Thinking Differently

I'm so excited that the semester is upon us!  We'll have many opportunities to learn and share with each other throughout the semester.  Some of these opportunities will come from the readings that are assigned for the class.  I hope by now you've bought (or at least ordered) the four books we'll be reading during the semester.  They are all popular press books and are highly rated reads.

We'll be reading Elevator Pitch Essentials (O'Leary) first.  It will be a great kick off book and will get you prepared for the three elevator pitches you will be doing throughout the semester. It will be a great reference book, not only for this class, but also afterward, as you get out in the world and find yourself in situations where an effective elevator pitch would come in handy.  Many corporations are "requiring" their employees to have an elevator pitch at the ready.  You never know when you might need to pull it out of your back pocket, so to speak. 

The second book, Made To Stick (Chip & Dan Heath), is another book that will valuable to keep on your shelf for years to come.  No matter what area of business you go into, marketing is everywhere.  The key to reaching consumers on a level that resonates with them, is making an idea "sticky."  The Heath brothers do a fantastic job in discussing this and provide great examples to boot.  The pass-along readership of this book is huge.  Feel free to pass it along to others after the semester is over (just be sure to get it back!).

The third book, The Third Screen (Martin),will allow us an opportunity to delve into the idea that marketing is going mobile.  According to one website (www.mobilefutureinstitute.com) the author "defines the implications, strategies and tactics to survive and thrive in business in a world gone mobile. The book links the technological developments to the behavioral changes that go hand-in-hand and reveals the unexpected aspects of the coming changes in mobile, preparing marketers and businesspeople for what lies just around the corner.  The world has gone mobile and it is about to change everything!"  Although we still experience and use the first two screens (the television and the computer, respectively), mobile media is the future.  

The final book, UnMarketing (Stratten), is a series of short "cases" that are focused on "unlearning" old ways of engaging in marketing and by so doing, will allow a company to attract customers and build quality relationships with them.  There is a focus on Social Media, but there are many other valuable nuggets of information that Stratten shares in the book. 

I'm positive you'll enjoy all of these books and will be thinking differently when you've finished reading them.  I'm also positive we'll have some interesting classroom discussions as we make our way through the books.

I look forward to our discussions.

Here's to a great semester,
Professor Micheletto