• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Megan Sharkey

Fox School of Business

November 11, 2022 By Megan Sharkey Leave a Comment

The Layoff Effect: E Portfolio 3

Layoffs Pile Up as the Stock Market Falters

During the pandemic, it seemed there was one industry that was experiencing unprecedented growth; technology. It appeared that the most well-known tech giants were hiring for many roles, from Microsoft, Meta (FKA Facebook), Amazon, and Oracle. However, after the pandemic began to wind down, the layoffs began. One by one, the LinkedIn posts started popping off about layoffs, the news was covering it, and I was right in the middle. I was hired and had been working at a large tech company when these layoffs began for about two years. I was terrified that my role may be impacted, but my department was safe. For now, at least. However, friends of mine were not. They received a call that morning alerting them that it was their final day of employment. Just like that, no warning, just a phone call and two years wiped away from them. After that phone call from the vice president of her industry alerting her to this news, she received no messages from her direct managers, coworkers, or HR reps. They were devastated and blamed leadership for these actions.

But how exactly does this tie into class? Our discussion on leadership and how to be a great manager got me thinking about this situation. This situation and many other similar ones highlight how you can wash away a large market of potential employees by laying off thousands of dedicated employees.
Although these companies faced layoffs, they will need to hire someone at some point. With the number of layoffs that took place, someone overqualified for the role may decide not to apply since they may know someone impacted, which will deter them from applying.
Additionally, the amount of LinkedIn posts floating around about layoffs and speculating why they took place showed how word of mouth could destroy a brand’s reputation, no matter how strong it once was. I saw many people let go from my work discussing their layoffs on LinkedIn and how it was connected to a recent acquisition. Due to the high price the company had spent, they had no choice but to let a large portion of their workforce go to help pay for it. Despite understanding the business side of this – where is the human understanding? The ethics? The value?
These tech companies that were once the ideal workplace became a place that everyone stayed away from because of the concern of additional layoffs on the horizon.
As a manager and higher leadership, I think my managers did great in being clear, transparent, and fighting for us. They were honest about the situation and weren’t sure about the next steps but promised to fight for us. They also promised that if something were to happen, they would help us get back on our feet and find a new role. These simple steps solidified in my mind that my managers are great at their positions but also great humans. The behaviors they exhibited encouraged me to stay in my current role and feel loyalty to them.
If more managers and leaders took this approach, even those laid off would have had fewer negative thoughts about the company and a higher likelihood of recommending them to others.

 

Sources

  1. https://www.reliableplant.com/Read/29259/managing-layoffs#:~:text=Communicate%20openly%20and%20honestly.,glossing%20over%20the%20real%20situation. 
  2. Image website: https://www.barrons.com/visual-stories/layoffs-netflix-carvana-peloton-robinhood-01652966705 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

October 7, 2022 By Megan Sharkey Leave a Comment

To Blog Or Not To Blog

blog photoWorking at a Fortune 500 tech company, you may think we have our mobile and desktop layouts figured out for optimal viewing experience. Well, like many, we don’t! This has impacted the number of eyes we get on our blogs, announcements, PR, and more. Our blog is where customers can visit to become more updated with all the latest news and information about our company. So where is the problem, you may ask? Well, the blog is only viewable on a desktop, and it is not mobile-friendly at all. 

Let’s back up; I work as a product marketing manager for a company acquired by a huge entity in the utility industry. As someone new working in the industry, I had a lot to learn and one of those things was that blogs and other releases are a huge focus for us. We use these blogs to push out our messaging, success, and latest announcements to customers on LinkedIn. Traditionally, companies may push our announcements on social channels, via email, or in conferences, but the utility industry is very different. We are only active on LinkedIn and rely on word of mouth from happy customers compared to being able to send out announcements, social blasts, etc. 

Despite the focus on providing blog-based content, my company has been facing the problem that when the blogs are uploaded, they do not appear to be easily readable on mobile devices. We have seen a few issues, including that the text gets overlapped on each other, formats are inconsistent throughout the blog, and the zoom function is not working. Although these issues do not happen on all blogs uploaded, they are happening enough that we have gotten complaints from customers, and the blogs become unreadable, which we will know will push customers to stop reviewing our content since they will assume it does not work/can be viewed. 

An additional note is that our organization has recently faced layoffs, budget constraints, and other roadblocks that have made quality assurance a bit more complicated. Despite these roadblocks, we continue to focus on blog production and making sure we are pushing the best content possible. But after the content is done and shared to a platform that does not allow users to view it properly unless, on a particular device, it almost seems to be a waste of time until this problem is resolved. 

We touched on this in class but also, as a younger individual, I have the experience that proves that more people are now using their phones as a research resource rather than their traditional computers. I even researched this topic further to prove my point to my managers that we need to look into how we can begin to tackle this issue. Given our budget issues, I understand that this may be difficult, but it must be a priority if we hope to give customers a place to reference our success. 

 

Questions & comments are welcome. I would love to hear how you would go about showing managers and VPs the importance of this topic.

Sources

  1. https://www.broadbandsearch.net/blog/mobile-desktop-internet-usage-statistics 
  2. https://www.shiftelearning.com/blog/mobile-vs-desktop-reading-elearning

Filed Under: Uncategorized

September 17, 2022 By Megan Sharkey Leave a Comment

So Many Platforms Such Little Time!

searching photo

As someone who works in marketing, understanding which platforms are the best to post on is seemingly an easy task. However, it becomes a much more complex task when there are so many different platforms to choose from and understand which has the best outreach for your specific audience. Currently, I work at a large technology corporation that is also invested in various markets, including food & beverage, healthcare, & utilities. I work in the public utility pillar, and with that come many industry veterans who have a vast understanding of the market. While this is great for understanding how products work and our target customers, it challenges our social strategy since social marketing is changing daily. 

As the youngest person in the office and someone with a broad understanding of social media marketing and its benefits, I have been fighting for more social media opportunities. Currently, we are only using LinkedIn as our social media outreach resource. I have been gathering information and putting together a case for why introducing more channels would be beneficial.

So how does this tie into class? Good question; after discussing similar topics in class and completing the Social Media Marketing Foundations LinkedIn learning, I downloaded the overview sheet and used that to discuss the benefits of introducing Instagram and Facebook accounts to increase our customer traffic. 

My company right now has LinkedIn and Twitter that provides VERY little engagement from current and potential customers, which is why I think we need to search across other channels. My argument for introducing Instagram and Facebook came after understanding how that ties in with our current marketing and target audience. Our audience that we are trying to meet and gain buy-in from is utility companies who are searching for a cloud platform to condense services & promote savings. With the target market, many of the decision makers we face are older individuals who may not be on the latest platforms but are on the “easy” to understand ones and search for information on them. 

While many of my colleagues have argued that introducing a Facebook account would not be the best move, I disagree. With the age range of our target audience, Facebook fits perfectly, as well as the obvious fact that nearly everyone, regardless of age, has a Facebook. The same can not be said for Tik Tok, Twitter, & Snapchat. 

Instagram and Facebook provide a low-cost way to offer more engagement among customers since we can post our win stories, blogs, and more on those channels as regular or sponsored posts. The low-cost targeted AD option also raises green flags since we could target those who have looked up utility providers or are listed on their profile as working at a utility. Additionally, given the size of both platforms, I think we would be reaching a much larger audience than we currently are. 

Overall, I believe introducing these two platforms would provide more engagement and insights into our customer base and generate more leads. Given our primary focus right now on generating new pipeline and our low budget, I think introducing these platforms will help us see real results at a low cost.

 

  1. So, what do you think would be the best platform for utility marketing?
  2. Would you want to follow your utility provider on socials? Why or why not?

 

Referenced Resource: Social Media Marketing Foundations: The Pros and Cons of Each Social Network

Filed Under: Uncategorized

July 26, 2022 By Megan Sharkey Leave a Comment

How MIS5109 Impacted My View Of Websites (Eport 3)

UX photo

 

At the start of the semester, I didn’t think I would become as invested in how Websites look as I am now. 

In this semester’s UX class, we dove head first into the design, layout, and nitty gritty of what is excellent, bad, and weird about different websites. 

During this course, we focused on different principles to help understand what contributes to a good and bad website. A few of those I found most interesting to focus on include;

  1. Schemes & structures 
  2. Labeling systems 
  3. Navigation systems 
  4. Search systems 
  5. Constraints
    1. technical
    2. political 
    3. system 
    4. user

Throughout the course, we analyzed what makes a good website and how the user’s experience is the base of it all. We used the above principles to help us identify whether the website’s colors, accessibility, images,& search functions, create an easy-to-use website for users. These concepts also help us understand the potential popularity of the site. One example is Zara, a well-known European clothing brand with unprecedented popularity worldwide. However, despite the success of the brick and mortar, Zara’s website is known as one of the worst user experiences online. The website is difficult to navigate, offers little accessibility for those with vision or hearing disabilities, and scrolling is nearly impossible. Before completing this course, if I were to visit the website, I may think it was a bizarre layout with some quirks. Now, I can see all the issues and question why such a large and successful retailer does not put more effort into creating a more functional website. 

On the flip side, despite learning concepts about design, it all falls to user interaction. If the user likes the layout, but the designers think it’s horrid, the company will generally keep the site since customers react positively. An example of this that we touched on in class is Urban Outfitters. Urban is another well-known clothing company that mainly markets itself to teenagers and young adults interested in boho and hipster fashion. The website has many different themes simultaneously instead of sticking to a single color scheme and overall message. Despite the website having no consistency and seemingly not following design guidelines, some customers, including me, seem to love it. In class, our professor and many students agreed that the website looks clustered, unplanned, and has no theme, but to myself and other classmates, we feel it fits the “hipster” and “not like other people” theme. So, again it is up to interpretation. 

Overall, I would recommend this course to everyone. Even if you do not have a passion for design or websites, you learn a lot and have newfound respect or confusion about website designers. 

Questions:

  1. Would you like to take a course like this? 
  2. Have you ever noticed the small details of a website? If so, what have you seen? If not, what do you think you may notice after reading this article. 

Sources:

  1. https://digitalmarketing.temple.edu/2022summer5102and5109/wp-content/uploads/sites/459/2022/06/design-thinking-copy.pdf
  2. https://digitalmarketing.temple.edu/2022summer5102and5109/wp-content/uploads/sites/459/2022/05/Information-Arc.pdf

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: UX

July 16, 2022 By Megan Sharkey Leave a Comment

Tik-Tok’s UX: Innovation or Redundant? – MIS 5109 E Port 2

tik tok photo

 

It is safe to assume that all of us are familiar with Tik-Tok by now. Whether you love or hate the app, it is everywhere. As the app grows, we see it is being used more for marketing purposes and pushing our products to consumers. But before the user can be influenced, we need to take a step back and look at the design of Tik-Tok and if the swipe-up design is innovative or has been seen before.

If you are one of the few unfamiliar with Tik Tok, it is an app available on all smartphones. Users download the app and can make short videos of them doing anything – dancing, cooking, giving advice, or even pranking people. This concept is not new; we saw the rise of short-form videos take off in 2014 with the rise of Vine, an almost identical platform that saw short-term success. Vine’s success and downfall bring into question whether Tik Tok will see the same fate?
I think a significant factor is looking deeper into the user experience of the two and understanding why so many people love Tik Tok.

Tik Toks user experience incorporates aspects of other popular apps such as Instagram, Vine, and Snapchat in a user-friendly and intuitive. Upon opening the app, you will see a plus sign at the bottom of the screen, which most users know means to add or create something. The user can create and edit their short video when the button is clicked. Users can also add filters, a caption, and hashtags to gain traction on their videos, similar to the Instagrams algorithm.
When it comes to the primary function of watching user videos, users can swipe up or down to see new or previous videos. When a video is seen and liked, a user can easily double tap the screen to “like” or heart the video. This process also feeds into the algorithm and will bring up more videos similar to those that the user likes. The concept of swiping and liking posts is not new. We have seen this in some of the most popular apps, such as Instagram, Tinder, and Twitter. However, Tik Tok is different; they have made the user feel they are in an endless scroll where there will never be an end. Compared to other apps such as Instagram, the user generally gets to a point where they had scrolled back far enough to see the first photo they saw when they last logged in.

Additionally, Tik Tok recently changed the explore tab to a friends tab where users can now see what their friends are posting instead of curated videos that Tik Tok believes they will enjoy. Users can use the search bar at the top of the page on the friend’s tab to search for hashtags, other users, or anything else. I think this new tab is not only intuitive but beneficial for those who want to see what their friends are up to. This tab is very similar to Instagram since it only features the people you have decided to follow instead of random people.

With all this in mind, we need to review our initial question: is the design redundant? I believe no. I think that while Tik Tok undoubtedly took significant aspects of other apps, such as the swiping features and double tapping to like, the platform did not steal color schemes, explore page format, or share video functions from similar apps. Furthermore, I believe that every good concept at some point is taken and adapted to become even more successful, and in the case of Tik Tok came in when the market was hot, and users knew what they did and did not want.

What do you think? Did Tok Tok steal their user experience design(s)?

Filed Under: Uncategorized

July 16, 2022 By Megan Sharkey Leave a Comment

Why PPMs are a Crucial Component in a company’s success – E-portfolio 1 (MIS 5102)

project management photo

 

When I started this course, I have to admit; that I was confused about why this was relevant to marketing. Although I understood project management is a beneficial skill throughout any organization, why was it included in this program? It is safe to assume that the concept of project management is something the majority of us think we understand and use daily. However, many of us don’t know what it means or entails. That’s why I wanted to share my top takeaways and essential skills I learned about in this course and why I think everyone should understand and utilize them.

PPM is an acronym for project portfolio management; I mentioned this since it is the same acronym used for my work title and I was utterly confused for the first ten minutes of our class. 

Anyway, PPM strives to answer five main questions, which are, 

  1. Are we investing in the right things?
  2. Are we optimizing our capacity?
  3. How well are we executing?
  4. Can we absorb all the changes?
  5. Are we realizing the promised benefits?

These questions strive to learn about the projects we are working on and if they tie into our bigger picture as a company. Furthermore, these questions help us understand if we are using our time to the best of our ability. To reinforce this concept, we read a case study on Car Max, highlighting the importance of all these questions. Car Max was investing money in creating too many software-driven updates and not enough into R&D. The updates they were making, while significant, were not crucial to the customer or driving the company towards the future. 

All of the above questions fall under the role of a project manager, which is someone who, as you may have guessed, manages the status, execution, and results of projects. The title project manager has always been one that interests me but also confused me. What does one do in this role apart from understanding a project’s status? How do they get their feet wet? Do they even do anything for the project, or are they watching it unfold? Well, this course taught me project managers are not only essential to the success of nearly everything in the business but also can make or break successful launches. 

Project managers do much more than check in on the status of projects with the creators; while this is an aspect, they do much more. Project managers are responsible for making sure employees understand the who, what, when, & why of a project. Additionally, this role involves jumping in and doing the heavy lifting when those under you need help. This position also requires an understanding of strict deadlines and budgets. PMs need to remain aware of how much they are spending, possible roadblocks, timelines, and employees’ workload. All of these contribute to the success of projects but require hands in many baskets and sticky notes. 

These concepts have provided insight into what I can do to help those in this role at my current job and how I can better help my team be successful, keeping in mind some of the concepts related to project portfolio management. The most important idea I have started implementing into my daily life is asking myself; are we investing in the right things? I ask myself this since my team has a stringent budget and can not stray from that. When completing or being asked to participate in projects, I constantly ask how this will help us/ our customers and why? Why is this project beneficial to us investing in our limited budget? This question has already helped my team, and I eliminated one project we had on the books due to being unable to answer that question adequately.

I have to admit, although I had reservations about this course, I learned how to become more productive, research better, and create a more successful environment for my team. 

I would love to hear all of your key takeaways from this course. 

Photo by VFS Digital Design

Filed Under: Uncategorized

  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

My information

  • About Me
  • My Interests
  • My Resume
  • Work Experience

Recent Posts

  • The Layoff Effect: E Portfolio 3
  • To Blog Or Not To Blog
  • So Many Platforms Such Little Time!
  • How MIS5109 Impacted My View Of Websites (Eport 3)
  • Tik-Tok’s UX: Innovation or Redundant? – MIS 5109 E Port 2
  • Why PPMs are a Crucial Component in a company’s success – E-portfolio 1 (MIS 5102)

Copyright © 2023 · Megan Sharkey
Disclaimer: The information included in e-portfolios are posted and maintained by the applicable student. Temple University makes no representation as to the accuracy or currency of this information.