BUS 465 Blog

It is with deepest pride and greatest pleasure that we welcome you tonight.
And now we invite you to relax, let us pull up a chair as the Marketing and Communications proudly presents -
our brand campaign!

I'm spinning off Disney again, how irreistable is Lumiere? Tres- Vraiment! And while I'm on a French roll you can      go      to Aix-en-Provence this summer if you want and get credit for International Marketing or other fabulous courses! Naturally there are other countries and cities to go to as well, but you should go! There's nothing like experience and there's nothing better than international experience, get a passport and get going!

Well, a week ago today we presented to some of the faculty and staff of the College of Managment and Cross and Associates our progress. It went over great! Everyone had encouraging and constructive comments.

Now that we have all seen the whole presentation, we all have a better understanding our classmate's goals and accomplishments. Finishing up this week we are in the process of finalizing the details about our events from location, promotion to vendors.

Personally, I'm excited about painting the tunnel to advertize for it. It might not be as amazing as this but I'm sure it'll be good. We'll get more details on that later! Hopefully you can come paint too! We'll update you on that as things keep rolling along.

Erin

Let me finish my quote-

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet."

--From Romeo and Juliet(II, ii, 1-2) by William Shakespeare

But as I once read in a magazine, people tend to forget that Juliet was pushing up dasies later, and "creeping vetch" would tend to not be a popular flower. (The vetch link is a link to a vetch, which happens to be poisonous to horses and probably to your fellow companions on the Oregon trail, if only the oxen hadn't of died! And if you don't understand this go here)

But you ask, what in the world does this have to do with Integrated Marketing Communications and our class?

Well, a lot. A name is part of branding. If I say "Nike" what do you think of- a greek goddess? Or cool athletic shoes with a swoosh? Nike has a clear brand, people see the name or the symbol and they think of what the people at Nike have hoped and worked for them to think about. Companies even rank the value of their brand.

We as a class are trying to work promoting the brand of the College of Management, primarily internally to the students. We want all of our wonderful students to become brand stewards of the college- meaning that they would understand what the College of Management is all about hopefully be what the college of management is all about and articulate this to others. We hope to do this by raising awareness through events and also improving internal communication within the college. In case you didn't know, we are a relatively young college so not everyone knows about us, and much less the great things we have to offer! So keep your eyes peeled for new developments and events.

Erin

I put the PRO in Procrastinator. I bet we've all heard that one before. I don't have a good pun for pulling an all nighter. Not that I'm really going to do that tonight or actually always work on a procrastinator basis- I value sleep too much these days for that.

Kidding aside, (well half kidding at least) I am sure that I am in the majority on having really started my homework on Sunday night. After all, who is really being logical in having a midterm on Monday after break? Which brings me to the topic of this blog: our groupwork and it's challenges.

Groupwork can be great and it can be miserable. Since this project spans two classes and three teams among both of them there is potential for both. We have directors and team leaders for each section and work collaboratively on a wiki.

Having the wiki allows us to work together without having to be together- all the benefits of groupwork without having to find a time that is acceptable for everyone. That being said, there are some drawbacks as well.

First, you have to go and check the wiki (big deal you say? well, dear reader I have  four classes and have to check a total of 7 websites and my email, thats a little excessive wouldn't you think?)  and since it isn't advanced enough to have a recent posts option (or at least I don't know about it) you have to click every single link and read to see what is new. This is assuming everyone takes the time to read the wiki. But you know what they say about assuming. We do have group communication from emails as well, and that is pretty effective.

Let me culture you with a little poem that captures some of the problem:

This is a little story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought that Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done it.

Second, this takes more time up than it should- but doesn't everything? If we physically did meet for some length of time I think we could avoid the vauge uncertanties of just what is everyone doing? What am I supposed to be doing? Luckily as the blogger I know what I'm supposed to be doing, blogging. And I'm sure everyone else knows what they should be doing too- but my point is that excluding the leadership the rest of the class only has a loose understanding of what everyone else is doing, from what we read on the wiki. When we do meet in person in class, if some key person is absent, well you get the idea.

Although I complain I do see the advantages of this- as students we get to learn all those "real world" skills. Like dealing with vaugeness, our future boss might say write up a report on X. We will have to use our best judgement on what they really mean. Perhaps that is more of a problem because of our teach for the test mentality we've been taught all these years and on the other side a deplorable lack of articulation on their part. Another skill is that we'll all have been "self starters" "self motivated." This is also part of growing up. I hope we are all "self starters" to take out the trash and do our laundry these days and our work should be no different.

As for getting along, a key part to any group, I think most people understand this so it's not really new "real world" skill for us. Perhaps we just maybe don't know how to effectively communicate information. "Did you get the email?" and "Yeah I just didn't do it" are phrases I've heard before. Confrontation is key though- if you're in a bad group, things and people can change! Not to say that this is one, I just know we've all been there and I'm trying to give you hope if you're in a bad one now. And remember what Scarlett said, "After all, tomorrow is another day."

It's good experience. That's the bottom line. And I do procrastinate. That's why it's taken me two days to finish writing this, or is it three? and it may be more before it actually gets edited and posted so I'm going to quit while I'm ahead (well behind on the relevance to spring break) and hope for the best. I suppose higher quality writing is found in books, those things that take time and have serious editors.

Erin

This Friday there will be a presentation in each of the sections. The presentation will cover the current developments of our project and where we plan on heading in the near future.

The project has been progressing well. Currently we are hammering out the final details for the on campus event and trying to allocate our budget strategically.

If you have any comments feel free to post them!

The class project has seen much progress! After a few bumps in the road, a final T-Shirt design has been selected and is pictured below. This is a snap shot of the back side of the shirt. The front will have the COM logo over the front left side of the chest.

The Events team has also been busy planning the details for the on-camus event. The event is scheduled for Thursday, April 12th. It will include 8-9 inflatable attractions provided by Interactive Playgrounds. There will be sumo wrestling, gladiator jousting, an obstacle course, a basketball shoot-off, a rock climbing wall and many other activities! There will also be free food and information about the College of Management.

More information about this event will be posted as it develops.

Well, first of all no animals were harmed in the making of this project- the guinea pig remark was just to draw your interest. What we really did was pretty cool and a demonstration of how we have wonderful things at NCSU that you would never know were there unless someone showed you. Did you know we had a Usability Testing Lab before seeing the title?

If you are like me and didn't know we had one, you might not know what it is. Simply, it is a nice quiet place to test the difficulty of tasks for website users. This research leads to improved websites.

Ours is deep within the leather chair forest of the D.H. Hill library (Also known as the 2nd floor East wing). There resides the Digital Media Lab and the Usability Research Lab. We are using the Usability Research Lab to test individuals on their interaction and ease of use with the current College of Management website.

The lab is actually two small rooms. One is the testing room where the moderator and the subject do the testing. The moderator gives the subject about 10-15 tasks and then the subject will talk and comment on the process while the moderator takes notes. The room can record audio, video, and the computer imputs/screen (or any combination of the three).

The other is the observation room and has more of a James Bond feel because you can have a third person watching and listening to the moderator and subject inside through a video feed and the one-way glass. 

The lab uses unique software (Morae)  so you must download the results into another format. This program allows you to make movies of what you've done. It takes a long time to do this too, so if you use it you will want to bring a book to read, or grab one off a shelf on the way there. Or sleep in the leather chairs. Or run up and down the stairwell for a workout.

Lucky for us, this is free to students to use and you simply have to sign up to use it. It helps us have valid information to present to the powers that be to add more weight behind our positions if we call for change in any way. The staff is very helpful and will give you an introduction and demonstration on how to use it.

All of our testing has not been finished but I'll post more on that later!

Erin

Hi! My name is Matt McLaughlin and I am the second author for the Bus 465 web log. I am a senior in Business Management and will be graduating this May after I complete an internation marketing program in southern France.

Erin and I will be updating you with the developments of the Bus 465 semester project. Our project is focused on improving the brand image for the College of Management here at NC State. The two classes under Professor Claudia Kimbrough that are involved in this project have separated into three groups: Events, Internal Communication, and Research. Each of these groups has been commissioned to focus on different aspects of the project. We will be updating you with the progress from each section.

Stay tuned for more exciting news!

Greetings! Let me introduce this blog and its authors.

My name is Erin Degerman and I am a senior in Business Management with a concentration in marketing, at NC State's College of Management. I have loved my time at the College of Management and I am looking forward to graduating in May.

For one of my last courses at NC State, I am enrolled in Professor Claudia Kimbrough's Integrated Marketing Communications course (BUS 465). The course is about combining classroom experience with real world application. This blog will chart our progress and relevant issues that come up along the way.

This year, the two sections or classes of students taking this course (approximately 80 students) are working on promoting brand awareness within the college. We'll be hearing from Cross and Associates, the marketing firm that is working with the college's communications office; Red Hat, a company that does a lot with internal communications and branding; and a few other speakers.

Both classes have class leaders and then under those, team leaders and their teams who are responsible for different activities. Overall, the students have ownership of the ideas and work, provided everything is approved by our advisors: Anna Rzewnicki and Claudia Kimbrough.

This concludes our first post and we invite you to return and post comments!

Erin Degerman