Dr. Neil Hair

I am absolutely convinced that money can be made from twittering. Twitter is essentially a micro blogging service that allows you to update the world on your status with a few lines vie sms, web or instant messenger. I figured if it can keep a poor soul out of incarceration in Egypt then it can offer me something that others might (or might not) find useful. Huge kudos and thanks to my technical guru Joshua Katinger of Accession Media for setting this up for me (in about 50 seconds).

Reporter Daniel Wallace has done a great job writing up last quarters innovative course on online advertising. Check it out here.

The answer - 1500 Belgian students playing silly buggers down town. That's what. I love Europe and I love Europeans. I prefer viral marketing however… Coke finally gets it - what with all its free publicity.

This evening Ive been asked to present to Lambda Pi Eta on the subject of branding oneself in online social networks. This is an issue close to my heart and one where I feel students know very little often before it is too late. Topics covered will include strategies, tactics and reputation management. These range from watching you Facebook profile through to comments you leave in the vast web 2.0 world we now live in.

My favourite local beer (yes I'll admit it - its up there with the best of British beer in my humble opinion) won the third annual Final Pour competition held by someone I dont know in a house Im not aware of. The competition was an altered form of March Madness (I am told something to do with putting balls into nets? - strange custom but there you go) where guests bring a different variety of beers that they think their fellow guests will enjoy. You sample, you vote, and before long you have a final four. You get the picture. As I am currently in the midst of closing on a house, marking mid-term papers and dealing with a number of family issues here and back in the homeland - I occasionally allow myself to imagine R&R (thats rest and relaxation - not revise and resubmit) events. A wonderful idea if you ask me and I very much look forward to throwing my own final pour contest in the summer. I expect Honey Brown to do well once again.

Friday I speak with Sue Barnes at the 2008 Kern Communication Conference here at RIT - 9.45 to 11.45am, Friday 11th April (at the Strathallen in the City of Rochester). Sue and I recently charted the development of Internet Advertising using McLuhan's concept of the rear view mirror as a theoretical framework for understanding future trends. One of the key findings of our research was a focus on consumer personal branding - and branding via association. The event is free for all RIT students and faculty and we hope you'll make it. Here I am pictured at the conference in 2007 discussing of all things - Tech Fetish!

Sue Barnes and I have been chosen to represent respective colleges as part of the Gordon Field house 'WOW' display at the upcoming Imagine Rit Innovation and Creativity Festival on May 3rd. We will be showing off the results of our research on online socially networked classrooms. In particular we will be showcasing our class Online Advertising Class that was taught in and on popular virtual world Second Life. On hand will be a number of 'image consultants' - former students of ours that have expertise in managing online profiles. They will consult with members of the public interested in protecting and enhancing their online self image. Sue and I are really looking forward to showing off what was an amazing experience in Second Life and we hope to see you there.

I've been invited to speak on Marketing Trends for 2008 at the annual Rochester Women's Network Conference on May 2nd at the Riverside Convention Center in the city. The Saunders College of Business is also co-sponsoring the event which is a must attend for all career oriented women in the Rochester area. I will be reviewing the big changes we have seen over the last few years and how 2009 will bring new challenges and opportunities to bring us even closer to our customers. Register for this event here. This is also a great networking event for those of you planning on staying in the area after you graduate.

I recently asked my graduate marketing concepts students to consider their unique selling proposition as part of a homework assignment. A number of them rightly struggled with this seemingly straight forward task. Ive suggested a number of ways of uncovering personal USP's (PUSPS) using personal construct theory. The idea is that you elicit through sets of comparisons against two other items (ie yourself, and two other people that you admire) the key issues that differentiate you from everyone else. Not an easy task. Not for the faint of heart. Several iterations of this 'triad sort' method should reveal a number of factors that you could then build into a statement about yourself for your resume. The trick though is not to ask yourself how you see your own differences, but to ask essentially a customer - or neutral party - to do it for you. Your findings are lightly to surprise you. I would argue that by going through this process you elicit genuinely unique attributes about your personality that you can then use to show off to the wider world. Lets face it - everyone likes to see themselves as reliable or trustworthy. Its hardly a unique trait. What you might find having gone through this process though is that you're also timely with your decision making - you defend co-workers decisions - you're fun to be around. The process itself is enlightening and from here you can build a statement about yourself that you see as a good reflection of who you are in the workforce. I'd encourage you to try it. I think its particularly important for those who are relatively new to the workforce to be able to present a clear synoposis of their character for would be employers who dont know you from Adam.