AyooiNk

Courtney Jenkins a.k.a “DJ iNk” was born in Long Branch, New Jersey in 1988.  He grew up listening to music day in day out.  Whether it was at church and playing the drums or it was setting up speakers for a big event, he was there.   That’s when he knew it was meant for him to do music.  After graduating high school, me moved to Ft. Lauderdale, Fl where his DJ career started to take off playing at all the hottest parties and clubs in the Ft. Lauderdale/Miami area.  It was in 2009 when the economy went down and he was decided to enter the US Army.  Courtney completed one tour of deployment in Afghanistan.  When he was honorably discharged, he decided to attend Full Sail University.  He received his Associates of Science Degree in Recording Engineer and Bachelor of Science in Recording Arts. He recently started the Master program in Entertainment Business.  Once Courtney graduate, he plan to work my way into the freelance field and work on getting placements with my music.   Not only will DJ iNk be producing music but I’m also known as a DJ first.  I love to mix, blend, and scratch music together to entertain each and every music lover. He is very passionate about what he do and love to do it all. Courtney also would like to venture off into TV production as well as film.   This is my calling and I will not stop until I reach the top! Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/dj-ink-9335147a Diigo https://www.diigo.com/user/Djink20 Feedly http://feedly.com/i/my/courtneyjenkins

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Entertainment Media Publishing and Distribution Mastery Journal

This month, I had the opportunity to of learning about media publishing and distribution.  Coming into the class I had a general idea what would be discussed but soon realized that I actually learned more than expected.  So I asked myself, what would I need a publisher for if I only compose music?  Well that’s a good question because at the time, I was clueless to how things work. Having a publisher help get your content, merchandise, and your whole entire brand out for the world to see. That is exactly what I’m missing when it comes to getting my content out.  I tend to just create my music without pushing that I have new content at times.  I would always wonder how other producer and music composer are able to sell their music to the major labels and artist.  I was clueless to how this part of the game worked.  So, how do you get a publisher?  You have to pitch your music to them.  You have to get them to believe that your brand is worth the world seeing and hearing.  Once you pitch your brand, you figure out which licensing pertains to you, and then you discuss how you both will be getting paid. These are all important step because you have to be clear on who gets what and how much everyone is entitled to.  This class didn’t just reflect on publishing your music but all around the entertainment industry.  I also was able to learn how book, video games, and TV and film publishers work as well. I believe that this will all be useful to me because I would love to work with all apart of the entertainment industry that deals with audio.  You’ll never know where those other outlets or industry my take you in your own career.    

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Product and Artist Management Mastery Journal

This month was all about very useful to me.  I had the opportunity of learning more than what I expected in Product and Artist Management.  Going into the course, I believe that I would get to understand more about how to market and brand your artist and their product but what I learned will help benefit me in the long run.  I don’t plan on being a artist manager in my career at this point but it gave me some insight on how a artist manager relationship should handled.  At times it seems as if your job as a artist manager could be impossible at time but if you believe in the artist more that they do, their career as well as your will be successful.  The product side of things was a bit interesting this month as well. As I know with being an artist or a brand, you need some type of product in order to market yourself.  Without some type of marketable product, your fans would just be your fans.  While that is ok, I’m pretty sure that we want that loyal customer fan base and while having some product to market.  Having product builds experiences and lifestyle that our customers and fans are looking for.  After being in class this month and learning how to manage your artist and your product, I now know that I needed to know and understand this content.  I am more of a behind the scene worker but knowing these things and applying this to my brand will definitely help me reach the goal I need to reach in my career.  I currently work with an upcoming artist who will need to know how to market their brand. This will help get our content to the measure we need as well gaining the loyal fan base we are looking for.  

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Digital Marketing Reflection

This month, I’m back with another blog about Digital Marketing.  Digital Marketing is where you take your brand and market it through some type of electronic form to gain clients.  This is one of the biggest platforms in the marketing industry.  Marketing your brand digitally can take a lot work and with being in the entertainment industry you have to put in a lot of work in order to become top in your industry.  But we ask the question, how do we succeed in marketing your brand digitally?  How do we reach our set goals as well as staying consistent in our product in order to gain clientele? One way is to set goals in what you would like to accomplish. Putting ads out on as much social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram you can.  With these platforms, you are able to reach your target market personally which will help drive clients to your business.  “Use media and community to earn customers. I’m here to help.” (Brogan, 2016).  This is a statement that I agree with.  As a freelancer, I have to use social media each and everyday.  One thing I’ve notice is that people love to see consistency.  If you have quality work that remains consistent, the clients will come.  My brand is all I have so these are some strategies that I practice in order to keep the clients coming in.  Entertainment is something that I love do and with doing that, you need a strong online presence as I stated before.  This makes it easier to gravitate people to your brand as followers or even as clients. This is just a few of the things your can use to market your brand digitally.  I definitely will use all I have and will learn in order to market my brand the way it should in order to accomplish the goals I need to accomplish.

 Brogan, C. (n.d.). Chrisbrogan.com - Media, marketing, lead generation, and customer acquisition strategies for business. Retrieved May 15, 2016, from http://chrisbrogan.com/

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Digital Marketing Mastery Journal

This month’s opportunity is learning about Digital Marketing.  This is where you market your brand to gain clients in every electronic form. It is a great deal to have the knowledge in digital marketing when providing service to others. Being in the entertainment industry is a lot of work.  This is an industry that is always improving.  So the big question is, how do we improve? How do we stay ahead of the game? How do we continue to grow our business so that we may meet the expectations of all clients?  That’s what being in this industry takes to become successful in what you do.  You have to market your brand and with the frequent changes of technology, having a perfect online presence plays a major role in doing so.  One of the fastest and reliable ways of gaining new followers would be to use digital marketing.  This included putting ads out on everything you can in the streaming industry. Social media is a big giving in today’s entertainment industry.  Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Sound cloud are some ways of communicating with your fans, because that what we want.  We want people to look out our brand through these platforms in order to gain fans as well as clients.  “Use media and community to earn customers. I’m here to help.” (Brogan, 2016).  I definitely agree with that.  These are strategies I practice each and everyday with marketing my brand.  My brand is a big part of what I stand for and I would love for everyone who feels the way I feel or see things through my vision and be able to relate to it.  So why wouldn’t I use the one of the biggest strategies known make or break someone’s career?  That’s the thing, I would and I am.  By having a strong online presence, this can bring new followers as well as new clients.  As I stated before, this is what we want and what we want is to gravitate more people to our business as fans or as clients.  Taking all I have learned will definitely be of good use to my brand and business as long as I stay up or ahead of the game.  

References:

Brogan, C. (n.d.). Chrisbrogan.com - Media, marketing, lead generation, and customer acquisition strategies for business. Retrieved May 15, 2016, from http://chrisbrogan.com/

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Negotiation and Deal-Making Mastery Journal

Negotiation and Deal-Making Mastery Journal

             Negotiation and Deal-Making!  What can I say?  Coming into this course I expected to learn how to negotiate my way through a deal. Well, I can say I did learn that. I everything I expected to and then some.  On the first day of lecture, I sat in class and realized how this will benefit me not in my career field but in life generally.  This is information that I need in order to keep my business successful. Some of the thing I learned from this course that is most important to me was turning the work into words.  I now understand what to look for in contract and agreements.  I also learn that “Dirty Tricks” does exist in negotiation.  I wasn’t clueless of it but to know that it can be purposely used to get exactly what you want out of a deal was very interesting to me.  I did learn a lot from the mock negotiation that we were participating in class.  It helps me to understand and to visually see how they can be played out.  “Anything can happen in a negotiation.”   After class, I would talk to some of my class and we would talk about the things we’ve learned in lecture for that day.  One thing that we agreed upon was that you could learn who can and can’t do business by simply playing a board game.  It was intriguing to me that when it comes to money, majority of the time its all about self. The tools are definitely tools that I can apply in my career.  Dealing with contracts and customers who feel they should pay a certain price and not what your actually worth, this Negotiation and Deal-Making course was definitely a course that will be a great asset to me and my career.

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Business Storytelling and Brand Development Mastery Journal

In this month’s course, I learned about Business Storytelling and Brand Development.  This means using the art of stories in order to connect with your employees and customers while marketing your brand to the target audience in order to gain recognition in your product.  Although with coming into this class, I had a general ideal about what this course was all about due to me doing some of the things we discussed this month.  I have been marketing and branding myself once I entered in the mainstream DJ world in 2008.  This is where I took my skills and talent down to South Beach, Miami where I DJ for some of the most hottest clubs.  This was also the time where Facebook and Twitter were becoming known to most as a platform to promote your craft.  Hence I stated “Promote.”  We understood that a new era was coming where we will be all on our mobile devices tweeting and face-booking.  So why not push your music.  

 Now that time has sped up to where are today, I can say that taking this course made me aware of the bigger and better platforms to “Promote” my music.  The change is now we can market our brand and become a business we need to be in order to become successful.  It showed me that you have to go in with a strategic plan in order to hit the correct target audience.  Always brainstorm and plan what your need to accomplish before you do. Set GOALS.  I know that if you set a time frame of what your would like to get done, does work.  That was one thing our instructor Ken Dengilo always emphasized.  This does make what you need to get done easier to accomplish. This course was just another piece of the puzzle I’m putting together in order to become successful in my field of work.

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Project and Team Management Mastery Journal

What’s going on!  This month I had to the opportunity in learning about Project and Team Management.  I believe this class put a lot into perspective for me with becoming a leader in my field of work.  Creating project management plans, knowing the ins and outs of contributing to a successful project, as well as maintain the budget you set for your task. These steps have helped me to pursue a project that I’ve had in mind for a while.  It made it easier for me to understand the process of starting a project, building my team that fits best the project, and working together to achieve the same common goal.

 I was able to learn that team breaking activities can help you learn more about the individuals that’s apart of your team.  It’s important to learn more about the individuals in the group because everyone doesn’t work the same nor think the same.  In order for the project to be a success, everyone needs to be on the same page.  I also learn that a conflict may develop in any situation.  The question is, “how do we get over it?” It’s many different steps that you can take to resolve a conflict. One step is to talk it over and try to come up with a compromise between the team.

 The course also focuses on responsibility. It gave me a better understanding of the different roles that I will encounter in my career. Being a leader as well as managing a team can be difficult at times. This course provided me with the knowledge to take on a full project equip with a team, budget, conflict, and risk while making it a success. I believe with the information I gain I will be able to go out, put together a project, and make it successfully no matter what obstacles I may face.

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Leadership Mastery Journal

What does it means to be a leader?  Everyone has their own version of what a leader is but my definition is someone who leads or commands a group of people to success.  In this month course of Executive Leadership, we’re reading two different books, by two different authors, by two different leaders.  Developing the Leader Within You by John C. Maxwell is a book that helps you identify the traits and principles of becoming a leader by doing things the right way.  The other book is The 48 Laws of Power written by Robert Greene, which explains how to become a leader by any means necessary, but with a twist.  

Going through the course and reading these books has open my eyes up to which type of leader I am. After taking some time to think about this, I have realized that I am both a Maxwell and a Greene leader.  

I feel that I am 70% Maxwell because being a leader is not about the title but leading a team or organization in becoming successful.  Being a Maxwell leader is more about setting an example and influencing ones life to inspire them to become a leader as well.  I am someone who likes to work with people to accomplish the same command goal and become successful while doing it.

On the other hand, I see myself being 30% a Greene leader when needed be.  With being a leader, you have people who will envy you, despise you, and even want to be you.  You will do everything in your power to get what you want even if it’s not trust your friends.  This sometimes is just the way things happen.  Being a Greene leader simply means that you have to be bold and confident in a leadership position.  

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My Journey Timeline

This week we are asked to list the 12 courses in our program and three key insight on our goals for each class.  By completing this, I hope that I’m able to learn as much as I can to be come successful.

Mastery: Personal Development and Leadership - Learn how to be come a leader, take risk, and “Just Do it.” 

Executive Leadership - Learning leadership skills on a grand scale, how to manage an organization, and successfully running it.

Project and Team Management - Leading a team in a project, leading effectively, team management. 

Business Storytelling & Brand Development - Learning how to communicate effectively to your fans, branding yourself, and effective storytelling.

Entertainment Business Finance - Investing in the Entertainment industry, how to invest your money, how to budget your money. 

Negotiation and Deal-Making - How to negotiate effectively, how to make deal effectively, and identifying my rules behind it.

Product and Artist Management - Managing artist, pushing your artist as a product, and developing a product. 

Advance Entertainment Law - Understanding Entertainment Law, the legal content, and how it works.

Entertainment Media Publishing and Distribution - Understand the meaning of media publishing, how to distribute a product, how to publish a product.

Digital Marketing - Learning how to market your product digitally, learning when to market your brand digitally, and marketing through the internet.

Business Plan Development - How to develop, plan, and follow through with a business plan. 

Final Project - Orchestrating, pitching, and successfully running a business plan. 

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Steve Harvey On Success ( You Have To Jump Powerful Message

NinoWilliams.com Your Source For Inspiration And Success http://www.ninowilliams.com/

Here’s a video that I saw a couple months ago that I feel impacted me to the point where it made me take certain risk in my life to achieve my greatest goal. Hope you all JUMP! 

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My Logo

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Just uploaded Koolin Mix Pt.2 - DJ iNk to Mixcloud. Listen now!

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One of my latest production work of creating a beat. Let me know what you think! 

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Mastery Journey

My intention of my mastery journey for the next 12 months and beyond will be to gain as much knowledge as I can to be as successful as I can in my field of work. I am DJ/Producer/Engineer who loves to compose music.  As I go through these next couple months while gaining the tools and knowledge I need, I will put all I learned to use.  I would like to pass my classes in the master program at Full Sail University. Networking will become a top priority in my everyday schedule.  Understanding that writing down my short, medium, and long-term goals and following through with each one, help me grow as in individual.  Using these tools will help me to start my own production company with my business partner in New Jersey.  We would dedicate our time to composing lyrics as well as producing beats for artist, labels, TV, and film.  As we grow our company and gain the clientele, will open up the doors to more fields of interest such as marketing, management, and distribution. I hope with taking these steps, I can become a better person and become an example for others.  I will also practice balancing out my time in order to achieve a bigger goal I will put in as much work as required of me to become successful.  Taking time to reflex on my journey as well as listening to my peers, made me realize that we can accomplish any goal we set out to do as long as we keep pushing.

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up and running with iCloud

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Google Drive Essential Training