10 Ways to Prevent Illness

Writing this post from the comfort of my bed. That I have not left in 36 hours. I do not wish getting sick while in college on anyone. My weekend has consisted of fever after fever and headache after headache. As I hope to be able to be over it in the next 24 hours I thought a good idea would be putting together a list of how to prevent ending up in my disastrous situation.

1. Get the Flu Vaccine.

2. Wash your hands with warm water and soap before eating or doing anything that might require touching your face.

3. Avoid touching your eyes and mouth.

4. Get enough sleep, sleep deprivation can weaken your immune system.

5. Workout, working out consistency can not only improve your overall fitness but also your immune system.

6. Don't bite your nails they can be a key place for germs.

7. Avoid others who could be sick or are just getting over an illness.

8. Eat a healthy diet to help boost your immune system.

9. Stay Hydrated keeping your body hydrated it can help to flush out toxins in your body.

The ONU Social Media Workshop 2019

Ohio Northerns 4th annual social media workshop. With attendance up to around 100 including working professionals, students, and professors this is an opportunity to learn about multiple facets of social media. With the day beginning at 10 with a presentation from Amanda Todorovich and the Cleveland Clinic knowledge was being shared from the onset. The day was set into five blocks each with two presentation in the blocks giving attendees freedom to choose where they wanted to be each block. 

Topics included a wide array of diverse social media uses and plans. In block one I attended "From Typewriter to Twitter: How the Dublin Irish Festival Grew From a Tennis Court to Nearly 40 Acres" Centering their presentation around the growth of social media through the development of their festival. They talked about the partnerships they had formed as well as how important publicity is in everything they did as a small budgeted operation. 

As the day continued I attended Professor Dan Farkas's presentation on multimedia in social media. Farkas who is a professor at Ohio State on strategic communication and public relations and multimedia preached that multimedia on social media is not longer a luxury but instead a necessity.

Both of these presentations stuck with me as they covered the future of social media. Continuing with how to grow. Social media changes daily if not hourly and both of these topics pushed how important it is to grow a brand and use the tools at you disposal to take advantage of that. 

Live Tweeting is a Lot of Work

Tweeting throughout the game becomes quite consuming and difficult. Basketball runs at a quick pace. Following the action and being able to quickly upload the action without missing something is near impossible. A sporting event adds to the difficulty having to know players and the numbers of who is making the action. The aspect of live tweeting completely changed the experience of going to a sporting event. 

For all of the people in the world who work in social media and whose job it is to live tweet events kudos to you. The next class assignment we were given was to attend and event around campus and live tweet from beginning to end of it. I chose the Ohio Northern Men's Basketball game. This also happened to be senior day for the team.

If you'd like to see the tweets the transpired feel free to look at my Twitter; TrevorMcC_11 or use the hashtag SMspring 19.  

3,039 #1

"It's small." Everything about it is small. Ohio Northern University is located in the small village of Ada, Ohio. Where the local population is a staggering 5,605. The question may simply be who would want to spend the "best four years of their life" in the middle of nowhere Ohio? After being here for exactly seven months I now see a quote that my dad use to use almost every week during my college search. "College is a match to be made, not a prize to be won." Now after hearing that time and time again I started to zone it out. I visited campus after campus only to realize my match seemed to be unfound. Until I stepped on campus at Ohio Northern University.
It takes a special kind of person to want to come to the middle of nowhere to spend their college years. Looking back on it I don't think I would have ever picked myself to be that kind of special. When I look around however I realize that I am where I need to be. Is it where I always wanted to be no. Am I where I need to be? Yes. A campus where you can walk from end to end in about 25 minutes. Where the idea of seeing brand new faces tends to fade away after one semester. Where you can become a Polar Bear in the matter of minutes.

Ada, Ohio most prominently known for its pride in Wilson Football and being the home factory of the NFL, and most of the NCAA. Driving in once you pass the bustling cities of either Lima, Ohio or Findley, Ohio you see cornfield after cornfield. If you are lucky maybe a cow. You remove yourself at least 25 minutes from any populated cities and about an hour or more from major cities like Columbus or Dayton.

Secluding yourself from so much of what is stereotypically considered the college experience is a risk. There are different motivations for every person that chooses the "it's small" school. The Community that is formed around a small school however is something that cannot be replicated. The ability to know the people on campus the people who you are going to remember as those who impacted your college years. That is what should be remembered about going to a school of 3,000 in a town of 5,000.

Polar Bears Freeze Over

The little Village of Ada felt the brutal force of the Polar Vortex freezing across the country over the past few days. Temperatures remained in the negatives with windchills keeping feels like temperatures in the range of negative 10 to 40. Ohio Northern's 342 acre campus surrounded by farm land and plains served as a wind tunnel for the brutal winter air. 

Much of the Midwest and Northeast felt the effects of the enormous Polar Vortex, Schools and Universities closed for much of the week. Ohio Northern included multiple faculty and staff members told me that they hadn't remember ONU closing due to weather in over a decade. Students across the region and at ONU were urged to stay in doors and if they needed to go out to cover all skin as analyst explained that exposed skin could get frostbite in under 10 minutes.

Some Quick Facts about this week's Polar Vortex:

1.  84 million people were living in temperatures under zero degrees.

2. Chicago became so cold that train tracks were lit on fire to keep in usable condition.

3. Windchills seen were the coldest recorded since the 1980s.

4. The coldest city recorded was Cotton, Minn where it reached negative 56.

5. Around 20 major cities in the U.S. set major records for reported low temperatures. 

Thousands of flights were delayed, cancelled, and rerouted due to temperatures and winds throughout the week. Popular airport destinations faced a steady freezing along with winds that made transportation rough to navigate. Popular Midwest and Northeast destinations such down and were inaccessible. The effect a little cold air and some wind can have on the entire country cannot be underestimated as the polar vortex gave the U.S. all the winter it could handle.

Interview with Head Football Coach Dean Paul

For this week in Social Media Principles students were tasked with interviewing an expert in a field of their interest and ask about the effects of social media in said field. 

Myself and graduating senior Alex Eblin chose to interview Ohio Northern's Head Football Coach Dean Paul. Both Eblin and I are sport management majors. We looked into the effects social media has on coaching, recruiting, and marketing through all platforms at all levels of college football and also in the perspective of ONU Football. 

Questions asked were as followed:

1. How long have you been using social media?

2. Which social media platforms do you use personally and for the program?

3. How do they benefit the program? 

4. Have you noticed any easier task such as recruiting with social media?

5. Do you look for specific post to comment or share?

6. Have you ever had any negative comments or feedback on a post and if so how did you deal with it?

7. Which platform do you find the easiest or most effective to use?

8. Where do you see the future of social media in college football?

Coach Paul spoke on his history with social media along with how he sees it progressing. He talks profusely on the development of a plan and having a strategy in everything they do on all forms of social media. He also acknowledges that social media is ever-changing and he along with the coaching staff must stay up to date on the newest tools and regulations when it comes to social media. Something that truly applies to all aspects of business and life. Social media is an ever changing domain that never stands still something that the world today is still working to stay on top of.

The Visit

The visit it has long been considered one of the most important things about a college decision. Students get the sense of campus while interacting and seeing students and faculty in everyday life at ONU. When it comes to athletic recruiting another element is added to the visit.

When prospective student-athletes visit ONU they are given the option to spend an overnight with the current athletes of their athletic team. They spend the day receiving a tour and meeting with the coaching staff. They learn about the program its goals and mission and receive the recruiting pitches from coaches some that they expect and some that they don't. Once that has concluded they are dropped off with a current player sometimes from their home state or the position they play.

The night is then the easy part of the visit. The recruiting pitches are over other than the occasional "where else are you looking?" question. Recruits are free to relax and find out if ONU is the place for them. Most nights freshman with recruits will let other freshman know and it becomes just another night of hanging out.

The most important thing to a college decision can become just being yourself. Recruits are given the opportunity to be themselves and hangout with the guys they would be hanging out with in college life for the next three to four years. The pressure of parents or coaches fall away and teenagers are allowed to be teenagers. Letting them decide whether or not ONU is a place they can see a future.

The college decision process is a difficult one for any student making the next major change in their life. Being a student-athlete adds a dimension to the college decision that most don't encounter. The decision comes down to the people you will be surrounded with for the next years of your life. Yet the true deciding factor is being yourself or better yet the ability to be yourself.

Visits at ONU will continue through much of the spring and coaches will continue to give their talks and tours but much of the decision making process will come down to teenagers being teenagers.

Social Media to Comment or Not to Comment

There is always an audience when anything posts to social media. The audience will always have an opinion. Whether or not they share the opinion is the main question. Any professional has to balance the need to respond to a comment while also weighing the thoughts of the entire audience. 

Inevitably we have all seen comment sections where things don't go as planned. The comments go on a bit too long and it turns into more of an argument or an opinionated conversation and not something constructive. Guy Kawasaki discusses a few keys to comments. 

The first he talks about is "go three rounds". The member of the audience comments, you respond, and then allow for one more response before asking them to reach out in a less open environment. Sometimes the best interactions on social media platforms are in the comments as it creates a feeling of connection with the audience of the post but allowing that conversation to go on too long can take a turn for the worse. 

Next it's okay to disagree. There will never be a time when everyone has the same opinion and that is okay. There are points in life and on social media where that must be accepted. Agreeing to disagree shows that you are open to compromising and can perturb some of the toughest commenters. There may not be a correct or incorrect answer. Allowing for an open-ended comment section works to add dialogue and show the openness of you or your organization. 

Lastly stay positive as the curator of the post with your followers watching always work to stay positive in any comment conversation. Portraying yourself as level headed wins more credibility and following than winning one dispute with a commenter.  

Comments allow for great communication when used correctly. Always take the high road especially on media as once it is posted it is there forever. 

This Blog, Social Media and Business

For those of you wondering the purpose of this blog, and why in the world Trevor is writing this blog the answer is quite simple, it's a school project. That is how it started, but even though I have only posted two items, (this being the third) I am enjoying the ability to write in both a personal, and as you will see in this post an educational perspective.

The blog is for my Social Media Principles class in which we are to write about our weekly readings coming from "The Art of Social Media" by Guy Kawasaki and take a key aspect of it and expand. This week to begin with, the first chapter was about profile creation. Being completely honest the generation growing up in this day and age is very aware of profile creation and its importance and its need to catch the attention of any potential follower, or reader, or employer or any connection it could be.

Now the second chapter however brought up a concept called "Feeding the Content Monster" and this chapter looked at explaining how to amp up the content of your page in any platform of social media and how it is needed in business endeavors to help you stick out and how it can be used to profit your business.

One of the key things talked about was the idea of "Piggybacking" and re-sharing what is already popular. This is a quite easy task that almost all forms of social media are already doing for you, on Facebook it follows who and what you follow to generate a trending topics page, on twitter there is the "for you" page in the search engine both designed to give you the user content relevant to what you already follow. Sharing that adds to your content while also expanding on your network.

"The Tundra"

Ohio Northern's main walking area, and center of campus "The Tundra" as it is commonly referred to in reference to the home of the beloved mascot the Polar Bears is truly living up to its name as winter leaves its mark on ONU.

Ohio Northern University is a small school of about 3,500 students in the even smaller town of Ada, Ohio. Now when a young football player is visiting in February from Michigan and the coaches touring him around refer to the barren surface made of mostly frozen dirt, he may not think much of it, but if that same young athlete lived in Florida until the age of 13 perspective might change a little. That was me.

I don't think I will ever get used to the "charm of the Midwest" as my cousin seems to refer to it often. Maybe it's because I will never get past the temperature, maybe it's because I will never get past the snow, or maybe it's just because it will never be home for me. I grew up in Tampa loving the sunshine 360 days out of the 365 days in the year, the weekend trips to Disney, and the ocean being less than a stone throw away most of the time. The Tundra however has a bit of a different feel to it as my new home than my previous ones. Ohio has some distinct qualities about it that have decided to be on full display as students return to ONU. One, tree cover is minimal thus allowing the oh so famous "Ada Winds" to carry windchills down degrees at a time with gust ever so prevalent on the Tundra. The next would be ice, Winter Storm Gia of course brought snow and a frigid reminder that winter was still upon us, but it is what it has left behind that students are still seeing across campus. As students look to be ice skating from class to class yet wearing boots instead of skates as layers of ice lace the ground, the roads, and walk paths every way you turn. Now of course the Ohio Northern staff is working feverishly to clear walks and put salt down across any patch of ice they find, but if you look across the tundra it is quite easy to see, or sometimes hear the victims of the Winter Tundra of Ohio Northern. 

Still Winter Storm Harper barres down on the little old town of Ada. Expected to drop more snow and ice on a campus already nicely covered. It looks as if the Tundra will be living up to its name for the next couple weeks as students, faculty, and staff make their way across campus.