becomingsquared @ch477-blog - Tumblr Blog

Royal Festival Hall, South Bank, London https://theta360.com/s/lRZEV0a6pP7kZL6weNuBhSTuS

Angler Terrace @South Place Hotel, City of London https://theta360.com/s/rtgnikqLEKPcSsyOtZ96J4Dnk

Angler Roof Terrace @South Place Hotel, City of London https://theta360.com/s/jreA3nrWHlRgAUXlcPuGq1hOS

Post from RICOH THETA. https://theta360.com/s/nW8BIH6Oo73cIBIm5GI2udlQ0

Testing #360 https://theta360.com/s/cddy4UL5BYpqAucyDmkTK5I3M

Module 5 - The Ongoing Revolution

I’ve finally made it to the end of the course! The 6 months of Monday and Wednesday evening work has been a real challenge to fit round my day job, especially since I’ve been on the road, through out the UK, with my electric car for the past three weeks (http://pod-point.com/catuk/). One recommendation I’d make to the Squared organisers is to create the option of doing a condensed 3 month course for those wishing to power through.

However not for one second have I regretted signing up to Squared. Indeed the amount of useful and thought provoking information the course has enabled me to take on board has been worth it’s weight in gold. I will take the digital skills I’ve learnt and directly apply them to my current job and Squared has made me seriously consider the possibility of starting out future digital ventures on my own. If/when I do, I now have the necessary frameworks at my fingertips to ensure any ideas have the best possible chance of making it off the drawing board.

One of the most immediately useful skills I’ve developed through module 5 has been how to create professional looking infographics. By forcing me to sit down and learn how to use Photoshop and import photoshopped images into Piktochart, I can now very easily churn out slick looking graphics-see below.

All in all I would highly recommend the Squared Online course to anyone who wants to improve their digital skills. It has most definitely been worth the money and provided an interesting and structured guide to many topics that were before an impenetrable digital maze!

#google squared

Module 4 - Think Optimised

If I thought the technique aspects of the course were a struggle to get to grips with during the last module they had nothing on module 4!

For me this module has provided me with the most immediately transferable skills as learning how to use Google Analytics to create reports that provide actionable insights has been directly applicable to my day job.

My work has recently given the go ahead to completely overhaul our tired, creaking old website and create a new one from scratch. Now we have a decent content platform I can start to focus on way to measure how our sales and marketing campaigns drive users to our website and how effectively we engage them in the (often complex and technical) world of electric cars.

Squared focussed on:

Location Analytics

Traffic Sources

Mobile Reporting

Adwords Analytics

Multi-Channel Analytics and attribution models

The vital need for testing and website optimisation to see what actually works with your client base

A personal highlight was watching Avinash Kaushik talk about data and just how key it was to track what your digital strategy was actually achieving for your business.

#googlesquared

End of Module 3 - Think Like a Brand

The technical aspect of the course really started to take off and putting the time in the take on board all the information the Google Squared tutors were talking about became quite a task!

The focus in this module was on ‘multi-channel’ thinking and the basics of digital display advertising, cookies and adwords. The aim was to teach us how to integrate campaigns that used a balance of both traditional print media and new digital media.

We were tasked with developing a marketing strategy for the launch of a new female beauty product - Kleur Tonacity - a high end hair colouring product. My team looked at:

- How our marketing approach could help drive in-store footfall

- The need for responsive and dynamic website design

- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) techniques

- The use of display advertising and adwords to achieve the best Cost-Per-Click (CPC)

- Integrated social media campaigns, use of Twitter, FB, Blogging and Youtube campaigns

Our final submission was well received and as a whole I can foresee the techniques I learnt through this module being very useful for future projects.l

#google squared

End Of Module 2 - Think Commercial

The pace has picked up and Squared have put us into collaborative work teams. The challenges of working, communicating and organising a diverse group of 8 or so individuals to come together to produce a decent project should not be underestimated!

Our assignment was entitled ‘We’ve going to make millions’! It was meant to encourage us to think about what makes a scalable and profitable digital business that focussed on the fast growing mobile market - and it was absolutely fascinating. By far the most interesting lecture was on ‘Developing Effective Business Models’. They introduced us to the Business Model Canvas, which provided a framework to assess whether those lightbulb-moments-that-wake-you-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night had legs or were best left to the realms of dreams. For someone who has actively thought about starting my own business and gone so far to spent a couple of months writing a business plan (for a project that didn’t actually get off the ground) it was extremely absorbing hearing from the experts. If only I’d done the Squared course a year ago-I would have saved myself a lot of time and stress, instead of trying to stumble through and construct a workable business plan from scratch.

In the end our group settled on the business proposition of creating an app called ‘Late License London’. It aimed to provide a directory that listed London’s late licensed bars/clubs/pubs. It would use geotargeting to let users know which bars were closest to them and could be linked via Facebook to invite the user’s friends to join them at the bar they picked. Our revenue would be drawn from selling data to bars/clubs. As far as we could see from our research no other directory did the same and with the London underground set to open 24 hours on weekends from 2015, we thought we had spotted a gap in the market. Whether anyone in the group is bold enough to take the idea, quit their job and run with it, is another challenge in itself….!

#google squared

End of Module 1 - A Connected World

End of Module 1 on the Google Squared course. We’ve been asked to put together a slide outlining a day in our ‘Digital Life’, detailing how we interact with the internet, what kind of apps and platforms we regularly use.

Sitting down to tackle the task I actually felt it was quite a childish assignment, but as I began to really think about the ways I’m connected everyday, I started writing down more and more applications/websites etc.

I think my final design is far too cramped and the graphics look very amateur compared to other Square’s work. I’m hoping that by the end of the 6 month course I’ll have got to grips with infographics and be more comfortable with creating sleek looking web designs - as I’m still clinging onto my hugely outdated Microsoft Paint skills!

#google squared

First steps

For me becoming squared is all about taking the first step to gaining the qualifications and more specific skills I’ll need in the future to further my career.

Having completed a degree in Modern History from the University of St Andrews in 2012, I came out with a wide skill set; the ability to form highly detailed research reports, excellent presentation skills and the ability to construct persuasive arguments.

Others in my peer group who read history made the natural progression into the world of law/politics/teaching. However, having spent my degree studying individuals who had the ability to recognise and seize opportunities that came about through harnessing the innovations of their era, I felt I should attempt to make the most the mine.

I now work as a product manager for a mid sized start up that provides national and domestic charging infrastructure for the growing market of electric vehicles. I hope that by learning from the Squared digital experts I can begin to develop the skills I need to be part of the online revolution and in turn further the success of the transport revolution!

I’m extremely interested in how I can:

Begin to use more sophisticated digital marketing techniques to grow my business’s web presence

Streamline our ecommerce offering and more efficiently and effectively engage with prospective online customers

Use infographics, online videos and social media marketing techniques to open up the sometimes technically confusing world of EVs (electric vehicles) to a wider audience

All in all I’m very excited to be part of this course and hugely looking forward to becoming squared..!

#squaredonline #google

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

becomingsquared