Animal Crossing New Horizons and Pocket Camp: What’s better about mobile?
In March of 2020, I eagerly sat down in front of my TV to play Animal Crossing: New Horizons (ACNH) on Nintendo Switch (if you don’t know anything about Animal Crossing, here’s a helpful video). It couldn’t have come at a better time; using this game as a virtual getaway during the pandemic, I eventually logged well over 200 hours. …
By Erin Mihalik ⋅ October 26, 2021
My (lack of) Social Media Governance – and What I Hope to Do About It
In the course of this semester, I, along with several others in my cohort, have been categorized as “anti-social media.” In my case, this warrants clarification, because I’m not 100% anti-social media all the time. I’m really against social media that doesn’t accomplish anything. If it’s not valuable or entertaining, I don’t want it. …
By Erin Mihalik ⋅ October 7, 2021
The Past, Present, and Future of Influencer Marketing
Lately, there has been a lot of discussion around social media influencers, their perception by consumers, and their overall value in terms of promotional marketing. But where did this idea for influencer marketing come from? Where will we see it go in the future? For clarity on the topic of influencers, Hootsuite’s influencer marketing guide provided a nice and concise definition of what an influencer is: …
By Erin Mihalik ⋅ September 19, 2021
Waze: Designed with its Users in Mind
Thanks to one of my classmate’s posts, I started thinking about apps, companies, and services that act as a great examples of design thinking. In the article What is Design Thinking by IDEO, design thinking is described as a process that has a human-centered core. “It encourages organizations to focus on the people…
By Erin Mihalik ⋅ July 28, 2021
The Triple Constraint – Marketing Edition
Earlier in the semester, I wrote a class post describing a scenario that I experienced in my day job involving the triple constraint1, and how changing one of the three constraints affected the others in a drastic way. I wanted to think about the triple constraint as it applied to a marketing role and specifically, a marketing campaign. …
By Erin Mihalik ⋅ July 21, 2021
Yale Art School – Amazing Prank or UX nightmare?
Earlier in the semester, I wrote a post for class about Yale Art School’s website1. Taking a look at the website, it becomes an interesting case study to analyze as far as UX design and the use of design principles. For some background, Yale Art School’s website functions as an ongoing collaborative project for Yale’s art students, faculty, staff, and alumni. …
By Erin Mihalik ⋅ July 21, 2021
Gamification Strategy as Brand Activation
Throughout the semester, we talked a lot about brand activation in class. This concept is one that stood out to me the most, because it really goes hand in hand with the whole concept of building a brand with the “why” in focus. What is brand activation? HubSpot provided a nice, succinct definition of it: “Brand activations are in-person events, experiences, …
By Erin Mihalik ⋅ April 17, 2021
Dungeons and Dragons and COVID-19: A Critical Success
This past summer, I became a first-time player of Dungeons and Dragons (D&D). I knew nothing about the game before I started playing, aside from it being a major source of entertainment for the kids in Stranger Things. An article was published by NPR recently titled, “The ‘Critical Role’ of Dungeons and Dragons During the Pandemic” …
By Erin Mihalik ⋅ February 16, 2021
Pokémon Go Meets Environmental Cleanup
Back in October, our cohort was tasked with writing a blog post about a wicked problem taking place in society today. The wicked problem I chose to address was the global problem of climate change and water pollution. This is such a vast problem that it’s hard to break down into small pieces to focus on individual issues we can address and try to solve …
By Erin Mihalik ⋅ November 18, 2020
The Wide World of Esports: How AI is Changing the Game
OK, I’ll admit it: I’ve never been a huge sports fan. I tried for a while to be a New York Giants fan like my dad, but the jersey never quite fit. Video games, however, were far more interesting to me. Lately, I’ve been hearing the term “eSports” more frequently, and a conversation with some gamer friends sparked my curiosity to understand more about this rising phenomenon …
By Erin Mihalik ⋅ October 25, 2020
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