Almost to the 30th!

We are coming close to the big celebration! This is it and there is no turning back! 

One highlighted event mentioned is a complimentary BBQ lunch and special student-alumni table talk opportunity hosted by the Department of Communication’s 30th Anniversary Celebration! The BBQ is open to students, staff, faculty and alumni from the Dept of Communication*.

Interested in digital marketing, public relations, entrepreneurship, graduate school and more? Join our Comm alumni for a bit of table talk! During the BBQ, there will be an opportunity for undergrad and grad students to talk with alumni about life after college and hear about some of the careers available for graduates from the Department of Communication.

*The event is open to all 30th Anniversary Celebration attendees and Team Comm-UNITY 5K participants…so either register for 5K or celebration festivities below.

Also, invite your friends to this one-of-a-kind opportunity on Facebook! (https://www.facebook.com/events/531395720250473/) 

Loud and Proud | Our Comm Dept.

What many Communication students do not know about their department at UCSD, is that we are well-known for having had two MacArthur fellows on our board!

The MacArthur 'Genius' Award is one to be excited about, as every year there are only 40 unique individuals from all different sorts of fields are selected in granting them around half a million dollars for their current/future projects and work.

In 1990, Michael Schudson, sociologist and past professor from our department, is an original scholar from our faculty to win an MacArthur fellowship. He is the author of seven books and contributed significant studies to the history and sociology of the history of U.S. citizenship, the American news media, and political participation, and related topics.
Read more about Schudson's win

Recently, Carol Padden, our very own faculty member, stands out as true recipient of the MacArthur award in 2010. With her personal interests growing up in a deaf family, she brings unique studies of linguistics and the American sign language to our Communication curriculum and to overall world of education.
Read more about Padden

Know Your Network

From the previous post about Undergraduate Communication Society's Speed Networking event, there may have been no purpose in motivating students to come out unless they understand the importance of networking!
Of course, some reasons students may feel unmotivated to attend such events can be from laziness or shyness that needs to be eliminated. "It can also motivate you go further, take the plunge into starting your own business or just expand your industry knowledge." ://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-05-26/news/30066354_1_networking-events-young-entrepreneurs-business-cards#ixzz2SyqSPTQC

                               (from http://www.helpguide.org/life/job_networking_how_to_find_job.htm)

The Undergraduate Investment Society not only strictly focuses on finance, but the importance of getting an internship through networking. In their most recent GBMs, in how to land an internship, they  share stories of their hardship and all the risk they were willing to take. Joseph Ro and Edward Youn, UIS VPs, both have gone to the extension of driving all the way to UCLA and using their UCLA friends' id cards to access the school's networking events. In advance, they study the companies attending these mixers and even the study the professionals so they are able to have a full-on conversation with professionals about their position and the firm's recent news and history. How much more intense can that be? Certainly, there is  a difference in networking in say, finance, compared to other sectors.

Since each person is different, you must know your niche. Know your strengths and present them at hand when approaching an industry professional or anyone at a networking event. Quality conversations can make you stand out as an individual and unique applicant from others, and that one extra respectful gesture or charming smile of yours might just get you the job.

More Life Happens Where?

Advertisement spotlight again! This time we are going to look at Chili's and their advertising of the food quality and dining experience. 

First one ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whqi_fjA4RU ) is pretty recent and describes the happening on what happens at table 19. This ad focuses on prioritizing our emotional needs and our important relationships with people (such as a new romantic relationship, friends, etc.).  Its very interesting that there is no actual promoting of their food, which is their main service. Such precious memories can happen at any restaurant, but Chili's wants viewers to know that their restaurant is more friends and family friendly, especially with their new slogan "More Life Happens Here".

Ironically, their goal to persuade customers to eat at the restaurant where "more life happens" follows only a few months after this commercial (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97jgczsm4oI&feature=related ), where they convince smart phone owners the ease of getting their dinner from Chilis To-Go.

Feedback welcome! :)

Network Your Way

Featured Event!
On May 15th 5:00-7:00p.m., UCS and the Career Services Center will team up to host the annual Communication Mixer!
This "Speed Networking" event will provide you with anopportunity to learn about a variety of career options in the dynamic field of communication. At the beginning, professionals will have 5 minutes to introduce themselves and give some information about their education and background. From there,
they will breakout into small groups where students will ask the panelists a variety of questions regarding their current careers for a short period of time. Professionals will rotate from group to group, answering questions and giving students insight about their careers. At the end, there will be refreshments and students and professionals will have an opportunity to continue networking.
Don't miss out on this awesome opportunity to network with industry professionals! Save the date and register here! http://tinyurl.com/blgojdn

The organization and the department highly recommends students to come out and participate in meeting and talking to great professionals who could lead them to their next career. Who you can meet and chat up with:

Candice Nguyen, Reporter, San Diego 6 News
Michelle Dederko, Lifestyle and Entertainment Writer, San Diego
Union Tribune
Kirstin O'Connor, News Writer, NBC San Diego
Katie Levien, Social Media Strategist, Sony
Diana Palacios, Communications Director, City Councilmember
Scott Sherman
Lauren Manolo, Event and Marketing Coordinator, Japanese
Friendship Garden
Society of San Diego in Balboa Park
Sarah Rosetto, PRSA
Sarah Mojarro, PRSA

We hope to see you there!

May the 4th with You..

Funny title huh?

Aside from the intended pun from Star Wars, lets take a look into new released Iron Man 3. The anticipation has built up for the movie to make $176 million in the box office.

Question is... Iron Man 3 comes from the comic books collection of Marvel Comics, but now, there can be talk that the movie actually inspires fans to read comic books.

Read More....

Different forms of media can be influential upon each other. With the past blog entry about Understanding Comics from Scott Cloud, the comic books are not to be classified as cartoons because they provide a different element in media. Now, the ongoing franchise of movie such as Iron Man 3 has  proven Hollywood leading viewers and consumers back towards the original expression of the Iron Man chronicles in comic book form. 

Registration Opens

We are excited to announce the registration is now officially open for the 30th anniversary weekend of our Communication department! When e-mails have been sent out barely two days ago, we have received more than 50 registrations. Pretty impressive considering how many people would register in the next month and a half. 

                                 REGISTER TODAY

      Be part of something special! Not only for students or alumni, but anybody who has any general interest in UC San Diego and one its strongest, most popular departments. 

Meanwhile, as a side news, San Jose has been claimed by Forbes magazine as one of the happiest cities for young professionals. Its condition in the Silicon Valley allows the biggest corporations, including Apple, Google, Yahoo!, IBM, Facebook, to all thrive and provide great opportunities for new potential employees. Also, San Francisco has no doubt maintained its reputation for the bountiful start-ups and job choices!

On the other hand, there are also the unhappiest. 

Oh the Alumni Keep Visiting!

Again, we had another special guest come visit at our COMM 146 class yesterday! Derek Danziger '95 is VP at Nuffer, Smith, Tucker, one of the oldest and very well known PR firm, and he kindly shared us his story after graduating Even beginning from a job at Seaworld, his long path through the PR industry sure stands out through his work ethics and creative mind set, and this has opened us a bit through our strategic plans to publicize our own 30th anniversary event.

A little more about Nuffer, Smith, Tucker, it has a diverse range of clients from financials to agriculture/ food companies. Located in San Diego, this award-winning, interactive firm explores how relationships, conversations and storytelling are strategically formed into solutions to help achieve their business goals.

Check out what they mean CREATING CONVERSATIONS.

More Eyes at UCSD

Diversity will become greater at UC San Diego, due to this year's increase in admissions and the bigger pool of applicants. Due to the Fox 5 news report, "according to UCSD, 8.6 percent more low-income students were admitted compared to last year, while 20.2 percent more will be the first in their family to attend college. The class also includes higher numbers of blacks (12.5 percent), Mexican-Americans (17.5 percent), other Latinos (6.6 percent) and Filipinos (4.7 percent) than the previous fall quarter."

Read more: http://fox5sandiego.com/2013/04/18/ucsd-admits-record-number-of-freshman-for-fall/#ixzz2QrIXjwYr

Statistics also show the increase in admission in other UC campuses, as too many students are unique and very achieved.

Stone Brewing: True Success to Beer Business

Ever think its possible to have your business be really, really popular....without any advertisement?

Chris Cochran, '90, graduated with a Communication minor and the fundamental thinking constructed by the theories and concepts of his Comm studies. With his position as publicity management at Stone Brewing, he shared us with a few stories which led to the great success of Stone Brewing.

Along with effortless social media, (check out this article), their fan base grows strong through word of mouth and actual engagement to learn about what their customers like.

Serving Kimchee, clams, and random ethnic dishes at their restaurant, the company had no attempts to follow the usual pub food, such as burger, fries, and fish 'n chips. Instead, they followed their own tastes and selected foods for their menu that they truly believed tasted well with their beer.
They even run their own shipping service, where they also import fresh-brewed, high quality beer from other companies and countries.

Learn more about this company and go have a beer! Who knows, maybe you will be motivated to get a tattoo of their logo like many of their fans.

Also stop by our Beer Garden event of the 30th anniversary to try some their free beer!

Social Media, Coachella's Toy

Coachella is what all the music lovers, party go-ers, and younger and older generations come within a few miles of capacity to enjoy an unforgettable three day weekend. 

The musica festival is a paradise for the media to rave about: 

http://omg.yahoo.com/blogs/celeb-news/coachella-2013-where-stars-sun-sip-shake-140005697.html

Fashion blogs, celebrity gossip, and to music stores, Coachella sure benefits certain businesses and media to engage their readers and customers with. All the hype build-up and news surely also helps the music festival itself as free advertising. 

On the other hand, Salesforce, well achieved social marketing suite, sure understands how Coachella has gained and maintained its popularity with its marketing. Read more from 9 Event Marketing Lessons From Coachella’s Social Media Strategy

Students Practicing Marketing

Another Monday! This means another effective class of COMM 146. Aside from receiving wonderful advice from our department chair, David Serlin, Outreach group also has set the class and other groups assignments to pitch in classes and hand out flyers about our anniversary event!

When it comes to a huge campus at a university like UC San Diego, students and organizations begin to learn effective strategies to advertise. Whether its flyer-ing on library walk or writing on the sides of chalkboards at classrooms, student organizations and groups are always trying to find the next creative from of marketing that will actually capture the attention of students. Thus, they naturally practice their skills in successfully communicating with other students and understanding their needs and interests. 

Not only students need this marketing, but also businesses or firms looking for their products and services to appeal to college students or even recruiting them in. Check out a blog which strictly focuses on oncampusadvertising.

Here are a few websites defining different strategies: 

Effective Ways to Advertise to Students by Peter Kao

7 Ways To Market Your Business On Your College Campus

Campus Media

Is On-Campus Advertising a Good Idea?

Where to Advertise an Event on Campus

Triton Day = Success!

Outreach group and a few students from COMM 146: "Remembering Communication" proudly represented the class and shared our excitement about the upcoming 30th Anniversary of our department on Triton Day, on UC San Diego!

With our booth in Town Square, we were able to reach out to parents, new admitted student, and even current students and staff members at UC San Diego. Triton Day was such a special day where departments, organizations, and clubs all come together and celebrate the newly admitted students and their upcoming school years. We were honored to show our UCSD community and future students of how proud we were about our department! 

Even after our stride and outreaching for five hours, a few of us stayed to cool down and attend a special UCSD Alum session with actor, Robert Buckley! The Lipstick Jungle and One Tree Hill star shared his experience at our university as a Economics major, and we got to enjoy his quirky humor and charms. :)

Check out our pictures!

Back from Spring Break!

It's Spring Quarter 2013 at UC San Diego! Surely, we hope that our colleagues and friends have had a wonderful Spring break. Did you have a more relaxing break, spend time with family, or maybe spend it all for young adult fun?

To re-examine our theories and concepts studies in UCSD Communication and to apply them in the current media projects, we can take a recent example of the film, "Spring Breakers", featuring James Franco, Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez, and Gucci Mane. The movie, released more than a week ago, follows four college-aged girls who decide to rob a fast food restaurant in order to pay for their spring break. 

Relating to the concept of montage, where the whole is more than the sum of its parts, director, Harmony Korine, began to collect images of spring break and different pictures of the situation before filming. He enjoyed the retouching on different bright colors, presence of junk food and Mountain Dews, to all contribute to his artwork of pop culture. 

In this picture, as the movie cover of this film, it reveals the consequences or the ideas of fun in extreme measures with the stacks of cash, guns, knife, big package of drugs, and even a robbery mask in pink. 

There are mixed reviews about the film, whether it is presenting a positive message or whether it purposely pushes the culture of teen generation and "having fun" to the extreme. The movie poster certainly does have a sort of mocking like display of female items, similar to what we can commonly see around the consumerist society. Take the example of this magazine picture: 

What do you think? Here is a trailer of the movie, in case you are not familiar: 

Finals Week *Freak Out*

Finals week is coming up in the quarter system, and most of us students just want to scream and run away.... which will be probably pointless. Many people are trying different ways to relieve their stress. Even a trend has been widely set around schools to have "Puppy rooms" or "Therapy Fluffy", where students can take a break to play with adorable pets!

   

Any more strategies needed.... check out a UCSD article, written a few years back, on advice for dealing with Finals stress! http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/general/12-08Sleep.asp

Personally as UCSD student here, I have had to go through great measures in having my friend change my Facebook password which bans me from accessing till my finals are finished. (Actually very helpful!)

But the problem I'd like to ask is what if your social media tools are necessary for school, work, or any commitments that have during the Finals week? There has been many suggestions to avoid Facebook and such during this intense, significant week, but students may need them for school projects, work, keeping up with their career interests, or to continue the flow of networking. 

Of course, finals week is barely a week, even just a day for a few students. Obviously there are many strategies to balance the usage of social media while taking studying effectively. To keep up with social media though also seems like another commitment.... While us students are temporarily committed to take and study for these exams, is social media also another committment for us? And it lasts longer? 

Hope you can ponder on this idea, and read another thought about it as an "Unending Final Exam"(http://www.business2community.com/social-media/social-media-the-unending-final-exam-0347598).

Spotlight on the Chair of UCSD Comm Dept!

Have you visited out our Youtube channel yet? We have special, rare historical footages featuring Dan Hallin, Herbert Schiller, and COMM 146's very own Professor Mike (Michael Cole)! These three leaders and professors have contributed significant work to our UCSD Communications department. Without their research, guidance, and presence, our department would not have been possible!

Now a look at who does such an impact for our department today..... David Serlin! Not only is he the chair and an associate professor for our department, but he also is a faculty member in the Science Studies, Critical Gender Studies, and the Interdisciplinary Group in Cognitive science. Watch our new video on his regards to the UCSD Communication 30th:

Also, come to our 30th Anniversary celebration to hear Professor Serlin to share his insight and knowledge about specific topics such as 'disability and communication' to the department in general! This is a unique opportunity to meet him, and our class highly recommends it!

How to Win at Social Media

You can see now many students studying Communication or people of the recent generations know how to use social media. These days, its simple to ask, who doesn't have a Facebook? Which company doesn't have Twitter? Companies and organizations, especially small businesses, need to use social media in order to connect with their targeted communities and group or to get the word about their own business, products and services. But how do you stand out among all these other businesses when they are using the same social media tools? 
You may have the same tools, but there are different ways to use and perceive with these social media outlets! A potential customer/client must be motivated to "like" or "follow" your company, and you can learn a bit on here: 

What Businesses Are Doing Wrong on Social Media (And 5 Tips For Success)
The author, David Kerpen, is currently the CEO of Likeable Local, a social media software startup for small businesses, as well as the chairman and former CEO of Likeable Media, an award-winning social media and word-of-mouth marketing firm with triple digit revenue growth for 4 consecutive years.

Do you agree with his tips on using social media? Are there any other ways that can be more or also effective? Or let us know you "LIKE" this! 

Update on Progress!

Our communication class, COMM 146, has been very excited to reach our 100th "like" on our Facebook page! Check it out: http://communication.ucsd.edu/30th

Many of our fans are actually alumni of the Communication department. Now, to stress on this point, there has never been much noise for academic departments of a university, such as UC San Diego, to have their current students be able to connect and have opportunities to get to know the alumni.  This is a crucial goal that we have for ourselves, when planning for the 30th anniversary weekend.

Let us also commence, on our (still-in-progress) alumni mixer event on the 30th anniversary weekend. It will be on Friday, June 7th, proudly led by Comm professor, Lisa Cartwright. A speed dating type of panel will occur and provide a wonderful opportunity for current student in the Comm department to really engage with our alumni in discussion of their career goals, learnings from our major, and just really, have a great time! :)

What do you think?

Communication from UC Irvine

Tomorrow, a discussion panel, "Hacking Politics in India", is open to all with UC Irvine's very own Communication professor, Lilly Irani!

The talk will take place 12:30-2pm at the Communication Building at the Herbert I. Schiller Room 201.  Students and participants will learn about the recent hackathon in Delhi, India as a middle-class effort to develop software in support of participatory law making.
This a also great opportunity for UCSD Communication students to experience what UCI students can learn at their Comm department. 

Here's the flyer:

http://communication.ucsd.edu/_files/Lilly%20Talk%202.pdf

Power to Sell a Sandwich

In the UCSD Communication department, there is great focus in the lower division courses and electives on the media and effect in advertising.

Advertising examples we have focused on.....Carl's Jr. commercials....
Accompanying the famous term "Sex sells", Carl's Jr. has made quite a few commercials all similar with attractive women, in seductive clothing, eating and "enjoying" sandwiches. Do they expect to sell these sandwiches, filled with meat, to other sexy women?
Most likely the answer is no, as Carl's Jr. does aim to appeal to male appetite.
It could also be argued that Carl's Jr. intentionally adds the "sex" factor to be ironic, humorous, and more entertaining.
What do you think? Watch a few:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sc9Kd6IdQn0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMi8fcGSozc