Spring Semester 2005 Mod B - Marketing

The joys of marketing ... I hate them.

At BYU, I took one (required) marketing class. I didn't do too well in that class. I had this lady by the name of Smoot. The one thing I recall from that class was that she marketing these padded bras one time. She made the mistake of telling her students (she was blonde) and since then her "product" has been known as "SMOOTERS HOOTERS." That's all I remember from that class.

Marketing Management

Marketing at Cox was OK. My teacher was James Kindley. At our orientation, he gave a demonstation lecture. He was a pretty easy-going professor. We would read a case, prepare some notes and then we'd discuss it in class. He would usually start out asking some basic questions. For example, we had this case about a paint company. The first question he asked was, "who has painted their house within the last year?" Then he'd ask whoever raised their hand what type of paint he used. Then he'd ask what influenced his or her decision to buy that particular brand of paint. Then we'd delve into the certain aspects of the product and eventually get into the nitty-gritty details. However, he would not get too nitty-gritty.

The class was enjoyable. It was entertaining. It was informative ... but again, I don't remember much of what I learned. Well, I take that back. I do remember a few things like brand identity and competition. The main thing I learned in that class was that you focus on the strengths of a product and that you can really never compete on price.

For the final, he just gave us another case and we did a write up on it. It was really pretty painless. I ended up with a B+.

Spring 2005 turned out pretty well. I got 2 A-'s and 2 B+'s and was taken off academic probation! It was a really good semester for me.

Spring 2006 Update

Nothing major to report now. I had the modeling class last night. We talked about the Eli Lilly case. We'll be doing decision trees for this case. But the decision trees are more deep and complex that what I've seen before. He said this would be the hardest case of the class. After the Eli Lilly case, we'll just have Monte Carlo simulation which is basically our final. We have to work on it individually. Then we'll be done with the class! YES! I'll be glad to be done with this class.

Negotiation is tomorrow. I've read the case, but haven't done much else.

Chess Update

The 2/14/06 chessgames.com puzzle ... 50. ... Na3+ 51. Kd1 Nxb5

And the answer is ... Na3+ 0-1. That was like a Monday puzzle ... too easy.

I didn't play chess after class last night. I had to help get some sleepy kids in bed and get ready for the next day. I also was taking some digital pictures of some old 35mm slides. My mom gave me this book of slides that my grandpa took of me when I was a baby and kid. I've been wanting to digitize them. I've always thought about taking a digital picture of them, but I needed to have a slide viewer. Well, long story short, I found one. It turns out that the place where I bought it was just down the street from where I work. So last night after class, I was using it and taking pictures. Some of the pictures turned out very well. I'll have to go back and re-take a few that turned out a little blurry, but overall, I think it will work. Maybe tonight I'll play a game or two. I have a group meeting for the Excel class, but after that, I should be able to fit a game in before going to bed.

Countdown Timer Added

Yesterday, I added a countdown timer to the blog. Once it expires, I think I'll use that section for tracking 7 Circles and other info I'd like to track.