Finances and Personal Life

Finances and Personal Life

Growing up, my parents never sat me down and discussed finances with me. Finance is not a subject taught in school. For me, and many other Americans, finance is something learned through experience. A blog from the Huffington Post Education section shares one man’s opinion about this topic. Scott Gamm writes that learning personal finances is more important than many other subjects such as Calculus. All fields require for the person to handle their own finances.

I have been living on my own for years now. I had to pay my own bills, and still am paying my own bills. Anything that I know about money came from trial and error. I am 27-years-old and I’m just figuring this “money thing” out. Now, I think about how many credit card companies are out here targeting college students. They disguise selling their credit cards and debt as building credit. Although, having and using a credit card can build credit it is mostly used to build debt in young people. I know from personal experience because I had a credit card, and fell into the trap of its debt. Then, there are people interested in starting businesses that have no idea about finances. They end up going under due to their lack of financial education. I do not want to be that person. Therefore, I am glad to be in this course.

Business finance can be a scary subject. I am excited to be in this class to learn about essential pieces that come with being an entrepreneur. However, this is going to be a challenge for me. This course is my very first time seeing, analyzing, and understanding financial documents such as income statements and balance sheets. I am glad Full Sail University includes this course within the program. Financial competency is a necessary step to being a successful CEO. I also do not want to get ripped off by anyone due to my lack of knowledge.

Analysis of Simon Sinek’s How Great Leaders Inspire Action

For this blog post, I decided to watch one of the Top 20 TED Talks of All Time. The video I chose was Simon Sinek: How Great Leaders Inspire Action. I picked this video because I felt based off of the title that it would tie into our content from all of the classes in the Entertainment Business Master of Science program thus far. I was correct. Sinek spoke about what characteristics deem someone to be a leader. He used this type of speech to share knowledge of how the brain works, and how great leaders use their brains versus others.

A synopsis of what Sinek talked about was how leaders think, act, and communicate differently than others. He described this idea as the golden circle. The golden circle is composed of the why, how, and what. He said that most people communicate from the outside and speak inward. But, great leaders do the opposite. They understand that one must speak to a person’s emotion and let it spread outward. They understand the why of what they are doing, or they get their purpose in life. I looked at this through the lens of our current class.

In my opinion, Sinek is saying that great leaders are a brand. Great leaders understand how to convey their brand message. For example, Sinek used Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as a scenario. Dr. King’s message was of love and respect for one another. There were other people at the time that preached the same message as him. The difference was how Dr. King conveyed his message. He spoke to people’s emotions first while also sharing the message of justice. It was in the way he walked, moved, acted, communicated and so on. Everyone else preaching the same message talked about it, but did not embody the message. In a sense, they did not own their message or assess their target audience to tailor the information. This is an example of how this speech gave me a deeper sense of brand storytelling and messaging.

Personalities and Team Building

The content for this course is about team building and project management. Understanding personalities is a requirement in order to have successful project management and teamwork. That notion holds especially true in the entertainment field because there are so many creative people. As a talent agent, I must know how to work with different, unique personalities. Personality tests are a fun and engaging way to learn about one’s traits. There are two main personality tests amongst many others. Those two tests are DiSC and Myers-Briggs.

William Marston created the DiSC assessment test. DiSC stands for Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Contentiousness. Each category has a set of traits that it is affiliated with. Dominant personalities are typically more confident, direct, and love challenges. Influencers are good at persuading others and showing a lot of enthusiasm. People in the steadiness category have calm, solid, and dependable personalities. Lastly, contentiousness people like accuracy, are objective, and likes independence. All the person does is answer a series of questions. Then, the scores are tallied and the outcome shows which category the personality falls into. The website says that DiSC is a good assessment for communication, leadership, and team building.

Isabel Briggs Myers and Katherine Myers created the Myers-Briggs assessment. It consists of 16 personality traits that fall into 4 categories based on studies by C.G. Jung. The four categories are presented in pairs. The first pair is Introversion and Extraversion. Those pairs deal with if someone is outgoing or a recluse. The second pair is Sensing and Intuition. One type pays attention to the physical happenings, while the other pays attention to patterns. Third, the pair is Thinking and Feeling which both deal with how one makes decisions. The fourth pair is Judging and Perceiving. Judgers normally have an organized life, and Perceivers just roll with the punches. Also, Myers-Biggs is a great assessment for team building and leadership.

I think the best thing to do is give one of these assessments to my team. Also, it could be a requirement for any client I take on. I think taking this assessment will help me to be able to be a leader, but also help me interact with my team. This could definitely be incorporated into the table reads for the web series as a first order of business.

Industry Research Blog Post

Jerome Joyce

The entertainment industry is a broad term for an array of professions. My interest is in being a talent agent. For my industry research assignment, I decided to pick talent agencies, the development of web series, rise of independent artists, and impact of social media in print modeling as my four topics.

Talent Agencies:

My goal is to create a talent agency with a grassroots feel. I want to build my company to connect local aspiring actors with local and regional opportunities. In this age of information, that is very possible to achieve. Also, in this new age there is the idea of convergence. Convergence is bringing together all separate areas into one. In my research, I found that talent agencies are joining this movement. Companies like UTA and CAA are pairing up with startups and non-film/television companies. This action came about after the guild strikes but it has stuck around ever since. This information is helpful to me because it sets the precedent for what agencies are doing. I can team up with other local companies, unrelated to film or television, which have major pull and build my brand. Another thing I found out during my research is that agencies are now representing news personalities. For example, N. S. Bienstock, the same company that represents Anderson Cooper, has merged with United Talent Agency. I took from this finding that I can broaden my horizons in this field. This University, as well as others, has students in journalism programs. Many of those students have trouble finding adequate jobs in the news industry. I could serve as a liaison between aspiring personalities and media outlets to help them find a job.

Development of web series:

The development of web series is becoming increasingly popular in today’s culture. Most of these web series air on YouTube. It has become so popular that YouTube often pays series with high volumes of viewership. It was noted that they received $100 million in 2012 to back original content. That is how channels like iamOTHER, which features the popular web series Awkward Black Girl, came about. I also found information on how to create a web series. I know several people who are open to the idea due to its growing popularity. There are 7 steps that I found to make this happen. One of those steps includes finding the right actors. This is where my company can come in. I can find the talent for the new web series. I could also team up with existing shows in my area or region and ask if they need any new talent or extras.

Rise of independent artists:

The days of musical artists signing with major labels is coming to a close. Today, it is ever popular for artists to be independent. The reach of social networks makes it easier for indie artists to get their music to the public without the help of big companies. According to the New York Post, indie artists controlled 25.8 percent of the music industry in 2007. So, how did this change happen? It is because people are streaming music online at rapid rates. Streaming music accounted for growth seen in the amount of indie artists. I took away from this research that indie artists gain more and more attention through live streaming avenues. My talent agency can help because artists constantly create visuals for their music. In those videos, they use talent. My clients could be paired with the hottest artists in the area, and be featured in their music videos. Then, those videos will be uploaded to YouTube where they will accrue views 24-hours a day. That gives my clients more exposure and helps my brand.

Impact of social media in print modeling:

Social media is one of the most powerful tools today. It spreads all information, whether true or false, in a matter of seconds. Social media is also the best place to go to find the next best sensation. One of the networks with this kind of power is Instagram. There are everyday people on Instagram with 10,000 followers or more simply based on their pictures. Those types of people exist in every city, state, and country. Those same people are often asked to host parties or be in music videos simply off of their social media popularity. Companies started to take notice of this phenomenon. Marc Jacobs, ASOS, and other fashion companies are constantly creating hashtag selfie campaigns to find fresh new faces. The companies will ask followers to post a picture of him or her using the hashtag, or they will post contestants on their own page. In both cases, the pictures with the most likes win the competition. This is the new avenue of discovering a model. So much so, IMG Models decided to find new talent that way instead of going the traditional route. This new form of modeling helps me because I can find contests like these for my clients, and get them featured in print promotions for events.

These four aspects in the industry will help me build a strong brand. I appreciate an assignment like this because it helped me layout how much everything is connected.