I believe that intelligence is highly adaptable; that we adapt our minds to any task by thinking in certain way and learning to learn. By using simple mental techniques I find that I can pick up broad understanding of subjects quite quickly.

These techniques will give you wider knowledge, a better ability to react to situations, think on your feet, make connections and generate ideas. I also find the more I learn about a subject the easier to is to make connections with people interested or involved in that field.

Consume - It is important to have time to think, disconnected from technology, but with the variety of digital and analogue media  now available its possible to absorb vast amounts of information on every subject.

Watch the news, read articles on wikipedia about topics that pop into your head, listen to audiobooks and lecture series while traveling to work (some can be found at Berkeley, read books; fiction and non-fiction. However you like to consume information, do it. Skimming can be used to grab little bits of information from a wide variety of sources.

Think - Review ideas and stories that you’ve come across in your head, mind map out ideas or write them down. Explore ideas, look at them in detail and require your own thoughts about ideas to and how they change over time as you come across new information. I find it useful to think how someone else would react to a story or idea, putting myself in their shoes.

Connect – Make connections between certain things you’ve read, try and connect news stories with broader social trends; for example how will slipping standards in British A Level science education impact on the future British economy?

Science examination standards at UK schools have eroded so severely that the testing of problem-solving, critical thinking and the application of mathematics has almost disappeared The The Guardian

What will this decline in adaptable mental tools such as problem-solving and critical thinking do to the next generation of graduates entering the ‘knowledge economy‘? How will that impact on the British economy? Given the decline in British manufacturing, would this generation of under prepared graduates lead to a stagnation of British industry? Would the employers simply move to India or China and hire more enthusiastic, better prepared and cheaper graduates from those countries?

Bringing different ideas together and forging those connections in your mind between different subjects increases your memory of those topics. It can generate ideas you may not otherwise thought of.

I’ve been working with a company called Minerva Laboratories for a few weeks now as a Market Analyst, working on a strategy to expand the business into markets other than ear moulds (for use with hearing aids). It was a bit scary, still is a bit, its challenging. If anyone has advice, that would be great. A few things I’m finding helpful are;

• Get away from your desk, talk to people
• Have a plan, or at least a structure to your day
• Asking extra questions is important but don’t get distracted

It is teaching me to be a Marketer. I am quickly learning that while learning in University was really interesting, theory is different from application.

On the other hand I really like it. I believe in the business, the market feels right and my research is beginning to indicate that we could do well. I’m looking forward to presenting the strategy. And they have a 3D Printer, and that makes me drool.

Well I worked hard all year and it looks like hard work pays off. I graduated with a 1st Class Honours in BA

Me receiving my PHS Marketing Student of the Year Award from Andrew Johnston PHS Washrooms Marketing Manager

Marketing from the University of Glamorgan. I was also really grateful to receive the PHS Marketing Student of the Year Award for Best Overall Performance at Final Level

My final results were;

Direct and Electronic Marketing – 80%

Contemporary Issues in Marketing – 78%

Developments in Managerial and Organisational Theory – 75%

Marketing Management in a Globalising World – 71%

Leisure Operations and Events Management – 63%

Corporate Strategy – 61%

I thoroughly enjoyed this year at University, by applying myself and contributing in class I feel I really got to know the subject and my interest and curiosity has been further stimulated. While my course was comprehensive I do not feel I am finished with academia yet and so I intend to enrol on Msc Marketing in October 2008. However a lecturer has mentioned that I may be able to go straight to PhD stage.

My only fear is of becoming an ivory tower academic, so I’ll have to remember to keep testing ideas against the real world and not get caught up in rhetoric.

If anyone has any advice for me at this crucial stage of my career I would be very grateful

Hirschman’s (1970) Exit, Voice and Loyalty framework gives us a model to consider economic interactions between companies and customers. When a customer is dissatisfied with service from an organisation they can choose to voice their grievance or exit the relationship , however loyalty affects the decision.

Voice

I did not agree with Virgin media’s stance on Net Neutrality, and I wanted to make my position known to them to give them an opportunity to address my grievance. I called their complaints telephone number (0845 454 1111).

I explained the situation to the operator and he stated that their system for dealing with complaints was broken. I asked if he could make a note of my call; he could not.

Exit

I asked the operator to make a note of my new decision not to renew my contract with Virgin media the following year. Service frequently malfunctioned on my broadband and cable TV package in my first year with Virgin Media (then NTL), but due to my perception of the Virgin brand, my belief that service would improve, satisfaction with the variety of channels, and the on demand services, when they worked, I had renewed my contract.

Their stance on net neutrality and their inability to take my complaint (my inability to voice) led me to the decision to leave the company.

Loyalty

Alternatively, the operator could have taken my complaint. I could have been contacted by e-mail later that day clarifying Virgin Media’s policy on net neutrality. Perhaps asked to voice my opinions on the issues, comment on their corporate blog, send an e-mail to the CIO, invite me to discuss my grievance with customers, employees and management.

Virgin Media’s CEO Neil Berkett could have been better informed of the issues surrounding net neutrality and not considered filtering Internet usage in order to exploit the power of ISP’s over users requiring them to access the traditionally democratic Internet.

I have had the displeasure of being asked what marketing was by my 9 year old brother. I was at a loss for words, “Marketing is customer centric management” doesn’t mean much to him and after that point I was fumbling around different lecture notes in my head trying to come up with something short, to the point and which more importantly justified marketing as a business function. I finally got as far as

Marketing is making sure the business is doing things that customers want

I don’t think he bought it, and I’ve been searching for an explanation of marketing ever since, surely I should be able to explain the general idea behind something I have been studying for three years, but I think I fell into the trap of thinking about marketing as a scholarly pursuit, rather than as a business function, I knew I had to fix that. There are the jokes explaining different marketing tactics

You see a fabulous girl/guy at a party. You approach them and say, “I’m fantastic in bed.”That’s Direct Marketing.

You’re at a party with a bunch of friends and see a fabulous girl/guy. You have one of your friends approach them, point at you and say, “She’s/He’s fantastic in bed.”

That’s Advertising.

I don’t think he would have got the joke, and it wouldn’t have answered his question; these are marketing communication tools or marketing tactics. They don’t explain what marketing is. Luckily for me, Seth Godin exists and has provided this great, concise explanation which I could probably use as a starting point should I my vocation ever again come under any intense scrutiny by pre-teeners

Make big promises; overdeliver.

Big promises are the overall value proposition to the customer, in line with their needs, values and long term interests. Overdeliver means making sure this value proposition is realised and exceeded

Anyone got any better quick explanations? Comments please

I’ve written before about the academic arguments against the 4Ps, but what about some alternatives?

The 4Ps main fault is that they are focused on the Marketer and their offering, not the customer and their wants, assuming that we start with the offering and adapt the mix for the customer. The Customer Marketing Mix attempts to overcome this by emphasising

• Cost
• Communications with the Company
• Customer Needs and Wants
• Customer Convenience

Surely this is a big improvement, but the customer and the offering don’t exist in vacuums. Today’s competitive landscape requires us to consider more than the customer and company. Crittenden (2005) proposes;

• Customer Centrality – the basis
• Competitive Capabilities – what we can do and offer
• Company Collaborations – who can help us? who can we help? In today’s environment its both easier and necessary to join with other companies to add value. Concentrating on our value offering and then adding the value of other companies= multiple and high quality value elements for the customer
• Cyclical Connections – strategy and implementation are part of the same process. Ignoring implementation is a great way to make sure it doesn’t happen. Also consider what was learned from implementation, what were the results, what can we change next time

A part of me is very tempted to come of with my own mix…but I’ll spare you

Victoria L. Crittenden (2005) The rebuilt marketing machine Business Horizons 48:5 Sept-Oct (409-420)

on the world wide web, the brand is the experience and the experience is the brand

Dayal et al (2000)

I have left sites due to tiny elements I didn’t like in interfaces, lost pages and server time outs, never to return again a lot more often than because I didn’t like the content. Unlike advertising brand building where the consumer ‘leans backs’ and you can deliver your message to them, the experience means more online because users are actively engaging with your offering, they are ‘leaning forward’, and they are busy people, if your offering does not provide a good experience, someone else will be offering something better

Dayal, S., Landesberg, H. and Zeisser, M. (2000), “Building digital brands”, The McKinsey Quarterly, Vol. 2, pp. 42-51.

Marketer’s need to get socially responsible fast

Are we responsible for the sum results of our actions? Gaski (1985) argued that social welfare is the business of elected officals, that once marketers start trying to decide what is socially responsible; what is in the interests of the public; something for which they are not trained, it is dangerous for society. He argued that this is the business of democratically elected officials.

And so it is, but we are human beings and have moral responsibility. Even if you have no belief in helping society, strangers who you will never meet, even if you can get past reponsibility to your family and friends, if the results of actions performed by a marketer take away from society as a whole, they are limiting their own chance at survival. If you believe that people are basically selfish, only looking out for themselves, in a global world can we would be hurting our own selfish selves by taking away from society as a whole.

I believe in moral responsibility, and I believe a lot of other people do. I am talking about marketers because its what I know, and because I feel marketers are uniquely posistioned to change people’s actions. These changes can be morally guided or not, as Philip Kotler (1997) said

The marketing concept sidesteps the potential conflicts between consumer wants, consumer interests and long-run social welfare

We as human beings cannot

Portfolio Planning is economics put into action, an attempt to “use limited resources to fulfill unlimited demands” and although tools such as BCG and GE Matrices are designed for large organisations with extended product lines, I also feel they are useful for smaller companies, who also have unlimited demands but much more limited resources.

Portfolio planning has three real functions; balance future & present earnings, quantify existing cash flow and to analysise the company’s Strategic Gap (their expected performance – desired performance). The real use to small companies (whose cash flows and strategic gaps will be more obvious) is in the balancing function. Have these companies assured they aren’t relying on past innovations to maintain current market share? Or is there to much of a gap between certain product releases?

But a smaller scale application of the BCG matrix would highlight some of this models problems;

• market share and growth rate would be harder to obtain for these smaller companies,
• market growth, cash use and cash generation may be less (or even not) linked in smaller organisations/markets
• blindly applying the matrix would put blinkers to innovation on managers eyes, and as such they could be caught out by not paying attention to new market developments
• attempting to ‘balance’ a small companies by cutting out certain project could lead to a much higher loss of ’synergies’ than in large companies

This is shameless boasting but where else can I do that if not here?

I got 85% on my Direct & Electronic Marketing coursework

I’m chuffed because I thought that it was a very hit or miss essay, depending on which way my lecturer took it I would get a very good, or very bad mark…for some reason I was inclined towards very bad.

In any case I’m not sure it deserved such a high mark, but on re-reading it I realise it was a good piece of work and answered the question which was to compare and contrast two Direct Marketing organisations (I choose Amazon & Play.com – obvious examples but I enjoy Amazon’s direct marketing) based on my subjective experience. I enjoyed re-reading it but as my housemate Jamie said it doesn’t have my “usual spark”.

In any case here it is and my feedback;

Direct & Electronic Marketing Assignment

Direct & Electronic Marketing Feedback

P.S – anyone I trackbacked I referenced in my assignment (academia and blogging collides!)