aviancesturgis

[aviancesturgis]

Final Project: Business Plan

The last twelve months have been a long journey for me. I had plans to do a lot of the course of the year, and although I didn’t get to accomplish all my goals, I did accomplish all the goals I set for my classes. The first month involved Mastery, which taught me the art of mastering your craft. In order to excel and be great at what you do, you have to spend time on it and practice as much as possible. With music that’s definitely something that should be practiced in order to see growth.

I feel like my Mastery class was a great foundation to keep me focused and motivated. I had to deal with abuse, unemployment, and homelessness while trying to get my masters and I can say that is was worth it. Mastery is a valuable way of getting as close to perfecting your craft as you can, and I feel like the lesson I learned definitely brought value to my life.

I really enjoyed Executive Leadership, especially because reading Developing the Leader Within You by John C. Maxwell and The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene really opened my eyes. The one that I enjoyed the most was The 48 Laws of Power, it really showed me how much I really been putting some of these laws into practice. I would always recommend this book to anyone I come across.

Overall, I feel like Executive Leadership helped me to understand the qualities needed to be a leader. I wanted to be able to improve on my coaching and mentoring skills as well and feel like I’ve gained skills that I can use that make that a possibility. With my plan to open my own business, using these leadership skills will be beneficial in maintaining an environment of structure and growth.

Project and Team Management is something I’m pretty familiar with, only because I’m sure most of us have been collaborating our whole lives. Doesn’t matter if it went well or not, you more than likely have had the experience at least once. However, this class really broke down the steps needed to create and facilitate a project when working with a team. You’ll have different personalities with different skills and know where everyone fits into different parts of the project.

This is one of those classes that you can take all the information you learned and apply it to your professional and personal life. My goal was to gain the ability to manage a project and team with quality results. I have the skills to put together a project and achieve each step, I can also look at a person’s skills and determine where they will fit into the project and where they can contribute.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, Business Storytelling and Brand Development was a challenging class for me. This the class where I really started putting together the story and brand for my company. The goal was to create and effectively tell the story of my business and develop future brands. It was the hardest thing, but I was able to figure out the message I wanted to convey to my customers and how I wanted them to feel when hearing about our company. I also got to create a Business Model Canvas and the Brand Identity Prisms to help me break down the parts of the business and what I’m trying to achieve. Although it was a challenge, I like this class for the simple fact that it did challenge me. I’m never afraid to push the limit on what I don’t know or already know. This is a skill I’ll be able to apply to future businesses that I plan to start up. I can say without a doubt that have a business story and branding it just right can make a difference in the success of the company as well.

The class that I knew I would really need to focus on the most was Entertainment Business Finance. When it comes to creating a business plan, even though all the plan is important, the financials are the most important part of the plan. This part can make a difference in your company getting funding or not. It is also the way to showcase how the company with make money if they break-even or not, and will the business be sustainable. Although Business Storytelling and Brand Development was a challenge for me, this class definitely topped that.

Numbers aren’t my strong suit, and it has been all my life, however, it’s never been something I shied away from. I believe I’ve gotten better because of the fact that I want to improve on finance. I didn’t have the knowledge on what the financials should look like or what should be included. The business plan wouldn’t be completed without financials being in order and making sense for the company. I’m glad I had this experience since it’ll help me with future endeavors as well as my personal life.

Now when it comes to marketing, Digital Marketing was a class I was very excited about. This is how you tell your target market about your business. This was a great way to show me how to plan it out and make sure the goals are reasonable enough to reach. I learned how to create a marketing canvas for the company Aviance Entertainment, and also learned about the online tools you can use to track your analytics.

There are multiple ways you can market to your customers to make them aware of your business. While this class focused more on the digital aspect of marketing, there is also still value in the traditional means of marketing such as posters, flyers, billboards, and radio. Marketing is something that I haven’t always been the best at, so I’m happy I got to experience how I can apply digital marketing to my business.

I’ve been a pretty good negotiator my entire life, I got most of my practice in with my parents of course. My goal was to become a stronger negotiator and I believe that is something that I have improved on. I realize after doing the mock negotiation in this class, that you aren’t always getting the best possible deal. I got a good deal at the end, but when I did it over I was able to see the best possible deal and what I needed to do and say in the negotiation to get the best possible deal.

One thing I learned is that you should always take the opportunity to get to know your opponent and what you can do to help them in other ways that you can also benefit from. I’ve said it previously before, I won’t be perfect and I probably won’t always get the best deal. But, I have the knowledge on how to make that a high possibility and I’ll always be able to improve on that skill as I spend more time negotiating. The best thing to do is always dig a little deeper, because it may make a difference in sealing that big deal.

I was able to figure out that I don’t want to be an Artist Manager after taking Product and Artist Management. I don’t look at that position in a bad light, especially since there can be a lot that you gain in the position of artist manager, but I feel like it isn’t for me. I feel like I could be great at it if I really want to, and I may even reconsider in the future, however, I don’t think it’s for me. An artist manager is basically the backbone of the artist and makes a huge difference in the success of that artist.

On the product management side, I was way more excited since we want to offer products at our company to go along with our services. I was able to really figure out who our target audience is, their buying power, and where they are located so we can reach them. The products I choose to offer such as a speaker and duffle bag are great assets to the experience of our business. I now have the tools and education to put these products out and additional products in the future.

The topic of law is one that is extremely important. Advance Entertainment Law was a class that I also valued very much because I wanted to have a more in-depth understanding of contracts and intellectual property protection. I want to be able to protect not only myself and business, but my employees and future customers as well. I also wanted to understand how contracts are structured within my industry and the digital domain.

There is a heavy focus on intellectual property and liabilities in the entertainment industry, especially since liabilities are something you should be fully aware of. I was able to understand that with my business I would need to know and understand liabilities such as copyright infringement or abuse, and how they can affect my company. At least having a basic understanding of law and where to look can make a difference in your personal and professional life.

Being that I plan to eventually start a publishing company in the future, this was also another class that I knew would bring a lot of information. I wanted to understand the current issues affecting publishing and distributed. With the rise in technology, we are seeing more artist being able to publish and distribute their music independently, and don’t require a record label anymore. I also wanted to understand the strategies to protect and monetize creative content under my own publishing company. With the changes in the industry and the changes that are still in motion, I’ll have to stay up-to-date on how this will affect me in the future.

I’m also grateful that I was able to learn how to write an agent query letter. I had no idea that I could do something like this and for my own personal use at that. I would have taken advantage of this years ago, but you aren’t aware of what you don’t know until it’s present to you. The press kit was very helpful too since I’ve never created one and now I know what is needed to make a press kit.

Business Plan Development was the most fun I had in a while, which I think is because I was finally putting the pieces together of the business plan that I had been working on the whole program. The biggest goal for me overall was to create a business plan for Aviance Entertainment, a business plan that I could be proud of. Something that I could take after I complete my program and actually put to use in the real world. Having the feedback from my instructors on how I can make it better and where it needs improvement was what helped me the most to put it together.

I actually imagined Business Plan Development to be much harder than it actually was, but I chalk that up to the fact that we worked on the plan piece by piece every month. I’m very happy to have learned all the elements of the business plan that should be included and the layout of that plan. It’s amazing how something can seem impossible or hard until you break it down into pieces and also have the help to know what is needed. Now I feel more confident when it comes to drafting up a business plan and can apply this to future endeavors.

I’m am now in the final month of my degree program and the class is Final Project: Business Plan. I can say without a doubt that I am extremely proud of all that I have accomplished leading up to this class. Even in the midst of getting kicked out of my house and having to complete my final month homeless, I didn’t give up and didn’t let anything keep me from my goal. When I look back on this I’ll always remember how I stayed strong and kept working through my adversity.

This final class was me putting it all together and making it presentable. I love the final result of the business plan and I love the fact that I have an elevator pitch and presentation to go with it. The business plan for Aviance Entertainment was more than an assignment for me, it’s my passion, something I love very much, and I take making this a reality seriously. The next steps from here are to continue to save up and pitch our company to investors.

[aviancesturgis]

Business Plan Development

Before starting Business Plan Development, I had a few goals in mind. I wanted to be able to fully expand on my current business plan that I started but didn’t complete. I also wanted to understand how to draw up my business plan, management and technical knowledge needed to create and develop my business plan. And last but not least, I wanted to take the feedback from my peers and instructor to make it viable. This business plan has been a goal of mine since my bachelor’s degree program. I started my master’s degree with the mindset that I was going to make it happen since this was something I would have been able to work on for the whole year, piece by piece. I had the idea that by the time I got to Business Plan Development that I would be much harder than I thought it would be. Surprisingly I’m very happy to have learned more about how to layout out the business plan and all the elements that should be included to make it a business plan that is intriguing. Throughout the program, I realized that I feel more confident that I can complete this business plan especially with the feedback from my instructor. Overall, even beyond this current business plan, I’m working on for this degree, I’ll be able to develop other business plans in the future for other ventures I may have. I also enjoyed the interviews with Jayson Whitmore throughout the month, because he gave great advice having professionalism when it comes to your business plan and how everyone in the team needs to do their part in order for the whole team to do well. This is something I’ll be able to utilize more professionally than personally. Personally, I can help someone who is also interested in creating their own business plan and don’t where to begin.

[aviancesturgis]

The Future of Blockchain

As a songwriter, I want to learn as much about the music industry as I can to not only creatively make a difference, but also to be aware of and support any technology that can benefit my industry. Anything that can allow everyone to collaborate effectively and be paid accordingly is something that I will support. I have found it extremely hard to track down who the rights owner or owners are for music especially when it came to certain projects I worked on during my undergrad years. One of the biggest issues in the music industry right now is how to split royalties and who owns the rights to songs and recordings. Over the last couple of years, there have been a lot of talk about new forms of technology to help tackle this problem. One form of technology I was most interested in digging deeper into is a technology called Blockchain which would be used to keep a record of the information of split royalties and who owns the rights.

I can only imagine how frustrating it has been for the whole music industry to not have something in order to keep track of all the data when it comes to a song or recording. However, now there is some hope with the introduction of Blockchain technology. The Blockchain is a database that would be able to keep track of royalties and who own the rights to songs and recordings, it’s also good to validate/record stock trades, artwork, copyright, diamonds, banks and government are utilizing, and other assets (Graham 2015). The reasons for why it isn’t widely being used at this moment is because of a few issues with its usage. The five main issues are authority, immutability, scalability, legacy, and privacy. For one, it’s impossible to hold anyone accountable for the data, especially if something goes wrong. Then you also have to be able to trust who you have entering the data and they need to be held accountable if a conflict is to arise in the data being input.

The way that all this data is being handled in the music industry is pretty unbalanced and it's another reason why so many lawsuits end up happening. Common issues include a band gaining a license for a part of a song from only one composer and the other decides to sue because he wasn’t contacted for his license approval as well, or a streaming service collecting royalties for an unknown owner. If you don’t know who you need to contact to sample a part of a recording, then it can become increasingly hard for people throughout the industry to do any business together. A few years ago, Spotify had to pay a $30 million settlement to resolve a lawsuit with the National Music Publishers Association for royalties withheld because they didn’t know who to pay (Walden 2016). This is an issue that is affecting major streaming services big time since it’s quite difficult to track down every person who may own a piece of music if all the data isn’t available or collated into one database.

What makes Blockchain so appealing is how powerful it is and what it’s capable of doing for the music industry and multiple others. Even so, this isn’t the first attempt at creating a central database. “The ‘Global Repertoire Database’ initiative was started in 2011 to aggregate ownership data in a central database, but infamously failed in 2014 after millions of dollars of investment” (Walden 2016). My guess is that mistakes were made and learned from which is why developers haven’t given up and are working towards making this something available to multiple music business startups. One of the business startups interested in capitalizing on it is a company called PeerTracks. Not only would they pay revenue directly to the artist but they would also use the technology to craft a type of artist equity trading system within a streaming and music retail platform to generate fan engagement and peer-to-peer talent discovery (Stewart 2016). They haven’t officially made it available for an artist to use yet, but the site is up and running and you can look around and check out their F.A.Q. for more information.

If you really want to go into a bit more detail on what Blockchain is and can do continue to read on. It is a decentralized system with no single entity controlling it, the technology is transparent, it also replaces notaries as every transaction is time stamped automatically and given a unique ID. Another bonus is that money is transferred instantly so there is no longer any wait time (Gottfried 2015). I really like the idea of getting an instant transfer of your money from work that you do, an artist shouldn’t have to wait long periods before receiving their hard-earned money. Now what can also be possible is by using smart contracts, rights owners would have control over permissions and changes to basic rights. It would be possible to track the changes in ownership and permission in real time and allow for new and enhanced uses for music (Rogers 2016). With all these perks, the Blockchain technology would make a huge difference in the music industry. The end goal is to ultimately make it easier for artist and songwriters to properly be compensated minus the risk of your information not being easily accessible.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a part of the music industry or not, this technology can also be useful in other industries that need such a database. Although human interact would still need to be involved in some way, that’s something that can be implemented with careful evaluations. I think it’s amazing how people in my industry work so hard to create something that can move us in a direction of growth. Plus, by replacing these outdated systems that aren’t working very well anymore, we can save a lot of money and the music industry is in need of new revenue and business models as we continue to shift. The ways that music is consumed needs to change and Blockchain would contribute to helping with music management and licensing.

Reference

Gottfried, G. (Aug 5, 2015). How ‘the blockchain’ could actually change the music industry. Billboard. Retrieved from http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/6655915/how-the-blockchain-could-actually-change-the-music-industry

Graham, A. (Aug 20, 2015). Understanding music and blockchain without the hype. The Trichordist. Retrieved from https://thetrichordist.com/2015/08/20/understanding-music-and-blockchain-without-the-hype-2/

Roger, B. (Feb 24, 2016). How the blockchain can change the music industry (part 2). Cuepoint. Retrieved from https://medium.com/cuepoint/how-the-blockchain-can-change-the-music-industry-part-2-c1fa3bdfa848

Stewart, A. (Jan 9, 2017). Blockchain for music: The promise and problems. Hypebot. Retrieved from http://hypebot.com/hypebot/2017/01/a-hint-of-blockchain.html

Walden, J. (Apr 25, 2016). What a blockchain for music really means. Mediachain Blog. Retrieved from https://blog.mediachain.io/what-a-blockchain-for-music-really-means-e2f8dc66d57d

[aviancesturgis]

Entertainment Media Publishing & Distribution

I started this class with certain goals in mind in which I believe I've been able to achieve this month. My first goal was to understand the current issues affecting publishing and distribution. One of the biggest shifts in the industry is an artist being able to independently publish and distribute their own music and don't require a major record label to help. My second goal was to understand the strategies to protect and monetize creative content under my own publishing company. I plan to start up my own publishing company in the future, and whether or not I publish for other people or just myself, being able to protect myself and make a profit from the music is something that will definitely be beneficial. My third goal was to absorb the new distribution models to aid in the success of my artist. And this is a goal that is something I’ll have to work on as the industry is still changing and I’ll be starting my publishing company then.

 One of the things I’m grateful to have learned this month is writing the agent query letter. Prior to this, I had no idea this was something that I could use for my own personal use. If I was aware of this before I would have done this years ago. The second thing I’m also happy I was able to work on was my press kit. As a songwriter, I need to be able to share my work, my background, and what I’m capable of doing. This is a great tool to share with other songwriters, agents, record labels, and artist. It’s also a great way to keep all of them up-to-date on any current material, changes in my life, or new events. Even though I have one more week of this class left, I’ve already absorbed a ton of information that I can take with me to complete my business plan.

[aviancesturgis]

Advanced Entertainment Law

I had goals that I wanted to achieve this month in Advanced Entertainment Law. My first goal was to understand more in-depth the topics related to entertainment law, my second goal was to have a full understanding of contracts and intellectual property protection to protect myself and my future clients and my third goal was to understand how contracts are structured within my industry and the digital domain. Now that I’ve reached the end of this course, I can see all that I’ve learned and gained from it. We focused heavily on intellectual property and liabilities in the entertainment industry, which is very important since liabilities are something you should be fully aware of, especially if you’re running a business. With my goal of opening a dance and recording studio understanding liabilities, such as copyright infringement or abuse, and how they can affect my company can go a long way. To top it off, it gives me an upper hand in protecting my company as well. I think that having even a basic understanding of the law can make a huge difference in your life personally and professionally. You’ll be able to identify legal liabilities and you’ll have the ability to reduce or terminate those risks which are something I’m sure most people would appreciate. It’s extremely easy to either lack the information to protect your business or look over the importance of protecting yourself because you feel like it won’t ever happen, but that is something I wouldn’t test and wouldn’t recommend anyone to do that. Through assignments that forced us to research possible liabilities for our business or discussions that made us really think and ask questions about contest contracts and liabilities, I feel like overall I’ve achieved my goals this month being that we touched base on those topics thoroughly.��

[aviancesturgis]

Product and Artist Management

I’m actually very happy that I took Product and Artist Management this month. It helped me to figure out two things specifically, first is that I definitely don’t want to me an artist manager, there is a lot that can be gained for a position as an artist manager, but it’s definitely not for me. I could be successful in it, I do believe that strongly and maybe I’ll change my mind in the future, but for now I’m not interested. They have a lot on their plate when it comes to managing an artist and being that I was on the artist side for a while before deciding to learn more about the business side, I realized that they are definitely the backbone of the artist. A manager’s position is very valuable and needed in the success of an artist, not to say that the artist can’t be successful without a manager, but the load is much lighter with one and allows the artist to focus on just being an artist.

The product management side was more interesting and exciting for me since I wanted to see what other products I could include in my business plan for Aviance Entertainment. This class also gave me more in-depth details about figuring out who your target audience is and really knowing who they are, they’re buying power and potential, and where they are located so you can reach them. I’m glad I was able to decide on some products I wanted to include and how they’ll make an impact on their own and with my business. If I was to give anyone advice based on this class I would say that it’s imperative that you know who your audience is, not only will it make it easier to create content geared towards them, but you have a higher chance of making a profit, and you could also add additional products in the future that are centered around that audience.

[aviancesturgis]

Negotiations & Deal-making

This month has been an interesting month, to say the least. My goal was to not only establish a strong business presence but to also become a stronger negotiator. I feel like this month challenged me more than I expected. I've always been pretty good at negotiating, but taking this class has really shown a whole different side of negotiation and making deals. After I took the mock negotiation that was presented to us as an assignment, I realized that sometimes you think you’re getting the best possible deal, but without digging a bit deeper than the surface you wouldn’t see that better deal waiting for you. I went through the mock negotiation confident that I’ll get the best deal, but when I got to the end, the simulation explained that even though I had gotten a good deal, it wasn’t the best deal and I should play again to figure out the best deal. At times, you should take the opportunity to get to know your opponent and how you could help them in other ways that you can also benefit from.

When it comes to my professional life, this will constantly be something that I use in order to get the best deals possible. I know I won’t always be perfect or actually always get the best deal, but it will be a goal that I aim to achieve in all transactions that involve negotiations. When it comes to my personal life, well now I’ll be able to get what I want more often. Of course, that’ll be in a mutually beneficial way. I can use negotiation techniques on my husband and other family members or even when I’m out shopping and trying to negotiate lower prices or a discount. There are multiple ways I can personally use negotiation in my life. I’m glad to have experienced this class this month, it helped me to look at my strengths and weaknesses when it comes to understanding and implementing negotiation.

[aviancesturgis]

A Man About His Business.

One of the people I admire for more than his music is Jay-Z. He’s made countless negotiations and business deals and some will make you question how he did it. Over the last twenty-one years, Jay Z’s business ventures have helped him to reach a net worth of over $610 million as of 2016. He’s accumulated his wealth over the years from multiple businesses, such as Roc-A-Fella Records from 1995 to 1998, Rocawear in 1999, and Carols Daughter in 2002. In 2003, he invested in the 40/40 Club, Reebok, and Nokia. In 2006, Armand de Brignac Champagne, HP, and Budweiser Select. After that he also invested in GMC in 2007, RocNation and Translation in 2008, Fela! in 2009, Life + Times in 2011, the Brooklyn Nets, Duracell Powermat, Bing, Budweiser, Made In America Festival, D’ussé, and NBA 2K13 in 2012. And last but not least, Samsung, RocNation Sports and Cohiba Comador in 2013. As you can see since the beginning of his career he has started multiple businesses and well as partnered with other companies. In my opinion, it takes a pretty good negotiation skills in order to orchestrate all these businesses and partnerships. Just recently, Jay-Z was able to help MLB All-Star Yoenis Cespedes re-sign with the New York Mets for $110 million over 4 years, this makes him the highest paid player in Mets history. It’s very clear at this point how Jay-Z likes to negotiate, I see him mostly as a collaborating type, making sure that both parties are happy and getting what they need out of the partnership. I’m very curious as to how he bargains for the best deals for himself or his company’s clients? I would also like to know what steps he takes before he starts his negotiation process? Lastly, I would love to know if he has backup options when his negotiations don’t go in the direction he was hoping or planning for? He’s got a pretty great record when it comes to his business ventures, so to pick his brain is something to be excited about if you’re interested in doing the same.

Kyles, Y. (Dec 2, 2016). Jay Z’s Roc Nation helps negotiate $110 million contract for Mets player Yoenis Cespedes. All Hip Hop. Retrieved from http://allhiphop.com/2016/12/02/jay-zs-roc-nation-helps-negotiate-110-million-contract-for-mets-player-yoenis-cespedes/

Rathod, N. (Mar 6, 2014). A timeline of Jay Z’s accumulated wealth. Hot New Hip Hop. Retrieved from http://www.hotnewhiphop.com/a-timeline-of-jay-z-s-accumulated-wealth-news.9646.html

[aviancesturgis]

Digital Marketing

My initial goals to achieve this month were to be able to understand how to sell and grow sales using digital marketing, learn how to create a marketing plan, and be able to manage my own professional and personal presence online. Although the class is not over and we are halfway through it, I was able to still take in information that’ll help me achieve my goals this month. We are working on the marketing canvas for our company this month, which I’m actually happy we’re able to work on since marketing is not my strongest. This gives me the opportunity to plan it out and make sure that my goals are reasonable enough to reach. I also took the time out to watch a course on Instagram for Business on Lynda to help with marketing on Instagram. One thing I was able to pick up from the course was getting your customers to help market for you, such as offering a discount or gift card to everyone who shares a picture using your product, with them also using a hashtag you choose. The other thing is using a tool for tracking your analytics of your Instagram account. Even though they only offer a 7-day free trial, it’s still valuable to use to get information to help you get insight on your profile. I was also grateful to be shown how to embed your Instagram uploads right into your website, which I will be using for my current website. Between what I’m learning in this class and additional courses on Lynda, I’ll be able to put all this information I learn towards my start up business Aviance Entertainment and any future businesses that I plan to open as well. Personally, I’ll apply the same tools to my personal brand and life.

[aviancesturgis]

Entertainment Business Finance

Now Entertainment Business Finance was definitely a challenging class this month. It’s not that I’m not doing well in the class because I definitely am, it’s just that finance is very important in business and I wanted to take in as much from this class that I could. The Pro Forma Assignment is what really stood out the most to me and it was the most challenging. This assignment basically helped me to break down what I plan to do with my business. I’ve needed to this for a while but didn’t have the knowledge to move forward. My original objective was to gain a full understanding of the language of finance and how to apply the knowledge to my own business. I believe that I have achieved this goal so far. What I think about on a daily basis is organizing and starting Aviance Entertainment. It’s dear to my heart and I’m using everything that I learn to help me make it happen.

 Making sure that the finances make sense is the number one thing to being able to bring Aviance Entertainment to life. One thing I want to work on outside of this class is the Time Value of Money, I did well on the assignment, but I think I could have done better. Another would be opportunity cost since I know what that is now, I can be more aware in my daily life of how I apply opportunity cost. When it comes to how I will apply this professionally obviously, it’ll be for my future business or businesses. The first step is Aviance Entertainment, but I do have plans to start-up other businesses. When it comes to how I’ll apply it personally, all that I’ve learned I will be able to use when it comes to our family finances and how to manage them. Overall, I enjoyed this class and had a very productive month.

[aviancesturgis]

Learning About Business Storytelling and Brand Development

This was one of those classes that challenged me a bit. I had not spent much time working on the brand story for my business. Although I was always aware that all the companies that I've grown up knowing had a story, getting a clearer understanding of their stories and how that story connects with their customers is something I was now understanding more. It was like I could see it, but it wasn’t clear until I put my glasses on, in this case, my class is the glasses. The goal I wanted to achieve by the end of Business Storytelling and Brand Development was the ability to effectively tell the story of my business and develop future brands. The knowledge and hands-on experience creating the story for my own brand has helped me to achieve part of this goal, the rest will be with time as I create other brands in the future. I enjoyed figuring out the message I wanted to convey and the emotions I wanted my customers to feel when they think of Aviance Entertainment. Another thing I’m glad I got the chance to work on is the Business Model Canvas and the Brand Identity Prisms. It helped me to break down the parts of my business and what I’m trying to achieve. I chose to do the majority of my assignments on a business that I am adamant on starting in the near future. I take every part I work on seriously since this is something that I’m applying to the real world. When it comes to my personal brand I’ll be able to apply the same concepts. Professionally, I plan to continue to work on creating brand stories that resonate with the customer and describe the company in the way it’s intended to be described. I really enjoyed this class this month and I’m excited to take this new knowledge with me afterward.

[aviancesturgis]

Project & Team Management Mastery

This month’s class helped me to tap into project and team management like never before. I've worked in teams and on numerous projects, but I was able to learn all the steps needed to create and facilitate a project and learned about the different personalities that you can come across and how they fit into different parts of a project. My main objective was to gain the ability to manage a project and team with quality results and now that I have had some practice on how to achieve that I can take all that I've learned and applied it to my life personally and professionally. It can be something as simple as planning a birthday party for my husband or working on an album, either way, I'll be able to work on projects in a more efficient way. When it comes to personalities, obviously everyone is different, sometimes the projects will go smoothly and everyone will be doing their part and communicating well and other times there will be conflict, miscommunication and sometimes deadlines will not be met. You have to understand everybody’s personality and what they can bring to the table. Some people have great skills and qualities that can make a project blossom into something amazing. The best advice I can give anyone working on a project of any kind is to be aware of all the steps that need to be taken to complete the project and all the smaller details that need to be taken to complete those steps. It’s very easy to overlook something that can cause disruption in how quickly you can complete a task. Also, team building exercises are not only fun but helpful in breaking the ice and seeing what makes every person unique. It lets everyone get to know to know a little about each other a get comfortable working together. I definitely had a great month, and I appreciate all the knowledge I’ve gained and where it’ll take me.

[aviancesturgis]

Leadership Mastery

The last three weeks I’ve had the pleasure of reading two books, Developing the Leader Within You by John C. Maxwell and The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene. I’ve learned some valuable information from both books, but I feel like only one expresses my leadership style. From the beginning The 48 Laws of Power really stuck out to me, it made a lot of sense and I could definitely see how some of these laws are used by past and current leaders. I believe that this style suits me because without even realizing it I’ve been putting some of these laws into practice. One of them is Law 2 Never Put Too Much Trust in Friends, Learn How to Use Enemies. The last couple of years of my life, this is a lesson that I’ve learned all on my own. Growing up I use to put all my trust in my friends and never understood why they would end so badly. Especially the most recent one that ended after 20 years of friendship. As Greene said, “Be wary of friends—they will betray you more quickly, for they are easily aroused to envy.” Sadly, I didn’t realize this until a few years ago. I’ve never had much problem with an enemy than I have with people I called my friends. Greene’s style in this book is very straight forward and honest, and that’s who I am. To some people, the laws he presents could be perceived as harsh or unorthodox, but I believe these laws are a truth of life that sometimes people don’t want to pay attention to. Another law presented in the book I see myself adding to my ever growing leadership style is Law 9 Win Through Your Actions, Never Through Argument. I feel like too many people spend too much time arguing their case, ideas or beliefs. I already make a habit out of winning through actions, but I’m working on doing even better since I still have a lot to work on before I can present certain projects. I definitely recommend The 48 Law of Power to anyone looking to get a grip on their power and leadership.

Greene, R. (2000). The 48 laws of power. New York: Penguin Books.

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Mastery Journey Timeline 1-10. 

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Mastery Journey Timeline Slideshow 11-20.

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So far this week, I’ve spent some time learning the basics of music production, practicing piano and refreshing myself on music theory. Because I’m already pretty aware of some of the things I’m learning such as audio dynamics in music production, that part wasn’t really that complicated to pick up again. I’m on compressors now, and even though I know a little about compressors and how they restrict the dynamic range of an audio signal to help find a steadier level in your mix. The piano hasn’t been tough at all, my fingers haven’t forgotten where to be placed or how to move on a piano, but I’m working on reading the sheet music again. This is where music theory comes into play. I use to be amazing when it came to music theory, my sophomore year of high school I was able to see a note on a sheet and tell you what is was as well as hear it played on the piano and tell you what it was. I can still do that, but it’s been years so I’m not as strong as I use to be. I also have some courses save on songwriting that focuses on music theory and harmony. I’ll also be watching those to help aid in my progress in music theory and songwriting. I’m proud of my progress so far, and all that I���m learning to maintain my goals. 

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Feedly: https://feedly.com/i/category/Music%20Journey

I don’t know if my Feedly link is working properly, but here are a few sites and blogs I’m following.