A Selfie exercise in Blogging?
Well, the year 2013 has become trendsetting for "selfies", what with the gadgets of sorts providing range of cameras and encouraging people to indulge in taking personal snaps, aptly titled selfies!
While the fine distinction is being made about how celebrities' indulgence in selfies to be condemned while an aam admi's forays into selfies be encouraged, I am not very sure if this post gets either of the treatments! i am sure this post is no less than a selfie, as the whole episode my thoughts are lingered around reflecting what "i" should do... and what not!
Fine, let me come to grips of posting a selfie, and see if and if its really gets taken kindly by my readers....
What's in digital marketing?
Almost every one who is familiar with either or both or any one of these words will brush aside and move away from reading remaining part of this monologue,,,,, if one is still persistent to glance through the remaining of this post, that reader should get an award of sorts... i can say that you - as a blog reader - are being very courteous to me and i can even presume that you have pardoned my this attempt of posting a selfie. Thanks so much. Now let me try and say few saner words....
Simply stated, this is an elective on Digital Marketing for those specialising in Marketing. Why am i making so much noise about it? Isn't it being offered by anybody else? May be my present affiliation and my last few months' experiences lead to a high flow of adrenaline! Hmm, hoping to contain it on the eve of the curtain raiser.
This task is on hand for almost a fortnight now, and the design of this course has gone through already a half-dozen avatars, and the dilemmas abound! May be i should speak these out.
Dilemmas of a new course teacher...
Dilemmas as a developer of a new course as to what must be offered in what form are on one-side while what gets picked up by a student community thats one step already into the larger world from their alma mater, and a set of students who want something concrete to be brought to the board besides the quintessential 4ps and a c on a virtual world etc.etc.
A nerd's point of view - to go by the book and teach whats already packaged as part of "digital marketing" in a range of text books - pulls me to a direction that appears safe, while realizing that most of these text books are tending to become stale, due to their treatment of the issues in a technological world that was vastly different even a year back and that anything to offer as a freshly baked bread from 2013/2014 becomes a spine chilling thought in the present day ultra dynamic market and technology baking/cooking fields...
Another haunting view comes from the ever-intriguing technology students, who look at the electronic aspects of the entire exercise, mainly as java, dotnet, and many other acronyms that can make a sense only in a techy world and not so much in a marketing surface!
well, it so appears that the only way to make a headway, is to list out what all can be encompassed in the term digital marketing. Should one deal with all these listed below?
An ambitious set of goals for a tepid course...
Well, the year 2013 has become trendsetting for "selfies", what with the gadgets of sorts providing range of cameras and encouraging people to indulge in taking personal snaps, aptly titled selfies!
While the fine distinction is being made about how celebrities' indulgence in selfies to be condemned while an aam admi's forays into selfies be encouraged, I am not very sure if this post gets either of the treatments! i am sure this post is no less than a selfie, as the whole episode my thoughts are lingered around reflecting what "i" should do... and what not!
Fine, let me come to grips of posting a selfie, and see if and if its really gets taken kindly by my readers....
What's in digital marketing?
Almost every one who is familiar with either or both or any one of these words will brush aside and move away from reading remaining part of this monologue,,,,, if one is still persistent to glance through the remaining of this post, that reader should get an award of sorts... i can say that you - as a blog reader - are being very courteous to me and i can even presume that you have pardoned my this attempt of posting a selfie. Thanks so much. Now let me try and say few saner words....
Simply stated, this is an elective on Digital Marketing for those specialising in Marketing. Why am i making so much noise about it? Isn't it being offered by anybody else? May be my present affiliation and my last few months' experiences lead to a high flow of adrenaline! Hmm, hoping to contain it on the eve of the curtain raiser.
This task is on hand for almost a fortnight now, and the design of this course has gone through already a half-dozen avatars, and the dilemmas abound! May be i should speak these out.
Dilemmas of a new course teacher...
Dilemmas as a developer of a new course as to what must be offered in what form are on one-side while what gets picked up by a student community thats one step already into the larger world from their alma mater, and a set of students who want something concrete to be brought to the board besides the quintessential 4ps and a c on a virtual world etc.etc.
A nerd's point of view - to go by the book and teach whats already packaged as part of "digital marketing" in a range of text books - pulls me to a direction that appears safe, while realizing that most of these text books are tending to become stale, due to their treatment of the issues in a technological world that was vastly different even a year back and that anything to offer as a freshly baked bread from 2013/2014 becomes a spine chilling thought in the present day ultra dynamic market and technology baking/cooking fields...
Another haunting view comes from the ever-intriguing technology students, who look at the electronic aspects of the entire exercise, mainly as java, dotnet, and many other acronyms that can make a sense only in a techy world and not so much in a marketing surface!
well, it so appears that the only way to make a headway, is to list out what all can be encompassed in the term digital marketing. Should one deal with all these listed below?
An ambitious set of goals for a tepid course...
- to learn the nitty-gritty of using electronic mail - emails in short - as carriers of promotional materials along with the mails and as the media of marcom (marketing communication) - are we talking of spamming innocent mail box holders or really trying to reach some one interested and expecting to get an email on interesting brands and the drive they bring in to motivate one to blow the pockets empty?!;
- to understand what goes in the design of web pages and sites of companies that are marketing products and services - does any marketing executive ever really come to grips of how much of that understanding is really needed to develop a website for a brand or sub-brand?
- learning how web sites become e-tailers and take over the virtual world as the retailing giants in the virtual market place - is there a game plan other than convincing PE investors or angel investors to keep pouring investments without any inkling of when and how the bottomline gets created and turned black by a company?
- how to bring the millions of mobile phone users into thinking that there is no better way than to engage with it for all and sundry purchases in a daily life - whether its is booking movies tickets or placing an order for a pizza, and keep them fully busy - and disconnect the phone calls as they disturb one from completing the mobile transaction - are we forgetting why a phone and why a mobile phone has come into the market place? Is it worth deciphering the value proposition that an "app" can bring to its subscriber and make sure that more and more of these apps get populated in a thicker density than ur metros on each mobile phone?
- One more ambitious goal is in front of me - to unfold the secrets of how social media platforms are becoming the new mouthpieces of every brand thats worth it salt and what makes them the most sought after forums to fight over the number of likes and number of followers - I dont remember the names of all the great tech savvy entrepreneurs who discovered and popularised the social media networking sites, but we (means me and me alone, no offence meant to any other respected marketing professor anywhere in the world) marketing teachers are sure that they are our most cherished weapons to teach and make our students fall for them as godsend boons to resurrect their cgpa graphs, and in later periods, to boost their marketing careers with one more facebook page of the chosen brand and a couple of thousands of like buttons!
While i was thrilled with the highly decorated goals list i lined up for my course, not withstanding my one derisive side comments (don't take those stupid comments into account at all, you know, all my students vouchsafe how the original goals are worth pursuing struggles for the next three months)
Now, come, come, come again.... am I killing my golden goose while i say these words? Hmm, a thought thats spine chilling, given the fact that I am eternally in jobs that put me on probation, even when i am inching my days to retirement in real terms. Well, let me take that if that probation that I am living through now is not completed and am asked to close my innings, i can at least sigh and say that I am retired....
Sorry, I drifted off. Let me come back to the issues in finalzing the course plan and contents. While one looks at the above, a highly blurred picture crops up in the mind, as I am unable to separate out the tools that come with internet and related technologies from its step-cousin - the television and its much neglected step brother, the radio, as these two are no less digital now-a-days than the other gadgets. What should I do?
How do I tackle the Convergence of technologies?
Sorry, I drifted off. Let me come back to the issues in finalzing the course plan and contents. While one looks at the above, a highly blurred picture crops up in the mind, as I am unable to separate out the tools that come with internet and related technologies from its step-cousin - the television and its much neglected step brother, the radio, as these two are no less digital now-a-days than the other gadgets. What should I do?
How do I tackle the Convergence of technologies?
Just to make my thoughts clearer, let me put my dilemma in simpler terms. For example, how could one exclude television from the digital marketing, especially after the 2011-12 transformation of satellite tv broadcasting into a digital business; and subsequently the mandate made by the GOI that seeks to enlist every cable subscriber to become part of the digital network and resultant database! How can one ignore the silently working CRM software - linked to the beaming of satellite and cable television that captures millions of viewers' watching habits or media consumption habits and bill them, account them and sieve through these details to dish-out (literally) what each of our family members can view and to what volumes do they account for on a channel by channel basis or program by program basis or by event by event basis - umm! it goes beyond the geo-tagging and device tagging concepts....as one teaches digital marketing?
Forget dear professor, your job is customer centric, and don''t waste your time in loading the course with boring contents, what is more important is to understand and address your customers' needs... my inner voice kept on telling me for over a week, after recovering from the indigestion of the previous course feedback given by the very same set of students for the earlier courses. So, I went on pondering over, what suits the requirements in real terms....
What does a typical sixth term MBA student look for in an elective course?
Our - the teacher as well the students - world is somewhat lesser developed than the world of top ranking b schools, for a simple reason that placement is a struggle every year, irrespective of the colours of the students and teachers as well, and one has to trod the path of completing placement for all those graduating, in a turn by turn basis - with as many hiccups as one could pass through, while ticking the score over a month or two before they all leave the campus with an offer in hand. Well, I am not going to talk here about the travails of placement season, let me preserve that selfie to some other time.
I am aware that a course offered at the fag-end of a two year MBA Program, holds very little interest among the outgoing students, except for adding the course credits to their profiles and pitch it for the placement exercises. Am I not correct in my study of students? So making sure that their attention is drawn to some level of learning pitch and ensure that it excites them, motivates them and captivates through the six or seven weeks of negotiation - and make them attend thirty odd sessions - i find it an ambitious project, and therefore, am sounding through this forum for practical suggestions and views on what becomes a compelling value proposition for students to allow me to live through this course!!!
In my note to the aspiring students, i mentioned that the course intends to bring to the table four key outputs:
a. develop an email based marketing campaign and run it for a brand for a definite time;
b. develop a blog and if possible, a web site and come out with a steady flow of visitors to it;
c. develop a process flow for creating a digital advertising campaign and make at least an offline run of the same; and
d. develop a e-commerce site and attempt making sale-purchase transactions happen, at least in an intranet, if not on the internet.
Forget dear professor, your job is customer centric, and don''t waste your time in loading the course with boring contents, what is more important is to understand and address your customers' needs... my inner voice kept on telling me for over a week, after recovering from the indigestion of the previous course feedback given by the very same set of students for the earlier courses. So, I went on pondering over, what suits the requirements in real terms....
What does a typical sixth term MBA student look for in an elective course?
Our - the teacher as well the students - world is somewhat lesser developed than the world of top ranking b schools, for a simple reason that placement is a struggle every year, irrespective of the colours of the students and teachers as well, and one has to trod the path of completing placement for all those graduating, in a turn by turn basis - with as many hiccups as one could pass through, while ticking the score over a month or two before they all leave the campus with an offer in hand. Well, I am not going to talk here about the travails of placement season, let me preserve that selfie to some other time.
I am aware that a course offered at the fag-end of a two year MBA Program, holds very little interest among the outgoing students, except for adding the course credits to their profiles and pitch it for the placement exercises. Am I not correct in my study of students? So making sure that their attention is drawn to some level of learning pitch and ensure that it excites them, motivates them and captivates through the six or seven weeks of negotiation - and make them attend thirty odd sessions - i find it an ambitious project, and therefore, am sounding through this forum for practical suggestions and views on what becomes a compelling value proposition for students to allow me to live through this course!!!
In my note to the aspiring students, i mentioned that the course intends to bring to the table four key outputs:
a. develop an email based marketing campaign and run it for a brand for a definite time;
b. develop a blog and if possible, a web site and come out with a steady flow of visitors to it;
c. develop a process flow for creating a digital advertising campaign and make at least an offline run of the same; and
d. develop a e-commerce site and attempt making sale-purchase transactions happen, at least in an intranet, if not on the internet.
Do we need to work on them, all of them? I don't know! at this moment, I can only keep swallowing bile till the class actually opens and then, chug my way through. Am I alone in such foolish thoughts and anxieties, how are you all resolving them, without gulping hazmolas and Anacins and Digenes in dozens. Please, please please tell me the secret, I will surely follow and click a like button promptly on your facebook walls for all thats jotted.
Looking forward to Google pluses, facebook followers and all others to drown me with your valueable spamments, err, comments. Thanks for helping me finish my selfie!
Looking forward to Google pluses, facebook followers and all others to drown me with your valueable spamments, err, comments. Thanks for helping me finish my selfie!
