After reviewing my notes on Life Technologies – I realized that I need a bit more follow up. It’s a good thing that I have lots of old friends and colleagues there.  I will pay another visit tomorrow to have lunch with Debbie Galasso and Lisa Hale.  I am looking forward to their giving me some insider information on how Life Tech is merging the digital and traditional marketing worlds.

  Met Jennifer Hornstein yesterday at Life Technologies.  She will be a FABULOUS member of my Advisory Board for the new E-Marketing program.  She is bright, positive, and has a lot of hands on experience with blogging and social media sites.  Thanks Jennifer for a great meeting!

I say “recovering” because I was fortunate (and crazy!)to spend EIGHT full hours at my former company, Life Technolgies, where I learned about communities, blogs, social media, SEO, SEM, content strategy, e-commerce, and the user experience.  The energy and pace at Life Tech is exciting and intoxicating.  It’s a collection of super smart people doing innovative marketing and advertising with cutting edge technolgies.  My head is swimming, but in a good way. I hope it doesn’t sound too crazy to say this (perhaps everyone else already knows?) but marketing and advertising HAVE changed and content is king. Believe it or not, if you sell a product or service (even if that product or service is yourself), you are in the business of publishing content.  That’s right.  And good content that can be found, clicked on, and acted on is king.  And my day at Life Technolgies helped me begin to understand what good content is.  My night class at UCSD is beginning to help me understand how to ensure that content is found and acted on.  In addition, I’m reading a book called “Accelerate” that ties content, search, and social media media all together to help me look at marketing and advertising in a totally different way.  I can’t WAIT for Fall to add all this new stuff to my curriculum and help students get the skills they need to secure today’s in-demand jobs.

A side benefit of taking a class during my sabbatical is learning how to be a better instructor.  I just completed an exam on Blackboard (normally I’m giving them) and it taught me a lot about creating exams.  First – it IS a bit stressful taking an exam on Blackboard.  You do prepare for it differently than you would a traditional exam — and it IS important to have a quiet, dedicated space.  Second, instructors DO need to be very careful of how they present questions and answers.  My instructor chose to randomize the answers — yikes – that made choices like “all of the above” or “these two are correct” really difficult to discern.  ANYWAY, scored a 92 and finding myself BUMMED that he didn’t choose to let me see the results.  NOR does he have a MY GRADES section on the site where I can see my grades.  ARGH. I’m making notes not only on Digital Marketing, but also on how to improve my OWN teaching based on this experience!

Why I am taking BUS 40453 – Online Marketing Strategy
I am taking Online Marketing Strategy because I need to learn more about digital marketing.  I am an Associate Professor at Palomar College who teaches marketing and advertising.  I’ve been teaching for eight years and in that time, digital marketing has dramatically increased.  I don’t have much hands-on experience with digital marketing.  Most of the marketing I did throughout my career prior to teaching included traditional print advertising, direct mail, catalogs and newsletters.  I’m looking forward to having gained a solid foundation in the principles of digital marketing when this class is complete.

What I expect from BUS40453 – Online Marketing Strategy
In addition to gaining a foundation in the principles of digital marketing, I’m looking forward to this class giving me content for my own marketing and advertising curriculum at Palomar College. I plan to revamp my curriculum by deploying what I learn in this class into different lectures and activities for my own students.

Hooray – I have found a class that I like.  The Online Marketing Strategies class at UCSD Extension will provide and overview of ALL digital marketing stuff – including social media.  This is a good fit for my needs for this sabbatical. I am well on my way!

OK – I feel funny saying this, but I DON’T like the instructor for the social media class. It’s a good thing I signed up for TWO classes (I need to only take one).  So, I will choose the Online Marketing Strategies class with Jeofrey Bean and hopefully have a better experience!

The class starts today!  I already logged into the Blackboard site, downloaded the syllabus, bought the E-book for my Kindle (trying to be all digital), and contacted the instructor to say “hi” (I like when students do that when I’m teaching).  It’s funny being the student this semester — and I’m actually a little stressed about the “group” project that the instructor has posted on the syllabus.  Let the sabbatical begin!

Met with Merrilyn Datta from Life Technologies today.  Life is my former company (called Invitrogen when I worked there). Merrilyn will be serving as my “anchor” for the sabbatical.  She’s already given me some a great book to read :

And she’s going to manage meetings for me with her Digital Content team.  I’ll be meeting with them January 29th, 30th, and 31st.