Shelly Haynes posts

An ongoing weekly journal featuring social media learning from my journalism class at MWSU.

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If you want to learn how to do video production, get with a good team that will help you learn the ins and outs of manipulating all of the components.

Shelly Haynes

During this course I was never able to find that kind of help.

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Saint Joseph — Ten Things Worth Noting (In No Particular Order)

I have lived in the Saint Joseph, Missouri area for five years now. It is a lovely city of approximately 77,000 people just an hour north…

Here is an example of a post I put together this week using Medium.com. Although I did not write all of the descriptions, I included links to the website for everything. So, please be sure and visit St. Joseph!

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The Guiding Light - 

As I approach graduation I am reflecting on my educational and life experiences while looking forward with hope and gratitude. My degree will be a Masters of Applied Arts in Technical Communications from Missouri Western State University. 

In this program I have studied Technical Editing, Grant & Proposal Writing, Applied Research Methods, Foundations of Technical Communication, Instructional Design, Social Media Branding (this class), Rhetoric, Organizational Behavior, and Writing for Management. I have developed a Prospectus and Portfolio and will be defending that next week.

My background is in developing curriculum and teaching secondary Technology Education, all types of technology. I would be well suited to work in a Technology or Engineering industry; as well as any Educational setting. I have also spent a lot of time with Special Populations and Nonprofits.

My goal is to do Instructional Design. I would like to work somewhere for a few years, developing top quality learning materials; then maybe work as a consultant or on contract. I would enjoy travel.  It is also imperative that I earn a good wage; as I am 51 years old and looking at retirement in 10-15 years.

Every job that I apply for has the opportunity to bring me joy and success; as well as the start of a new life. I am welcoming the process and curious to see just what my opportunities are.

Thanks for reading, and if you are aware of any good Instructional Design/Technical Communications positions, please pass my name along and forward me the appropriate information! 

Have a good Easter!

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Midterm Client Presentation Abbi, Shelly, Christian, Olivia, Ryleigh, Kelsey

This week we presented our midterm assignment of progress made with our client, Pampered and Polished of St. Joseph, Missouri. We performed a SWOT analysis; identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Although we could have further analyzed the situation, I believe in the time we had, we did a good job!

Happy Spring Break everyone. Watch for a post in two weeks!

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This was a post captured from Instagram. pulperandcobbs seem to focus on black and white photojournalism from the 1950′s.

This weeks assignment was to watch Instagram and Snapchat consecutively for four days and follow the same authors each day; commenting on what we thought was interesting or unusual, good or bad.

Since I have not done anything with Instagram or Snapchat, this was an exercise in learning the two platforms. I followed Governor Mike Parsons, NBC News, and Harvard Business Review on Instagram and Business Insider and OnRecord for Snapchat. 

As you would expect, most of their posts were newsworthy and on point. Topics ranged from the Queen’s official response to Unemployment to Managing People. I did follow a little local and pop culture along the way, which was fun.

I can see how these platforms are relatable to the people and a quick, efficient method of news delivery to those that use them. I rather enjoyed Instagram, as it’s content was more relatable to me. Although there were some good informational videos from Business Insider on Snapchat. However, I can also see these sites eating away time if people aren’t careful.

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Fused Sentences (1).mp4

My first instructional design video - recorded on Zoom and edited and rendered with Camtasia. It didn’t render quite right, so the file is too large to post directly here. But if you’re interested in instructional design or learning about fused sentences, give it a look! Thanks!

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Polished & Pampered Salon and Day Spa

Beauty Salon in Saint Joseph

Week 4 - Group project

So, in teams, we have a client that we’ll be helping brand through the use of social media. We finally met with the owner of the salon, Dottie, via Zoom, this week. Currently, Polished and Pampered has a website (link above), a Facebook presence, and an Instagram account where only one post has been made.

Dottie is thrilled to work with MWSU to help enhance her web presence. She is well known throughout the community, as she has been a nail practitioner for 25 years. Two years ago she opened Pampered and Polished in a downtown location. She is pleased with her word-of-mouth and walk-in traffic, but desires a more complete web presence.

The spa’s target clientele are women aged 20-60 living around the Saint Joseph area. However, she welcomes whomever comes through the door. Everyone that works at Pampered and Polished is an individual contractor and brings their own clientele. 

Dottie works hard to promote downtown businesses by partnering with other shops to offer promotions. This was done for Valentine’s Day and will also been done for Mother’s Day. She is also a member of Downtown First and CuppaJoe, a group of small business owners who gather weekly to discuss issues and help each other succeed.

Our team is going to work on developing Pampered and Polished’ web presence. So far we have discussed a slight redesign of the website and Facebook page to include more pictures and descriptive text; as well as spa offerings. Also, more frequent use of Instagram by everyone who works at the spa.

That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading!

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Awkwardly Zen - A Safe Place For Your Spiritual Path (Denver, CO)

Let's find our love and light together! Awkwardly Zen is a safe and loving place to explore your spirituality in an online group setting. We strive to be non-judgemental and open-minded as we learn mo

So, week 3 brought no real new writing or Social Media Branding experiences. Instead I will write about my first formal document that I am creating for an online community called Awkwardly Zen (AZ). Currently, their platform is on Meetup. These are people that get together to discuss, dive into, and experience spirituality together.

The owner of this community, Ari, mentioned the fact that AZ needs to develop a code of ethics due to their growing popularity. I saw this as an opportunity and immediately got in contact with her to help create the document. She was very excited about this prospect and started discussing her ideas and concerns with me, also her hope of developing an ethics committee. I volunteered to do some preliminary research and sit on the committee.

Being a spiritual person myself, I was aware of a couple of other communities that utilize different or in-person platforms. I started by reaching out to them and inquiring about their ethics documents; for members, leaders, and the organizations.  After reviewing these, I decided some pillars would be a good approach and researched articles surrounding the pillars or principals of spiritual practice. Finally, I looked at ethical guideline for technical communicators as a foundation for business/leadership ethics.

I gathered all of this information together and comprised a collection of principals or pillars on which an ethics code could be developed. Below is what I have gathered.

It is upon these principals that the Awkwardly Zen Code of Ethics will written. I am looking forward to continuing work on this project and many more in the future. I will try and journal on this topic as the project progresses.

Thanks for reading!

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Missouri River, January 2021

Our first major assignment in Social Media Branding class is due this week. It was of a scavenger hunt nature to begin to use and post on the media platform Twitter.

We were given the assignment to tweet ten different items ranging from community spirit, school excellence, quote from a professor, and a video of a fellow student. Also included were an introduction, favorite restaurant, fans cheering for a team, favorite scenic spot, and an extracurricular activity hosted by Missouri Western State University. 

This was my first attempt at using Twitter and it was fun! Although it was a beginning assignment and not a lot of important content went into it, I can see how Twitter can be a viable marketing and branding tool for businesses and individuals looking to promote themselves. I look forward to using this application more in the future.

The above photo was taken near Remington Nature Center in St. Joseph, Missouri after the first snow of the year. This was one of my tweets. It could have fallen into the category of a beautiful scenic spot, but was used in part of a collage of photos showing community spirit as my friend and I went out shopping and playing for the day.

Thanks for reading my post. Be sure to check back next week and see what more we have learned regarding Social Media Branding!

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Today is the best day of all to get things done.

Shelly Haynes

Week 1 - So as part of my graduate studies in technical communication, I am taking a Social Media Branding class. I am familiar with Facebook and LinkedIn, but have never really used any other platforms.

In the coming weeks I will be talking about my experiences with new platforms. We will be using Twitter and Instagram. Blogging and journaling will be done with Medium.com and Tumblr. I am sure there will be opportunities to use other platforms as well.

Looking forward to experimenting with Twitter this week, and learning how to use hashtags! Feel free to follow along and see my progression as I venture more fully into the world of Social Media.