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