More in the news

Well the news keeps on a roll'n! Yesterday, September 6th, yours truly was LIVE on Vermont Public Radio's noon Vermont Edition with Jane Lindholm. The topic? Social Networking of course! Jane and the production team at Vermont Edition interviewed Marketing major Dan Bergeron (of the Seven Days story) on campus the evening before and kicked off the show with him talking about how students are using Facebook to communicate and stay connected.

Then it was my turn! It's been a long time since I've been in the studio -- and this was a lot of fun! Jane did a great job and I enjoyed the conversation. The other guest speaker was the Director of Student Life from Lyndon State College, Jonathan Davis.

Listen to it HERE.

By the way...if you are around checking out the South End Art Hop this Sunday I'll be on a panel of local experts at the Digital Tools for Artists discussion sponsored by Last Monday [interactive]. We'll be over at the held at the Vermont Community Access Media studios at 208 Flynn Avenue from 1 - 3. The goal is to provide artists with information about how to use digital media tools in different ways...and I'll be addressing MARKETING and Online Visibilty and Social Networking. Hope to see you there!

Getting Ready for the "Real World"

One of the challenges that I believe every professor faces in to make sure that our students understand and are ready for what is expected of them in the so-called "real world".

Here at Champlain College, in the Marketing Management class, I am working to reach that goal. Marketing Management is the final marketing course that all marketing majors must take before they graduate. It's a seminar course which in academia means more discussion based and we often sit around a room, rather than in that traditional lecture-based set up. However, this class is beyond a "seminar". It's project-based. But it is more than that too.

Students come in, meet a client and spend the rest of the semester working with that client to solve a marketing challenge.

It's hard work to break out of a structured, professor-driven environment. It's hard work for me and hard work for the students. At some point I'll write more about the power of giving up control in the classroom.

They told me yesterday that this didn't feel like a college class. I take that as a compliment. I don't want this to be a typical college class. I want it to be as close to the "real world" as possible. I want them to be ready. I want to build their confidence.

They came in yesterday with a presentation to give. They never gave it. Instead, they got the chance to re-work it and hopefully learned that brainstorming and implementation take real time, commitment and creativity. What they came out with as a starting point is exciting and I can't wait to see the final product. I hope they gained perspective on what it will really take to work with a client in the real world.