Mary Cassoni's Site

OK – I believe I am almost officially ready for my sabbatical to be done and ready to be in the classroom. How do I know?  I already started preparing for Fall 13 by copying my BB stuff into my new sites and making edits (I usually do this in August). Even Richard Loucks (from Palomar) said – “Wow, Fall 13 already”.  I think it’s time!  I will enjoy summer – but I’m TOTALLY ready for Fall!

Here is the new book I will use for Fall 2013 (and beyond) in BUS 150 – Advertising. I LOVE this book because it is LIGHT on academics and HEAVY on practical approaches to creativity, regardless of media.  It has a great section on Internet Marketing, Google, and Social Media.  Finally – I have found the perfect book!  And thank goodness I had a good amount of time in Palm Desert to truly read, digest, and consider it.

OK – this post may not seem DIRECTLY related to sabbatical – but I think it is.  I spent this week in Palm Desert with my BU college buddies.  One of them (Andrea) works in marketing research and big data so we were able to share some idea on marketing, big data, Hadoop, and the future of our craft.  We also spent some time hanging in the sun, going to a spa, eating good food, and catching up.  I did read a lot of my new Advertising book by the pool, so it’s all good.  Happy 25 years since graduation to my best buds – Mara, Ann, and  Andrea!

What a great class!  My husband, Rick, had his students create web pages using Weebly (I will incorporate this into my Fall curriculum) and then present their pages with the Google Glass product.  Students had to incorporate social media and SEO techniques into their web pages to ensure they showed up in Google search.  The BIGGEST aha from this session was just how good a TEN minute presentation can be!  I may incorporate this (rather than the 20 minute format) into my future final projects.  It allowed a LOT more teams to go — and made the class quite interesting.

I’m writing my sabbatical report EARLY so I don’t have to worry about it over the summer.  And you know what?  I did a TON of stuff!  In addition to the official objectives, I also:

• Launched a new class
• Reviewed and changed book for advertising
• Participated in department meeting
• Participated in Mira Costa Business Dept Advisory Meeting
• Learned Connect and integrated it into Fall 13 and Spring 14 classes
• Reviewed Business Admin Dept Web Site
• Created a Web Site (fake) to use in class

And, though not related to the sabbatical – I learned Italian.  WOW.  I guess reports ARE  good thing so you can report on (and reflect upon) all the good work you’ve done.  Hooray for me!

On Tuesday, April 23rd, I participated in the Mira Costa Business Dept. Advisory Board Meeting with Tom Severance (Chair) and Rita Souza (BUS COMM instructor).  It’s always interesting to me to see what our sister college is doing with its business programs and the college overall.

1)  Tom talked about the launch of the Social Media for Business Certificate.  This is similar, but more narrow in scope, to Palomar’s E-Marketing degree.

2)  We also learned about Mira Costa’s Community Programs in which they are providing concentrated training in manufacturing and security skills to enable students to be prepared for high-technology jobs.

3)  In our breakout session, we talked with industry leaders about the skills they see LACKING in today’s 20-somethings who are applying for jobs.  Communication skills, writing skills, team working, and other social skills topped the list.  The irony to me is that today’s 20-somethings are the leaders in social media – yet they seem to lack true basic social skills.  This is something to think about!

The evening ended with some socializing and beer tasting (the meeting was held in a local brewery, Latitude 33) and I met a new contact, Amy, who works for Sempra Energy.  Overall, it was time well spent.

Today I visited Avanir Pharmaceuticals with Garret Akerson. Garret works at the digital agency, Motionstrand, and is teaching my BUS 150 class while I am on sabbatical.  We met with Avanir to discuss the campaign for the drug Nuedexta.  The meeting was to review analytics for the web site PBAfacts.com.

Here are some takeaways that will help me create new curriculum and teach my courses better:

1)  Once again – analytics is king!  Much of the creativity in advertising is being augmented and/or replaced with web analytics.  Garret showed several Google Ad Groups that he created all with slightly different text/copy (only 1- 2 lines of copy).  And that copy was based on key word searches.  It was easy  (and cheap) to test different text ads quickly and the analytics clearly showed which ones were most effective.

2)  Mobile is king!  Even though the target for this drug was older people, it was still interesting to see the number of people accessing the web site from their smartphone or tablet.  The client discussed the importance of having a mobile site that would quickly get people to want to “opt in” in order to have more information sent.

3)  Re-marketing — one of my new favorite terms – came up again.  This is the idea of “following” your lead around on the web with continued ads about your product or service after they visit your site.  I think this is an interesting term that I will introduce students to in both BUS 155 and BUS 150.

4)  New activity ideas — I got a a great idea for an assignment.  Having students take a REGULAR ad and then create a Google PPC ad from it — perhaps various versions based on key search terms.  I think this will mimic very well what Garret Akerson was illustrating to his client.

I think this was my LAST interview/work day for my sabbatical.  I believe I was supposed to interview 5-6 people, but I’ve interviewed about 10 — all is good.

I need to get my 2013 book adoptions in this Friday.  That’s why I’m sitting on a McGraw-Hill webinar about Connect.  I’m looking for interactive grammar learning exercised for my BUS 125 – Business English course.

Hopefully — in the next 30 minutes – I’ll know how to do this!

Wow – on Monday, April 22nd, I ‘m going to a client meeting for Avanir Pharmaceuticals along with the agency, Motionstrand.  This will be the FIRST time that I’m on the opposite side of the fence  (the agency side).  Usually I’m the client!  I can’t WAIT to be the agency — perhaps even feel a little Don Draper like — looking forward to see how we strategize on the way up and how we decide what to talk about/present to the client.

Attending a McGraw Hill Webinar right now on the Flipped Classroom.  Good information that is really quite common sense for me.  There’s a lot of information on “gamification” — basically making a game out of learning.  I love this because I’ve been doing this since my early days in training sales reps.  And, I’ve created many of my OWN games that I’ve been using in the classroom since I started teaching.  What’s nice now is that the publishers (and many other web sites) are in on this now with technology that enhances gamification.

What I learned today on this site is the power again (of Twitter) for teaching.  I like the idea of making a hashtag for class (#BUS150) and allowing students to discuss and share information outside the class.

Also – the presenter on this call (Jason Seitz) really likes LearnSmart – a gaming program through McGraw Hill – that I’ve been intrigued with.  He suggests starting slow — which I think I’ll do on the Fall.  I’ll try LearnSmart with a few chapters in BUS 155 — looking forward to see how it works.