Today was the day!  Palomar’s 2013 graduation, Gil Noble’s retirement from Palomar (boo hoo) and the official END to my sabbatical.  Here is one of the BIG things I learned — the more you learn – the more you realize you DON’T know.  I spend all Spring semester studying Internet Marketing and Social Media – but I feel as if I have only SCRATCHED the surface.  There is still so much more to discover (thank you summer!), but I feel as if I am well on my way.  Thank you sabbatical, sabbatical leave committee, Palomar College, and taxpayers!  I DO believe you all got your money’s worth and I look forward to developing super creative, super smart business people!

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!

I had HEARD about Klout.com and Klout scores – but I finally visited and set up an account.  I’m SO bummed that my score is only 29.  I’m guessing that’s something I should improve – particularly if I plan to teach about social media.  In a way – the Klout.com site reminded me (a bit) of HootSuite.  I’m totally impressed with the amount of “free stuff” on the web.

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.

Just discovered HooteSuite – a great way to manage all your social networks.  I love that I can post once and decide where it goes to.  And I love the analytics portion.  This will DEFINITELY be part of my social media class — not sure if it fits well (yet) into BUS 155 or BUS 150.

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.