Category: Mentorship Journal

It’s almost complete, the analysis of programs in competition with the ICC’s project I have been working on. While not a particularly taxing project, I always take great satisfaction in the finishing of a task with great implications. This task will allow us to fairly price out the intended offering.

I feel somewhat bad that I am not able to go into great detail about what is planned. However, I must respect that the ICC is still in the development stage of its process, and revealing too much information can have an adverse effect, which I do not want to happen. It’s kind of like going to Coca-Cola and having insider knowledge on its flagship beverage’s secret formula, which the company to this day has not disclosed.

This is Wednesday, so tomorrow we will have our weekly meeting via Zoom to go over the project. I will send over my findings from the analysis ahead of the meeting so that we can potentially go over it and I can answer any questions they might have. As I said in the previous post, I do not have the answers to everything, but I want to make sure that I have as much information as possible to help them through the process, thus why I take my time as much as I can. Like in the fable The Tortoise and the Hare, “slow but steady wins the race.” A quite apropos reference, considering that Olympians are the focus of this project. More to come after tomorrow’s meeting.

I am still in the process of looking through pricing for websites and research on projects similar to what the ICC wants to do. You will notice that I spent just 30 minutes on that this evening. I like to take my time on these things as I am able to for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, I am a busy individual. Not only am I handling this particular initiative, but I still have my full-time job and a class that I am in the middle of, so it is a matter of not overextending myself. The second is that a decision of this nature requires a thorough examination of what is available and whether it can do what we want it to, as I have explained in a previous post. So I want to make sure that no stone is unturned in our search for the best hosting provider.

All that being said, this is something that we want to act fairly quickly on. I am mindful that the window of opportunity can close at any moment. One of the takeaways from this pandemic is that nothing lasts forever, so we must remain alert and respond accordingly. I expect to be finished with this by week’s end. It’s not likely much will change by then but at this point, who really knows?

I have said on several occasions that I do not consider myself to be an expert at website building, but I have to admit that through maintaining this site and looking at options for the ICC, I am learning a little bit more about the process every day. I’ve also mentioned that it is good to have this sort of knowledge because you never know when it will come in handy for you.

Here we are, the end of the month of May, and I am continuing my look at various hosting companies for websites. I’ve mentioned multiple times that finding the best provider is a bit of a process. If you Google “Best Web Hosting 2020“–or just follow the link I’ve posted–you’ll find there are a lot of opinions out there. Some brand names appear just once, others three or four times.

A lot of factors go into a rating for these reviewers. Price is, of course, a major consideration. But you also have to think about whether the provider is able to meet the needs a site has. Will there be enough space to hold content? Can we get a live person on the phone to walk us through any issues? What do other customers think of the service? It’s not like walking into a restaurant and trying to decide between chicken or fish. A website is a significant investment that presents you to the world. So I have been going through what the experts say and putting them into a spreadsheet to show a consensus of the best product out there. I have no doubt that we will be able to make an informed decision.

It’s still rather early, but I continue to understand a little better with each passing day what the ICC is aiming for. It is going to be very exciting once rolled out and I am glad to be a part of it. Here’s to more ahead in June!

I took yesterday “off” so that I could tend to my Communication and Fundraising in Sport classwork. Now I am back at it this Saturday, conducting research on programs competing with the ICC’s newest initiative as well as pricing for a website. The Internet as vast as it is, there is a lot of information to look for and gather into a central document that’s simple enough to make the appropriate decision.

When I pursued my Journalism degree in undergrad, I will not lie, I had delusions of grandeur. If I worked hard enough, I could become the next Tom Brokaw or Ted Koppel. Obviously, it did not work out that way. That is why I have tempered my expectations greatly this time around. I will put the effort in to ensure that the ICC has a quality product that its intended audience uses and gets something out of. Whatever happens as a result of my work here is just great.

The important thing I am hoping to get out of this experience is the chance to showcase the talents I have accumulated from my journalistic and communications work. If you had asked me this question two years ago or heck, even one year ago, I am not sure that would be my response. But the farther I go and the closer I get to the finish line, it becomes all the more clearer to me that this is what I want to be doing. Research and publishing are quintessential traits to both journalism and communications, so my previous work has set me up to provide a great analysis for the ICC.

We had our meeting via Zoom today, which led to further exploration of finding a host for the new ICC website. A lot of options exist for maintaining a site–GoDaddy and Wix are among the more popular ones. I mentioned earlier that I do not consider myself to be a wiz at building pages from scratch, but I have been able to keep this site going with the ease of WordPress. I also use Bluehost for my needs, and my experience with them will factor in the recommendation I make to the group.

Something else that came up was market research on projects similar to what we want to do. For competitive reasons, I still cannot fully disclose what that is, but investigative research is always fascinating. It gives you a pretty good idea of what else is out there and how you measure up.

Today marks one week since I began working with the ICC. There are still some nuances that I am getting used to like understanding the project itself, but I am in close contact with the ICC partners, who are very good about offering their suggestions. If I were to have a memorable moment of the past week, it would be crafting the news release for the project. Given my background, that is something I have always enjoyed doing. A lot more will be coming down the pipeline in that area and I am looking a great deal forward to bringing my unique style to those endeavors.

Today I’m working on some recommendations to change up the International Cultural Consortium (ICC) logo. It does not need to be anything major, they already have an image that conveys the purpose of the organization, just some potential tweaks that will make it stand out.

I am a creature of habit myself. I tend to follow a schedule to my day–wake up, go to work, come home, exercise, tend to my studies, then go to bed. In light of COVID-19, the commute has practically been eliminated and I just travel to the kitchen for coffee in the morning. The fact that I am already working from home has made the start of the ICC mentorship quite smooth. I honestly don’t notice all that much of a difference between the mentorship and my job.

For somebody who thrives on a routine, that is a very good thing. Especially as my days can be quite full. I work for eight hours and am in the middle of another MBA course at Tiffin, so that doesn’t leave me with a lot of flexibility in terms of time.

That is not to say that I don’t enjoy some variety. I like to diversify my interests, so changing between my normal nonprofit work and my sports-related work keeps it lively. I learn so much more doing it this way.

Thursdays are when I have a standing meeting with Liston, Josh, and Dr. Tiell, so I shall partake in that tomorrow and see where the discussion leads.

By day, I am a mild-mannered nonprofit communications specialist. My LinkedIn profile explains a little more in-depth on what that involves but just to summarize, I work on distributing my agency’s message throughout our service area through various methods like social media, print & electronic mailings, and the traditional news media, of which I had been part of before jumping into the nonprofit sector.

Based on the document I have that lists the needs of the International Cultural Consortium (ICC), I will be doing a lot of the same work for their specific project. This means that for the most part, I do not have to teach myself an entirely new set of skills, which is nice. Case in point, I am working on an announcement to the media about the project. I have written many press releases over time so for me, it is a bit like riding a bicycle.

Still, there are some tasks that I cannot say I have never performed before, but I would not call myself an expert on the matter. Like building a new website for the ICC. Now you might be thinking, hang on a second, you built this website, didn’t you? It is true that I can make words and sometimes pictures appear on a screen with the push of a button, but that is about the extent of my knowledge.

It is not, I suppose, a bad thing to learn basic web design because having that ability comes in quite handy in this ever-increasing digital landscape we live in. So I welcome the opportunity to try my hand at it and all the parts to the ICC’s communications efforts.