PBASICally Maddie
Maddie the Intern
Posts: 81
Hey Everyone,
As a marketing intern, with no microcontroller experience at all, I decided to keep a record of working through the Boe-Bot robot kit.
Here's the link to the Blog: http://pbasicallymaddie.blogspot.com/
There's also links to other Parallax Inc extras, like to·the Flickr website that hosts the photos from the UPEW and Made in the USA machines.
Thanks Everybody!
Maddie the Intern
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"Life's like a movie, write your own ending, keep believing, keep pretending..." -The Muppets
"I've never seen a smiling face that was not beautiful."
As a marketing intern, with no microcontroller experience at all, I decided to keep a record of working through the Boe-Bot robot kit.
Here's the link to the Blog: http://pbasicallymaddie.blogspot.com/
There's also links to other Parallax Inc extras, like to·the Flickr website that hosts the photos from the UPEW and Made in the USA machines.
Thanks Everybody!
Maddie the Intern
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"Life's like a movie, write your own ending, keep believing, keep pretending..." -The Muppets
"I've never seen a smiling face that was not beautiful."
Comments
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I took a bit of marketing in school and was fascinated by "color psychology". Companies spend millions of dollars researching which the best colors are to put on their toothpaste or soda pop can. Unfortunately this is all kept secret by the companies. But you can cheat a bit. Go to a men's department in a store and notice the colors of products. Then to the women's section. Then go to an upscale store and notice the colors on the products there. Figure out who you want to sell your product to, then research the products they typically buy and what colors they are.
A few times in the past I was able to visit the marketing research departments of vehicle manufacturers. These were small buildings by themselves miles away from the main company offices. They were "think tanks" and I suspect they did not want the employees of the company to "pollute" their marketing research. What I saw there on the walls everywhere were pictures of ordinary people and what they were using their vehicles for. Cars with bikes, skis, or whatever on the roof. Things piled in the trunk or inside the car. Accessories people had added to their vehicles like lights, stereos, speakers, etc. (I suspect they were researching what people used their vehicles for so they could design future vehicles to accommodate those things.)
Then last but not least, I recently read a book about P.T. Barnum. That man was truly the "master" of marketing! Although I would never have the nerve to pull some of the publicity stunts he engineered... He once bought a farm next to railroad tracks (passenger trains went by with a few reporters on them) and had an elephant plowing his field anytime a train went by! The book is "The Fabulous Showman" by Irving Wallace.
Addall.com used book search price ascending...
Post Edited (bill190) : 7/15/2010 2:22:09 AM GMT
To the forum members, I have to tell you about Madison's role at Parallax.
Madison showed up around the same time that our Marketing Manager (Lauren) went on maternity leave. As Lauren and I work together this left a lot for me to do. Initially I took Lauren's absence a bit too casually because I had worked in her position in the past [noparse][[/noparse]when our work was less sophisticated]. But reality set in after two days and I knew I was in trouble - even simple things like announcing products, pricing, and related daily efforts couldn't be accomplished in an efficient manner due to interruptions, lack of awareness about her procedures, etc. Bump and Jen had their hands full with the web site and took up portions of Lauren's work, but the rest still needed to get done.
Is it true a high school graduate headed for college could be useful for some of this work? Yes! I think I had the impression that young employees would function only with short-term tasks and extensive oversight. I was wrong on that one. Her motivation was strong. And out of necessity Maddie had to quickly function on her own with minimal direction. It was easy to let her run with the project because people around her would help out; forum members and customers would accept and support an intern just as well (we have the best customers of any business, I assure you); and Parallax is a place where you get a chance to do it all so the work would be interesting. Aside from technical details about how to do something in particular, our biggest direction to Maddie has been "put yourself out there and make your own decisions - we'll share the technical details of doing a particular task but you're going to have run with it on your own".
At this moment Maddie is saving my bacon.
Some of the things she is doing already include:
- Preparing video tours of Parallax
- Documenting the UPEW event with photos
- Sending promotional e-mail to thousands of customers
- Distributor communication about new products
- Running her own blog, without our direction
- Improving our Made in the USA web pages
- Research about our next steps with our solar energy business (whether we provide applications, products, or both)
If you get a chance, work with an intern. They'll not only show you something you didn't know but you'll also be giving them an experience that is now more necessary than ever before.
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Ken Gracey
Parallax Inc.
Follow me at http://twitter.com/ParallaxKen for some insider news.
Post Edited (Ken Gracey (Parallax)) : 7/15/2010 5:06:16 AM GMT
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Links to other interesting threads:
· Home of the MultiBladeProps: TriBlade,·RamBlade,·SixBlade, website
· Single Board Computer:·3 Propeller ICs·and a·TriBladeProp board (ZiCog Z80 Emulator)
· Prop Tools under Development or Completed (Index)
· Emulators: CPUs Z80 etc; Micros Altair etc;· Terminals·VT100 etc; (Index) ZiCog (Z80) , MoCog (6809)·
· Prop OS: SphinxOS·, PropDos , PropCmd··· Search the Propeller forums·(uses advanced Google search)
My cruising website is: ·www.bluemagic.biz·· MultiBlade Props: www.cluso.bluemagic.biz
It's great to see another girl posting here on the board.
Perhaps you will come to love this geeky stuff and decide
to switch from marketing to hacking uC's
I caught the programming bug a few years
ago and now I'm totally addicted...I love it
Hello to you too!
@bill190- thanks for the thoughts (the link to The Fabulous Showman is open in another window- I'll be checking it out in a minute!)
@HollyMinkowski- I agree! this is some amazing and interesting stuff! I'm spreading the word to my friends that programming opens many new doors...
I'll see if I can pass along that bug [noparse]:)[/noparse]
-Maddie the Intern
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"Life's like a movie, write your own ending, keep believing, keep pretending..." -The Muppets
"I've never seen a smiling face that was not beautiful."
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Jessica Uelmen
Education Department
Parallax Inc.
Something quite interesting is going on over in the Propeller forum (Android). That is interest in getting cell phones to control Propellers and Stamps to do things.
Like start your car to warm it up or turn things on/off from your cell phone.
I think this is going to be BIG!!! A logical "next step" with cell phones...
So the question is, what do people like to do with cell phones?
What would people LIKE to be able to do with their cell phones?
What would be neat "sick" if you could do that with your cell phone?
(Think magic... Maybe be able to look at baby via a camera in the baby's room? Turn on the lawn sprinklers? Turn on the outside lights when you come home at night? Activate a car alarm/horn if someone bothers you when walking to your car in a parking lot? Etc.)
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- Stephen