School's Out for Summer...

Hold that thought! While we have a nice solid break from the hustle and bustle of deadlines each week...we are still hustling.  The Regional Managers have been traveling from coast to coast, our entire office has been recruiting sales teams on each campus, and internally our design team has been designing, tweaking, and completing several internal happenings.

School's out for Summer? Yeah...for those lucky college kids who we read about so often in The Odyssey, but we are still working in full throttle to expand and market our product, and Olympia Media Group as a whole.  From Social Media, to expanding onto 45 college campuses, to training our sales team, to bettering our product and company...we haven't exactly been set into "lax" mode.  Looking at all of the potential this company has, especially with such a young demographic...the visions and possibilities are endless.


Sure...Newspapers are what we do! But, what folks don't know is that there is much more too it than that.  Do yourself a favor and stay in the youthful look by following @OlympiaMedia and @TheOdysseyTweet on twitter! Also, take a look at http://theodysseyonline.com/ for some college entertainment.  You're not getting any younger just sitting there...

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Welcome to our new VP of Recruitment Courtney Bolin. Courtney was a Pi Beta Phi at Indiana University, and graduated in the spring of 2009. We are excited to have her on board!

We are now hiring for the following positions in Indianapolis (the positions with asterisks requires the person to be Greek):

• *Managing Editors - edit articles, manage writers on campuses
• Graphic Designers - design ads and layout newspapers each week
• *Regional Sales Manager - to manage campuses and work with teams on campuses to hit sales goals 
• *National Sales Executives - to make national sales calls and meetings with national clients to sell advertising space in The Odyssey
• Copy Editors - Strictly edit articles each week
• *Account Executive - can talk the talk of designing but is really there to communicate with advertisers and create a relationship and then relay info to designers
• Olympia Design Studio Account Executive - ODS is another part of Olympia Media Group - its our designers and editors that are able to do work on the side and all throughout the summer - we need someone to market ODS and obtain jobs for them to complete
• *Concert Manager/Event Planner - something new we are planning for next year

"In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure."
Bill Cosby

Kelsey Laesch, Managing Editor

School's Out for Summer...

Hold that thought! While we have a nice solid break from the hustle and bustle of deadlines each week...we are still hustling.  The Regional Managers have been traveling from coast to coast, our entire office has been recruiting sales teams on each campus, and internally our design team has been designing, tweaking, and completing several internal happenings.

School's out for Summer? Yeah...for those lucky college kids who we read about so often in The Odyssey, but we are still working in full throttle to expand and market our product, and Olympia Media Group as a whole.  From Social Media, to expanding onto 45 college campuses, to training our sales team, to bettering our product and company...we haven't exactly been set into "lax" mode.  Looking at all of the potential this company has, especially with such a young demographic...the visions and possibilities are endless.

Sure...Newspapers are what we do! But, what folks don't know is that there is much more to it than that.  Do yourself a favor and stay in the youthful look by following @OlympiaMedia and @TheOdysseyTweet on twitter! Also, take a look at http://theodysseyonline.com/ for some college entertainment.  You're not getting any younger just sitting there...

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Welcome to our new VP of Recruitment Courtney Bolin. Courtney was a Pi Beta Phi at Indiana University, and graduated in the spring of 2009. We are excited to have her on board!

We are now hiring for the following positions in Indianapolis (the positions with asterisks requires the person to be Greek):

• *Managing Editors - edit articles, manage writers on campuses
• Graphic Designers - design ads and layout newspapers each week
• *Regional Sales Manager - to manage campuses and work with teams on campuses to hit sales goals 
• *National Sales Executives - to make national sales calls and meetings with national clients to sell advertising space in The Odyssey
• Copy Editors - Strictly edit articles each week
• *Account Executive - can talk the talk of designing but is really there to communicate with advertisers and create a relationship and then relay info to designers
• Olympia Design Studio Account Executive - ODS is another part of Olympia Media Group - its our designers and editors that are able to do work on the side and all throughout the summer - we need someone to market ODS and obtain jobs for them to complete
• *Concert Manager/Event Planner - something new we are planning for next year

"In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure."
Bill Cosby

Kelsey Laesch, Managing Editor

Building Students for Success

Yes, The Odyssey is a newspaper. It is a forum for students to share, express, and discuss whatever they wish with other members of the group. But behind the scenes, it is a business –a business that is ran almost entirely by local students. Each campus leadership team is comprised of young entrepreneurs who work to build and grow their own business. This team works across campus to build relationships with local businesses, develop strategies for better content and grow the overall support within the Greek community.

While many young graduates and interns are gaining their first experience hustling spreadsheets, cold-calling daily or even filing papers, these students have the opportunity to gain hands-on experience in all aspects of running their own division of a company. This experience allows students to better themselves through their own hard-work and our coaching. Developing exceptional organization skills. Learning how to effectively communicate with people of all ages and levels. Gaining experience leading and motivating a team. Setting goals and holding people accountable to them. These are more than just “skills” that anyone can learn, they are strengths which can be developed to set students up to reach their goals in life.
By partnering with current students to build The Odyssey and develop these strengths, we are able to provide an incredible opportunity. These skill sets will continue to grow and help the students involved succeed in both life and business. While building a resume is something every student worries about (or should), it is much more important to learn new things and develop into a well-rounded individual. To be truly successful, students entering the workforce need to be able to handle anything thrown at them and adapt to situations based on what they have previously learned. And I believe college is the time to do this not just in the classroom, but especially outside!

I consider myself exceptionally lucky to do what I do. Working with people I can relate to and working to develop this business for the benefit of local students, the campus leaders, and the whole company is not something many people can say they were involved in. But getting to help students in a position I am not too far removed from makes our growth and success all the more gratifying. And as we continue to partner with student leaders to build The Odyssey into the product I know it can be, every party involved will continue to benefit.

Pat Krouse, Regional Sales Manager

Taming the Information Age

The last time I read anything, rather than skimmed, was early 6th grade. I had a class that taught us how to speed read, and while I'm no where near as fast as I ought to be, I can now get the gist of everything that I read without looking at every word.

Any more with the incredible amounts of information out there, everyone has had to learn to skim to get the meat of the information in as little time as possible.

Sentences are getting shorter. Paragraphs are getting shorter.

And for me, as graphic designer and infographic aficionado, this future is exciting!

Ever wanted to know who's the most bad-ass of the cast of the Expendables? (Click image to see full size)





Or why there's a budget shortfall in the US?


Infographics can tell you that.

In fact, an infographic can do more than just deliver a lot of information in a little amount of time. At their very best, they illustrate relationships between concepts, bringing some new information to light.








And here at The Odyssey, because infographics are so important to this generation of consumers, we've dedicated an average of 2 pages of our newspapers to information visualizations.

Here are some of the highlights from the last semester:






Kathleen Tennant, Designer

Note from the Editor…or rather: Passion from the Editor

Note from the Editor…or rather: Passion from the Editor

I study Glamour, Vogue, Elle, Bazaar…and “The Beat Goes On.”  I scan the sale racks at every department store; I meander through photos, websites, vintage stores, and celebrity media.  What is it that I am looking for?  My passion: FASHION.

Some people like to fish, others enjoy crafts...I enjoy Fashion. I am not one of those people who say they love “fashion” when they really just love to shop and spend money. Of course I love to shop and spend money, but I live and breathe fashion. I love everything about it, really.  I like the mix of prints, the play on patterns, the cut of a shirt, the accessories and color that can make or break an ensemble.

Yeah, I love a lot of things. After all, I am an editor.  I love editing the diverse content we publish here at Olympia Media Group.  I adore writing; it allows me to clear my mind.  As for sports, I have done it all.  I have played basketball, volleyball, golf, tennis, swim team, dive team, soccer, gymnastics, figure skating…(my mom was a busy mom, allowing me to overachieve).  All in all, I am a dancer. My mom taught ballet in our basement, and I started at the age of two.

This is all beside the point though.  We all have passions. We all have dreams.  We all have experience…whether we think it is relative or not. We all have goals…or lack thereof.  I went from activity to activity as a child…meaning I learned to multi-task and prioritize early on in life.  I had to decide what was truly important in my life and what I was truly passionate about.

Now there are passion hobbies, and passion professions.  I am passionate about writing, media, and my career in general.  I am also passionate about dance, health, socializing, cooking, and of course FASHION.  Why live in a world where we have to choose one over the other?  There is no time for that.  Pursue all at once, mix up all your interests, and take and pick what works.  I am not going to lie; I adore getting articles in about fashion. 

What I am saying is: let yourself be passionate about everything you were before you got into the workforce.  Just because you played soccer all through high school and now work in a corporate setting, doesn’t mean you can’t play intramural soccer…or coach a league. Yeah, I get it. We are all busy.  However, if you take a second to think about what is truly important in your life and what is important, you will make time for what you are passionate about.  Bring out the inner you and what makes you happy. Cheers my friend, to another new year with endless opportunities.

XOXO,

K

What You're Not Doing That You Should Be

At the ripe old age of 24, I’m the oldest person on the executive team at Olympia Media Group.  I’m also one of the few people working for this company that has had any prior post-college work experience.  And, what I’ve realized since joining the team last summer is that it would benefit a lot of companies if they took a page from our playbook.  When I say that, do I mean that they should start a company in the middle of an industry that is “dying,” hire a handful of 22-24 year olds to run separate divisions of that company, set up shop in a bagel factory in the middle of a sweltering Indiana summer with no air conditioning, blast mashups and 80’s music throughout the office on a daily basis, throw all political correctness out the window, and allow starting a weekend pre-game at the office because there’s a lot of work to do but also a lot of playing to do?  Kind of, but not exactly.

The reason that we do all of these things isn’t because there’s some overwhelming reason to do them, it’s because there isn’t an overwhelming reason not to do them.  Call it genius, or call it being “kids” that have decided to jump in and then learn how to swim because we’re too impatient to do it the other way around, but we are constantly asking ourselves why we’re doing what we’re doing, and why we aren’t implementing a new idea that we came up with while sitting around a wobbly card table in an old factory.

We constantly ask ourselves “Why? ” and “Why not?” because we know that there are only 2 outcomes: we either confirm that the way we’re doing something is the best way for us to do it, or we deciding that there is a better way to do it, and quickly make that change.  Knowing what I know now, I would venture to guess that most companies don’t ask themselves these questions often enough because they don’t like the answers that they know they’ll come up with.  Companies grow, and companies develop systems and processes, but if they don’t constantly ask themselves why they’re doing things a certain way, how they can do those things better, and most importantly encourage every employee to subscribe to this philosophy, they might grow, slowly… but in this rapidly changing, innovation-driven economy, it’s more than likely that they’re going nowhere, fast.

Jordan Roraus, Regional Sales Manager

A Unique Blend of Form and Function

Innovation is not a suggestion here but to us it's a state of mind.  As a young graduate from Ball State University in 2008, I realize a blank canvas stands in front of me waiting to foreshadow future endeavors with imagination and brilliance.  As I continue to grow with what is projected to be a multi-million dollar company and make a name for myself and my colleagues, I see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Being within a team environment where the average age is around 23, shows that we all have high ambition along with high expectations for one another.  We rely on our colleagues to produce high quality and high quantity work to support our name....and that alone is worth all the hard work and time invested.  Why a unique blend of form & function?  Our team works to get the job done, no matter the circumstances.  But, we also choose to do so, in a well balanced and structured agenda.  

We aren't your average black and white newspaper, we bring color and vibrance to a slowly failing print concept.  We have something to prove and we show it.  Around here we laugh in the face of impossible.  You may hear rumors about print dying, but we are looking to revamp what is already a popular concept.  While dealing with new & existing clientele, you realize how much impact you actually have on there overall appearance.  As a Graphic Artist I want to be able to showoff as much as possible and give clients a look they can be proud of.  

At Olympia Media Group, I have the opportunity to use my wide array of graphic capabilities.    Between designing ads, layouts and illustrating I stay busy yet content with our progress as a team.  This company is growing rapidly and I am excited to be a part of it.  There is always a chance to make an impression....why not do it with The Odyssey?!

"Never let your fear of striking out keep you from playing the game."

Clay Rebber, Designer