Wrapping up my first year in Entrepreneurship

Let's Run It Back!

August 10 marks the first anniversary of being named the Director for the Center for Integrated Entrepreneurship. A picture of the contract signing is below. After one year, as they say in basketball, "let's run it back." I'm ready for another year!

I was a full-time faculty member in Communication and had interviewed for the Director's role because I like Dave Kukurza and know his background. 

When I was named Director, there wasn't much time to mess around. I had a full-schedule of classes to teach, which now had to be rearranged. I had no choice but to hit the ground running in terms of managing the responsibilities of the Center. For the next two weeks, I had Zoom meetings with at least 15 different people in the Entrepreneurship ecosystem in Northeast Ohio. I also met with Dean Judy Muyskens, School Director Andrew White, and of course, Dave Kukurza to get up to speed on what all I needed to do. 

In a management position like this, one thing I constantly do is check and respond to email. When I teach class, in the back of my mind, I wonder, "how many messages are in my inbox?" I feel like I have accomplished something major when I can leave work without unanswered email. 

I love what I do. I love helping students and seeing them succeed. I get charged up when I see and work with students who are just go-getters. I'll make calls and do whatever I can to get them ahead. 

My major goals for this year will be to teach a new Entrepreneurship class. Get more activities going with the Entrepreneurship Club and just make Entrepreneurship more visible. 

Student Spotlight

Kaela McMullin had herself a year last year! Second place in ideablitz! First place in ideabuild! And Honorable Mention at EEC's idealabs! That's $1,300 in winnings! Kaela's winning idea was called Cancer Cure Wigs. The idea was inspired by a family member who had battled cancer and dealt with the loss of hair and the psychological impact that had. Her product proposed to help restore and regrow hair. Watch the video to hear Kaela talk about it. 

What's next for Kaela? She said she would like to start a new clothing line. Over the summer, she took part in the EEC's Side Hustle program to learn more about starting a clothing line. 

Mentor Spotlight

Trevor Capiccioni is one of our awesome mentors. He launched his own medical supply sales business called Patriot Surgical in February of 2018. And it is taking off! Click on the link below to see Trevor explain how the expansion is going outside of Ohio! 

Trevor Capiccioni's Patriot Surgical expansion!

Taking a breath

(Canton, OH) It's summer time and the living sometimes isn't so easy. It's the fourth week since graduation and every week, has had several meetings on the docket, including four separate professional development seminars online. I'm supervising two students on internship. I require them to blog and we have Zoom meetings every couple of weeks. And I check in with their work supervisors. I am also in the middle of prepping a 100% asynchronous online class for the second summer session. 

When I previewed this week in meetings, I saw 11 meetings and yet another conference/seminar to attend and it conflicts with two meetings. On top of all of this, I had to take our dog to the emergency vet last night as she hadn't been able to eat for the past two days. She is not herself. The doc had to keep her overnight and give her an IV. She is having an ultrasound to see what the mass is that is stuck in her abdominal area. 

With all of this going on, I had to remind myself to just take a breath. Inhale. Exhale. Get through one thing at a time. Getting through each meeting and each day and just staying ahead of things helps settle the anxiety down a little. 

A New Year In Entrepreneurship

 (Hiram, OH) I am starting year six at Hiram College. I originally started in January of 2016 as an Assistant Professor in Communication. I came to Hiram right after graduating from BGSU in December of 2015. There's no way when I came to Hiram that I thought I would be an administrator at the start of this year!

Hiram College press release about me!

My great colleague

I'm thrilled to be in my current position. I work with a great colleague named David Kukurza. He's the Academic Development Director for Entrepreneurship. He and I mesh really well. You can tell we both have been around the block awhile and understand how to work well with people. Working well with people isn't something you can learn all about in school. A lot of it is learned from being in the business world, being in meetings, observing the hierarchy of companies, seeing who speaks when, knowing the roles of people, and so on. This business insight is what makes working with Dave so much fun. We don't mess around trying to figure things out so much. 

What's coming up

We are starting the spring semester face-to-face in-person. However, we are still following the state guidelines of not having more than 10 outsiders for a gathering. Social distancing is still encouraged. February 1st, all Ohio school employees are supposed to start getting vaccinated. We'll see. 

Threatening messages on social media

For everything good that there is about social media, there is also a very dark side. On the front page of today's sports section of the Akron Beacon Journal, there is an article about Cleveland Indians starting pitcher Trevor Bauer. A link is below.

Bauer seeks changes on social media threats

Sports fans have favorite teams and favorite players. I have watched many games over my lifetime where a player on my favorite team choked in a do or die moment or played very poorly. I never would have thought to write that player a letter or try to call him. Now still, in today's age of social media, I never would think to tweet at a player, slide in his dm's or message that person on Instagram and tell them they suck. If they played poorly, they know. No need to make it personal. Absolutely no need for death threats or telling them you hope they die. Can you imagine what would happen if on a bad day at work someone messaged you to say they hope you die? Crazy. The anonymity of social media has given too many people courage that they otherwise wouldn't have and they become "keyboard warriors." I hope it stops at some point.

As a follow-up to social media reacts...

In my last post, I commented about how there has been a trend for quite some time about the reaction on social media to news stories. Yesterday with the release of the Mueller Report that investigated the 2016 Presidential Election and whether or not there was collusion by the Trump campaign with the Russians, social media and cable news was on fire with constant coverage.

And with many stories, especially due to the web, some things in the news take on a life of their own and get celebrity status and notoriety that otherwise would be no big deal.

Take this report by CNN for example and the stare of Rod Rosenstein.
The Rod Rosenstein stare

So for all of the BIG news that came out of the release of the Mueller report yesterday, this also gained traction on social media. This?! This also had people talking?

And social media reacts!

News and sports over the last few days have been loaded with stories that have spread quickly and have had people talking. Since the internet and especially since social media has become a way for people to "talk" about news stories, a trend has developed. It's not just the newsworthy event that gets posted but it's also the reaction. And many times, the reaction story is just as big because of the people who react. 

The link below is the story about the reaction to Tiger Woods winning the Masters. Note the people who congratulated Tiger on social media. 

 https://www.golfchannel.com/news/social-media-reacts-tiger-woods-fifth-masters-victory

This next example below is similar yet different...People around the world took notice of the beautiful Notre Dame Cathedral burning in Paris. What's different about this is that this story focused on the newspapers around the world and the reaction rather than reaction on social media. I get it. This story was to show what hard copy newspapers showed from around the world but with so many newspapers struggling and readership down, I am still surprised this angle was taken.  

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/notre-drame-newspapers-around-the-world-react-to-one-of-frances-darkest-days/ar-BBVZryS?ocid=spartandhp

Googling the phrase "social media reacts" will result in several hits on news stories. I don't think this will go away as seeing how we now measure news stories' reach by clicks, reactions, retweets, and likes. 

Class of 2019 Apple Distinguished Educator

(Massillon, OH) I received great news almost a week ago. On Wednesday, April 3, at 9:09 p.m., I got an email from Apple saying I made the Class of 2019 for Apple Distinguished Educators! Below is the video I submitted for my application.




This is a great honor. At Hiram College two years ago, we started a program called Tech and Trek, which means each student gets an iPad Pro. I love it. Having a media background in audio and video production makes me really enjoy incorporating media production into my classes.

About the Apple Distinguished Educator program, I'm truly humbled and honored to be in it. We have so many great educators at Hiram College who are doing amazing things with the iPad. While I have done a lot with the iPad, I want to say this distinction is a "team win" for Hiram College.