‘The winners will be those who have not only the right product innovation, but also the most effective market positioning and sales machine’

The theme of this latest issue of Vlerick reflect is Marketing & Sales. Over the past year companies have been doing their utmost to reduce their balance sheets, cut costs and find ways to increase efficiency. As they get ready for resumption of normal demand, the winners will surely be those who have not only the right product innovation, but also the most effective market positioning and sales machine.

As in any sector, the marketing channels of business schools are evolving rapidly. Depending on your age, profession or location, you may be listening to this editorial as a podcast, clicking the pages on the website, or holding a glossy magazine in your hand. More and more, our marketing is happening online and in the social media. Yet individuals care less and less about what we ourselves say about our programmes. Instead they seek the opinions of our current and past students out there in the blogosphere and in social networks. As a School, we can try to create the conditions for the outside world to find out about us, and to join our knowledge platforms. Yet at the end of the day participants have to rate our programmes highly and we must have something to say. We need high-quality content.

The changing marketing landscape is not only a challenge for the School’s management; fortunately it is also one of the strengths of our faculty. The tone of the marketing dossier in this Vlerick reflect is set by a round-table discussion in which seven of our marketing people comment on the challenges facing marketing professionals today. Other contributions discuss our research on the relationship between retailers and suppliers, and on planning and evaluation of e-business initiatives. Those who want to find out more are invited to join our new Vlerick Brand Community, or check out our Executive Master Class in B2B Marketing & Sales.

As always, this issue of Vlerick reflect also brings you up to date on other aspects of the School. I would like to draw your attention to three in particular. The first is the development of our Chinese partnership. You can read about our new intake of 57 full-time MBAs and 118 part-time MBAs, a new book about “China 2.0” co-authored by Bruce Stening, our Vlerick International Dean at BiMBA, and the exchange visit of our MBA-FSI students to BiMBA.

Business schools are in a supply-driven business: our programmes and our content can only be as good as the talent of our faculty. Hence the importance of faculty recruitment, the second aspect worth highlighting. This issue contains the profiles of seven new faculty members who were recruited this autumn.

And finally, we comment on the latest Economist ranking, which places the Vlerick International MBA at number 10 in the world, and number 4 in Europe. Whereas the emphasis in the Financial Times ranking (where Vlerick ranks 75th and 20th respectively) is on salary increases, the Economist ranking stresses the experience of students in the programme. Let’s just conclude that we are getting somewhere up there….

We hope that your markets are steadying and gradually returning to normal. Those of you who have continued to develop your management talent will be well poised to take advantage.

We look forward to hearing your comments on our Vlerick blogs (Dean’s blog, blog on entrepreneurship and various student blogs), or to seeing you on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

“Come on in, sit right down,” says Aunt Ida. “Sit! Bowzer, Sit!,” we tell our dog. Yet how many of us actually SIT … I mean really sit.

If you are used to working on your feet, sitting can become a huge relief to your legs, feet and back. But if you sit down on the job, unless you have a desk job, sitting down can be a ‘no-no.’

People in this world are used to going non-stop. Rarely do we sit, unless we sit at our jobs or in traffic or on some form of public transportation like a bus, train, subway or plane. But when asked to ‘sit’ – there is a bit of hesitance that comes with it, a bit of guilt, and yet after enduring a long, stressful week, where we dream of sitting and relaxing, we somehow don’t do as much of it as we should.

Lots of people don’t even sit down to eat anymore, they eat on the run. And some people don’t even sit down to watch TV – they are working out as they watch the tube. The other day, I saw a mother in her jogging suit, talking on her cell phone with one hand and pushing a stroller with the other, which happened to have the same hand holding a dog leash. The dog was also ‘not sitting,’ but running. Nearby was a lake with many ducks. The ducks were not sitting either, they were waddling looking for food, no one was sitting watching them.

Cat Stevens still may be “Sitting,” The Moody Blues may ask “Are You Sitting Comfortably?” and Otis Redding still may be “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay” – but the great lost art of sitting and reflecting, not sitting and multi-tasking, seems lost.

When you sit down and stop your world, not only are you still, but your world can spin in a more positive direction if you take time to sit, enjoy, relax and be. Sometimes we don’t have enough time to think, sometimes we don’t have enough time to breathe and reflect. But most of all, we have learned to view the great art of sitting as a waste of time.

When you take a moment and talk to someone older, they will tell you that sitting is a wonderful thing. You can sit down and take the time to learn from others. You can sit down and get acquainted with new people. You can sit down and take a moment for yourself to reflect on how wonderful your day went or how beautiful tomorrow is going to be. But most importantly, you can sit down and simply be yourself. No one is expecting you to be anywhere, be anything to anyone, you are simply allowed to just sit there as you are.

And that’s worth sitting down for.

© 2009 Queena Verbosity 100% Real Words
Media Monster Communications, Inc.
Stacey Kumagai
http://www.100percentrealwords.blogspot.com
http://hubpages.com/profile/mediamonster
http://www.braingasm.com

So they say just do it. The water’s colder if you go in toe by toe, inch my inch. Tell that to the girl who nearly drowned. Toe by toe is courage enough. But they’re right, by default – if it’s over quickly there’s a lot to be said for immediate consequences.  Waiting has always been worse than the actual news. You hear them say it on the news and in docu dramas all the time, sobbing on Oprah, ‘I just need closure‘ they wail through tissues and grim tight lipped partners nod and squeeze support, yes surely that would be enough. Like this new pseudo psychological quick fix could suture all the old wounds and lick the mess clean.  So here we go, but I’m doing this sentence by sentence. Maybe phrase by phrase. easy does it.

I’m not really sure what I want to get out of this, what the difference between this my diary, my facebook page, my meetings, my gossip sessions with work colleagues. I suppose the main difference is this is another mask, but just one, rather than the myriad of combinations of all of the above. Satisfy some need for an audience without actually having to stand on the stage. Can I really have the best of both worlds? Why do I have to be so reflective and serious? I am not like this in real life. I watch fat too much TV, I update my status incessantly, and spend far too much time thinking how to make them sound clever yet not too droll. Has to be natural. Has to be effortless. Whereas my diary is all sarcasm and self pity. My stepwork is all optimism and hope. None of it seems to fit. So maybe I’m hoping to find some sense of authenticity here. Where everything is virtual. And not real. How ironic

To sum up my first month’s work on helium will be exciting because I will get to look through the first things I’ve written on helium.com and see my growth and progress through a critical lens and then share it with you!

Please enjoy!!

Always and forever

Based on three separate poems, I’ve created this poem which is basically what I consider to be an engagement, newlywed or recommitment poem about marriage, being together and loving each other always and forever and the prospects of this new way of life. Helium has rated it 2/37.

How motherhood changes a woman

A friend of mine laughed at the fact that when I started on helium, most of the articles I had written were in their Parenting & Pregnancy channel, even though I am not a mother. I just wrote to titles that stuck out to me when I joined helium and this was one of them. I found that this was a title that was part of a writing contest helium was writing and it placed me at #14 in the list of publishers who wrote for the selected titles of the contest in the topic of Parenting & Pregnancy. I don’t quite recall how I first even found the title but I want to say that through rating, I came across many titles that stuck out to me, which I then would look up in order to write for.

This article has been 1/51 but the ratings went down and I could not understand why but when I was honest with myself, I knew that the couple of typos I’d corrected weren’t the only thing wrong. I realized my article was missing key information when it comes to physical and when it comes to professional, occupational and career changes that motherhood has on a woman. So, I “leapfrogged” the article (revising, adding to and editing an article and submitting it to be rated by the helium community as compared to your original article for the approval to, ultimately, leap over and literally replace the former article), which actually resulted in it going from two pages in length to four but all I knew was that I was making sure I put what I needed to say there in order to reflect my real take on the title. Needless to say, it reclaimed its rightful place in rating!

Should teachers have a right to deny a students need to use the bathroom?

Now, I came across this title and saw that it was a debate title, meaning you can come on the page and vote yes or no and can write an article relaying your argument for your side and your stance. A writer who wrote for the “No” side had a post on her blog/helium zone with a link to vote to “protect” children in public schools. Even though I actually loved her article [even added her to my favorite helium writers list on my profile] as well as her heart, I wrote for the “Yes” side. After writing, I learned that the channel category was for Secondary Education so I leapfrogged this article as well in order to ensure it reflected high school students and high school life at a more in depth capacity than it had previously. The article is rated 1/2 for the No side. In case you’d like to know and would find it to be valuable information, there are currently 4 articles on the yes side as compared to the 2 on the no side.

The impact of father-mother relationship on children’s well-being

This is something I’ve felt extremely strongly about and am glad to have gotten off of my chest exactly what and how I feel about it. Now, others can see and learn from it and they obviously appreciate since it is rated 3/14.

Is there too much sex on television?

I definitely had no choice but to write to this title. Everyone who I know who has read the article I wrote has thoroughy enjoyed it and thought it to be accurate and insightful as well as humorous and very debate-worthy. It is fact-driven and shares personal accounts as well as it challenges and raises questions. Enough of that, though, because what I want to say to you is that it shouldn’t be a question and I think that whoever wrote for or even just believes in the No side should “go spank themselves,” as someone I know says from time to time. Needless to say, I wrote for the Yes side and all I can say now is to just, please, read it yourself. Formulate an opinion if you have not yet done so. Lastly, fight for what you believe in because change does start with one man…every one man makes things how they are and every individual man is needed for things to change, so why not just go ahead and start with you?!

This article was numer 1/54 and was leapfrogged after a while because new information arose. It still sits at the top!

So, there we have it — a poem, two debates and two parenting articles and that sums up the best of  eDITORcHRIS/Christina Bernice’s helium.com writings from October 2009.

With the wonderful holiday over I took today to rest and take a breath.

This coming week is busy as the last few have all been with writing, and doctor appointments.  Working on writing – I tune out some of the overload of waiting for test results and many different doctors all trying to determine what is left of me – strokes and spinal cord surgery later.  This week I should get back the results of my Echo Stress test done with chemically induced rise in heart rate.  The nerve damage on my left side made it impossible to do it on the tread mill.  More blood work on Tuesday.

Although it is sometimes alot to bear - I am so Thankfully to see everyday and share my life with my family .  I know in my heart I am here for a purpose and I entend to give it my best shot.

Wow Thanksgiving is over – Had a wonderful day.  Everyone was a massive help.  Daughter-in-law Melissa help with the shopping. Hubby got up and put the turkeys in – we had two 13 pounders instead of one 25 pounder – meat is less dry and bird moving is easier.  I came in next; made the ruttabaga,  sweet potatoes, and right before serving the gravy.  Daughter Rachel made the mashed potatoes, green beans, corn stuffing and brownies.  Mother-in-law made the pumpkin pies. Grand daughter Caitlin worked on the cranberry sauce,  plates and silverware.  Son Joshua is away this year and couldn’t get leave to come home.  We also sent a plate to our friend and my father. 

After feasting we made up the left overs into sandwich makings and today a warm pot of turkey stew.  The rest is frozen for future quick meals.

REFLECT

Just close your Eyes and open your heart,
And feel your worries and cares depart.

Just yield yourself to the Father above,
And let him hold you secure in his love.