Andrew weighs in on the ways in which the web and the world are changing
Two academics and a consultant walk into a bar and order drinks. “Who’s paying?” asks the bartender. The academics immediately say “He is,” pointing to the consultant.
The academics and the bartender start to look concerned when the consultant shakes his head and says “I’m not paying.” But they relax and smile broadly when he adds, “The client’s paying.”
That may well be the world’s first joke to start like that. The more religious among you might want to pray that it’s the last…
or, Google Goes to School: Hey Kids, Want Some Free AdWords? That does sound, as Marshall Kirkpatrick puts it, “a little bit creepy.”
But the people in question are university students taking marketing classes. They are not, for example, high school “kids.”
How does the program work? Student teams will receive US$200 of free online advertising with Google AdWords and then work with local businesses to devise effective online marketing campaigns.
I don’t have a problem with this, but then, I teach in a business school (although I don’t teach marketing). I hope that the profs involved will challenge their students to recognize that the Google Online Marketing Challenge is itself a marketing program – for AdWords.
I like a lot of things about being a prof. Grading is not one of them.
OK, back to the stack…
By Strategy Station I mean the 2007 meeting of the Strategic Management Society. This post is a companion to the handout I uploaded to the conference web site. If you got here via that handout, welcome! If you’re a more regular blog reader , you’re also welcome, and the last paragraph of this post is especially for you.
The paper is “Corporate blogging: Is it a nonmarket strategy?” It provides arguments both for and against the question in its title. Here’s a simplified version of the no argument that convinces me.
To save you some typing, here are the other links from the handout:
For most readers who arrived here through the usual blog-related channels, see the appropriate page from the conference web site for the one-page handout, and for some context. It does define the term nonmarket strategy. To such readers, the paper, even in handout form, may seem rather laborious. I agree that it has the Cluetrain pulling some rather bulky cars behind it. But laborious writing often seems like a hazard of the academic occupation.