Kristina Kenney

Being a part of the SXTXState Project and continuing to further its influence and innovation at SXSW Interactive would be more than a dream come true for me, especially doing so during my final semester in the mass communication graduate program at Texas State. I feel that I am just about bursting with ideas, experience and creativity to bring to the table next semester, and I would love the opportunity to hear and share ground-breaking ideas with industry professionals and students at a conference that I have not yet been able to attend in the past.

I took my first web design course during the final semester of my undergraduate career at Texas State, and I was hooked. I felt like there was so much more to learn and possibilities to be explored, which is the principal reason I decided to pursue new media studies in the graduate program the following year.

I have experience with coding, website building and design, social media integration, blogging and online multimedia reporting. I am also familiar with a number of various software programs such as InDesign, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, SoundSlides, Audacity and iMovie. I created my website, KristinaKenney.com, over two years ago, where I hope to soon store my digital portfolio of work. I also dabbled in Drupal last year, creating the website, CenterStage. Most recently, my boyfriend and I started a restaurant review blog called Tasty Texas, where we provide better insight and information into hole-in-the-wall places that might not have a website or even have a large following. I hope to continue to grow this blog over the years. Another blog, Landing in London, is one I kept while studying abroad in London two years ago. I chronicled the study abroad experience day by day through my own words, photos and videos, and it now exists as a daily list of memories from a trip that changed my life. There is a full list of blogs I’ve contributed to on my Blogger profile page. Two of them (Fine Arts Education and Hurricane Ike) were created to showcase examples of my first attempts at multimedia reporting – there are stories along with supplemental video that I created completely on my own.  One of those videos can be viewed below as part of my proposal.

The future is really wide open for me; while I would love to land a job as a social media communications specialist or general communications specialist after graduation, there are a plethora of other venues left for me to explore within the field of new media and mass communication that could translate into a career, some of which may not even exist yet. It is precisely those “other” venues that I hope to discover as part of the SXTXState Project next semester. Getting to be in the same room with someone like Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook or Jack Dorsey of Twitter would be life changing, let alone getting to meet one of them. I can only imagine what it would be like to sit in a room full of people who are so passionate about digital media and the potential we have to take it somewhere never before expected.

If chosen as part of next semester’s team, I hope to work and discuss with others the possibility of developing a new kind of app that connects people through the sharing of images, captions, comments and categories. Think of Instagram meets Pinterest. The things users love about Instagram – live photo streaming and captions/comments – would be able to be viewed according to what specifications a user decides – choosing sports, music, animals, art, etc., much like Pinterest. Users would even be able to search key words in the captions to find a live feed of photos from a specific event. It would definitely be a large feat to conquer before we visit the interactive festival in March, of course, but not impossible, especially if we are bringing the initial idea and plan to the table by the time of the festival. I think sharing ideas and possibly creating something of such a level of interest to people would be a great way to represent Texas State at the interactive festival.

It can be assured that if I am chosen as part of the SXTXState Team for 2013, I would take advantage of every experience and opportunity provided. I have so many more ideas to share, and I can’t wait to work with other students to help create something big for SXSW Interactive. My goal is for people who attend the conference to leave talking about Texas State. Much like the world of digital media, the SXTXState Program is relatively new, a blank slate still full of potential. The possibilities are endless, and I’m ready to leave Texas State’s mark on SXSW Interactive.

The following are multimedia projects that Kristina completed:

Additional Info:
New Media Concentration: Yes
Been to SXSW Before: No
Been in Program Since: 2011
Relevant TXST Courses: Online Media Design, Content Management Systems
Other Courses: Undergraduate courses – Web Design, Multimedia Journalism
Website: kristinakenney.com/
Blog: tastytexas.blogspot.com/
Twitter: @KristinaKenney
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/kristinakenney
Facebook: www.facebook.com/kristinakenney11
Other: centerstage.kristinakenney.com