FIDM: Associate of Arts, Marketing (2007)

From 2004-2007 I attended The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM).

FIDM is a private arts college (and not solely a “fashion school”) that is headquartered in Los Angeles. I attended and graduated from FIDM’s San Francisco, CA campus.

I have an Associate of Arts degree from the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising (FIDM). I graduated from FIDM’s San Francisco campus in July of 2007.

An AA from FIDM is the qualitative equivalent of a Bachelor of Arts from other equally NASAD accredited educational institutions.

I have partial AA credits in Visual Communications, where my initial career at FIDM began. I switched my major to Merchandise Marketing for an Associate of Arts degree, the only degree FIDM offered at the time, after my initial six months of enrollment.

As of this moment, I have completed 96 credits. This is an additional six months’ worth of credits more than required for an Associate of Arts degree. I graduated with a current 3.35/2.9 cumulative GPA with the later being due to a grade slump before switching majors from Design & Visual Communications to Marketing.

Based on FIDM’s concentrated coursework approach, an Associate of Arts is a qualitative equivalent of a Bachelor of Arts — though quantitatively speaking it can only be categorized as an Associate of Arts when applying.The goal for FIDM grads is that at the of time of their graduation from FIDM graduates will possess the knowledge base of graduates who hold Bachelor of Arts degrees from equally accredited universities. FIDM’s approach allowed me to start working for companies like GAP Inc. only nine days after I graduated.

The prestige of the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising is on par with California College of the Arts, the Rhode Island School of Design, and both the Fashion Institute of Technology and Parsons School of Design located in NYC.

Balcony patio at the FIDM SF campus with my graduating classmates. Photo credit: mine

[PRODUCT] Reddit

Reddit

  • ModFund. Publicly and privately funded Reddit Moderator fund. Reddit could factor in by way of donation matching. Funds are divided up (like tips) yet weighted by factors of moderation -- to be decided and voted upon by Mods. There may be a threshold for how long one has been a Mod before they can qualify for the ModFund. Internally at Reddit, the fund can be supported through ad revenue. Create the fund through a foundation for the gov tax breaks.

    • A Donate button that connects to pre-existing payment methods, like Patreon.

  • Southern Poverty Law Center SPLC for hate group cross-check reference:

    https://lnkd.in/gSXkvt7w

  • ME TOO-L: a tool that automatically checks usernames and signup emails against the national sex offender registry; automatically creates a case issue within the system when a match is found. Where/how possible, verified matches will automatically inform the Mod Queue, Banned, Reputation Filter, and Ban Evasion Filter. If there is no way to do this yet then by G0d, I would make one.

  • A designated Moderator Inbox.

  • A Reddit branded AI-powered social browser plug-in or even full browser (a la Flock). Can either pay for browsing or a credit system for bug reporting.

  • Widget out the forum technology and license it. “powered by Reddit” always leads to the parent platform. Think, if Spotify decided to go social again or if Pitchfork wanted to start, and it had a Reddit-powered widget that was an extension of its subreddit.

  • A moderator-informed response generator -- general notices, dropping the ban hammer, fires, etc. Give it a cute UI; enter in a response that's made-to-order.

  • User-sourced democratic voting mechanism for community-based employees as a means of opening lines of communication between Redditors and corporate stakeholders. This facilitates shaping this part/exchange of Reddit more of a democratic republic. (Why yes, it is a bit like a How's my driving? sticker.) Consider a unique experience for this on mobile -- Urbanspoon unique -- and perhaps set a precedent here?

  • Reddit status page for which subreddit is currently on fire/schoolyard fight — call it something fun like r/weenieroast. It’s reminiscent of early 2010 tech bubble startups re: outages, recent bugs, and fires being put out. Pet friendly: two orange bouncy balls packaged to look like Snoo’s eyeballs. 🟠_🟠 Gold balls can be sold this way too.

    • I actually just realized how I would package the Sn00 bouncy ball eyes.

      Look at golf balls, and then think of a wedge ramp* where the face of it is the Re: wedge ramp Like how a makeup palette opens at the bottom and the other part is the hinge. And if you don’t already know that it’s cut out to look like their face and antenna then you have no imagination and must I do everything around here? (jk)

  • Merchandise: home office friendly focus — retractable novelty pen 🖊️ where the Snoo head opens up, tilting head solar powered clock with the display face in the Snoo tummy, Snoo head succulent flower pot for desk, Reddit mouse pad, Snoo stress ball, water bottle, travel mug, Snoo tea steeper 🫖 you get the idea? Avoid banded apparel as that's a tailgating/safety issue.

  • Opt out of Gen AI at the post and comment level. (e.g. LinkedIn's post privacy settings toggle.) Account level opt-out flow must be easy to use, decode jargon using plain language help copy on or near buttons/options.

  • For where plagiarism continues to be a problem then let's have a cross-reference checker for that too. Users spend time crafting long-form comments, jokes, analogies, etc., and understandably don’t want them to be copied for cheap clout.

  • Monetize moderation accomplishments: a platform-specific currency that can be used to purchase merch (proposed below).

  • An 11ft tall, soft plastic, hollow seated Snoo for photo ops in a designated Reddit office lobby.

  • Glow-in-the-dark logo sticker sheets. Try using negative space ex: name logo outline.

Aside: Put over simplistically, brand equity overgrowth in the coming year to increase user value. Perhaps, an attempt to reconcile the conflicting values of people sharing what they’re going through in their lives on Reddit x Reddit will let companies scrape UGC for a price.

Substack: Master Product Post

I drew this with my finger in the iOS Freeform app. You can buy it for $0.

Candidate Challenges: Software Engineering vs Marketing

The job market remains tough. (See image.)

While coding challenges for software engineer candidates are appropriate, marketing challenges remain an inappropriate request from potential employers.

Even should a marketing candidate be rejected, what’s been performed and submitted is ultimately unpaid consulting work.

The most notable delta between the two challenges in question is whereas software engineering has correct answers — eg. What are all of the different ways that numbers can be combined to equal the number 4? — marketing challenges request a candidate’s ideas, the number of which are as infinite as the number of candidates who’ve applied; thus this particular ask breeds mistrust.

Because if a marketing candidate’s current body of work isn’t sufficient enough for a company to make a candidate an offer

This same stance is echoed in "Stop asking candidates to make a marketing plan for your job interview process" by Jane Elizabeth for The Startup on Medium: https://lnkd.in/gp9ZQRu7

Are unpaid assignments in job interviews fair game?

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/unpaid-assignments-job-interviews-fair-game-nurturedbynatalia?trk=public_post_feed-article-content

Tests in general: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C_k5xxzo_1q/?igsh=ajhpYnNnYXFyZnk2

Reddit Graph: https://lnkd.in/g_fJFa4X

Career Analysis: Quantitative

Career Analysis: Quantitative


I am grit.

Career Snapshot
• 26 positions held overall since college
• Contract: 10, FT: 7, PT: 4, Freelance: 5, Internship: 1
• 6 promotions (23%): 2 to full-time; 1 managerial, and 3 director level, with 2 pay raises
• 13 years of post-college employment at a rate of 2 paid jobs per year (omitting 38 volunteer roles during that same time frame; approximately 3 volunteer roles per year)



Job Loss Analysis
• Layoff/position eliminated: 7x; approximately 30% of offers resulted in job loss despite promotions and pay raises
• Laid off: 5x (19%) -- laid off less than 1/5 of the time -- 81% job retention rate
• Position eliminated: 2x (7%); 100% due to cost reasons and all instances were following a promotion
• Resignation: 4x (15%) -- bit.ly/toxicmgmt


Company Analysis (includes companies in more than one category)
• E-commerce: 9 or about 35% of companies
• Software as a Service (SaaS): 7 or about 27% of companies
• Digital media: 5 or 19% of companies
• Social networks: 4 or 15% of companies
• 5/31 or 19% of companies were corporations and Fortune 500 businesses, the remaining 79% were startups


Role Capacity
• 10+ years in the startup ecosystem
• 4yrs + 6 months in enterprise
• 3yrs + 9 months in SaaS
• 10yrs + 1 month in social media
• 9yrs + 1 month in e-commerce
• 8yrs + 8 months in community
• 6yrs + 5 months in influencer outreach
• 4yrs + 9 months in retail
• 4yrs in events
• 3yrs + 5 months in product development
• 2yrs + 1 month in B2B
• 8yrs in B2C

---
Observations:
- I'd been laid off far less than I felt I'd been.
- I'd worked for more SaaS companies than I'd fully taken stock of.
- 3/7 or 85% of instances of total job loss were due to toxic management
- I hold 10x the amount of volunteer experience than the average LinkedIn candidate.
When it comes to instances of job loss, the main theme is undermining.
As someone who’s focused on improving women’s rights, there are far more women who’re responsible for my being harassed or let go than I’d like to admit yet there it is.
When on teams with lesser means and comprised of those who're not marketing savvy, my position will likely be eliminated due to cost only to be refilled with a candidate who's both more familiar or presumably cheaper.
However, if I’m around funded teams of so-called peers then (strangely) I've been sabotaged and my work was confiscated and misappropriated.
Otherwise, it's smooth sailing so long as I'm paid a living wage and management isn't toxic.

Despite this, I remain resilient and now possess a great deal of character, maturity, insight, and objectivity.

My most valuable, hit-you-over-the-head trait is grit which studies say is everything: https://lnkd.in/gapzrds8

Brain Scrapes Sans Offer

Disclaimer: I am aware that the title of this blog sounds like a modern art gallery installation by a German artist.

Brain scraping 🧠 is when a candidate is interviewed when either there is no job or the job had already been filled but the company just wants the candidate’s ideas and for free.

Being a marketer is very tricky.

Interviewing as a marketer can be even trickier.

Companies will sometimes inappropriately request that marketing job interview candidates complete homework for them. Recruiters: do not ask this, and marketers: do not do it.

How do we encapsulate and make tangible, readily understandable, and our bevy of knowledge? How do we convince a hiring manager that the skills we’ve gain ed are legitimate and applicable, that we actually know what we know and that we are the one the company needs to hire?

When a company has its choice of marketing candidates for a role, those stuck not having been a VP yet face a specific kind of problem during the interview process: brain scraping

First, what is a brain scrape?

A meeting that is basically disguised as an interview but its meant to act as a free consulting session for the company.

Example: if you’ve ever been asked the insane question of how would you market this product? during a <1hr interview (esp. w/ a startup) then you know what I’m talking about.

No, I’m not pitching your product/service to you for you. There are too many unseen and opaque factors to me at play and thusly I’m bound to get this wrong and fail. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Recruiters: please don’t ask how would you pitch this service/product?

So, what generally happens afterward?

Supposedly interested parties will review the entirety of one’s portfolio site, possibly yet again,, lending the impression that they are interested in hiring us? Meanwhile, the same parties are making note of what tools etc a candidate has used (along with reading their mission statement) in order to figure out how to position themselves along with mold their protégé/recent hires. AKA not you.

For this reason, brain scrapping can be used by startups with limited funding or by SMB in smaller, less tech savvy towns. The brain scrape tactic is vulture agnostic like that.

While I don’t have a cure for the brain scrape tactic used by companies to pray upon marketers who’re reaching for that next rung in their career, what I can do is validate their experiences with this: You’re not crazy, and I’m sorry this happened to you too.

A/B Testing: some of my favorites

A/B testing (also known as split testing) is the process of comparing two versions of a web page, email, or other marketing assets and measuring the difference in performance.

Think of it like a competition. You’re pitting two versions of your asset against one another to see which comes out on top.

Your champion is a marketing asset — whether it’s a web page, email, Facebook Ad, or something else entirely — that you suspect will perform well or that has performed well in the past. You test it against a challenger, which is a variation on the champion with one element changed.

After your A/B test, you either have a new champion or discover that the first variation performed best. You then create new variations to test against your champion.

Some of my recent favorite helpful guides and graphics:

How to Run Split Tests and Optimize Your Website for Conversions


No-Code AI 💻 Zero, None…

A curated list of some of my favorite companies that offer no-code AI solutions…

  • Websites and landing pages with Webflow, Bubble, or Carrd

  • Mobile applications with Adalo or Mendix

  • Chatbots with Landbot, FlowXO, or Chatbot.com

  • Databases with Airtable

  • Integrations with Zapier or Integromat

  • E-Commerce with Shopify

  • Memberships with MemberStack or MemberSpace

  • Newsletters with Mailchimp or Mailjet

  • It’s now possible to build entire businesses with no-code platforms. There’s no doubt that no-code is the future. As little as one-quarter of one percent of the world knows how to code. Anyone can be taught to quickly and easily use no-code:

  • Train simple machine-learning models for free with Lobe: The free app, owned by Microsoft, makes it easy to build your own machine learning model to recognize whatever you want.

  • Bubble is one of the most popular solutions for creating programs without needing to code. Create virtually anything you want using Bubble.

  • Build your own AI chatbot with Juji Studio that you can implement into your site or Facebook Messenger.

  • Akkio is the no-code AI tool for anyone looking to build AI models from their business’ own data.

    If you’d like to focus on more machine learning vs drop and drop then take advantage of these top no-code AI platforms:

  • MonkeyLearn: All-in-one powerful text analytics and visualization

  • Create ML: Use existing Apple data to train models

  • Obviously. AI: Dive right in for quick results

  • Fritz AI: Add ML and augmented reality to your app

    Google AutoML: Harness the power and experience of Google

  • RunwayML: Use machine learning to make new things

  • MakeML: Out-of-the box computer vision

  • Teachable Machine: A user-friendly Google option

Enjoy!

Numbers Matter

Update: It’s now late Sept of this same year and I’m between 50-100 applications.

I submitted my first application in late August of this year.

I didn’t apply for another role again until October. I had to ensure my resume and portfolio had the necessary improvements.

At the time of this posting, I’ve not applied to more than 20 job openings.

This post is to answer unasked questions, to address quiet concerns that employers never share with candidates directly: you’re not applying to a ton of jobs, are you?..

No, I’ve not applied to a ton of jobs.

You are my sole dream job, and I uh, love you, corporate role.

So, I hope that this post helps. TTYL

Bits and (Contract Work) Pieces

Company, offering a 6 month contract: …Well, we need someone with long term experience, your résumé has a lot of short stints?

Candidate: The role I am interviewing for is contract work, I have lots of contract experience, and my experience also spans 10 years collectively overall.

Company: We just need the most experienced candidates for the job.

Candidate: (You called me? What?) “Understood.”

Company: So, did you just not want full-time work? What happened there?

Candidate: I am interested in the nature of the work, I do not control what form the work comes in — contract or full-time, etc. — I do not control who hires me, I can only interview for it.

Company: pauses, thinking and listening sounds

:-|

ROAStested

In order to fully understand performance, it’s necessary to take into account other metrics like CPA, LTV, and ARPU, among others…but we’ll discuss that more here.

Marketers vs Influencers

Do not hire influencers to run your marketing team.

If your marketing team’s looking to hire then there’s actually no need to hire someone with a popular online presence.

Hiring a marketer because they are popular online and have an impressive following isn’t going to net anyone a marketer. That’s an influencer.

These are different skill sets.

Influencers market on behalf of themselves. The best that one can do there is promotional affiliate marketing via an influencer. It’s top-of-the-funnel awareness building through paid and organic social.

Bringing independent influencers in-house presents its own challenges. For example, influencers are expected to activate their audience through a company’s product, yet once they are in-house, all interactions with their audience must either cease to include any other products (stopping altogether) or become strictly their given employer’s own branding, making any subsequent reviews obviously biased. This corrodes trust between themselves and their audience.

And again, while influencers can sell their own personal brand quite well alongside that of a sponsor, this has no baring on whether or not they have any notion regarding the foundations of marketing. GTM strategy, product marketing fit, CPC, ASO? Who knows if they know?

Hire a traditional marketer. Do not hire social media influencers to run your marketing team.

The pull of popularity is hardwired.

Screw your bias. Pay attention.

T-Mobile. E-Pins. Rackets. Opportunities?


“Sadly, I’m so business savvy.” — Kanye

The oatmeal is simmering so I’ve got a few moments…


TL;DR: I use T-Mobile Recently, during an in store visit, I got suckered by my own carrier service of choice into spending money that I didn’t have to? (~$200) The experience left me so ticked off that I reviewed some things and realized they may have several employee fueled rackets going? (See below.)

Sadly, they’re getting us to pay for the wall.

Takeaway: a mobile carrier service (likely newly minted over pre-existing) that offers an almost luxury level of seemingly unprecedented privacy (doesn’t internally readily furbish customers’ IMEI numbers anywhere, uses pseudonyms in-store), sophistication of so by way of knowledgeable staff and elevated branding, suiting in-store service.

Think on it: quiet concierge service on leather loungers with cognac served as you wait for your phone to charge in a WiFi clubhouse or to be repaired (something the Right to Repair laws will help open up) available in select global locations — say, Hong Kong airport — offered to carrier service users who pay for the access via their service plan (helpful for non-miles club members who want lounge access while waiting for a flight) and/or a promo partnership using airline points. Think on it.🤳🏽💰 ✈️

—-

T-MOBILE 

I was asked for my pin. 

(Their verification link suddenly no longer worked.)

I’m being asked for my pin, on Twitter, via a Support DM by an employee, which, if memory serves, is never supposed to happen this way. The phone number still picks up. Someone is trying to get a free month of service. 


A still operation number which picked up both of my calls, first to VM then a second time with 2+ minutes of silence. This, despite the fact that in days prior I’d said yes 2-3 times to confirm I want it shut off.


Refunds

T-Mobile will try and say but we pay that money to the state of CA. This is not true. A $7.50 surcharge is paid to CA. T-Mobile keeps the rest. (Seriously? How on earth do you think the company makes money?)

This lie is also a racket. 

I imagine it’s easier to go through your bank and ask them to get it back for you for products and services not delivered?

Despite being talked to as if I’d be refunded in store, in store I am then told store credit only. I am shouted at as I leave. 0/10 ⭐️ That one guy can suck it.


———

E-pin

An E-Pin is a charge that can be issued for pin code access to the account by t-mobile. What makes this different from a pin code entered into say, your phone is that customers can basically be charged for a privacy bib (if you will) so that T-MOBILE EMPLOYEES cannot access your account without customers issuing their pin code. You, the customer, are essentially paying for T-Mobile employees to not be able to locate, access, nor phaff with your account info. Unreal.

I simply asked to change the name on the account and was instead told to do this (because the could charge me for it). Where in another store that was done, no problem. This is a total racket. 


Oh look, some sign of intelligent life via internal audits.

Coin-age

Update from the future (2024) Here’s me, kvetching about how iOS emojis needed a coin. Now there is one. Apple has had one for a long time at the time of this update. The end.

—

Update 6/29/21: While I know that iOS 14 has a coin, a quarter with an eagle on it is US-centric and there’s always room for variety, like an 8-bit game-style coin along or the ever-popular unmarked non-denomination stack of gold coins.

——-

Mario Bros. is a great place to start design-wise, and most mobile games can offer design insights here. Think, a stack of gold coins with one atop adorably askew?