Journey to Achievement

Hey readers!! This is a blog about everything in my journey to achievement. What I intend to achieve is not yet decided but I will fill this page with content that I hope will capture your attention. The Journey Begins........

[ashwini-kpn]

Whatsapp: A Trendsetter

The beginning of 1990’s saw the start in quick changing technologies. When I was a kid I saw the change in hardline phones to codeless mobile phone which are bigger and heavy than what we see now. Today in this age of advancing technologies we can connect to people in different corners of the world with just a tap on the screen. Technology is literally on your fingertips. Internet is one of the biggest example of a fast paced evolution of technology which has played an important role in this turnabout. Fax to emails, written letters to text messaging and  land lines to free internet calls everything changed so fast setting a never ending trend to the evolution of technology.

 When we look at text messaging alone it have seen a new light since the introduction of smartphones. Where in the olden days we were restricted to certain characters per text message but now we can write an entire plot of a movie in a single text message. Introduction of internet based messaging apps in smartphones have led to a new era in messaging. Apps like ‘whatsapp’ where we can send text, images, videos, contact information and location have enabled people to have more freedom over internet. There are other apps over different OS such BBM (Black Berry Messenger) in Black Berry and iMessage in iPhone. But whatsapp which was originally made for android and is one of its first messaging app to have gained so much popularity. This app has become a trendsetter which later got introduced to all mobile platforms such as iOS, windows, Symbian and even java based phones. Even though there are so many other apps; whatsapp has survived all that challenges and still continuing its service remaining as one of the major messaging app which has been used worldwide. It has become part of the day to day life for many. Families who live away from each other form groups to talk to one another. I have been on various whatsapp groups which makes it easier to stay in touch with a wide number of people in one place. Recently I saw a laptop service center personnel use whatsapp to send pictures of a damaged part to his colleague to check if the part was available rather than carrying my the laptop all the way to service center and checking for it. This saves me a lot of time and money. We could also send recorded videos to each other using whatsapp. It also has a feature where you can record you audio and send it over. Whatsapp has set a trend among the young and old in the last two to three years.  

Communication has come a long way from where it started. From the stories where kings and queens communicated using birds or messengers to the use smartphones and iPhones  making life easier and faster. We can only imagine what is going to happen in the future.  

[ashwini-kpn]

A handy tool for a web designer

When we first hear the term CSS there are a million questions in our head. What is CSS? Do we really need to know coding to use CSS?

 CSS was first introduced in 1996 and was called css1 which was a product of W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). At that time CSS lacked browser compatibility. CSS1 one only supported very few attributes like font, typeface, font color, margin border etc. Later CSS2 was introduced in 1998 by W3C, which also contain the attributes controls from CSS1 and few other ones. At last CSS3 was published in 1999 which is used even now for web page designing. Style sheets have come a long way from its release and has become more complicated. With each release there was more capabilities added and broadened.

 Well, CSS or cascading style sheets  are a way to add formatting to markup language which has limited means of presentation. When it comes to CSS we do not need to know a lot of coding to create a CSS file. It’s a form of scripting which when added with some creativity we can make our web design look more efficient and cool. By using CSS we can control the elements inside our web page such as links, font, color, spacing etc. When it comes to syntax of CSS it uses a  number of English keywords to specify the names of various style properties.

 Given below is an example of a CSS syntax:

The most reliable feature of a CSS file is that a single style sheet can be linked to multiple HTML files simultaneously hence helping in reducing the time required to code and design multiple web pages. This way any changes that has to be made to the website can be done inside a single file which in turn will effectively make the changes in the corresponding web pages. But when it comes to the changes that affect the individual page or a particular style  in a page,a new CSS file has to be created and linked to it.

 So in this semester we learned how to enhance the design of a webpage using stylesheets.  This has helped me how to effectively design web pages.

[ashwini-kpn]

A perfect mixture of creativity and social media

Social media has become an integral part of modern society. It is one of the most excellent and cost effective way to attract positive attention to your company or product. Social media is also an excellent medium to get creative with your business strategy. Many businesses have incorporated social media to reach out to their customers and have received amazing results and feedback.  

Over the past few years, social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube etc., have become increasingly powerful communication and marketing tools. In the year 2013 digital marketers of several brands have created  innovative social media campaigns across multiple platforms to promote their brand. Let's take a look at a few of them.

Oreo – Superbowl ‘Blackout’ Tweet

During the Superbowl when there was a power outage at the Super-dome for 34 minutes, oreo's social media team jumped on the cultural moment, tweeting an ad that read “Power Out? No problem” with a starkly-lit image of a single Oreo and the caption, “You can still dunk in the dark.” The message caught on almost immediately. They got around 15,000 retweets and more than 20,000 likes on Facebook within a short span of time. It is hailed as “the best ad of the game” and “the most powerful bit of marketing during the advertising industry’s most expensive day”. Oreo’s real-time social media marketing stunt won a prestigious Clio award and had lasting effects around the advertising industry.

Lay's - Do us a flavor

Lay’s created its first social media campaign in its 75-year history. This campaign let fans create a new flavor of chip for Lay's. This was a great marketing campaign because the contest made it interactive on the social media platform. Lay's went all out in attracting their fans to participate in the contest. They had 3.8 million submission between July 20 and October 6 in the year 2012. They finally tested and narrowed it down to three flavors  which the fans were able to purchase in 2013 and then vote on Facebook or Twitter  for their favorite flavor and decide the million dollar winner. They had a 12% increase in their sales soon after the campaign.

Dove- Real beauty sketches

Dove created one of the most talked about social media experiments of the year 2013. Dove created a video of a professional forensic artist draw women’s’ faces as they described themselves without him being able to see them, and then compared that photo to one of a stranger describing the same woman. This video became an immediate sensation . It had over 114 million views, it was the third most shared ad of all time and there were about 1800 blog posts written about this campaign.

Social media campaigns can create lasting impressions that determines your bond with your consumers and target audience. Try and make sure that you present something unique and riveting to your audience. This can inspire and motivate them to like your campaigns. Last but not the least social media is one of the most used marketing strategy, so use it to its best.

[ashwini-kpn]

Trendsetter - Social Media.

Interactive media is the integration of digital media like graphics, animated images, electronic text and sound into a structured digital environment that allows people to interact with the data for appropriate purpose. In this ever changing world, the trends in interactive media keeps improvising as per the needs of technology. People all over the globe now has access to the internet which makes it challenging and also gives opportunities to create an exciting array of content for consumers. Having a very clear understanding of the upcoming trends and defining the content goals within an organisation is very important.

One of the major trend in content strategy is the competition to gain consumers attention. Each day there are around 92,000 new articles posted on the internet. It's not just from publishers; Word Press users produce about 35.8 million new posts each month. While developing content strategy it is important to realize the type of business it is created for and the target audience of that particular business. It is also important to understand what kind of product a business sells and the marketability of the product. For instance, is the product a think product or a feel product. Think products is where the consumer takes a personal effort to think or consider before buying the product whereas a feel product is where the customer takes an impulsive decision because of what they feel at the moment.

The rapid growth of digital innovation and the various platforms to work with makes it even more exciting and challenging. As the mediums to work on increases companies experiment with content in each of these mediums to reach their target audience. For instance PopTopia is a mobile game which has a mobile attachment called Pop Dangle which emits the smell of popcorn as u play, Sephora's mobile app has content that speaks to their core customer base and is in line with their other online and social media content.

There are several content marketing tactics that are used nowadays. It is said that 92% of business marketers use social media as one of their largest means of content strategy. Below is a graph of 13 content marketing tactics that a B2B marketer use :

 Going by the saying "Fishing where the fish are", business marketers target their existing and potential users on social media. A survey in the last year shows that LinkedIn is the top rated social media site that business organizations use.

Social media makes it easier to push content and access it faster than ever. Social media allows you to leverage existing networks to increase the reach of your content and it provides a testing ground for broad marketing campaigns. Social media platforms also allows you to share the content at optimal times, test and see what resonates your audience, gather insights from your audience. However creating and maintaining the quality of content becomes critical. As content marketing through social media platform increases the media buyers will have to allocate more funds towards content promotion. Companies have also come up with in-house social media experts who are entrusted to advise on the social media planning and execution. Image based content is believed to have a higher engagement on social media. On Facebook images receive 50% more interaction than text based posts. With technological developments, cheaper solutions and the increasing popularity of mobile and other wireless connections, social media is on the finger tips of every single person. This makes it a quicker and easier way to use social media as one of the major content strategy to market their brands.

Trends in content marketing just like any other marketing is continually changing and evolving. Today social media marketing seems to be the most popular content promotion tactic but we will never know what the future has to offer.   

[ashwini-kpn]

Spelling S.U.C.C.E.S.S with social media trends

As an Interactive Media Management Professional you have infinite resources at your fingertips to brand yourself. You cannot afford to not do this.  The key in what platforms you choose to adapt to showcase your talents and build your network. Social Media has quickly become an essential tool for individuals or businesses to promote and connect among the masses

Albert Costill in the website search engine journal gives us a  statistics about the presence of social media in our daily lives. He says that:

8 out of 10 users are reached by social media sites and blogs.  

After devoting 6 hours per week in social media , marketers saw an increase of 74% in their website traffic.

Social Media has helped 87% of small businesses.

85% of business-decision makers believe that at least having one social media channel is very important for technology purchase decisions.

Though social media has become the key source of showcasing brands and branding yourself in this fast paced world, a professional should always find the pros and cons of using each platform and choose wisely on what fits best. As an interactive media management professional I would choose Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter as platforms to brand myself. Let's take a look at each of them individually and find out how it helps building a network and showcasing your talent in the social media.

As a person who loves photography, I would love to use Instagram as a platform for creating a photography portfolio. Anthony Carranza, Digital Journalist & Contributor examiner, in an article for the social media today says that telling your own story is definitely start and being original too helps you in making your task easier to get followers. While using Instagram the main tips to remember are :

Understanding your brand's audience

Create and follow a theme for your content and be consistent

Give your followers a reason to want to follow you or your brand in Instagram

Tell an interesting brand story through images and captions. And also engage with your followers by commenting, liking their posts and following them back.

Instagram has also started a new feature of embedding Instagram videos into your blog or website. This also helps in extending and reaching out to a wider audience. Using hash tags has also become a huge criteria for a good organic exposure.

LinkedIn is one of the leading business-focused social media networking site with more than 238 million users. LinkedIn is a social media platform to describe who you are and what makes you unique. The beginners guide to social media  says that LinkedIn is a fantastic platform for generating B2B leads, with nearly three times the conversion rate of Facebook or Twitter. Few best practices to follow on LinkedIn are

Make sure you update your profile and include details that will make a prospective client want to work with you.

Connect with all your contacts. The more contacts you have, the more secondary connections you will make, which allows you to expand your network.

Don't just connect with individuals on your list, follow company pages of businesses you want to build a relationship with.

Use LinkedIn as a search engine. Search for companies you are interested in, and then find out who the key personnel are. Once you find the right person, send them an email via LinkedIn. Often a message via LinkedIn comes off as warmer than a regular email. 

Targeting capabilities on LinkedIn ensures that your content reaches the right audience in an organic way through LinkedIn members’ feeds. Once you identify the best strategies to reach your audience with content, you can grow your professional network and attract more customers.

I think the catch phrase of twitter should be 'First impression counts'. The most important thing about Twitter is to create a Twitter  profile that attracts more followers and gives people a compelling reason to follow your business. In a nutshell, your Twitter profile should bring your business to life. According to the best business practices given in the twitter website, here is a rundown on how to make the best out of Twitter.

Create tweets that resonates. Combing useful and exciting content with an engaging tone to emotionally connect with your audience is the most important part on tweeting.

Keeping tweets short and sweet so they can be consumed easily anywhere. A recent report by buddy media reveals that tweets shorter than 100 characters get a 17% higher engagement rate.

Tweeting often is also a successful business attribute. A good rule is to have three to five tweets a day.

Following your interest is a great way to discover compelling content and inspiring ideas for your own tweets.

To sum it all up, Time is of essence. Social media platforms are the easiest way to ask your audience for something specific and track their responses first hand. Whether you’ve been in the field for a while and are gaining ground or building your social media presence from the ground up, tapping into the current social media trends and following their best business practices will help strengthen your online presence.

Below are a few reference links that helped me understand the best business practices of social media websites and how it helps in branding myself. 

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/18-social-media-marketing-tips/

http://blog.hootsuite.com/instagram-best-practices-brands/

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/important-instagram-insights-and-best-practices-success

http://www.zaginteractive.com/about/blog/blog-post/the-z-drive/2014/01/15/14-social-media-marketing-trends-for-2014

http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-social-media/linkedin

http://www.dcmarketingpro.com/blog/bid/336377/10-LinkedIn-Best-Practices#

https://biz.twitter.com/en-gb/best-practices

http://www.steamfeed.com/10-twitter-best-practices-2014/

[ashwini-kpn]

Coming together is a beginning; Keeping together is a progress; Working together is a success

In today's fast paced world we rely on each to generate solutions to various problems. With the increasing number of start up as well as established organizations employers are increasingly depending upon employees to generate creative solutions to their business problems. We humans, being of the social nature, we work better in teams and could achieve better results through collective effort. When we break down any and every task into small pieces that becomes less stressful and more efficient.

The key concept of brainstorming is not to come up with new ideas every single time but to spark off from ideas of others and to further expand and develop these ideas. Traditionally brainstorming involved a group of individuals in a room, thinking of ideas and voicing their opinions to the group. However this method has its own negatives. There is always the fear of criticism that hampers the generation of ideas in this method.

How can we effectively apply collaborative methods for generating ideas? There is no definite solution for any of this. Why? Because every project is different and every team member is unique with different levels skills. A team will only be successful if there is a team leader who is quick on their feet to choose effective techniques to tackle every situation and personality that they might come up against and fellow team members who are willing to follow the lead.

The first step to effectively building a team will be to clearly defining the purpose.An effective team leader can ensure proactive participation from the team member. While he utilizes many techniques like performance based bonus can lead to motivation of the team while a paycheck will secure a minimum amount of participation. Seeking inputs from team members will give them a sense of involvement. Making them feel that they belong in the group and the task given to them can contribute towards the success of the team can also ensure job satisfaction among the team.

A team is out of sync when people with dominating personalities topples the balance of team. We can often see a bold and out right team member who criticizes others ideas and input, while the silent team members restrain themselves from future active involvement in the team. We can effectively overcome these circumstances by setting up a brainstorming session with strict rules, according to the book “serious incident prevention” by Thomas Burns. While having a brainstorming session the team leader should enforce strict law to avoid criticism and every team member should be asked to take a turn. It is team leader’s responsibility to go to the each one of their team members to take their inputs, as many of them as possible and once that’s done an open discussion should be held to further improve the idea.

Alex Osborn of Madison Avenue advertising developed the original approach to brainstorming and published it in his 1953 book, "Applied Imagination". Since then, researchers have made many improvements to his original technique. In 1967 he defined four basic rules of brainstorming. They are

Criticism is ruled out.

'Freewheeling' is welcomed. The wilder the ideas the better.

Quantity is wanted. The more ideas the better.

Combination and improvement of ideas is sought.

With the advancement in technology there are many digital tools used for collaboration or brainstorming. Few of the tools suggested by a panel of successful entrepreneurs are Producteev, Basecamp, Teambox, Google Docs etc. Mostly everyone said that these tools helped them maximize productive collaboration, they could piggyback on others ideas to come up with something different and helped them keep everything organized.  

While brainstorming can be effective, it's important to approach it with an open mind and a spirit of non-judgment. If you don't do this the number and quality of ideas plummets, and morale can suffer.

  Below is a flowchart of Brainstorming

To conclude the trick to a successful collaboration is to pro-actively remove the barriers. Once that is done the team will have a chance to truly flourish.

References

http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/effective-teamwork-techniques-4404.html

http://www.mindtools.com/brainstm.html

http://f3.image-jura.ch/spip/IMG/pdf/wiki_collaboration_an_2A52A.pdf

[ashwini-kpn]

Hierarchies Unveiled: HTML and CSS

Html is a markup language that was proposed in 1980 at CERN by physicist Tim Berners-Lee. Html  was developed so that it was possible to share information between scientists at CERN. When we study HTML we can say that it was used by the web browsers to interpret and compose text, images and other material into visual or audible web page. Later CSS was proposed by HakonWium Lie in 1994. There were many other style sheets introduced at same time as CSS but CSS was the most commonly used because it allowed a webpage's style to be influenced by multiple style sheets. This is why it is called "cascading" style sheet.

The World Wide Web Consortium which is also known as w3c is the international standards organization for web. I could talk all day about the history behind all this but today I would like to specifically talk about certain elements of web design.

Let's take a look at the hierarchy of elements in web design, how it plays an important role in designing the content and delivering the information to the user. Hierarchy forms an important part of the User Interface.

HTML tag's we use day to day we can create a typographic hierarchy in a web page. Typographic hierarchy helps in organizing and establishing an order within the data. This allows users to navigate easily through the content and find what they exactly need. Robert Bringhurst, a Canadian typographer in his book "The Elements of Typographic Style" says “Typography exists to honor content.” That being said, typography hierarchy also helps the search engine to determine the priority of contents on a web page. Web developers using HTML tags such as <h1>, <h2>,<em>, etc., to establish a hierarchy.

Now let’s see how CSS come into play to help visually set hierarchy.

There are a few basic methods for establishing a visual typographic hierarchy. They are size, weight, color, position and type contrast.

When we create CSS for hierarchy, we can use any of these styles or we can combine them to get a unique style for our content. When it comes to visual hierarchy we can see that it also play an important role in creating effective web design which help us communicate and convey information with the user more easily. Have you ever thought of the story behind a design or how a designer actually creates it?

Once you learn the tools all that counts is what you do with them. Now Lets breakdown the elements of visual hierarchy and learn each of them individually 

Size

Size plays an important role. It is the most common method of  establishing visual hierarchy. For Example: Objects that are bigger demands more attention when compared to smaller ones. Using different sizes as a hierarchical tool is an effective way of guiding a viewer's eye to a particular portion they need to focus on the page. For example we can vary the sizes of the element on a webpage by assigning various sizes to each element such as main header-40px, sub headers-30px, body-20px etc.

Human eye naturally capture the big elements first and moves down to the smaller elements.

Color

Color is another tool which helps the viewer to distinguish between what is primary and secondary. While adding color we should always remember the basic rules that apply to it. Reds or yellows are considered as warm colors while blues and greens are more of a cool color. Warm colors pop and cool colors fade in. Color can affect everything from a websites brand to symbolism. Advanced applications of color can even be used to "classify" information within a hierarchy.

  Alignment and Orientation

Alignment and orientation creates order between elements. How the text rests in a layout beside other elements impacts overall hierarchy. Aligning text  based on where it is placed in the webpage plays an important role in the visual hierarchy. For example the difference between the content column and the header or even the sidebar has to be aligned in a distinctive way.

Spacing

Spacing plays an important rule and it has to be used wisely. You don't want to pack all the elements tightly together and make the webpage look like there is a lot going on. This can get very confusing for the viewer. The other extreme also does not help, i.e when there is a lot of space between the elements. When a webpage is spaced just right, the eye will easily recognize which elements are related and which aren't. Each space can impact the hierarchy of your webpage.

  Style and Texture

Texture and style decisions should never be made based on whether it looks good or not, it should be made  based on if it serves the purpose or not. When used appropriately texture and style seperates the content from the rest of the website. It is basically used to highlight elements such as headings, icons, buttons etc. It can be used to guide a viewer eye or when heavily used it demands so much attention that it distracts rather than being informing. It should also suit the content of the website.

In today's competitive world it is important be unique, make a difference and stand out from the rest.To sum it all up using typographic or visual hierarchy while creating a webpage  is challenging yet fun. As the saying goes "Practice makes a man perfect",  so experiment and practice on every webpage you create. Even if u don't become perfect there is an improvement you achieve every single time. Always maintain legibility while creating a webpage.  Never compromise it. Choose textures and colors wisely, if it does not belong never use it. Consider the relation between each hierarchical element in the webpage and use them wisely. And mostly importantly think about how your users are going to perceive it and try transcending their user experience.  

[ashwini-kpn]

Bird's Eye Survey!! Interactive Industry

The first session of Interactive Media Industry was an enlightening session about the facts of the industry at present. It provides an overview of every sector and job profiles available in the industry and the percentage each city in Canada occupies in the media world.

Coming from an entire different cultural background, the biggest concern that I had was the thought of adapting to a new country and meeting their job requirements. I always had a fear whether I would be able to meet the expectations or get a career in the field that I actually wanted to be in. This session helped me realize the creative, technical and managerial skill set requirement the industry currently needs and the amount of hard work I need to put into each criteria's to meet the same.      

By the end of this session there was a clear understanding about the different sectors in the media business in each city of Canada, the platforms used for developing them,  the requirements for jobs, the revenue generated by each of these sectors and the blend of creative, technical and administrative processes used in each of these business firms. This absolutely informative session helps each and every student who is trying to set foot in the media industry.

The best part of this session was the graphical  representation of every little detail and comparison which made it easier to remember things. Being from a foreign controlled media industry I was surprised to see that the Canadian controlled media industry is a much  larger sector comparatively. Also the fact that Ontario holds a larger percentage of jobs in the industry makes me feel elated, hoping that the opportunities to find a good job is much higher than the other states in Canada. That is a ray of hope for the big leap I took with the decision of coming to Canada.

 The interactive industry has always excited me on a creative as well as intellectual level. The various options in each sector makes it more interesting to study. The hope that there is not just one end to studying media but a large industry with many sectors to choose from is a relief. I never had a clue that the industry had so many different kinds of titles and job requirements, because back in India we don't have so many different levels and layers of people working under an interactive project.

 Unlike the saying 'Jack of all and master of none', I would like to be a 'Jack of all and a master of one or maybe even a few'. I guess the story of my life with media starts at Centennial with this informative lecture on what exactly the country holds for me. 

[ashwini-kpn]

TTC streetcars: Plain Jane

In my opinion the usability criteria for a content should be visually appealing, Engaging, Clear, Efficient and Obvious.

We have been asked to research the content on the TTC website about their new street cars. When I first got to the webpage I was disappointed at the content. In my opinion it was most definitely not visually appealing, because it looked dull, the colours did not stand out for me, I understand that they are the TTC colours but I think that maybe more should have been done with the content so that it would make up for the basic colouring they used. I found the images that were used lack a little lustre, you can see what they were attempting to do with showing the old photos but covering them with the new but I would have preferred to see the old pictures fully. They could have added more pictures and put them side by side using a before and after format or even a "TTC Streetcars Through The Ages". As much as we like to believe that we don't need visual aids anymore whilst reading, our minds have been pre-programmed to respond far beet to visual aids accompanied with text far better than just text. When you go to a website the first thing that catches your attention will be the images, they will determine whether you stay on the website or if you will just leave and go somewhere else. 

Also I did not find it engaging, I was easily bored whilst reading all the information. I felt as if they were only telling me things I needed to know and some of the information made me feel like I was reading an instruction manual. I can see that they want the consumers to understand the benefits of having brand new streetcars but in my opinion they were far too technical, there are ways in which you can convey content to a person online or face to face that will be both informative and interesting. TTC seems to have forgotten that most of their consumers are from the younger generation, the generation that will be voting to impact changes soon. The current content seems more geared towards an older audience. Young people do read and you have some young people who are actively interested in the changes affecting their environment, and I just feel that if those young people came to the site they would not feel engaged but would lose interest quickly.

This page is not memorable, I found that after leaving the site I had to keep going back to it for references as it had quickly lost its place in my memories. A site should be memorable no matter how the content is. It should stick in your mind, when you are having conversations with other people and bring up a topic related to the site you can tell the other person enough information that they will want to go to the site as well to gather their own information. When discussing the site with my roommates I found they quickly grew tired of the information and when I took them to the site almost instantaneously they became bored with the content.

Apart from the aforementioned issues the site was clear, efficient and obvious. I knew what I was reading and what it was about. I think it may have been too efficient, everything had its place and was accessible. It followed a specific structure, I just think they should have been a bit more free with the arrangement and structuring so as to make it appealing to all who view it. If I were given the opportunity I would have done a bit more.

[ashwini-kpn]

Combat : Cosumer Vs Organisation

The websites I have decided to review is Target and wanelo, as their entire website has content that is both consumer and organisation centric. I have pocked specific parts of the website to show the ways in which a page contains consumer or organisation centric content.

Firstly we will begin with Organisation Centric Content; if you log on to the Target page and click on the link for Clothing and Accessories it will take you to the page that I have decided to use. This page shows you all the brands that Target stock. There are a few pictures that Target are hoping will catch your eye, each brand has its logo and either a small sentence or paragraph about the brand. Few of the brands such as Target Style, Monster Chic, Altuzarra, etc have links that will take you further into the Target site giving you the opportunity to see the things that you will like to buy, whereas other labels such as Circo, Cherokee, Merona, Champion and others have no direct links. I think this is because Target feels if the consumer has links and more information they will buy directly from the source and cut Target out as the middle man. They don't want that so they give as little information as possible almost as if they are telling you that you don't need to know anything else and if you did want to know, you should go into the store and ask.

The second site I chose to review is Wanelo.com an online shopping site that has men's and women's fashions, accessories, home appliances, furniture, etc. Anything you need you can find it on their site. I think that this website is absolutely Consumer Centric; from the moment you press enter and enter into Wanelo world, you are already met with items that may catch your interest. Once you have selected the item, what to do with it and where you would like to put it, Wanelo then puts together a list of items it thinks will interest you based on your earlier decisions. From the moment that you log on you are met with not just things you would like to buy but great prices and you can even have the chance to see who else would like the same item and you can build shopping lists, wish list's or even just a dream list of things you wish you could get. As soon as you hit the website you are hit with a clear and concise layout that was built and assembled with the consumer in mind.

[ashwini-kpn]

Bags Packed. Destination?? IMM

I know most of you are reading this title thinking what or where is IMM? Firstly lets establish that IMM is not really a where but more of a what. IMM stands for Interactive Media Management. Now I could sit here and give you a long winded article about the in's and out's of IMM but I will just keep it basic. I don't want to bore you with all the technical lingo. Interactive Media Management is "basically" the behind the scenes of the media scene. This refers to all types of interactive media such as blogging, web and mobile app development, etc. So any interactive media format that is used by a human or dog with opposable thumbs will undergo some form of media management to get out all the kinks and dents before it goes live and active to be enjoyed by the masses. It also includes the study of design, development, implementation and management of digital strategies across different platforms. As a part of my journey to achievement I decided to embark on the study of IMM (if this acronym confuses you please see above). Originally I got into media because it was something my mum wanted me to do, it was in the family and as you know you don't say no to family. Whilst studying media I found certain aspects of it fun and interesting, whereas other ascpects had me begging 'Father Time' to please hurry up so it could be over. Now I won't sit here and type my entire life story, I'm Indian so you know that means it will include at least 4-5 Bollywood numbers, dance sequences included. (What can I say I am a dancer) Management has always been something that interested me and I was curious to see if there was a way I could mix it in with media. I did my research, and thanks to google.in I found out about IMM. It's perfect for me. It brought together everything that I love about management and media. This meant I could appease my family and at the same time do something that I enjoyed. As Hannah Montana would say I got "The Best of Both Worlds". So I jumped on a plane to Canada and here I am on the first leg of my journey, ready to see where it will take me next. Stay tuned, Happy journeys.......