The business panel was incredibly inspiring and informative. While entrepreneurship is often viewed as a wealthy practice, there’s a lot more risk that goes into the occupation than meets the eye. The entrepreneurs present on the panel were John Dinkel of Dinkel Business Development, our very own Chris Daley of Whirlaway PR, Andrew Murphy of Flying Frog Publishing, Elizabeth Trimm of Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Andy Brown of Eat Pizza, and Garrett Pfiefer of Maryland Brand Management. All of them provided their own informative and sometimes humorous stories when answering questions pertaining to their experiences. What I found most interesting was that Andy Brown of Eat Pizza had graduated from Stevenson in 2012, and has been working in Virginia with three businesses ever since. He talked about how he began as a DJ, and never would have thought he would be signing with the Greene Turtle his recipe for pizzas. That was a very inspiring story for me to hear, among others. When talking about how business and personal life mix, Elizabeth Trimm talked about how she was a single mother, so she didn’t have much of a choice to do otherwise but to mix the two. That was another inspiring story because not only did she pursue her passion, but was able to care for her family.
The panel relates to the information in the digital publishing course in terms of how a business presents themselves. In digital publishing, we focus on the context and genres of companies, who they are trying to reach and who the companies are. That’s essentially what good businesses do, analyzing themselves as well as others, and finding ways to present themselves in the best and accurate light possible. For example, Garrett Pfiefer’s company is located in Towson. He explained to me after the panel had ended that he is currently managing 14 social media accounts for his company, and is in need of interns. I said that as a Business Communication major I would be happy to direct him to a potential social media specialist, but turned down the internship offer as I have yet to take more classes to help hone my skills to be capable of work at that caliber. This class is included among those that would prepare me for that career choice. While I am not entirely sure what career I will choose to pursue after graduation, I may consider Public Relations, which is why it is fortunate that Chris Daley is not only an owner of his own PR firm but a professor at Stevenson. If I hadn’t gone to the panel, I would have not been able to discuss with him the details of his business.