gain a respect for one’s audience.
Tools
My personal brand is not built around the Android community, although it partially is. My personal brand reflects me, and my message. I have loads to communicate, and it’s centered around my website, my Twitter (@AddisonTodd) and my Facebook profile. My online persona centers around me, and what I can offer in a professional community with my given area of expertise. I also occasionally blog about a number of other random topics. This makes me a real individual who is also passionate about the things that he cares about.
My Role
My role in communication is based on my personality, and my passion. I could try my hand at sports writer if I wanted to. I might succeed in the interim, until my lack of knowledge in that area was apparent. Any readers I had gained would quickly move on realizing that I had nothing valuable to say on the topic. My strong points are my personality traits that connect me with people, and my expertise.
People Like Me
People with the same drive and passions as me are people like Chris Reimer, (@RizzoTees) Gary Vaynerchuk, (@garyvee) Craig Gross, (@craigxxxchurch) Amy Jo Martin, (@AmyJoMartin) Derek Mabie, (@DerekMabie) and Sarah Evans. (@PRSarahEvans)
Questions?
Andy the Android
Android is a mobile operating system comparable (if later developed) to Apple’s popular iOS software. It has many of the same features, and many different features. It is a Linux based file system developed by the Open Handset Alliance led by Google. Google purchased the initial developer of the software, Android Inc., in 2005. As a way of codenaming the releases of Android, Google uses dessert names such as Gingerbread, Froyo, etc; with the latest build being Ice Cream Sandwich, currently available on the Galaxy Nexus, by Samsung.
The principle factor with in deciding between Android and iOS is customization. As an avid Android user myself, this is the key factor that nailed down my decision between the two popular platforms. I have owned an iPhone, and have more recently owned Android phones, with my current phone being the Samsung Droid Charge.
To be blatantly honest, there is only one way to get even close to the customization on an iOS device that you can get on an Android phone, and that’s by jailbreaking, or “unlocking” the software of device in question. Long rumored illegal, jailbreaking gives a form of administrative access to an iOS device by allowing the user to install third party non-vendor developed applications, instead of just the usually install approved applications from Apple’s appstore.
Closed Development
Every application currently available for Apple’s iOS is subject to Apple’s scrutiny, their demands for change, etc. However, when it comes to Android, applications are open to developer’s creativity. Google monitors the Android Market for spam and illegal content, but other
Example: Google+
Android phones had a Google+ app before it was a public service and openly available. Quite literally, the app was available on user’s phones before they could even access the service via their Google accounts. Granted, the product is a Google product. But hey, let’s look at it logically here. Is there another software or conceptual developer that could somehow rival Google? Short of an actual Apple product, who could be more trustworthy than Google? But, Apple users had to wait until Apple took their typically long review process into consideration to finally release the product to the appstore for download.
Customization
Widgets on Ice Cream Sandwich
Why has Apple not considered the functionality of widgets? Android has a functionality built in for users to add widgets from a variety of default applications, as well as third-party developer applications. This allows some functionality available within an application to be used outside of the application on the homescreen. This functionality is not matched by any features in iOS. To access application features, the closest thing to widgets that iOS has to offer is the push notifications.
Case Study: Default Launcher(s)
The default homescreen functionality on an iPhone is a format with horizontally tiled screens with the applications listed (by default) in an order that Apple specifies. The remaining customization available with no extra steps is reorganizing applications in a manner preferred, and the ability to created and name folders for applications to reside in.
Android users can go to the Android Market and use many different homescreen launchers, providing endless customization for the style of application drawer, horizontally and vertically styled application listings, etc. Many of these applications are available to users free of charge from the Android Market.
As an avid Android user, the topics I’ve listed here are my main reasons for choosing Android over iOS. I have owned an iPhone, and I own an iPod Touch with the latest version of iOS on it as well, but I have chosen Android as my preferred platform.
If you’re from St. Louis or the Midwest, and you monitor the trends on Twitter, last week you may have seen a hashtag trending, “#PBandJterm”, and wondered what it was all about, or you saw me tagging tweets with it. Well, it’s all because of one special topics class at Lindenwood University; “Creating and Managing Your Online Personal Brand”, taught by Communications professor Jill Falk.
After a few days of deliberation at the beginning of the week, we decided (much to my chagrin, actually) on the tag #PBandJterm. It represents “Personal Branding”, the topic of our class, and January Term, the pre-semester “semester” of classes here at Lindenwood, with a cute poke at the “PB&J” moniker. If you notice my Twitter feed, I reluctantly began to use the tag around Wednesday (Jan 4th) of last week. We had presentations in class on Thursday about ourselves, which generated a lot of chatter about one another, but not a lot of chatter much further out of our own (albeit small) community of students.
On Friday (Jan. 6th) we had presentations in class about a brand personality of our choice, with some key facts about what we should know about them. Mine was about the personality Chris Reimer. (@RizzoTees) He had a lot of insight to offer in terms of personal branding, social media implementation, etc. As of that day #PBandJterm really took off. As a result of all the presentations in class, our personal branding personalities began to interact with us on Twitter. These included Reimer, as well as others like David Armano, (@Armano) Tara Joyce, (@ElasticMind) Nick Gilham, (@NickGilham) and others.
Once this began to happen, it was only a matter of time before someone considered the possibility of us trending; which we checked, to find out that our conversation had become number one in St. Louis. Where that left us in the global list, or United States trends is anyone’s guess. However, it’s still pretty cool that a group of twenty-somethings that attend school in the Midwest can talk about their class, and personal branding, and land their conversation as a number one trend in a giant metropolitan area.
The key here, is that the hashtag went beyond just a few friends in class discussing something. This is also key to understanding how hashtags work. Tags such as “#talkaboutawkward” or “#ifitwasuptome” indicate a mediocre knowledge and understanding of how Twitter works. The hashtag was designed to track a given topic of conversation. Not all momentary hashtags are bad. For example, a friend and I used to always tag conversations about food with “#FoodTweet” or “#Hungry.” Hence, for curiosity’s sake, we could then easily search Twitter for other people talking about food.
I encourage you to interact with #PBandJterm over the next few weeks to see the things we learn about personal branding, and track the content we publish.
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