John McCain- Baby Alex

This is from my Marketing class:

This is an ad from moveon.org that attacks John McCain's "100 years" statement about the war in Iraq. It's not really factual but it's effective on playing towards people's emotions.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq30lapbC9c

Nike Ad

According to my summer 08 Marketing class, they did not think that this advertisement is effective because it doesn't really have anything to do with the brand Nike. Some people may even feel insulted by the nature of the Ad.

Watch your online profile

Will Your Online Profile Get You Hired or Fired?
By Selena Dehne, JIST Publishing

"Having an online identity is becoming increasingly important as a way to establish your credibility and personal brand, find a job and develop key contacts and to attract career or business opportunities," say Ellen Sautter and Diane Crompton, co-authors of "Seven Days to Online Networking." To ensure that people create a profile savvy enough to help them land a job, they offer the following tips.

1. HOW TO GET HIRED:

Be consistent from site to site. Too often recruiters and hiring managers get mixed messages about job candidates based on their online profiles. For example, you might have a LinkedIn profile that portrays you as a driven go-getter with an excellent sales background, but your MySpace profile portrays you as someone who lives the life of an '80s rock star. Make sure that every profile you create portrays the same person -- someone who's respectable, professional and high-achieving.

Master a brief sound bite. When looking at your profile, hiring managers and recruiters want to learn more about you. The "About You" section of your profile offers the perfect opportunity to briefly describe your work history, strengths and notable achievements. This paragraph should be similar to a thirty-second elevator speech you may have already prepared about yourself.

Develop a network. Some people prefer massive networks that consist of hundreds of strangers from around the globe. Others prefer a small network that includes only people they've befriended, are related to or have worked with. Crompton and Sautter suggest developing a network of 50 to 150 contacts through each site.

Showcase your skills through links. You should include links to your blog, webfolio or Web site, if they are relevant to your career. If you don't have any of these things, consider including links to any projects or work you might have been involved in that can be viewed online.
Strategically use keywords in the "Tags" section. Similar to using keywords in a résumé, this strategy allows you to list words that help other people in your network or search engines find you. These words can include your area of expertise, job titles, industries, hobbies and anything else that defines you as a professional.

However, the following five mistakes are some of the most common social networking missteps.

2. HOW TO GET FIRED:


Post a scandalous photo. You know what I'm talking about: It's the photo of you showing off your hot, bronze body in a barely there bikini. It's the portrait of you -- in all your glory -- bonging a beer while sporting a Bears jersey at last week's tailgate. Profile pictures like this may be amusing and help you score a ton of friend requests, but they certainly won't impress your employer.

View or update your profile on company time. You can't help it. You have to accept a friend request as soon as you receive it. You have to know who has added pictures to their profile in the past hour. And as soon as you realize wakeboarding tops your list of interests, you have to immediately change your profile to reflect this. You jokingly refer to it as your Facebook addiction, but it's no laughing matter to your employer. Instead, it's considered a waste of company time if you're scoping out these Web sites while at work.

Post information that conflicts with your employer's values. Remember that anything you wouldn't want to share with your supervisor or co-workers is better left off your profile. This information may include how you spend your leisure time, how you feel about sensitive issues or any personal experiences you may have had. Also, be cautious about things your friends post on your profile that may portray you negatively.

Reveal why you're a lousy employee. Ever taken a sick day to hit the beach, rather than nurse a cold? Or maybe you were supposed to work from home one afternoon, but your profile suggests you slept in and spent the afternoon catching up on your soaps. Believe it or not, some people actually make this information public on their profile! Whether you reveal this kind of information in your profile status or a friend has left a comment ratting you out, be aware that if others can see it so can an employer.

Vent about your employer, boss or job. Many social networking sites allow people to include their work history. Posting unnecessary, negative information about a particular aspect of the job, such as "Job sucks, but it pays the bills," gives an employer all the reasons he needs to slap you with a pink slip.

Some Myths about Online Learning

Myth 1: Classroom learning is superior to online learning.

There is a large and growing body of evidence (see http://www.nosignificantdifference.org/) that demonstrates that, generally, there is no significant difference between classroom instruction and online learning. Just as there is good and classroom learning, there is good and bad online learning. The quality of the learning experience, of course, varies based on class size, student preparation, instructor skills, the quality of the curriculum material and other variables.

Myth 2: Online learning lacks important interaction with faculty and other students.

Well designed online courses have a high level of interaction built in. These include collaborative group/team projects (developing a business plan, for example), threaded discussions, Group/Team Discussion Boards, instant messaging, e-mail (originated from a course management application) and phone communication. It is more work to teach online because online courses have more and deeper interaction with students.

Myth 3: Online learning works well for some subjects/degrees but not for others.

This might be true in very limited areas like laboratory science or engineering which require specialized equipment. But there are now high- quality online programs in most academic areas, including highly interactive /clinical disciplines like teacher education, nursing and even PhD programs.

Myth 4: Online learning works well only for certain types of students.

Online learning today includes every kind of student in all age groups, ethnicities, degree levels and geographies. It provides huge advantages for working adults who need to fit their education into their work and family life. Also, students who are quiet in the classroom often become active participants online. All students now realize that to learn online is fast becoming a needed skill for most learners as they move on into other learning environment or into the workplace.

Myth 5: Employers do not value online degrees or courses.

Research from Eduventures shows that 62% of employers believe online learning is equal to or better than classroom-based learning. Many employers value the traits exhibited by holders of distance degrees: maturity, initiative, self-discipline, and strong goal orientation. Generally, corporate tuition reimbursement programs treat all accredited programs equally, whether delivered online or not. Also, online courses are accepted by most colleges for transfer credit.

Myth 6: It is difficult to measure online learning.

Online learning focuses more on completing assigned work and generally not trying to measure the time. Credit is given for work completed on schedule and with suitable quality. However, Discussion Board participation-its frequency and quality- is clearly measured by various course management systems. To deal with cheating concerns, online students might take exams in a secure proctored test center, their work checked for plagiarism, or have oral defenses of their capstone work. The variety of assignments and their use of current events makes it easier to evaluate class work.

Myth 7: Online learning is a quick and easy way to get a degree.

The evidence is that students take longer, read more, write more, and do more research that a classroom student. But some students may be able to earn a degree more quickly in some online programs because they are able to move at their own pace.

Myth 8: Online learning diminishes the teacher’s importance

The faculty role is often enhanced and even more important in online and hybrid courses. Online learning can free faculty to interact more with students, to mentor, advise, review individual work, and answer questions. Faculty use a host of technology that fosters student interaction and learning, including the Web, Chat sessions, Discussion Boards, Web Logs, Wikis, e-mail and telephone communication.

Myth 9: Online learning will make traditional classroom-based education obsolete.

While online learning education provides advantages of access and potentially lower cost and higher quality, this does not diminish the value of face-to-face student services and learning. Particularly for under prepared and returning students, the classroom and the campus provide necessary connections and resources that help them learn. It is likely that many of these students would be better served beginning in face-to-face courses, then moving to a hybrid environment (a mix of face-to-face and online) and then progressing to learning purely online. Rather than making traditional instruction obsolete, online learning gives instructors another tool to apply to modern teaching and learning.

Please comment if you are aware of any other myths about online learning.


(Adapted from Innovation Abstracts published by NISOD.)

The Welchway-A series of Podcasts.

Belwo is a site containing a very helpful series of Podcasts delivered by Jack & Suzy Welch.

As you remember, Jack Welch was the CEO of GE. GE experienced consistent growth in profitability, market share and stock valuation under his leadership. He now provides a podcast each week in Business Week on a variety of management issues. Take a look at the wisdom he imparts, with his wife, on many issues confronting the modern manager..

http://businessweek.com/search/podcasts/welchway.rss.

What Marketing Is and Is not -Know the Difference

Knowing what Marketing Is and Is Not and knowing the difference is the first step in creating a successful campaign.


Marketing, according to some marketers, is just a fancy word for selling. It's more common sense and patience than anything else. It's a process and not an event.
Marketing is any contact that your business has with anyone who isn't a part of your business. .



Marketing is the art of getting people to change their minds.
Many business owners think marketing is a bunch of things that it isn't, such as the following:

1. Marketing is not advertising. Don't think that because you're advertising, you're marketing. There are more than 200 forms of marketing. Advertising is one of them. If you're advertising, you're advertising. You're doing only one half of 1 percent of what you can do.


2. Marketing is not direct mail. Some companies think they can get all the business they need with direct mail. Mail-order firms may be right about that. But most businesses need a plethora of other marketing weapons for their direct mail to succeed.


3. Marketing is not telemarketing. For business-to-business marketing, few weapons succeed as well as telemarketing. Telemarketing response can be improved by augmenting it with advertising. But don't kid yourself. Marketing is not telemarketing alone.


4. Marketing is not brochures. Many companies rush to produce a brochure, then pat themselves on the back for the quality of the brochure. Is that brochure marketing? It's an important part when mixed with 10 or 15 other very important parts, but by itself? Forget it.


5. Marketing is not the phonebook. Many companies run a phonebook ad and figure that takes care of their marketing. In 5 percent of the cases, that's the truth. In the other 95 percent, it's a disaster of marketing ignorance.


6. Marketing is not show business. There's no business like show business, and that includes marketing. Think of marketing as sell business, as create-a-desire business, as motivation business. But don't think of yourself as being in the entertainment business, because marketing is not supposed to entertain.


7. Marketing is not a stage for humor. If you use humor in your marketing,people will recall your funny joke, but not your compelling offer. If you use humor, it will be funny the first and maybe the second time. After that, it will be grating and will get in the way of what makes marketing work--repetition.


8. Marketing is not an invitation to be clever. If you fall into the cleverness trap, it's because you don't realize that people remember the cleverest part of the marketing even though it's your offer they should remember. Cleverness is a marketing vampire, sucking attention away from your offer.


9. Marketing is not complicated. It becomes complicated for people who fail to grasp the simplicity of marketing, but marketing is user-friendly to guerrillas. They begin with a seven-sentence guerrilla marketing plan, then commit to that plan. Not too complicated.


10. Marketing is not a miracle worker. More money has been wasted by expecting miracles than by any other misconception of marketing. Marketing is the best investment you can make if you do it right, and doing it right requires patience and planning.


11. Marketing is not a website. And if you don't know marketing in the first place, you're going to lose a lot of money online. The web helps with the job, but it's not the whole job.
Marketing is an opportunity for you to earn profits with your business, a chance to cooperate with other businesses in your community or your industry and a process of building lasting relationships.


Adapted from Jay Conrad Levinson who is the Father of Guerrilla Marketing. His books have sold more than 20 million copies and appear in 54 languages.

Interviewing Questions

Behavioral Scientists tell us that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. Situational type interview questions can be strengthened by anchoring them to actual past behaviors. These are some behavioral questions in which the leader/manager is asked to recall specific actions, with rich detail; they have taken in job related situations.

Tells us about a time when your judgment was tested in a crisis. How did you act and what did you act on?
Can you share some examples of when you were a catalyst who brought groups with polarized opinions together so that all voices were on the table?
Tell us about a high-performing team that you’ve built. What made it high performing?
Please share some examples of your ability and willingness to be decisive, Can you tell us about a time when a lack of decisiveness got you into trouble. In retrospect, what would you have done differently?
Can you give some examples of how you overcame resistance to bring about needed change.
Give us an example of how you brought about a more favorable cultural change.
Give an example of how you dealt with a particular situation that threatened the viability of the company.
Do you have some examples of how you improved the communications within a company.


In addition, situational questions are good ways to evaluate whether the leader/manager can handle difficult situations likely to be encountered on the job. Some examples are:

1. What are the first few things you’ll do to raise confidence among all the company stakeholders.
2. How will you create an environment for innovation within your leadership team?
3. Describe how you will create a more participatory democracy and give people the opportunity to influence decision making.
4. What would you do to create an ethical climate in the workplace?
5. Describe how you would deal with a product recall.
6. How would you deal with a drop in stock share value.
7. What would you tell shareholders about the current and future prospects for the company.
8. How would you deal with a serious breach of security?

These are just two types of interviews-Behavioral and Situational-that will give the interviewer a good grasp of a candidate’s suitability for a leadership role in your company. Please send me your list of behavioral and situational questions.