Reflective Self Analysis
Michael Tata
Practicum in Applied Communication
Kent State University
December 12th 2013
Ever since I was young, I have always been a hard worker. My father passed away when I was nine-years-old, so I took on the “man of the house” role at an early age. I had to teach myself to do a lot of things, like how to tie a tie, cut the grass, etc. I always helped around the house with whatever my mom needed to be done and because of the circumstances; I had to become strong for my family, even though life was not always easy for me or my family. I believe my father’s passing had the biggest impact on my life and is a huge reason why I am the person I am today and why I continuously work hard at everything I do.
Throughout my college career, not only do I go to school full-time, but I also work full-time, play and manage a band, take care of my family and this year I added an internship with BravoArtist that helped me gain experience in the music industry. I mostly live with my grandmother when I can because she can’t take care of herself too well. It’s is a lot to take on with all that I have going on, but I worked so hard to get where I am today. From all of this, I learned how to use time management effectively. I don’t think I would have “survived” college if I did not have strong time management skills. This will certainly be useful in the future for any of the possible career choices I might have.
I fell in love with music when I was about 13 and picked up the bass guitar a year later. I was in a band throughout high school and joined another band my freshman year of college. This band was different though. To be honest, I have learned so much from being in the band that I play in now.
With my time in Fallen Captive, my current band, I learned what it’s like to run your own business. Some traits that I have learned and taught myself from this band is how to book shows, manage our finances, how to use social media effectively, handle our merchandise, how to market ourselves and so much more. Most of these traits are necessary in today’s work place. We started something from the ground up and we are now one of the biggest bands in the northeast Ohio area; this year we won Metal Band of the Year and were nominated for Artist/Band of the Year from Cleveland’s Scene Magazine. We even went on our first national tour this Summer and got to experience 31 different cities. A lot of the people I work with through my band have said I’m one of the strongest marketers in the northeast Ohio area. I won’t be the one to say that, but I genuinely love what I do in music and try the best I can to succeed.
When it comes to marketing, social media can be a huge tool to reach out to your audience. Spending time on different social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more have taught me what you can do in order to expand your brand; whatever that brand may be. I took a course called social media strategies and read a book called Me 2.0 by Dan Schawbel. This course and book were extremely helpful to me and I use the strategies I learned from these and applied it to my band and BravoArtist’s social media. The key is to know your audience and know when the best possible time to post your content is. The most difficult thing about social media is that it is always changing, so you must be able to adapt quickly and learn new strategies.
The traits that I have learned in my band can be applied to my future career in the work place. In the work place, my goal would be to take a company and make it bigger and better. With some of the tasks that I have listed, the most common skill used in all of them is communication skills. At first I did not know what I wanted to do with my life, but I knew what I liked and I knew what traits I excelled at; this includes what traits were not as strong. I felt my communication skills were the strongest and although I can’t think of a job that does not use communication skills, I felt communication studies was the right route for me.
The classes I have taken over the past few years have helped me strengthen those communication skills. The course High Impact Speaking taught me how to become a better speaker, to lose the fear of talking to an audience and to not rely on notes when speaking to an audience. I also learned how to use Prezi, which is a great way to present your content. My Small Groups and Teams course taught me how to effectively work as a team, how we can collaborate on our ideas to be a success and communicate with one another. When working as a team, everyone should be on the same page and miscommunications should be minimal. My Interviewing course taught me how to ask questions and how to talk to people. If I ever took on management role, this class would be effective when it comes to hiring new employees. I learned many different kinds of probing questions, that if you are not getting the answer you want the first time, you can certainly get it the second time. The probing questions really get you the information that you need.
In the beginning of my college career, my grammar was not the best. The courses I had taken from the introductory communication courses to college writing and more made me realize how bad my grammar was. Today I am so picky about the words I use, the structure of my content and punctuation. I have improved so much on my writing skills because of those early classes. My ability to pay attention to detail in writing will help me in my future career. My grammar has "grown-up" over the course of my college career.
My biggest struggle throughout my college career was my VCD course. I’m not the greatest designer, but I do have the basic concept down. Visual Design for Media (Advanced) was a really difficult course for me because, at the time, I never used Photoshop, Indesign or Illustrator. I don’t use it often except for the flyers that I made in my practicum. I’m sure if I had more practice with it I would get much better, but designing is something I don’t want to do in my future career choice.
Through my experience with BravoArtist, I felt I have increased my skills in communicating, using effective social media strategies, marketing and time management. I learned it was really effective to go to other events and promote what we were doing by flyers and word of mouth tactics. The key is to go to an event that is similar to what show we were promoting for. Through physical flyers and word of mouth tactics, this helped increased our attendance at our shows.
I owe a lot to Cory Hajde, CEO of BravoArtist, for the opportunity to intern with him and the skills I have developed over the past eight months. Over the next few months, he plans on teaching me how to be my own promoter, where I can officially be a part of the team and be a huge asset to BravoArtist in the northeast Ohio area.
As a promoter, I can finally have my own national shows, which is something I have always wanted to do. Taking on the promoter role will establish a reputation for me over time with the national bands that I get to book and will possibly lead to more opportunities with bigger artists. From talking with Cory, I will have the ability to keep working for BravoArtist. I have always wanted to work within the music industry and hopefully this will be a stepping stone into something much bigger in my life.
Michael Tata
Practicum in Applied Communication
Kent State University
December 12th 2013
Ever since I was young, I have always been a hard worker. My father passed away when I was nine-years-old, so I took on the “man of the house” role at an early age. I had to teach myself to do a lot of things, like how to tie a tie, cut the grass, etc. I always helped around the house with whatever my mom needed to be done and because of the circumstances; I had to become strong for my family, even though life was not always easy for me or my family. I believe my father’s passing had the biggest impact on my life and is a huge reason why I am the person I am today and why I continuously work hard at everything I do.
Throughout my college career, not only do I go to school full-time, but I also work full-time, play and manage a band, take care of my family and this year I added an internship with BravoArtist that helped me gain experience in the music industry. I mostly live with my grandmother when I can because she can’t take care of herself too well. It’s is a lot to take on with all that I have going on, but I worked so hard to get where I am today. From all of this, I learned how to use time management effectively. I don’t think I would have “survived” college if I did not have strong time management skills. This will certainly be useful in the future for any of the possible career choices I might have.
I fell in love with music when I was about 13 and picked up the bass guitar a year later. I was in a band throughout high school and joined another band my freshman year of college. This band was different though. To be honest, I have learned so much from being in the band that I play in now.
With my time in Fallen Captive, my current band, I learned what it’s like to run your own business. Some traits that I have learned and taught myself from this band is how to book shows, manage our finances, how to use social media effectively, handle our merchandise, how to market ourselves and so much more. Most of these traits are necessary in today’s work place. We started something from the ground up and we are now one of the biggest bands in the northeast Ohio area; this year we won Metal Band of the Year and were nominated for Artist/Band of the Year from Cleveland’s Scene Magazine. We even went on our first national tour this Summer and got to experience 31 different cities. A lot of the people I work with through my band have said I’m one of the strongest marketers in the northeast Ohio area. I won’t be the one to say that, but I genuinely love what I do in music and try the best I can to succeed.
When it comes to marketing, social media can be a huge tool to reach out to your audience. Spending time on different social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more have taught me what you can do in order to expand your brand; whatever that brand may be. I took a course called social media strategies and read a book called Me 2.0 by Dan Schawbel. This course and book were extremely helpful to me and I use the strategies I learned from these and applied it to my band and BravoArtist’s social media. The key is to know your audience and know when the best possible time to post your content is. The most difficult thing about social media is that it is always changing, so you must be able to adapt quickly and learn new strategies.
The traits that I have learned in my band can be applied to my future career in the work place. In the work place, my goal would be to take a company and make it bigger and better. With some of the tasks that I have listed, the most common skill used in all of them is communication skills. At first I did not know what I wanted to do with my life, but I knew what I liked and I knew what traits I excelled at; this includes what traits were not as strong. I felt my communication skills were the strongest and although I can’t think of a job that does not use communication skills, I felt communication studies was the right route for me.
The classes I have taken over the past few years have helped me strengthen those communication skills. The course High Impact Speaking taught me how to become a better speaker, to lose the fear of talking to an audience and to not rely on notes when speaking to an audience. I also learned how to use Prezi, which is a great way to present your content. My Small Groups and Teams course taught me how to effectively work as a team, how we can collaborate on our ideas to be a success and communicate with one another. When working as a team, everyone should be on the same page and miscommunications should be minimal. My Interviewing course taught me how to ask questions and how to talk to people. If I ever took on management role, this class would be effective when it comes to hiring new employees. I learned many different kinds of probing questions, that if you are not getting the answer you want the first time, you can certainly get it the second time. The probing questions really get you the information that you need.
In the beginning of my college career, my grammar was not the best. The courses I had taken from the introductory communication courses to college writing and more made me realize how bad my grammar was. Today I am so picky about the words I use, the structure of my content and punctuation. I have improved so much on my writing skills because of those early classes. My ability to pay attention to detail in writing will help me in my future career. My grammar has "grown-up" over the course of my college career.
My biggest struggle throughout my college career was my VCD course. I’m not the greatest designer, but I do have the basic concept down. Visual Design for Media (Advanced) was a really difficult course for me because, at the time, I never used Photoshop, Indesign or Illustrator. I don’t use it often except for the flyers that I made in my practicum. I’m sure if I had more practice with it I would get much better, but designing is something I don’t want to do in my future career choice.
Through my experience with BravoArtist, I felt I have increased my skills in communicating, using effective social media strategies, marketing and time management. I learned it was really effective to go to other events and promote what we were doing by flyers and word of mouth tactics. The key is to go to an event that is similar to what show we were promoting for. Through physical flyers and word of mouth tactics, this helped increased our attendance at our shows.
I owe a lot to Cory Hajde, CEO of BravoArtist, for the opportunity to intern with him and the skills I have developed over the past eight months. Over the next few months, he plans on teaching me how to be my own promoter, where I can officially be a part of the team and be a huge asset to BravoArtist in the northeast Ohio area.
As a promoter, I can finally have my own national shows, which is something I have always wanted to do. Taking on the promoter role will establish a reputation for me over time with the national bands that I get to book and will possibly lead to more opportunities with bigger artists. From talking with Cory, I will have the ability to keep working for BravoArtist. I have always wanted to work within the music industry and hopefully this will be a stepping stone into something much bigger in my life.