The Park Pirates were shipwrecked- from a brand standpoint, at least. 

When I was hired as Park University's social media manager by rockstar digital marketing director Aimee Patton, she had a mission to give the brand a vibrant and surprising facelift to bring them back to relevancy. There was a lot of work to do: their visual assets lacked a definitive style and their copy had no brand voice. Aimee and I often found that our heads were in the same place during our collaborative relationship, and she gave me complete creative control. Using my powers for good, I completely rebuilt brand guidelines to give #ParkU an approachable, down-to-earth personality that engaged with social media users like a living, breathing person. 

Back then (2017-2019), really slick Instagram curation was a must, so I established a rule that images posted to our social channels, especially Instagram, should include pops of the university's colors, whether subtle or overt. I wanted a user's lizard brain to subconsciously register that they were viewing Park content before their conscious brain did. Furthermore, I strictly forbid photography that looked less than professional (how times have changed on social media!), and my background as a professional photographer became an indispensable asset. My skill in graphic design and familiarity in Adobe Creative Suite came in handy as well, especially when collaborating with high profile partners like The Kansas City Chiefs or the United States Military. I was given access to their brand guidelines, font kits, and logo slicks, among other things, and working within their rigid brand guidelines was daunting at first. However, it soon became second nature, and it became a priceless learning experience in working within the carefully curated guidelines for nationally renowned brands.

I had a number of digital marketing "wins" that are fun to reflect on. Wendy's tweeted back at us once and I thought my boss was going to have a heart attack; to her that meant that Park social had "made it." Wendy's was roasting iHop when they made the decision to change their name to iHob (ugh). We jumped in and I tweeted that Park University was changing its name to Bark University, a college for dogs, to which the infamously witty fast food chain replied "dog college sounds ruff." It was a fun day and I got lots of pats on the back. But it gave me an idea to take Bark University further.

I proposed that, for April Fool's Day, myself and our web team would collaborate on a top secret project to officially change Park University to Bark University for the day. On April1st of that year, our social media followers and website visitors were met with social profiles, social feeds, and our website's landing page subtly transformed. The locations map on our website featured dog bones instead of pinpoint markers. Every photo was changed to dogs doing cute academic stuff. Copy was switched out with dog puns. Our social engagement analytics and website visits for the day were through the roof, and the president was very pleased. At the end of the day we urged people to donate to KC Pet Project and returned to business as usual.

Finally, it was thanks to this role that I became an FAA certified drone pilot. Park's former social media manager had convinced his department to purchase a drone to enhance their social content, but shortly after making the investment, the FAA passed new laws restricting commercial drone use to those who went through the rigorous process to earn a remote unmanned systems piloting certificate. The test is notoriously difficult and the process to train and test for certification was expensive. As a result, nobody felt compelled to go through the certification process, and the aerial equipment the university had just purchased collected dust. Fast forward a few years. As a professional photographer, the my director and the president felt that I'd be capable of accomplishing this task. They paid for my training and testing, and after a long few months of studying (prolonged due to breaking my primary hand), I passed with 98% proficiency. 

Now a for-real, card-carrying drone pilot, I hit the ground running. The timing couldn't have been better: that summer, the Missouri River flooded, and our campus just so happened to be located right across the street in Parkville. I cut my teeth learning to fly a drone through obstacles and risky situations most drone pilots avoid: over highly reflective flood waters, through dense tree branches, around low hanging power lines, and so on. I didn't want to just capture the run of the mill bird's eye view from an impersonal perspective far above the damage. I wanted to get in close to otherwise inaccessible areas to capture the human details of the natural disaster: drowned playgrounds, basketball goals, street signs... these felt more personal to me, and I felt they conveyed the real cost of the devastation. My gut instinct proved to be right when the first drone video I shot and edited to post on Park University social was picked up and broadcast by news networks all over the region, and broadcast nationally on The Weather Channel.

Scrolling back through Park's social feeds, it's fun to see the difference between how it looked and sounded before and after my time steering the ship. It was incredibly distinct both visually and in a copy sense, and I'm very proud of the work I did in my time there.