My name is Verties Sails, III. This is my very first graduate level course, so I am adjusting to being a college student after a  long layoff. I was born and raised in Memphis, and earned an undergraduate degree in Speech Communication and Theater from Tennessee State University in Nashville, TN in 2002. I have been employed by Southwest Tennessee Community College since 2003. After 9 years as a Coordinator of Student Disability Services, I now work with a federal grant program, Project M.O.S.T. (Men of Southwest Tennessee). The grant is designed to increase retention and graduation rates of our African-American male population. I also served for 9 years as an assistant coach for our nationally renowned men’s basketball program. I enjoy sports and music and cooking.

Besides having a communications background and wanting to one day go into broadcasting, I’d also love to learn how I can use different forms of media to publicise the activities that I am involved in, as well as myself for any future business ventures. Facebook and Myspace have been extremely beneficial to me in recruiting student-athletes, particularly those who do not reside in Memphis. Project M.O.S.T. now has a page on Facebook that our members can “like”. This will be used to post information such as future meetings, due dates, etc.

Hi everyone,

My 1-year anniversary living in Memphis occurred on the 15th of August, and it’s been great! I was born, raised, and have lived my whole life in Utah, which is very different to Memphis. If you like wakeboarding, mountain biking, skiing, snowboarding, hiking, river rafting, and other outdoor stuff, Utah is for you. I did gymnastics for 10 years of my life, and I try to stay pretty active. The rec center has become my friend. If any of you like to dance, we should go! Since coming to Memphis, I’ve been a part of the ultimate frisbee club on campus and have eaten at the best BBQ restaurant which is the BBQ Shop. I like getting together with friends and pigging out on delicious food. We like hosting international food nights and have done Russian, Italian, Brazilian, and an upcoming Indian food night. Speaking of Brazil, I lived there for two and a half years. I’ve spent a few months in Italy. Went to Mexico this summer. I love traveling when I can, and am in love with other cultures. Perhaps it is this passion that has influenced my decision to study immigration–within the realm of political and religious rhetoric and American public address. I’m a second-year communications PhD student, and boy oh boy is the comm department at the U of M a good fit for me! I’ve been really blessed to take part in the program.

For this class, I’d be interested to know more about copyright stuff, although it is an intimidating, messy, and LARGE area. I’m looking forward to this class because I believe it will prepare me to be a more qualified professor when I’m on the job market. Not only will it serve me well vita-wise, I believe the class will enable me to better connect to my students in class.

My name is David Goodman. I am a second year MA student in the Department of Communication where I am focusing my attention on documentary film production.

Hey!

My name is John, and I am starting my second year in the Marketing Ph.D. program. I was born and raised in Russellville Arkansas, which is only about a 3 ½ hour drive from our school. I received my bachelor’s degree from Arkansas Tech University and my M.B.A. from the University of Central Arkansas. I enjoy meeting new people and learning about other cultures. While working on my master’s degree, I was a graduate assistant for the M.B.A. department. Part of my job was to help with recruiting and social media. At times, the two worked hand in hand. After going to recruiting fairs within the state of Arkansas, me and the other GA would attempt to contact those individuals who seemed very interested in our school through our program’s Facebook account. This gave us a way to stay connected with potential students and answer any questions that they may have.

I am most familiar with Facebook and YouTube. I especially appreciate the way in which these sites allow us to connect with individuals from around the world. As I have already mentioned, I really enjoy meeting individuals from other cultures. Over the past few years, I have had the opportunity to meet many students from other countries. However, it is often difficult to stay connect with friends. New media types have made it much easier to stay connected, even with friends who are in other countries. New media certainly does make the world seem a little bit smaller.

New media has a huge impact on my area of study (marketing). Therefore, I anticipate learning many things in this class that I can incorporate into my own research. During my first semester, I actually worked on a paper with one of our fellow classmates and another student that dealt with social media and electronic word of mouth (EWOM). This experience introduced me to some of the social media literature. I anticipate learning a great deal more in this class.

This summer, I have been working on a research paper investigating counterfeit items in an online environment. Purchasing an item online can be completely different than purchasing an item in person. Clearly the way in which we interact with each other, and make purchases has radically changed in the past couple of decades. I am somewhat interested in the area of consumer behavior, and I believe that this class will provide me with some ideas that I can utilize in this area.

I look forward to meeting everyone in this class, and I hope that we will all have a great semester! See you guys soon!

My name is Meagan Fertig, and although I am a chronic blog checker, this is the first time posting. I received my bachelor’s degree in music with a concentration in music business from the University of Memphis in 2006.  I am currently the administrative associate in the Recruitment and Orientation office at the University of Memphis, and this will be my first semester as a part time graduate student in the Communications Department. While I was a music business student, I was very interested in how bands could connect with fans using social media, and worked with online promotions for label bands during my internship at a local recording studio.  At that time, before Facebook had music and video capabilities, most music promotion with social media was done using MySpace. While MySpace did have music hosting and calendar capabilities that were useful for bands, the connectibility and exposure to new fans was extremely limited in a time before Facebook’s “sharing” and news feed existed.

Now that I am working full time for the university, I am interested in further using social media to reach out to prospective student populations. For the last few months I have been helping to expand the use of social media for the Office of Admissions as well as Recruitment and Orientation by increasing our usage of Twitter and Facebook. This past summer we used Twitter in the program for our new student orientation and tracked the interaction using custom channels on Tweet Deck. We created a hash tag for orientation and included a Twitter contest for our parents and guests who attended orientation with their incoming student. Recently, I’ve also participated in a virtual college fair using CollegeWeekLive.com to live chat with students around the country who are interested in the University of Memphis, using  both Facebook and Twitter to promote the live chat feature.

I’ve enjoyed seeing the way social media has changed in the last few years to connect businesses and organizations directly to individuals. I hope to learn more about the nature of communication that takes place within social media, along with the privacy issues that are a by-product in this class. In addition, I hope to explore the sub-set of etiquette that has developed around social media behavior. As a full time employee, I’m excited that I will be able to understand and implement what I will learn in this class into my current position, and I think it’s the perfect class to start my graduate work.

On a personal note, I’m a huge music fan and a lifetime Memphian. My husband is nice enough to put up with my Netflix and Pinterest habits, and I’ve learned to live through his annual fantasy football season. I haven’t had a bad day yet that a plate of BBQ nachos from Central couldn’t fix.

So here is the professional bio-statement:

I have extensive professional experience in the areas of political communication and public relations.  As founder of Gallagher & Associates, I have worked nationally as a public and government relations consultant and have managed or consulted in more than 50 political campaigns, including Clinton/Gore in 1996, A C Wharton’s first election as Shelby County Mayor and Steve Cohen’s 2006 Congressional Campaign.  I served as Director of Public Affairs and Assistant to Mayor Wharton, was the Mayor’s liaison to various community groups.  Currently, I am a weekly guest political commentator for Fox 13 News.

In addition to my professional and achievements, I am actively involved in the community.  In 1995, I was appointed to Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth by Governor Don Sundquist.  I also served as a commissioner with the Center City Commission an on the boards of the Memphis Redbirds, the Riverfront Development Corporation and currently serve on the board of the National Ornamental Metal Museum.

I hold a M.S. in Education Leadership and a M.A. in Communication and am currently pursuing a PhD. in Communication at the University of Memphis with a focus on communication and social cognition, particularly in the areas of political rhetoric and public policy.

Now the Not-So-Much stuff:

I have been married for over 18 years and have 3 kids.  I am a blacksmith and bladesmith.  When I get tired of talking to people, I go beat on metal.  I like to cook and often cater dinners for various groups.  I have a food blog, which is in desperate need of a new post.  I am sarcastic, bordering on obnoxious, but I think I am easy to get along with.