Apr 10
Archive for April, 2008
Apr 07
A friend of mine (my best friend’s - husband’s - brother, catch that?), Wes Hurt, always wanted to be his own boss. What profession did he choose? He opened up a cupcake stand! You can’t tell me that at one point in your life, you didn’t want to take such a simple concept and make it wildly successful.
Wes’ first stand was located in a parking lot owned by a sorority. Its convenient location to the nearby UT campus made it popular. Next, Wes bought an old airstream trailer, fixed it up, and moved to the famous South Congress Ave.
Wes’ cupcake stand, Hey Cupcake!, has been a success from the start. He didn’t use traditional methods of marketing, his popularity comes mainly from Word of Mouth Marketing.
There are so many factors to consider…
Apr 04
I went one-on-one with the author of HTML, XHTML and CSS for Dummies, Jeff Noble. Here is how it went…
What is your background?
I could never figure out what I really wanted to do for a living. I sort of stumbled into web design in college, I think it hit me when I started to skip classes to work on my first website (this really terrible site about me and my roommates) that I might have other interests, you know… outside of sociology. Which sounds made up, but it’s a real degree… if not, the University of Texas might have some explaining to do. So anyway, I’ve run my own website design/multimedia company (www.conquestmedia.com) for the past 7 years. I’ve been fortunate enough to find something that I really enjoy and get paid for it. Most everything I know I’ve pretty much taught myself, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to surround yourself with knowledgeable people that you can bounce ideas off of when you get stuck.
How were you selected to write this book?
Good question, so far my story is that the folks at Wiley Publishing scour the globe looking for the biggest dummy of them all to write their “For Dummies” books, there is a ton of paperwork, tests, a physical challenge, etc. They picked me, which is both a compliment and sort of an insult as well. Kidding, I actually met Ed Tittle a few years ago and he liked my work and asked me to be a part of the book. Now let me just say, Ed is a really cool guy, but I get some crazy trade offers in exchange for website designs so I wasn’t really sure it would ever happen. I’m happy to say he was actually serious. Thank you, Ed.
What makes this book different from books written on HTML and CSS?
Well the book is written for beginners with little to no HTML/XHTML/CSS knowledge. From personal experience I’ve found programming can be a bit overwhelming starting out when you open up a page and you see a bunch of crazy looking tags everywhere. It’s really easy to get discouraged and this book will help guide beginners through that difficult first step.
If people would like to contact you, how can you be reached?
www.conquestmedia.com or jeff@conquestmedia.com
I’m available for website design consulting and contract work. All that I ask is please keep the cyber-stalking to a minimum. Thanks!
Pick up your copy at Amazon.com today!
Apr 03
I spent last night holed up at Starbuck’s with a few fellow AMA board members. We spent the evening judging scholarship applications submitted by University of Texas, St. Edward’s, and Texas State AMA student chapter members. These students are smart. Their GPA’s, their full resumes, and their insight into the marketing world is all very impressive - a far cry from the slackers I managed to get stuck with in group projects in college.
Below are a few tips I would like to offer graduating seniors:
1. Always have someone read over your resume.
It may look perfect to you now, but that’s because you’ve been staring at it for hours. Ask your mom, roommate, friend, professor, career advisor, anyone to look it over before you apply for a job. This is your one chance and first impressions mean everything!
2. Cover letter - if it’s not well written, scrap it.
Your cover letter should be professional, engaging, and to the point. State your objective in the first paragraph. Use no more than three bullet points to summarize your accomplishments. If your cover letter isn’t good, employers won’t bother looking at your resume.