By Brian Craddock
Algonquin’s business marketing students crowded into the ACCE building on March 20th to watch a pair of advertising industry experts give presentations about what they learned throughout their combined decades of experience
Jesse Cressman-Dickinson, the community catalyst at HUB Ottawa, and Geoffrey Roche, someone who has spent decades in various jobs relating to advertising and more recently social media, including at one point founding his own advertising firm gave presentations to Integrated Marketing Communications students about social media and getting jobs in various other marketing subsectors.
Cressman-Dickinson, a former Liberal staffer on Parliament Hill, spoke for about a half-hour on how she got her start in social media after the MP she represented retired, and how she leveraged her social media skills to get a new job, in addition to her work as the community manager at HUB Ottawa.
During her presentation she provided information bout and links to numerous social media resources, including articles about how curating a great presence on different social networks.
Geoffrey Roche covered similar themes in his presentation. He used his decades of experience in the advertising sector, including his decade of work at Low Roche, a firm he help cofound, to aid students in explaining how the industry works. He shared numerous tips he thought the students could use in their future endeavors, all the while explaining how he made his way into the advertising sector, and explaining how social media has effected the industry.
Noni Stukel, Omar Ramroop and other professors in the school of business wanted to bring in Cressman-Dickinson and Roche to “give students real world exposure to experts who live and breath what they (the students) learn about.” according to Stukel.
The presentations were very well received by the students who attended.
Alicia Puritt, a second-year student in the program’s integrated marketing communications course said “I thought the presentations were fantastic,” She “really appreciated” the presentations and said she “really liked how Jesse was able to pull together all the different strategies you can use to make yourself recognizable,” when it comes to social media.