Check out the various online FREE training opportunities Google offers to help you gain digital media "soft skills". What would you like to learn first? 

Education

Learn digital media skills with Google!

Enroll in a journalism class at your school, in your city, or online and explore the different elements of the field. Is this something you would be interested in majoring in?

Take a class in journalism.

Learn more about the key parts of a screenplay, then try writing a two-page script of your own as practice. Don't worry about making the story perfect--this is just practice!

Career

Write your own screenplay.

Public Relations Specialists

Engage in promoting or creating an intended public image for individuals, groups, or organizations. May write or select material for release to various communications media.

Enterprising occupations frequently involve starting up and carrying out projects. These occupations can involve leading people and making many decisions. Sometimes they require risk taking and often deal with business.

Enterprising

Artistic occupations frequently involve working with forms, designs and patterns. They often require self-expression and the work can be done without following a clear set of rules.

Artistic

First Interest High-Point

Social occupations frequently involve working with, communicating with, and teaching people. These occupations often involve helping or providing service to others.

Social

Third Interest High-Point

Conventional occupations frequently involve following set procedures and routines. These occupations can include working with data and details more than with ideas. Usually there is a clear line of authority to follow.

Conventional

Second Interest High-Point

Investigative occupations frequently involve working with ideas, and require an extensive amount of thinking. These occupations can involve searching for facts and figuring out problems mentally.

Investigative

Realistic occupations frequently involve work activities that include practical, hands-on problems and solutions. They often deal with plants, animals, and real-world materials like wood, tools, and machinery. Many of the occupations require working outside, and do not involve a lot of paperwork or working closely with others.

Realistic

Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed

Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media Occupations

Media and Communication Workers

Respond to requests for information from the media or designate an appropriate spokesperson or information source.

Establish or maintain cooperative relationships with representatives of community, consumer, employee, or public interest groups.

Confer with production or support personnel to produce or coordinate production of advertisements or promotions.

Arrange public appearances, lectures, contests, or exhibits for clients to increase product or service awareness or to promote goodwill.

Study the objectives, promotional policies, or needs of organizations to develop public relations strategies that will influence public opinion or promote ideas, products, or services.

Confer with other managers to identify trends or key group interests or concerns or to provide advice on business decisions.

Consult with advertising agencies or staff to arrange promotional campaigns in all types of media for products, organizations, or individuals.

Coach client representatives in effective communication with the public or with employees.

Prepare or deliver speeches to further public relations objectives.

Purchase advertising space or time as required to promote client's product or agenda.

Plan or conduct market or public opinion research to test products or determine potential for product success, communicating results to client or management.

Coordinate public responses to environmental management incidents or conflicts.

Develop marketing campaigns for environmental technologies or services.

Develop plans or materials to communicate activities undertaken by organizations that are beneficial to the environment, public safety, or other important social issues.

Write press releases or other media communications to promote clients.

Plan or direct development or communication of programs to maintain favorable public or stockholder perceptions of an organization's accomplishments, agenda, or environmental responsibility.

Update and maintain content posted on the Web.

Prepare or edit organizational publications, such as employee newsletters or stockholders' reports, for internal or external audiences.

Computer laser printers

Desktop computers

Laptop computers

Multi-line telephone systems

Personal computers

Photocopying equipment

Adobe Systems Adobe Acrobat

Adobe Systems Adobe ActionScript

Adobe Systems Adobe AfterEffects

Adobe Systems Adobe Creative Cloud

Adobe Systems Adobe Dreamweaver

Adobe Systems Adobe Fireworks

Adobe Systems Adobe Flash

Adobe Systems Adobe Illustrator

Adobe Systems Adobe InDesign

Adobe Systems Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Systems Adobe Reader

Adobe Systems Adobe Writer

Apple Final Cut Express

Apple Final Cut Pro

Apple iPhoto

Apple QuickTime

Blackbaud The Raiser's Edge

Blogging software

Cascading Style Sheets CSS

Cision CisionPoint

Customer relationship management CRM software

Drupal

Dynamic hypertext markup language DHTML

Extensible HyperText Markup Language XHTML

Facebook

FileMaker Pro

Google AdWords

Google Analytics

Google+

Hypertext markup language HTML

JavaScript

LexisNexis

LinkedIn

Marketo Marketing Automation

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Office

Microsoft Outlook

Microsoft PowerPoint

Microsoft Publisher

Microsoft SharePoint

Microsoft Word

MySpace

Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer

Oracle Eloqua

Podcasting software

Salesforce software

Twitter

Web browser software

Website management software

YouTube

Media Relations Director

<p>In Fort Collins, Colorado, Calvin, Tina, and Vanessa stop to have a pint with Jennifer Orgolini, Sustainability Director, and Bryan Simpson, Media Relations Director, of New Belgium Brewing Company. The team then proceeds to Kansas City to interview Greg Carroll, CEO of the American Jazz Museum. Across town, they are also able to connect with Michelle Dreher, printmaker, owner, and operator of Two Tone Press.</p>

Fort Collins - Kansas City

(Roadtripper #1) And what did you study in school? (Bryan)  Journalism. I wanted to be an English Lit Major and my parents were like "No way!" And my dad was like, "you should be in the business schools." I'm like, "Alright". And he worked for IBM all his life. So I was in the business school for a year and the final straw was there was a two hour lecture on how to properly shake hands. And I said, "This is ridiculous. I'm done." And that's when I said, "I'm gonna study Lit!" And they said, "Well we're paying for it!" So Journalism was sort of the compromise. And-- But it served me actually very well 'cause I learned some writing skills and certainly how to edit myself down and be brief. Um, not my talking skills, my writing skills. [laughs] When I left college I think I was ready to hit the ground running and I worked in television news for a good number of years. You guys are like looking at what most people-- I had a moment when I was in my first year of news, where it was kinda grindin' on me, you kinda cover a lot of death and mayhem and just down, downer stuff. And having to go to funerals and seeing people's faces was not my thing. And I went and saw the movie Edward Scissorhands with my sister at Christmastime. And I literally was sitting in the movie theater, i'm like, "This is brilliant. I'm going to quit my job and move out to Los Angeles." And I turned to my sister and said that and two weeks later I quit my job. It was my first job in journalism and got my buddy from this town to move out there with me and write screenplays and sell screenplays. So we did that for a little while and just kind of followed that and when you're at-- Questioning [indiscernible] about like all these, the road not taken, these things like "do you have regrets about these things you'd like to be doing". The thing is you go and you try them. And you see what they're like. Now I know what it's like to go to L.A. and try to grind it out selling screenplays and that makes me a lot more, I don't know, not resolved actually, just happier with the decisions i've made to get here. You know? Where if I hadn't tried i'd probably still be thinking about it. I didn't dislike the city at all. The industry was a bit more of a monster than I was ready to deal with. And that was one of the things that I think you had to decide when you got there. "Do I want to pull cable on a 100,000,000 dollar production, or do I really want to make exactly the kind of films that I want to make?" So we left there, my buddy and I left there, came back here and made our feature film here on 16 millimeter black and white and it was exactly the movie we wanted to make. So then you start to ask yourself, "What's the measurement of success?" Is it "do I need to sell, you know, this many tickets to it, do I need to have it distributed worldwide" or is it actually telling the exact story you wanted to tell. And for us it became clear that we were more interested in the content than the dollars at the end. So it was a great, a great experience to go out there and see what it was that we were missing. In quotes. And then come back here and do what we wanted to do. And I would never go backwards in my life, but it would be great in your position, really, to be 22 or 23 and have things just sort of wide open. I mean there's so much freedom in that. 

Experience

Exploration

Fulfillment

Risk

Regrets

Success

Interview

[Roadtripper] And what did you study in school? [Bryan] Journalism. I wanted to be an English lit major, and my parents were like, "No way." And uh, my dad was like, "You should be in the business school," so I'm like, "All right." He worked for IBM all his life. So I was in the business school for a year, an-and the final straw was there was a two-hour lecture on how to properly shake hands, and I said, "This is ridiculous, I'm done." And I went and saw the movie Edward Scissorhands with my sister at uh, Christmastime, and I literally was sittin' in the movie theater, I'm like, "This is brilliant. "I'm gonna quit my job and move out to Los Angeles." And two weeks later, I quit my job. The thing is, you go and you try and you see what they're like. So now I know what it's like to go to L.A., try to grind it out selling screenplays, and that makes me a lot more happier with the decisions I made to get here. 

Bryan Simpson

Media Relations Director

Videos

Bryan Simpson

Milestones

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Career Roadmap

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