Digital Frontiers

It’s Wednesday. This Saturday you’re going to throw the best house party University Commons has ever seen. You rented out the club house, you invited all your slam pieces, it’s going to be a good night. Then it hits you: you forgot you have a Finance exam this Friday, and you haven’t started studying for it yet. Now that all your time and money is spent on borrowing Tutoring Zone packets and purchasing various stimulants, how will you have time to acquire all the necessary party supplies to do your part in making UF the #2 party school in the nation?

That’s where Party In a Box comes in. When you’re in a pinch, Party In a Box is your end-all-be-all party supplier. In a nutshell, it is a literal box containing everything a college students needs to throw a party.

There are a variety of boxes for a variety of standard college party themes, such as:

• Office Bros and Corporate Hoes
• Tennis Pros and Golf Hoes
• GI Joes and Army Hoes
• Anything But Clothes and Hoes
• A Romantic Night In Paris…and Hoes

The boxes carry specific party supplies relevant to the theme, but for the most part each box includes at the very least:

• A foldout bar
• Plastic shot cups (100)
• Red plastic cups (100)
• Shaker
• Deck of cards
• Condoms (2)
• Ping Pong balls (8)
• Disposable camera
• Coozies (10)
• Keg tap
• A costume and decorations relevant to the theme

The box itself has built in speakers and a small LCD screen that only links to Frat Music.com or The Gainesvillains Pre-Game Mixtapes, depending on your tastes.

Advertising for such a product would not be that difficult, as long as we could stay up to date with current college party trends. Building some sort of community where Party Boxers could share pictures and videos of themselves using the Party Box, as well as participate in a forum to discuss future Party Box themes, costumes, party supply suggestions, and the like, would allow us to not only stay relevant, but also to build a word-of-mouth aspect to our product. For example, Party Boxers could upload pictures of their parties and vote for who had the craziest picture or party in general. Party Boxers will tell their friends, “Hey, check out this insane picture of two chicks Jell-O wrestling inside one of those Party Boxes at UF,” driving traffic to the website and hopefully showcasing our product in a light that would cause a visitor to buy a Party Box.

There are many other media platforms to be utilized, such as a Facebook fan page, Youtube account, etc, which can all contribute to advertising and marketing for the Party Box, but our most essential tool would be building a platform that would allow others to submit their own content to our site.

Party In a Box – “It’s even better than a party in your pants.”

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It’s impossible to list all the things the internet is used for. Even if I attempted to write it all down in a numbered list, by the time I hit the bottom, there would be another 10,000 new things to add to it (if that even makes sense). Hopefully I can just try to describe it in one sentence:

The internet is used to upgrade life to version 2.0

By “life,” I mean every possible thing that encompasses being alive on this planet, from intellectual, to emotional, to spiritual, and everything in between. The internet is an attachment to life. You could think of it as an extra brain. Its uses are endless, just like uses of you as a person.

These unlimited possibilities tie directly to the issue of freedom of speech on the internet. Unlimited possibilities also means the possibility of vulgar, harmful, and terrible actions on the internet. While there are talks of the government imposing regulation of the internet, I feel like very little has been done. It may be because the government is full of old people who don’t understand the internet very well, and therefore are writing ineffective laws against it. It may also be because the internet is so vast that it would be impossible to stop every offender, so why bother trying? It’s like the police attempting to arrest every underage drinker at a Gator game. In the end, they’re still going to miss 80% of offenders, so why even bother? How do I know? Because I’ve photoshopped and uploaded many pictures of people into obviously fake and possibly offensive pictures, and never once been sued.

I personally feel like any effort to regulate the internet is futile. It’s too large to be regulated. Even though largely blanketed and obvious laws are imposed now (downloading music for free is illegal, no matter how you got it or what you plan to do with it), there are too many small websites that will go ahead and just do it, because they know they probably won’t get caught. That’s why I’m not really worried about government regulation of the internet. If they make something illegal, we’ll just do it anyway. Once you’ve been spoiled with total freedom, there’s no going back.

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User-Generated Content (UGC) has allowed the human race to come together and advance our knowledge as a whole on pretty much any topic you can think of, from inventing new ways to browse the internet to answering any question an encyclopedia can’t.
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To put it simply, conversion marketing is the art of converting a marketing strategy into something of value, such as increased sales or increased brand awareness.
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The most successful people in the world always had someone supporting their life achievements behind the scenes. Warren Buffet had Charlie Munger. Steve Jobs had Steve Wozniak. Vincent Chase had Ari Gold. However, not everyone has the luxury of an amazing colleague to bounce ideas off of and start new businesses with, so they settle with Personal Assistants. I’m looking much deeper than that. In this economy, anyone can have a personal assistant under the guise of “unpaid internship, but the experience is priceless!” I don’t want to work for someone whose only talent is creating vague job descriptions. I want to work for someone with standards, someone of a higher caliber when it comes to assistants. Just like P. Diddy had Fonzworth Bentley, I want to become the epitome of success in the “holding umbrellas for famous people” industry.

The history of “holding umbrellas for people more important than you” is longer than you’d think. Umbrella holders have been found throughout history, ranging from the Renaissance:

To modern art:

The industry remained fairly stagnant for the past 4000 years. Then, one man came along and revolutionized it all: Fonzworth Bentley. As I mentioned before, Fonzworth was hired to hold P. Diddy’s umbrella, because Diddy doesn’t have time for manual labor, and his hands are too pretty to get dirty. Fonzworth seemed like just an ordinary man holding an ordinary umbrella for an extraordinary man, but what set him apart from the pack was his impeccable style, particularly steadfast forearms, and his natural hustling intuition.

Within a year, Fonzworth Bentley went from a critically acclaimed umbrella holder to a critically acclaimed umbrella holder with a record deal and line of personally designed umbrellas. He has been frequently called the “Genghis Khan of shade.” His success is so great, he even has his own umbrella holder.

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Fonzworth has set the bar high for potential umbrella holders, but his one drawback is his ability to innovate. He may have revolutionized the abilities of an average umbrella holder, but his position is quickly becoming obsolete thanks to advances in industry technology.

While the long-term future remains hazy, the short-term remains bright. The industry as a whole is very unprofessional, and very few are trained in the fine arts of umbrella holding.

It’s clear, I’m destined to become the guy that gets paid to keep celebrities from getting too tan, or in Diddy’s case, from getting too sweaty as he’s enjoying a fine glass of Cambodian breast milk. I can only hope my Finance degree here at the University of Florida trains me adequately to become the most useful member of a successful person’s entourage, and by “Finance degree,” I mean “Tutoring Zone lectures.”

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I’m not trying to minimize the plight in Haiti, but the definition of “value” does bring up some interesting questions. As stated in class, value can be measured in a variety of ways, such as:

• Dollars earned
• Time saved
• Awareness raised
• Puppies present

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Excellent presentation skills are key to having not only a successful career, but a successful life. Clear communication is critical in every aspect of your world, from the Power Point presentation on projected sales growth you give to your boss, to the game you spit on that hottie from across the bar. Steve Jobs is the epitome of effective communication and presentation ability, so it’s no wonder why there have been books written on his style.

1. His techniques make him likable as a person
Dynamic, energetic, informative, entertaining. There are all positive adjectives that describe Steve’s presentation techniques, and to be honest, would also be great qualities to have as a human being. You hate it when your professor drones on about Economics in a monotonous voice, right? Same thing applies to how you talk to your coworkers, your friends, and members of the opposite sex. If you keep failing at the club, I suggest getting close to a girl, gently grab her by the waist, and whisper in her ear, “I want to put my laptop in your envelope.”

2. His techniques allow him to succeed in the business world.
Looking to climb the corporate ladder? See yourself as the future CEO? Managers need to be leaders, motivational, and good communicators. If you can’t show that to your boss, then enjoy the next 40 years relating to Dilbert comics.

3. His techniques are highly mimicked
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. It’s a good feeling to be adored and copied by others. I’m sure you’ve met someone with terrible presentation skills in your life. No one wants to be your Financial Accounting TA, but everyone wants to be Steve Jobs. You should strive to be the type of person other people want to be. Be less terrible, and more amazing.

There you have it. As a college student, I have to say my favorite kind of “job” is a Steve Job, and I hope it’s yours as well.

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I’m Shaan Saigol, and I’m a second year Finance major with a minor in Mass Communication here at the University of Florida.  Outside of the classroom, I am heavily involved with my fraternity, and I am currently working towards my goal of becoming a world renowned DJ, musician, and blogger.

I have always had a passion for technology for as long as I can remember. I taught myself HTML in 6th grade, took various web design and graphic design classes in high school, taught myself how to use many digital audio workstations and how to program synthesizers, and recently started my own online blog with a couple friends called The Gainesvillains, a blog discussing everything about being a college student, and more specifically about being a college student in Gainesville. You can also follow us on Twitter, Youtube, and Myspace. Feel free to also add me as a friend on Facebook, just let me know who you are.

I am fascinated with sociology, technology, music, and how they all work together. I hope to gain more insight as to how these ideas work together, and to hear real world examples and results that I can possibly apply in my own ventures as a blogger, musician, and DJ. On a side note: my favorite company is Google. I feel like they are the most innovative company of our time, and not only are they ahead of the curve in terms of technology, business practices, and corporate culture, they are creating the curve as well. I’m also a fan of their very simple aesthetic designs and simple to use applications.

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