Finis Finally

We reached the end of our class. And I am happy. We put a lot into the course and, based on your comments, y'all got a lot out of it. I know I did.

By today, I felt exhilarated because I taught something of value and meaning. I saw several instances from almost everyone that you took ownership of the lessons and made the knowledge yours. That is pretty powerful.

Some general comments about the grades and your feedback:

Grades: They are posted. I set a personal record for the percentage of students who earned As and Bs. Prior to this class, around 25% earned As and 30% or so earned Bs. As I wrote on the board, your total reflects 34 bonus points, which is a lot given the overall grade distribution. I am pretty comfortable with the grades for this summer.

Participation Points: I gave credit if you showed up to class, turned in exercises and SWOTs, and said something during the past month. You cannot participate if you are not in class. It is that simple. I then went to the blog to look for more participation points. Most of you maxed out the 50 points, and a lot of you got 40+. I really liked the level of participation, and tried to give all of you as many methods of contributing. Looking at your comments, most of you took advantage of these methods.

Power Point: A lot of you like the slides. Your comments reflect my lack of appreciation for this technology. At the start, I said this was my first teaching experience with Power Point. I am not completely convinced I should keep it, or scrap it. I will give it another try; yes, I will slow down.

Cases & SWOTs: Many of you wanted a clearer direction in terms of writing cases. Not a problem! I try to balance student creativity with instructor's demand. I will keep working on that balance.

Blog: I probably would have scrapped the blog idea. In reading your comments, I gathered that most of you were reading at least twice a week. Like other items, I will retain this idea and refine it.

Finally, thank you for the time and effort. The course required a lot of work and time. Y'all more than met the challenge; you succeeded. I could not ask for more than that.

Have a good summer.

cheers,
Michael

Advertising here, advertising there

Fellow student Avery Cowan submitted a link, which appears in the title, about advertisers' attempts to cut through clutter.

This article explains how advertising affects people’s daily lives. We see advertisements at the store, in the home, and on the street. Many advertisements are viewed and mentally noted without even realizing it. The article also looks at how advertisers seek out new, untraditional ways to get people’s attention. There is so much clutter in all advertising mediums these days that it is hard for companies and products to stand out among the others. The article goes on to point out that it is no longer the bigger budget has the best ads, but instead the most innovative and creative ways of presenting ads that capture a person’s attention. With advertising at an incredible high, it is easy to see how it can become an intrusion on people’s lives and daily activities. It seems that nothing is holding advertising agencies back from figuring out the newest and best way to get into people’s minds. In closing, the article refers to the movie Minority Report starring Tom Cruise and what the landscape might look like in 2054.

Rubric & SWOT Review

I have posted the rubric from the HCA case along with the SWOT we wrote in class. Please review them before submitting the SWOT and case for PapaJohn, which is due July 28 according to our syllabus.

• Rubric


• SWOT

Also, I returned the previous cases, NBB and Base Pro Shop, to the respective writers. They should have forwarded the case with my remarks to the rest of the group. Please review my comments as you prepare this case.