In the media industry every opportunity counts . The people you meet may just be the connection to your next job. In B.C there is one common place where lots of people go. This common place is Rogers Arena to watch the Vancouver Canucks. The arena is massive, which makes most people think it’s hard to network. It can be hard to network, but not if you know the right places to look. One of the great places to look is the club section. Big ticket companies buy seats for the year and send various workers through out the year. Being a worker, I don’t get the chance to talk to every single person that comes through the door, but I have met my fair share of big media industry icons.

One of the biggest names I met was Shanel Pratap. It was close to the end of the night and we had two last orders. Normally were only allowed to take one order a time, but because it was the end of the night my manager made an exception. I ran the orders and delivered the food. On my way back up the stairs the hockey game resumed, which met I was forced to sit down. When I sat down I realized Shanel Pratap was right next to me. We got to talking and he said I should come by the station for a tour. I got his email adress and phone number. One months later I got a tour of Global BC.When I got the tour I met another person that I knew. Oddly enough this guy named Arnold worked at Rogers Arena, as well as Global. I got two amazing connections to the best news network in B.C, all thanks to my amazing job.

My job is amazing, but the people I get to meet are even more amazing. Shanel has been the highlight so far, but I look forward to meeting more amazing people. If you don’t have a lot of connections in the city, I strongly recommend working at Rogers Arena. ‎

Twitter has taken the world by storm. It is one of the most successful social media apps in the world and people use it on a daily basis. I will admit that twitter does have some cool aspects. Twitter makes following your favorite sports team, clothing lines and TV shows a lot of fun. It is cool to get the latest announcements and see cool photos. The argument I want to make is that twitter has evolved into something else. It has evolved into something that is a negative part our daily lives.

Think of the biggest tweets. I’m talking about tweets that make the news or even the headlines. Whenever a tweet has made the news it’s because someone has done something dum. It can be an argument between two people, celebrity gossip or a contract dispute. In my years of watching the media I rarely see a positive tweet making headlines. Twitter makes headlines when it revolves around something negative. Twitter operates as a negtaive tool in our society. When someone is in a bad mood they make a tweet and then it is online for the world to see. I always feel for those people, as they didn’t things through before they tweeded. The best juice Twitter gives is when something controversial has happened.

Well there you have it, this is why I can’t stand Twitter. The media outlets have turned into into something negative. Twitter may have its fun aspects, but for me I just don’t like the attention it brings. I will be on other social media platforms, but I don’t think you will see me on Twitter all that often.

As a kid, I loved to make jokes and listen to radio. I knew that media performance was my calling. When I was twelve I heard about this awesome public speaking program called Toastmasters. I joined and fell in love with the program right off the bat. I was given tips on how to improve my vocal skills, make better eye contact and become a better writer. Each week at Toastmasters provided a new challenge that I had to over come. Unfortunately the club I was in closed down when I was fifteen. I had to go look for a new club. I found one, the Ambassadors of Tsawwassen.

The Ambassadors was a whole new experience. I got to work with new speaking coaches. I even got to work with new speakers and mentor them. It was amazing teaching people public speaking skills. As a I got better I entered in a public speaking contest. For the first two years of competing I didn’t win. The third time was the charm. I represented my club in the Toastmaster Table Topic finals and become the number one Table Topics speaker in B.C. In that one moment, all my hard work payed off. It felt good to be number one, but what was even better was the experience. I learned so much about media performance from competing. Even when I lost I learned a lot. Toastmasters was an education that just never stops disbursing new information.

I am proud to have been part of Toastmasters and I feel that it has given me strong media performance skills. When I am on the air I know I will have all the skills I need to be successful. I owe a huge thanks to the Toastmasters International program.

I’m twenty one years old. I have grown up with technology at my finger tips. I am no stranger to touch screens. I had my first iphone when I was 14 years old. It was the IPhone 3GS. I was pretty cool with my IPhone 3GS, but secretly it made me frustrated. I loved to text my friends and keep in contact, but I got made fun of frequently for my texting skills. More of often then not I would mess up my texts. When I tried to hit an H I got a J. I kept my IPhone 3GS for three years. Once my contract was up, I upgraded to the IPhone 4. My texting abilities were still the same, but yet I was even more annoyed. I took my new IPhone 4 on the sky train and I was surrounded by IPhone users. It was in that moment that I realized there was nothing special about my phone. When I’m out in public no one is going to stop me to go “Hey cool phone” or “You have a IPhone?” I realized I was just another Apple drone, which takes me to Blackberry.

I got my Blackberry Classic before I started the Radio and Broadcasting program at BCIT. If I was going to have to be on my phone all day, I needed a keyboard that wasn’t going to drive me crazy all day. When I went into the Telus store I saw that Blackberry Classic had an incredibly sleek key board. I tested it out, then and all of a sudden I wasn’t messing up my texts. It was a perfect match. When I took my new phone onto the sky train I wasn’t a drone anymore. Finally I had a phone where people would go, “Hey you have a Blackberry” or “That’s so cool”. One quality that especially drives it home for me is that Blackberry is a Canadian company. We have so few of those now a days, that we need to support the ones we still have.

I’m in the media industry and I have a phone that does everything for me. I don’t get driven crazy by my messing up constantly when I’m typing. I have a phone that helps me meet new people through having something unique and I’m supporting a Canadian company. I’m Sean Bideshi and I am a loud and proud Blackberry Classic user.