Daniela Scillieri: Visiting the Capital

Daniela Scillieri lives and works in Austin, Texas, which is the State Capital. She is a student at Austin Community College, and is currently employed as a Marketing Coordinator for Smith's Painting.

Daniela Scillieri is proud to be a resident of the Lone Star State. Living and working in the State Capital, she enjoys taking visitors to see the sites of state government. Located in downtown Austin, the State Capital sits on twenty-two acres of beautifully landscaped lawns, seventeen monuments, and many historic buildings. Visitors there are rarely disappointed by what they see.

The Visitors Center offers exhibits and a gift shop, and Daniela Scillieri says no visit is complete without stopping by for a souvenir. The Capitol building itself displays stunning architecture and the inner-workings of the Texas legislature. Daniela Scillieri likes to bring a brown bag lunch when she goes, because the Capitol grounds are a beautiful place to enjoy a picnic or a long stroll.

The Texas Capitol building as it is known today isn't the first one. The state's very first Capitol building was built on a hilltop near Congress Avenue. The next building, located at Capitol Square, was completed in 1853 but burned down in 1881.

A nation-wide design contest was held to determine who would build the next (and current) Capitol building. Architect Elijah E. Myers, who also built the Capitols for Michigan and Colorado, won with a Renaissance Revival style.

The Capitol Visitors Center is located in the General Land Office Building, which was built in 1856. As Daniela Scillieri always points out, that makes it the oldest state office building in Texas. In addition to the gift shop, the Visitors Center contains many exhibits, including photos, videos, artifacts, and even a room honoring short story author O. Henry.

Daniela Scillieri: Administrative Skills

Daniela Scillieri is a member of the Psi Beta Honors Society at Austin Community College. The Psi Beta Honors Society promotes the professional development of psychology students at two-year colleges like Austin Community College, by recognizing excellence in scholarship, leadership, research, and community service.

Daniela Scillieri has worked at several jobs during her time in Austin. She has been an Administrative Assistant at 360 Wraps, and is currently employed as a Marketing Coordinator for Smith's Painting.  She says that Smith's Painting provides a wide range of professional painting services to clients in the greater Austin, Texas area. As Marketing Coordinator, she draws on her administrational experience to conduct many aspects of the company's marketing operations.

Daniela Scillieri believes that her administration work experience has provided her with many benefits throughout her professional career, including at her current position as the Marketing Coordinator of Smith's Painting. As a major believer in continuing education, Daniela Scillieri has taken every opportunity to advance her knowledge and capabilities in administration as a student as well as the Marketing Coordinator of Smith's Painting. 

   

Daniela Scillieri is also a committed volunteer at Hope House of Austin. The Hope House of Austin is a respected center for mentally and physically disabled children and adults. Daniela Scillieri says the Hope House of Austin is dedicated to providing more than just shelter for the people it serves. It also strives to provide a joyful, home-like atmosphere for its residents. As a volunteer for the Hope House of Austin, Daniela Scillieri helps the organization with a wide-range of duties. Daniela Scillieri says there are always opportunities for people to volunteer at the Hope House of Austin.

Daniela Scillieri: Online Marketer

Daniela Scillieri is a student at Austin Community College, where she is a member of the Psi Beta Honors Society. She works as the Marketing Coordinator for Smith's Painting.

Daniela Scillieri says that many people don't have a good grasp of what it is that Marketing Coordinators do. She says that her duties at Smith's Painting include managing different aspects of the company's marketing campaigns, both online and offline.

Online Marketing, Daniela Scillieri says, is any effort on behalf of an employer or client that enhances the awareness, popularity, and overall presence of a brand online. Online marketing includes a variety of strategies that are unique to the Internet, where the employer or client does not have a physical presence.

Daniela Scillieri says that while online marketing uses many of the same ideas and tactics used in offline marketing, it is primarily focused on virtual strategies that are aimed at gaining results. Two of the most common forms of online marketing, she continues, are Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing. The results these strategies get are evaluated based on the quantity and quality of all additional customer insights achieved through the online marketing campaign. 

Online marketing campaigns are usually evaluated using a variety of online tracking methods, according to Daniela Scillieri. The success of an online marketing campaign can be quantified in many ways. Depending on the scope of an online marketing campaign, its success may be measured using traffic reports specific to a website, or landing page associated with the promotion, to the number of ‘likes' gained within a certain time frame relative to a specific online marketing campaign.

Daniela Scillieri: Visiting the Peacocks

Daniela Scillieri lives and works in Austin, Texas, and is a student at Austin Community College, one of the busiest institutions of higher learning in Central Texas. Her work experience includes sales, marketing, administrative work, and promotional modeling.

Daniela Scillieri likes to show visitors to Austin the Mayfield Park peacocks. Peacocks, she says, have been at Mayfield Park since 1935. The park itself originated as a private retreat for a prominent politician more than one hundred years ago. The retreat eventually passed to the hands of his daughter and her husband, an Austin doctor. Friends gave them a pair of peacocks for Christmas one year, and they liked them so much they began to add more and more to what became a growing flock. Most of the peacocks at Mayfield Park today are descendants of the original stock.

Two dozen or so peacocks wander the park area freely, and serve as greeters to park visitors. Daniela Scillieri finds them amazing and beautiful. She says to look for them in the park's trees, on the rooftops, lying in the gardens, or just wandering the grounds.

Daniela Scillieri says it is extremely important for motorists to drive carefully near this parkland. Since the Mayfield peafowl roam the area freely, they can sometimes get out, and wander onto West 35th Street. Occasionally, peacocks are killed by cars driving along the road.

Volunteers feed the peafowl high quality food every day in the late afternoon or evenings. The Mayfield Park caretakers also feed the peacocks. Whenever she takes visitors to Mayfield Park, Daniela Scillieri reminds them not to feed the peacocks. It might seem like a fun thing to do, she says, but it isn't necessary and is discouraged.

Daniela Scillieri: The Congress Bridge Bats

Daniela Scillieri has lived in Austin, Texas, long enough to know all of the major attractions the city has to offer, and also the lesser-known attractions that are off the beaten path. So when she is visited by friends or family, she is able to show them some remarkable things around town.

One of the most remarkable sites is the bats that live along Congress Avenue. Every spring, Daniela Scillieri tells her guests, thousands of mostly female, pregnant Mexican free-tailed bats migrate north to Austin. She says they're a little bit like the swallows that return to the Mission San Juan Capistrano in California.

When they're in Austin, Daniela Scillieri says, the Mexican free-tailed bats live under the Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge downtown. Estimates put the number of bats as between 750,000 and 1.5 million. They usually begin arriving in March, and they stay through the summer and into the fall.

Every evening during the summer, which Daniela Scillieri calls the bat-watching season, the bats fly from under the bridge in search of food. Daniela tells her friends there is nothing for humans to fear, because the bats are looking for insects. Experts say that the bats consume from ten to thirty thousand pounds of bugs, every single night.

The bats, which constitute the largest urban colony of bats anywhere in North America, fly from under the bridge like an enormous black cloud. While Daniela Scillieri says there is nothing for humans to fear, it is not a sight for the faint of heart.

Daniela Scillieri: Hope House Volunteer

Daniela Scillieri is a student at Austin Community College in Austin, Texas, where she is a psychology student and a member of the Psi Beta Honors Society.

Whenever she can find the time, Daniela Scillieri volunteers at the Hope House of Austin. She supports the mission of the Hope House organization, which is focused on providing a safe and welcoming place for its residents, who consist of adults, children, and families who are challenged by mental and physical disabilities. As Daniela Scillieri knows all too well, the Hope House of Austin is constantly in need of volunteers, so they can continue to provide the valuable services that they do.

Since the mid 1960's, Hope House of Austin has been a central resource for many who have been affected by mental and physical disabilities. It provides a safe and supportive environment to those who need it the most. Daniela Scillieri says there are always opportunities for people to volunteer at the Hope House of Austin. 

Volunteers like Daniela Scillieri provide Hope House of Austin with support in many ways. Tasks such as helping out in the kitchen, working in the loading dock where donations are received, and helping to organize materials are just a few of the ways. Daniela Scillieri says that Hope House of Austin always has a need for committed volunteers.

Daniela Scillieri has demonstrated a consistent dedication to her duties as a volunteer for the Hope House of Austin. She believes that everyone should do what he or she can to help those less fortunate, especially in their local community.

Daniela Scillieri: The SXSW Festival

Daniela Scillieri is a student at Austin Community College in Austin, Texas. As a resident of the Texas State Capital, she has easy access to the internationally renowned South by Southwest Festival.

The South by Southwest festival, which is usually shortened to SXSW, is a series of film, music, and interactive festivals that is held in Austin every year. On average, some 2,200 performers participate in the festival every year. Daniela Scillieri says the whole event lasts for about ten days. One of the most notable things about the SXSW festival is that it brings together a very diverse group of people. There is no single style of music; organizers like to say they offer something for everyone. 

Daniela Scillieri points out that the SXSW Festival was started in 1987, and has been going strong ever since. Some think that it may be getting too large, with over thirty thousand attendees last year and still growing. The festival has always kept up with technology. SXSW Music offers artist-provided music and video samples of featured artists at each festival on the official SXSW YouTube channel.

The city of Austin has been in discussions over how to make improvements to the festival, which Daniela Scillieri says is a great idea. Austin's Urban Transportation Commission has recently decided that they need to work to resolve some of the issues created by such a large gathering. This is a good sign for the city. It means that Austin recognizes they cannot afford to lose the economic impact of such a large event. The economic impact in 2012 was estimated at $190 million, and in 2013 was estimated to be about $212 million.