Dr. Neil Hair

Our debrief to our online advertising class went extremely well last night. At 6pm EST - thats 11pm local GMT time - 23 out of 29 of us logged in to talk about the highlights of our class on online advertising. Its funny how just being there gave a sense of a huge class accomplishment that we can all be proud of. It was certainly a positive experience and one that I think we all felt a sense of pride towards. And rightly so - 4 of the worlds 10 richest avatars spoke to class, 9 guest speakers in total, 6 great in world consultancy projects (believed to be the first completed as part of a college degree requirement) and evidence that already clients were implementing their findings (we were hosted by Daphne of Daphne's Delights and she was in the process of refurbishing her island on the basis of her teams recommendations). This is what an educational experience should be about. Cutting edge, world class, interactive and above all else engaging and FUN! More on this as I chew further…

Save the date, Wednesday March 28th 2008, 7.30am to 9.00am at the RIT Inn and Conference Center. Recent successes of Saunders students working with local companies has been noticed! And rightly so. I've been asked to explore the process of using pro-bono student consultancy projects to help local firms innovate their marketing practices. Faculty, students, former clients and future clients will meet and talk about the outputs of our experiential approaches. I'd encourage as many former students to attend as possible - without charge - to help represent the college. A number of other Saunders faculty members who use consultancy projects will also be in attendance.

Last night I attempted my first out of this world lecture on 'implementation' in Second Life. Its that time of the quarter where the facts of life - namely the importance of getting things done with our marketing/advertising plans - need to be addressed. Sue (my co-instructor) and I decided to try this as a one off to see how things went. So, from 7-8pm EST I presented a number of slides using an overhead projection system developed by guru and student Matthew Anthony. I (Neilio Negulesco) presented use of an exact replica of one of Saunders classrooms to a room of around 15 avatars (including Newsie Blessed, Sue's SL avatar). I was shocked by just how effective potentially this medium can be. Students arrived and naturally gravitated towards sitting in chairs to listen (thank you Colin for deciding to sit with your head half way through the podium desk). I took virtual questions as we progressed and used the sound system in SL to literally speak my mind through the slide transitions (jpeg versions of in class powerpoint slides). I thought it was an interesting variation in the virtual format that class was also meeting in the first life - without me - as we progressed. I consider myself a bit of a veteran in the delivery of online learning systems and for me this use of SL was different in a positive way. I could see students interacting with me and the environment - one would occasionally break into a dance for instance, and another would get up and sit in another place. What was interesting was that students in class were also interacting with each other. The result of that culminated in a feeling at the end of the lecture that something special and interesting had just ocured. I'm still mulling over the implications of this but I think they are potentially significant. I'm looking forward to getting students responses to this event and even more so - going 100% virtual in our forthcoming debrief in week 11. All of us will meet virtually in SL for conversations about our experiences online. For those of you who were part of this experience - thanks guys, I really enjoyed it.