September 2022 Club Updates and Leadership Tips

AAF Tuscaloosa

Accessible Media and Marketing 

Whether it’s print, tv, radio or social media, advertising pushes media’s boundaries to engage, entertain and sell. But how do you make sure your media reaches people with disabilities? What are the legal requirements for accessibility? What is required for accessibility beyond captioning? And how can you make sure everyone knows what to do?

During lunch, Kristin will show you ways to sharpen your accessibility and reach more people.

Kristin Juhrs is is the senior accessibility instructional designer for The University of Alabama Online. With over 23 years’ experience in education accessibility, Kristin’s work has propelled UA to the forefront of online accessibility in higher ed. 

Who – Kristin Wyatt Juhrs, M.A.
When – September 8 @ 12
Where – The District Room

AAF Birmingham

Is a Hotdog a Sandwich?

AAF Birmingham and its members spent their luncheon learning how to stretch their creative perspective with Mike Riddle of PushCrankPress. So—is a hotdog a sandwich? Short answer: no. 

How this is applicable: We all want to bring our A-game when it comes to storytelling or pleasing our clients. This helps us think outside of the box. Can you restructure the way you think about, consider, and see the world around you? Can you find new approaches and new ways of learning, creating, ideating and imagining? 

AAF Memphis

AR in Advertising: Learning Lunch with Kathryn Hick

On Thursday, August 18, 2022 AAF Memphis hosted a luncheon at High Cotton Brewery for a deep dive into the world of augmented and virtual reality. Local expert, Kathryn Hicks walked us through how the emerging technologies of AR and VR are changing the advertising landscape and how immersive tech like augmented reality can be used for advertisement campaigns, on site experiences, video chat and more.

Kathryn Hicks is an AR / VR designer based in Memphis, Tennessee. She was introduced to VR at Savannah College of Art and Design, where after seeing her friend create a VR experience for a class project she immediately knew she wanted to be a part of the VR industry. In 2017, Kathryn was a part of the VR developer program Oculus Launch Pad and has worked in the industry on several AR / VR projects for immersive training simulations and educational content for medical, enterprise, and universities, and was recently part of the Snapchat AR Creator Residency Program. She has also contributed to the asymmetric VR co-op platformer game Mend, an Oculus 2019 Launch Pad Scholarship project by Justin Palmer. As an AR / VR designer, Kathryn enjoys creating 3D assets for both virtual and augmented reality experiences. She loves seeing the multiple uses for immersive tech and is passionate about being involved with and helping shape the future of this ever-changing industry. 

AAF Mississippi Gulf Coast

It was an honor to bring two of our new board members, who had very limited experience with AAF, to the D7/D3 Leadership Conference for training. They were immersed in valuable club information and made lots of new connections. The ride home from the conference was filled with ideas and excitement for our club. They saw the possibilities and felt empowered to lead in our organization. Encouraging attendance will always be a priority for us as well as using the benefits/resources of AAF to pour back into our leaders and provide each with purpose. 

We have a few big goals for AAF MS Gulf Coast so good leadership is important. We tried to be intentional to not just fill board seats (because we all know how that goes) but to find those who innately lead and inspire in their own way and have a bias for action. Our board members aren’t only amazing in their fields but great human beings in general — diverse in their causes and passions — each has a track record of community involvement and leadership; including non-profit and ministry support to helping minority businesses to advocacy in the Native-American, LGBTQ, and Little People communities and more. Having hearts like this in leadership can surely influence others to believe, act, and work with perseverance to meet the greater good of AAF MSGGC.

AAF Baton Rouge

My goal for our club this year is to strengthen our sense of community. With over half of this year’s board members being new, I know that their leadership development is key. This is why I was thrilled to have the majority of board members attend this year’s Leadership Conference in Georgia. AAF-BR has for a long-time used the Leadership Conference, and more specifically MOTS, as a way to develop leadership and to foster a sense of community among our board even before the conference begins. Building our MOTS routine – from plot to choreography – offers the opportunity for all board members to get to know each other better, to flex their creativity, and to practice collaboration.

The speakers at the conference brought us so much inspiration and so many great ideas, but I can’t speak highly enough about the group activities that this year’s conference provided to our budding new board. Some of the most basic challenges proved to be the most insightful. These seemingly simple tasks really helped to show everyone’s strengths in communicating and working together effectively. We all discovered that, at the end of the day, the best way to lead is to listen first, keep a level head and communicate openly. 

AAF North Alabama

We are so excited to announce that since conference we have added seven new board members. We still have slots to fill, but now our board is 15 people strong. Our plans for a successful year start with a board retreat (better late than never). We have also combined committees into groups that complement one another. American Advertising Awards, Programs, and Hospitality fall under the Events umbrella. Membership, Diversity, Student Outreach, Public Service, Finance, and Fundraising fall under Growth. And Publicity, Website, and Club Achievement fall under Communications. An executive board member heads up each of the groups.

AAF Dothan

This month AAF Dothan had a Luncheon on August 24th at PushCrankPress. We were so excited to welcome Kelley Johnson as our speaker.

Kelley Johnson is currently the Director of Marketing for Eagle Eye Outfitters. As many of you know, Eagle Eye Outfitter is a local family-owned storefront and online store ShopEagleEye.com. They believe in providing Their guests with radical customer service and quality products. At Eagle Eye Outfitters, almost all marketing efforts are developed, created, and implemented within their Marketing department.

She shared with us the email marketing tools and their effect on e-commerce.

We had a great turnout and are ecstatic to have Leigh Farrior as our October speaker.

AAF Mobile Bay

Thanks to some inclement weather on our original August luncheon date, AAF Mobile Bay rescheduled its August professional development lunch to September 7. Turn out was great for our speakers Ashley Trice and Rob Holbert, founders and co-publishers of Mobile’s alternative weekly newspaper Lagniappe. Ashley and Rob shared how print has changed over their 20 years of running Lagniappe, and how the future looks for print media. 

Our regular September program is a joint event with our local PR organization on September 29, where we’re welcoming Cece Shabazz (yes, the same Cece from AAF Mississippi Gulf Coast!) and her colleague Erin Rosetti to talk about overcoming imposter syndrome. Looking forward to October, we also have a membership drive lunch planned with Dawn Reeves as our speaker as well as a Halloween-themed bar crawl!