Trust in the Troth

Just as last week, we continued to read the book "Measure What Matters" by Katie Paine. After talking about and analyzing the importance of "you," this week I have decided to switch gears and focus on a different topic. For this week, I would like to concentrate on measuring what your employees think. In the business world, communication is one of the most important assets for employees to have yet the ability to communicate is still difficult. In her book, Paine mentions a six steps to measuring what employees think, say and do as a result of the communication in the business world. These steps are outlined below:

Step 1: Understand the Environment and Where They Really Get Information

• How Are Messages Getting through to Employees, and What Are They?
• What Channels or Vehicles Do Employees Trust?
• What's Important to Them?
• What Do They Think about the Organization Today?

Step 2: Agree on Clear, Measurable Goals

Step 3: Select a Benchmark to Compare To

Step 4: Define the Criteria of Success

Step 5: Select Your Measurement Tools and Collect Data

• Message Analysis Tools
• Outcome Measurement Tools
• Use Surveys to Determine What Employees Think

Step 6: Analyze and Take Action

Social Media is continuing to develop and grow every day. The way technology has impacted our lives already is unbelievable and social media is part of that impact. In just the past 5 to 10 years social media has evolved from Myspace and Facebook to Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, SnapChat and many more. Businesses are realizing the exposure they can receive from using social media engines. Marketers for businesses understand that by using social media it increases the amount of traffic flow of viewers to their business websites. By creating a social media website or page for their businesses, marketers have seen an increase in viewers and customers. Many people these days prefer researching and viewing information about businesses over social media rather than the businesses official website because it is what they are used to and are comfortable with using.

Social Media isn't just impacting our individual lives with the way we can communicate with family and friends, but it is also impacting companies with their networking. With Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn being the 3 most used social media platforms, marketers and recruiters can now receive and give out all the information they want on social media. Marketers are able to post openings for jobs at their companies on social media platforms so potential applicants can view the openings. Recruiters can then find all the materials they need about a potential candidate for a job through their profiles on Facebook and LinkedIn. Of all the benefits with social media platforms, the biggest is probably the leads generated by businesses through social media usage. In order to generate capable leads through social media, your community has to trust you, be engaged and have a need for what it is that you offer. By utilizing social media, businesses can create these leads and improve their businesses.

Every college has it and every student who lives on campus their first year of college has to go through it at some point. First-year students who live on campus are enrolled in their school's meal plan and must live on campus for the first two semesters. Ohio Northern though is a little different. First-year students that attend school in Ada, Ohio must live in the freshman dorms and also do the meal plan. With this meal plan though is 250 dollars to spend freely on food. Second-year students are the same way. ONU requires sophomores to live in their second-year dorms and also be on their meal plan. Just as students have their freshman year, they receive 250 dollars to spend as they please on food. Third-year students are a little different though, juniors at Ohio Northern must live on campus in the on-campus apartments but do not have to be on a meal plan. The apartments ONU provides on their campus have a full kitchen that enables students to make their own food instead of continuing to be on the meal plan. With this plan, instead of receiving 250 dollars like the previous two years, students receive 300 dollars to spend on any food.

Life at Ohio Northern is different from the life at other schools which make it unique. Studies have shown students receive worse grades as they begin to move off campus so I am sure that is why ONU makes their students live on campus for the first 3 years of being in college. The dorm life at times can seem terrible and can seem like the worst thing ever but actually some of your best friends for the rest of your life are met in your first year of college when you are all stuck in the freshman dorms. While there are advantages and disadvantages to every situation, the dorm life is no different. Living in a small confined space for 9 months out of the year with another person can be tough and it seems like the recipe for disaster but conflict is part of life and learning how to deal with it effectively is vital to becoming an adult.

This week I have started to read “Measure What Matters,” by Katie Paine for class. This is the third and final textbook we have to read for class. Over the past few weeks while taking this Principles of Social Media course through Ohio Northern I have learned a lot about the worldwide web as a whole and the positives and negative aspects of social media. In this textbook, there was a lot of good information on what we should focus on while browsing the web. When “measuring what matters” we must concentrate on building relationships with people. To be successful and go places in life we must grow in the relationships we have with others. Relationships help you in the business world and also in your day-to-day tasks whether that is on social media or face-to-face communication.

In the book, Paine talks about “It’s all about you,” and I could not agree with her more in every way. When dealing with social media it’s all about your actions and words, and the engagement we have that decides the type of person that we are on social media. Someone that lives in the moment and is up to date online does not care about the quantity or number of relationships/friends they have on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. Instead, they concern themselves with the quality of each of their relationships to create a better network for themselves. When we have quality relationships rather than a quantity of them we then create more profit for ourselves and our businesses. As people trust us more and are more comfortable to share their wealth and information with you the wealthier you become.

When creating quality relationships, it is not the easiest thing to do, and it can take some time. It requires focus and not only hard work to build these relationships. A continual management of these relationships is required for them to be successful. Measuring our relationships with others is a fundamental foundation to having individual and also business success. The better our relationships are internally and externally; the better our business becomes.

Campus life is what you make of it. Whether you like sports, Greek life, partying or something in between, there is plenty to do on the campus of Ohio Northern University. People come from all over the globe to make ONU unique, and that is why Ohio Northern’s campus life is so extraordinary. Ohio Northern offers a very wide range of clubs you can join while you are attending the university. It has anything from engineering organizations like concrete canoe, or IEEE to art clubs where you can make cool art pieces and show your emotions that way. ONU has a variety of activities to involve yourself with; you just have to be proactive and attend.

Sports are also big at Ohio Northern, with over twenty-five varsity sports on the campus along with many more intramural ones there is always a sporting event going on no matter the season. ONU has a large fan base made up of alumni, current students, parents and residents that come and support the Polar Bears in their intercollegiate competitions throughout the academic school year. Polar Bear Nation is loud, and they enjoy seeing victories.

The “Tundra” is something unique to Polar Bear country in Ada. In the center of the Ohio Northern University campus is a courtyard that divides academic buildings from resident halls. This grassy area is known as the “Tundra” around campus. It is a fitting name because of the Polar Bear mascot. Throughout most of the academic school year, the “Tundra” is covered in snow and ice due to the frigid winter weather experienced in northwest Ohio. When the “Tundra” is covered with this wintry weather the nickname is then known as the “Frozen Tundra.” This seasonal nickname is even more fitting as Polar Bears love the arctic landscape. The “Tundra,” when warm and sunny, is a great place to go throw a football, enjoy the sunshine or even lay back and read a book under a shaded tree.

With a smaller student body than some larger state schools across the state of Ohio and such a small surrounding town, one might think that ONU does not have much to offer student that attend the university. Those that know Ohio Northern know firsthand that is not the case, and the student body makes ONU a great place to go to college. The nightlife is awesome for students as well, college is known for making memories and living it up. The students at ONU are no exception to that statement at all.

Everywhere you go on the Web these days it is full of videos, from highlights for a sports game, a newscast to an annoying advertisement. Most videos are streamed through the largest video engine, YouTube. YouTube is a large library of videos that shows anything you want to watch. Over the past couple of years, along with the other social media engines, YouTube has seen a substantial growth in usage. People are posting more videos for people to watch and are also watching more videos themselves. Due to the increase in cell phone usage, more than half of the videos played on YouTube are done on cellular devices.

With more and more videos being posted every day the opportunities for businesses to advertise on these videos increases. Advertisement through YouTube is becoming an increasingly used tactic for marketing. In some statistics by Forbes, it is estimated YouTube makes around two billion dollars a year on video advertisements. YouTube accounts for nearly 20 percent of the video advertisement market in the United States. With YouTube usage increasing every day, this number could only grow over the next few years.

YouTube is a tool that is used across all disciplines and is very useful for business professionals. Professionals are using it for projects in the workforce and students are using it to create assignments. This past week for class we had to create a video for the Ford’s Theatre Lincoln Video contest. These videos are short in length (two minutes or so) and utilize the different features YouTube and video editing programs have to offer. We posted these videos on YouTube and also on our blogs for Internet browsers to watch.

So many people today are visual learners and would rather see something in front of them rather than it spoken out loud. This is also a reason for the increase in visual aid usage and is that is a direct correlation to the rise in usage of YouTube. Whether it is from listening to music or watching funny videos on YouTube, there are many videos people across the globe enjoy watching on a daily basis.