So as I’m sure you all know this past week was Texas State’s mass com week. There were a lot of really big names that we got to come out and speak which was really cool to see. Everyone had a really positive vibe last week, and even though we had to do work for the panels none of it really felt like a chore. I attended several panels, but I’d say the most interesting to me was the social media panel that included George Kiel, Annie Werner and Meg Turney. Two of the three are Texas State alums, which is awesome ,in my opinion, to be able to hear them talk about their success stories. Beyond just that I’m a huge fan of NiceKicks and frequently make trips to Austin to buy shoes from their store so being able to hear form one of their main people and get to talk to George again was really cool. Also seeing strong women in roles that are important to the success of their work is always awesome. I just think it goes to further show the diversity and open mindedness of the mass communication field as a whole.
Another really interesting panel was the Texas Parks and Wildlife panel on Tuesday. It featured one of their chief photographers as well as the manager of their social media sites. I just thought the way they went about managing their social media was great, because they didn’t act like a government agency and they’ve been successful with it. Another pretty interesting thing they talked about was the fact that they use iPhones to take pictures alongside their regular high price DSLR cameras. I never really though that it was possible to create a high enough quality picture with a phone that it was good enough to be posted as the cover of a magazine.
The last panel that really got my attention featured Domingo Martinez and the basic takeaway from his speech was that graduating from college provides you with exponentially more options to be successful than not have a degree. Which is kind of an obvious statement, but it’s something that really needs to be pushed to people, especially those early in college or those who are maybe struggling with their school or choices. Hearing his path to where he is now was also pretty inspiring, because it was almost like “well here’s this guy who’s pretty successful and I’m taking better steps or am in a better place than he was at my age so why can’t I be just as successful”.