Eco-Friendly Digital Marketing Internship

Photo Source – TEDxDetroit

This Wednesday, September 29, 2010, the team at Ingenex Digital Marketing and I will head to downtown Detroit to attend TEDxDetroit. TEDxDetroit is held at the Detroit Institute of Art on Wayne State University’s campus. It runs from 8:30 am to 6:30 pm and is free to people who register (although a $21 donation is encouraged).

TEDxDetroit is an annual event that brings together CEOs, scientists, creatives, and other extraordinary speakers. The list of speakers was released last week and it looks to me that there is going to be a variety of interesting speakers this year. The list of speakers is as follows:

• Jeff DeGraff, Dean of Innovation, Competing Values
• Dianne Marsh, CEO & Technologist, SRT Solutions
• Geoff Horst, Chief Science Officer, Algal Scientific Corporation
• Paul Savage, CEO, Nextek Power Systems
• Stephen Clark, Interactive anchor & Reporter, WXYZ Detroit
• Erik Proulx, Filmmaker, Lemonade the Movie & Lemonade Detroit
• Karl Gude, Visual Journalist & Professor, Newsweek/MSU
• Ben Bator & Lauren Leto, Founders, TFLN
• Paul Nielsen, Geek, Entrepreneur, Magician, Wunderground Magic
• Jerry Paffendorf & Mary Lorene Carter, Founders, Loveland
• Steve Kahn, Professor & Founder, WSU Math Corps
• Victor Green, Director, Community Relations, WSU
• Kami Pothukuchi, Associate Professor of Urban Planning, SEED & WSU
• Henry Balanon, Founder, Bickbot
• Will Smidlein, Boy Wonder, Null Fear
• Bil Moore, Solutions Consultant, Strategic Products & Services
• Anuja Rajendra, Creator and CEO, BollyFit
• Dave Blair, Performance Artist
• Jocelyn Rainey, J Rainey Gallery
• Jim Scapa, CEO, Altair Engineering
• Rick Devos, Founder, ArtPrize
• Jessica Care Moore, Moore Black Press
• Herman Moore, Entrepreneur & Detroit Lions Hall of Famer

With so many diverse speakers idea spreading, one of the main reasons for TEDx, is sure to occur. By putting so many cool, creative, and talented people in the room there are going to be a lot of ideas flying around. I’m very excited to head down to Detroit for my first, and hopefully not my last, TEDxDetroit experience.

As a senior at Michigan State University I am mostly focused on graduating and what I want to do once I graduate. I have been busy for the last three years of my college career and this year is no different. I am getting closer to attaining my degrees in Advertising Management and Retailing Management, and my specialization in Food Industry Management. Every day is a step closer to graduation, and a step closer to the “real world” and sometimes I get nervous thinking about it. I am hoping my experiences will help me be successful in my future career. I am currently an intern at Ingenex Digital Marketing and I have recently been promoted to the position of human resource manager at MSU Concessions. I feel that these positions will enable me to learn the skills and traits that are needed to be a successful business woman.

Photo Source – Office Depot

Through my internship at Ingenex I have become familiar with Inforum, a professional women’s alliance throughout Michigan. Inforum focuses on empowering Michigan women and creates opportunities that allow women to lead and succeed.  Inforum connects women through training and programming to help them enhance their personal and professional potential which will help them achieve the success they are looking for.

Inforum is one of the largest women groups in Michigan, with over 1,800 members across the state. The forum also holds several events that allow business women to network with other professional women.

As a future business woman I hope to become involved with Inforum so that I can become a great woman leader and meet professionals that I can learn from in regards to the business world. There are many events I hope I can attend this fall including Women on the Move, a seminar focusing on blending personality in the workplace, and several luncheons throughout the season.

I think Inforum will be very beneficial to me and my future career because it will allow me to gain insight into the business field from women executives in Michigan. It will also allow me to gain a larger network of professionals and will prepare me for an ever-changing, fast-paced career in business.

If you’re like me you probably check your Twitter almost every time you log onto the Internet. So it is no surprise that yesterday morning as I was waiting for class to begin I visited Twitter. What was a surprise was the fact that I could not view anyone’s tweets without a confusing popup showing up on my screen and my Twitter began auto-retweeting a user I had never heard of. I was at first confused but then news came out that someone had hacked Twitter and was causing all of these problems.

Two people are attempting to take credit of the social media sites security flaw. Pierce Delphin, a 17 year old from Australia, and Masato Kinugawa, a Japanese developer, are the two to blame. Delphin says he released the flaw by tweeting a code that caused the pop-ups to appear on users screens. Delphin states that he did it just “to see if it could be done [and that he] had no idea it was going to take off how it did.” Delphin hopes he can avoid getting punishment but exposing a security flaw could get him into trouble.

It seems that Delphin was not alone in creating the security flaw. Japanese developer Madato Kinugawa is also being blamed for the Twitter flaw. It is believed that Delphin created the code and Kinugawa modified it. Kinugawa used the modification to not only expose Twitter’s security flaw but to also make his tweets colored.

Within hours of the security flaws discovery Twitter had patched the problem. But this brings questions to all Twitter users. How safe is Twitter and how can they ensure that their page has enough security so this does not happen again?

Although the code affected thousands of Twitter users, it did not affect Twitter use on mobile applications, so users with smart phones were free to tweet away.

Photo Source – TechXter

While being an intern at Ingenex Digital Marketing, one of the areas of digital media that I have gained a lot of insight into is the world of social media. Social media and the phenomenon it has become, has created a platform through which companies, and individuals alike, can share their voice. We live in a world that has been profoundly changed by the interaction between technology and humanity. Social media has allowed companies a way to take action and take hold of the power of social networking. It has increased fundraising and charitable efforts while creating a new level of insight for both the company and the consumer.

Technology has continued to play an unprecedented role in creating opportunities and bringing awareness to causes that otherwise may go unnoticed. Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare, are all powerful platforms that can create change and promote action. They have all united users around the world and brought an awareness to important issues ranging from poverty to animal rights.

Endorse for a Cause is a charitable social organization that has just recently announced its social media platform with a big list of charity-based launch partners including the American Cancer Society, American Red Cross and HandsOn Network. The new platform allows users to share their online purchases, or retail site links, with their friends via Twitter and Facebook. When you and your friends visit the retailer sites and make purchases, Endorse for a Cause collects money from the retailer and in-turn gives most of that money to your favorite Cause. They have over 500 online retailers and the number continues to grow. When you join and your friends join and your friend’s friends join, you are not only creating an impact, you are also helping to make supporting a cause social.