Dr. Neil Hair

Welcome to the world new secret research facility! This morning at approximately 10.05am a new facility was built in Facebook to house a motley crew of friends, alums and current students dedicated to offering themselves and their advice to Neil's all important research questions. You too can join this facility and answer occasional survey type questions on what's moving and shaking in the internet marketing area. You will - by contributing - also benefit career wise by being the first to get the results of the efforts. And who wouldn't want to impress the boss with the latest ideas built off the back of some of the worlds finest lab rats. Welcome lab rats to a brave new world of hackademia!

p.s No rats are ever harmed at this facility.

The marketing was brilliant - the following extremely loyal. It is with great regret to hear today that Zoom - a low cost carrier with umpf went into administration. I am gutted for them. Not least because they offered great prices from Canada to the UK - but because they appeared to be one of the very few airlines capable of marketing to their consumers effectively. Their business model was fundamentally flawed however. It doesnt matter how great your marketing is, when the price of oil jumps from $80 to over $120 your costs exceed revenue. So - what can we learn from this? Marketers and budding entrepreneurs alike need to appreciate the importance of forward planning when putting together business plans and of course learning the jargon of finance! Whether you got into marketing or not to avoid the numbers - to be successful you cant ultimately avoid them. Make sure an introduction to finance course is on your list of must have classes if youre planning on starting a business. No excuses. Thankfully I remained loyal to British Airways when booking my flight to the ICRM conference in Swansea this September but it was a close call.

This quarter I managed to receive grant funding in support of my research program which essentially buys me out of teaching until the Winter. However, there is still a Professor Hair on the roster of Saunders faculty. A Dr R Hair rather than a Dr N Hair. My wife starts teaching Organizational Behavior in class and online in the fall and Im looking forward to seeing her in action. Dr R Hair shares a number of similarities with her husband regards teaching style and philosophy. Student centered, experiential, interactive, and - hopefully - fun. I've reminded myself just how much fun you can have inventing a course from scratch. It also reminded me of just how much work and preparation goes into designing what we both call - a good experience - in the classroom. We've had several long conversations about our pedagogical approaches and there are a few differences - mainly given the fact that OB is very different in nature to that of marketing. Shes really looking forward to it as well which I think is always a good sign. Its certainly making for interesting conversation and its reminding me of all the issues I faced initially when I started my teaching career - plenty of soul searching in terms of who you are and what you want to accomplish in terms of the classroom experience.

I was delighted to learn that my blog and site has been listed in the top 50 business professor blogs by http://www.mbaexplorer.com/. Site visits continue to grow as does my reader base. People often ask me why I do it. The answer is that I enjoy it and it helps me stay in touch with my network. It also serves many additional purposes - materials for class and corporate training programs, humor, keeping family and friends updated among them. You can check the report here.

This summer I completed my third online learning class at the MBA level using the Adobe Connect suite of products. I'm a passionate convert to the platform and so are my students and their clients. The course I teach mirrors the in-class version of Marketing Concepts;

• Office hours - twice a week face to face (in one of the Connect Meeting rooms set up specifically for it).
• Small study sets of no more than 6 students working for a real client needing marketing help.
• Secure team rooms where students meet with each other, me, and the client to discuss the project.
• Bespoke lecture materials streamed in Adobe Presenter format and MP3 for those on the go.
• Client deliverables include an online presentation (sometimes pre-recorded) and a live debrief session in their Connect Meeting room.
• and the usual levels of rigor and stress that tends to accompany one of my classes and then some.

The feature I enjoy most about Adobe Connect is the ability to record and archive live meetings. This takes the whole client presentation and debrief to a new level of usability. More people get to see it. What a I love most about the process is that a team of masters students can co-exist in a virtual space, deliver top quality marketing plans and present all of their hard work without ever having physically met either myself, the client or eachother in the process. Many of us have also travelled this summer whilst still being able to fully engage in this process. Now if that isnt REAL online learning then I dont know what is. Congratulations summer class of 08. A fantastic set of projects. YouTube video of these guys in action to follow…

An interesting article in the D&C today about a schools superintendent charged with 'filing a false instrument' (ie his resume) - suspended on full pay and benefits whilst investigations continue. This serves to my mind as a stark warning to all about the use of little lies (such as claiming to have worked as a State Trooper for 17 years) to help pad your resume for potential employers. In the UK the discovery of this act constitutes immediate dismissal from your post (no matter how good you might be). Their reasoning, if you lied to get the job, what have you been doing whilst ON the job? So what constitutes a lie and how can you avoid them? First off - you should have gone to Saunders College of Business. We give our students enough experience not to warrant a lie in the first place! A Saunders resume has the potential through classes, co-ops and volunteer work to be jammed full of experience - even before you start work. I counted at least ten classes recently where you can gain real world consultancy exposure that can (and should) be placed on your CV. Secondly - my advice is to stick to the facts of prior experience. Wax lyrical in the interview situation about the details but on your resume - a simple line of facts to support what you did and for whom. Thirdly - you know if youre lying or not about this experience the moment you put it down on your resume. Its clearly not worth the act of being marched off the premises by security with nothing to show for your 'last' experience other than a box of personal items.

Presenting this evening to RIT Alums at the Rio Bamba in the city of Rochester. The nature of the presentation - exploring how you can use online social networks to enhance your career. Whilst many are talking about the role of facebook in extending social relationships very few have explored the notion that companies could benefit from enhanced online socially enabled professional relationships. Our work on value (with Vic Perotti) and exploring attitudes towards advertising (Sue Barnes) will be highlighted. Some key findings I want all my alums to think about:

Social networks are becoming relevant for careers;

• Generational and sub generational changes in usage and expectations of usage
• 98% incoming freshman part of a facebook RIT network BEFORE arriving on campus
• Extension of activity POST study
• Socially enabled career progression
• Socially assisted career success
• You are as strong as your network

Some steps I am now advising all outgoing graduates:

1. Don’t ignore the potential of online social networks regards career progression
2. Cover your bases – FaceBook, MySpace, LinkedIn, LinkedIn Power be part of the movement
3. Stay current - there will be new opportunities and new platforms
4. Don’t go overboard with your look - FaceBook Professional is a movement
5. Use alumni relations for name hunts of old peers
6. Start groups based on social / work interests
7. Extol the benefits of the movement to managerial audiences
8. Don’t limit yourself to the social aspect

I was stunned by the turnout today for the 1st RIT Creativity Festival - held on campus. It was somewhat risky for the man at the top - the new president essentially staked his reputation on being able to draw crowds to explore our 'unfair advantage' as a great institute. By 2pm I knew that we had met if not exceeded the 30k visitor promise and as far as I was concerned the new president's concept was thoroughly vindicated! I was shocked by some of the innovation on display. Online learning did a fantastic job showing off the technology we use in this area - Golisano also a great job showing off the gaming program to excellent effect. It was the smaller stalls that also impressed me and the energy with which people enthusiastically talked about their projects. 

I manned a stall showing off our Second Life class with Susan Barnes of the Department of Communication. We had well over a thousand visitors stop by - thankfully we talked to about 5 at a time - still my voice and my will to live severely challenged after 6 hours of being on the go (im not sure I was still making much sense towards the end of the program but there you go - the will was there!). As I walked around over a few well earned breaks I was really pleased to see not just prospective students walking around but high-school students - parents - and plenty of alumni with big smiles on their faces for having made the right choice in the past. I want to thank my former students who came to support the event. There's something inherently good about seeing students with (lets face it) better things to be doing with their time on a Saturday - holding clipboards and enthusiastically acting as personal branding image consultants for passers by (a key feature of our online advertising course last quarter). They went down a storm! Much more effective than me walking around in Second Life pointing out teaching techniques on RIT's new island.

Im really pleased and rightly proud of the event. It was nothing other than a raging success. Our stall also won the Alumni office award for best in show - icing on the cake of a great day. Thanks especially to Matthew Anthony who manned the Saunders Second Life exhibit in the college of business - Donna Slavin who organized just about EVERYTHING - students Luz Ramirez, Matthew Frank (infamous transformer), Minsoo Lee, Alah Shah, Abha Trivedi, Ryland Bacorn, Lorraine Gibson, and of course Susan Barnes - my co-tutor for the course.  

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

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.