Hope everyone enjoyed the snow day. Grades have been posted for progress reports and Edline has been updated. Students should talk to me about any concerns.

Intro to Marketing Test on Friday

The intro to marketing class will be having a test on Friday, December 10th.  Here is the review sheet.

Below, you will find links to all of the notes that we have covered for this unit:

Social Responsibility

Role of government in business

Business Ethics

Management Structures

It's Been a While

It's been a while since my last post.  Sorry about that.

In my Intro. to Marketing class we are currently talking about management structures.  Click here for today's assignement.

Sports and Entertainment Marketing students started presenting their new energy drinks.  I have to tell you that the work that I've seen on this project has been of high quality.  We really have some sharp kids.

The school store has been running extremely smooth.  Excellent work by Emily and Natalie on the display case.  It looks fantastic.

Conferences

I'm looking forward to meeting all of our parents tomorrow.  I've always thought that conferences are fun.  I've heard kids say that they don't want their parents to show up at conferences, but kids do want their parents there.  They want to know that their parents are paying attention.

My sports and entertainment marketing class discussed the marketing of products through sport.  Tomorrow they will be working on a project where they will come up with a new sports energy drink and develop a plan to generat sales for that product.  Click here to see the assignment.

In our Intro to marketing class we discussed social consciuosness in marketing, and we also discussed the fact that if companies do good things in their communities that they need to make sure that they take credit for it.  Remember that if a tree falls in the woods and nobody is there to hear it, it doesn't make a sound.  We had a short worksheet that was assigned toward the end of the hour.  Click here to see it.

Congratulations 2010-2011 Larson 7th Grade Basketball Team

Please congratulate this year's Larson Middle School 7th grad boys basketball team:
Tyler Kukla
Jake Vincent
Brad Robinson
Bryan Bowles
Andrew Orow
Joseph Korkes
Raphael Thomas
Dennis Volostnyich
Torin Gebauer
Brendan Genereau
Osama Hashmi
Christopher Mishreky
Eddie Oprinca
Jeremy Patrick
Bradley Vandekerkhove
Tyler Wentzel
Kevin Hazen
Demetrius Berry
Justin Strbenac
Jerrod Kniffen
Collin Kermath
Neeraj Patel
Ali Turkomani

Go to larsonbball.blogspot.com to find out more about Larson Basketball

Mobile Coupons

Clipping coupons is a dead activity. Take a quick read here.

Extra credit Opportunity for Intro. To Marketing

I know that some of you are done with your Chapter 6 Prezi assignment while others still need more time.  Today will be the last day to work on your Prezi  as it is due at the end of the hour.

If you have completed it and would like some extra credit or if you have time this weekend you can take advantage of this opportunity.  Remember that I rarely give these types of opportunities.

Create a blog using Blogger.  Your first entry in the blog should be titled "Social Responsibility".  In that entry you need to write about one of the following topics:

Tylenol Cyanide Scare of 1982 or the Jack-In-The-Box E-coli deaths of 1993.

In your entry give a brief summary of what happened, talk in detail about how the company responded to these horrible incidents.  Then I want you to give your take on how the company handled things.  Why do you feel that they did or did not handle things correctly?  Why was this harmful or not harmful to the company?  Be detailed in your reasoning and make sure that you give facts to back up your opinions.

Extra credit will be due on Monday Nov. 15th

Good luck!!!

Athens School Store Advertisement

Excellent work by Ray Lim and Joe Colo!!! Thanks guys

Prezi

Here's the assignment for Intro. to Marketing.  Click here

1st Quarter Complete

I published grades via Edline on Friday.  Kids should talk to me after class if they have any questions about their grades.

Tomorrow we are going to use Prezi for a new project in the Intro. to Marketing class.  I think it's very exciting because it will give the kids a useful tool that they can use to express themselves.  Exceedingly cool!!!

I gave my last classroom presentation covering the role of government as a regulator via Prezi.  Click here to see my first effort in this area.

We will take a look at market segmentation in Sports Marketing, particularly the issue of segmentation shifts.  Tim Lincecum may have started a shift with the San Francisco Giants.  See this article.

Yes, the rumors are true. I now have a Twitter account. Same name, misterholder.

We need to start creating on-line content for the school store. We need to figure out how to get folks talking about us. I know our kids can figure this out!!!

At a marketing conference right now. Great information on social media marketing. Can't wait to bring this all back to my classes!

Testing

In Sports and Entertainment Marketing we talked about levels of sport and how a great deal of sports consumers are also participants in sport.  This accounts for a huge market that includes everything from golf to flag-football to kickball.

Intro to Marketing classes will be having a test on Wednesday.  I am including the notes for anyone who missed class.  Students may use their own handwritten notes on the test.  We will review for the test in class on Tuesday.  Here are the links to the notes:

Market Segmentation
What is an Economy
International Trade
Free Enterprise

Hope this all helps.

The school store kids are doing a great job.  A very motivated group.  We're hoping to get our new apparel in this week.  Sales have been very brisk.

It's all a balancing act

This week we"ve been talking about balance of trade in Intro. to Marketing.  Today I gave the kids a research assignment regarding the European Union.  Click here to see the assignment.  The notes for the past week are also available.

In Sports and Entertainment Marketing, we finished up our presentations last Friday and they were very good.  Right now we are talking about amateur vs. professional sports.  We will be getting in depth on the topic of TitleIX and its role in athletics.

School Store looks great.  We're waiting on a vendor to supply our new purchases.  I'm losing my patience with that, but overall the store is doing extremely well.

Athens vs. Troy High on Friday night.  Let's go Hawks!!!!!!!!!!

Supply, Demand and Arnold Palmer Sweet Tea and Pink Lemonade

The Sports and Entertainment class worked hard today, cleaning up their presentations.  I feel like they have a good grasp of what synergy and convergence are, and how they fit in with marketing.  Tomorrow they will give the presentations again.  I'm certain that the results will be much better.

My Intro. to Marketing Class learned how to plot supply and demand curves.  They had a small assignment that I tried to link up to google docs, but had little success.  Please come to see me if you need a copy of it.

The School store tried some new flavors of Arizona Iced Teas today.  The Arnold Palmer Half Sweet Tea and Pink Lemonade was an overwhelming success. 

Five Weeks Complete

We've just completed our 5th week.  I've already posted the grades for progress reports and you should be able to see them on Edline.

Sports and Entertainment - We started presentations today.  The kids were supposed to demonstrate knowledge in the areas of convergence marketing as well as an understanding of Ancillary products and synergy created through these products.  The presentations need a lot of work.  So, on Wednesday we are going to regroup a little.  I will go over the concepts again with each team to ensure that they understand the concepts and are able to meet the requirements for the project.

Marketing - today we had some fun with supply and demand using the chocolate chip cookies from the school store.  We discussed how everyone wants the cookies, but at what price are they willing to buy them.  We talked about the relationship between price and demand as well as the relationship between price and supply.  I have put up the notes here.

School Store- Things are going fabulous in the school store.  The kids are really taking ownership of the store and are getting really good at running things pretty efficiently.  Because of this we've really been able to look at new services and products to offer to our customers.

Homecoming Week

It's been too long since my last post.  Homecoming week has been both really busy, as well as a lot of fun.

Today I was out of school.  I'm sure that my students were devastated ;-)

Anyhow, Sports and Entertainment Marketing students are working on a presentation that they will be giving on Tuesday.  They need to come up with 2 ancillary products for their team and show how there is a synergy between those products and their core product (the football games themselves).  They also need to develop a product or service that  helps to develop convergence.  Click here to look at this video that describes how nike has offered the Nike plus to help develop convergence for their brand.

Our Intro. to Marketing students have been learning about basic economics.  This is part of the state marketing curriculum.  Right now, we're learning about the factors of production in the economy as well as different economic systems.

Good luck to the Red Hawks in their bid to upset Lake Orion.  Don't ever give less than your best.

Congratulations to our senior girls in their Powderpuff football victory over the juniors.

Purple Cow

In the Intro to Marketing class we read pages 11-26 from "The Purple Cow" and completed a worksheet that went along with it.  Afterwards we briefly discussed the TV-Industrial Complex and how important it is to look at early adopters as a target market.

In Sports and entertainment we walked through a computer simulation of chossing a city for a football franchise. The simulation dealt with research and demographics used to determine where to locate a team.

In the School Store, we continued to sell Red Alert Shirts.  The kids have decided put together a new promotion to speed up sales of the Red Alert shirts.

I just updated the grades for my Intro. to Marketing classes and have posted those on Edline.

Grades

I just finished sending out grades in Edline.  If you didn't receive a report please come and talk to me.  In addition to that.  If you have any questions about your grade please let me know.  I'd be happy to discuss it with you.

With regard to the Wall Street Journal article that I assigned the first week of class.  There are some of you who did not turn those in.  Please make sure that you get that done.  The instructions are on this blog on the post dated September 8th and titled "I always feel like somebody's watching me."

Visual projects and visual marketing

In Sports and Entertainment Marketing, we learned about core products and ancillary products and how all of this makes sports and entertainment marketing different from traditional product marketing.  Tomorrow we'll use this knowledge to expand product offerings for our football teams.

In Intro. to Marketing we have spent the last 3 days talking about different types of market segmentation.  The kids went into the lab today, and will be in there on Friday as well to put together a visual representation of the 4 methods that we've talked about.  I haven't given a lot of instruction on this because I don't want them following some boring template.  I want them to get creative.  The only rule is that they need to give two examples of each method.

In the school store, we just received the new Red Alert shirts.  We will be unveiling them during passing time between 1st and 2nd hours tomorrow and selling them during all lunches in the school store.  The price is $8.  Checks need to be made out to Athens High School.

I am still alive

Sorry about not having posted since last week.  Here's what's going on:

Sports and entertainment had a brief in-class assignment today.  By the way, my fantasy football team got their first of many wins this season.

Intro to marketing:  Each student needs to log onto www.americasmarketinghighschool.org and sign up for an account.  This is an easy 20 point assignment.  We also talked about psychographics as well as Black Purchasing Power.

School stor opened successfully today.  The Red Alert shirts arrived today and will go on sale for $8 on Friday.  Expect a big event.

Test Tomorrow

Oooh this is a late post, but here goes.

Intro. to Marketing and Sports and Entertainment Marketing both have tests this Friday.  I gave out review sheets to all of the kids.  If the complete the review sheet and hand it in before the test tomorrow, I will give them one point of extra credit on the test.  That's equivalent to 4%.

In the school store we worked on cash register training.  We opened up the store for parents last night at open house.  We did $700 in sales.  Great work guys.  I'm really looking forward to the grand opening next Wednesday.

It was great meeting all of the parents last night.  Honestly, we really have great kids in my classes.  Great job parents.

FYI, I have been getting a bunch of grades together.  I will be posting those this weekend.  Sorry for the delay.

Open House

It's Open House tonight at Athens High School.  I hope all of our parents make it.  The kids say that they don't want their parents to show up at stuff like this or conferences.  Truly that's a bunch of crap.  Students want their parents to be there, because they know that it's a sign that their parents care. 

Just announced tests in both my Intro. to Marketing and Sports and Entertainment Marketing classes.  The tests will be this Friday.  We will be reviewing for them tomorrow.

School store is opening for a test run tonight during open house.  We'll be giving out cookies with every purchase.

Monday 9/20

Sports & Entertainment - Today we talked about the economics of sports and also how profit is made.  We talked about the differences between revenue and profit.

Intro to Marketing - We talked about the marketing mix a.k.a the four Ps of marketing.  There was an assignment given out with about 15 minutes left in class.  It is due at the beginning of class tomorrow.

School Store- We will be opening up the store for parents at Open House on Wednesday of this week.  This will be a nice practice test for us.  The official opening of the store will take place on Wed., September 29th.  Check us out!!!!!!!

Go Spartans!!!! Another great win over the Golden Domers.  Gotta love beating those guys.

Clothing picked for store

Today we picked out the clothing for the school store.  I'm fired up I think the kids are going to like it.  The only scary thing is that the kids picked the same clothes that I would have picked.  All of my students know that my sense of fashion consists of taking the clothes off of the mannequins at Kohl's.

The intro to marketing class worked on an in-class activity where they were brainstorming ways to add value to products.  It was a real collaborative effort.

The Sports and Entertainment Marketing class put the finishing touches on their presentations for tomorrow's class.  I'm pretty excited to see the results.  

Sports and Entertainment Presentation

Click here to see presentation assignment regarding the Marketing Mix for your football franchise. We will start presenting in class on Friday, September 17th.  I will give you Wednesday and Thursday during class to work on this.  If you need more time, you and your partners will have to arrange for time outside of class.  Be sure that everyone has a copy of the presentation on Friday.  You will not be excused from presenting on Friday just because one of your teammates is absent that day.  Plan for the worst.  This is called contingency management.

Utility

Today we talked about the different kinds of utility in marketing.  Remember that there could be a pop quiz covring this subject tomorrow.  You can take a look at the notes here to help you prepare.

In sports and entertainment marketing we talked about the Marketing mix and how it related to the sports and entertainment industry.  The kids then worked on developing names for their fantasy football teams.  Tomorrow they will be asked to put together a presentation discussing how the four Ps of the marketing mix will be used in their football franchise.

In the school store, we looked at the new apparel line from Jansport.  Hopefully we'll have an order secured by the end of the week.

Intro to Marketing Class Helpful Hint: Read Mr. Holder's Blog

I have a couple of hints for you:

Hint #1 (Subtle) This blog can give you an idea that a pop quiz is coming up and that it might cover the subject of utility.

Hint #2 (Not so subtle) What I'm trying to tell you is that you need to pay attention to the subject of utility tomorrow because there will be a real short 3 question quiz on Wednesday of this week.  If you need to take a look at the slides that cover this material look here

I have a case of the Mondays

I love Mondays.  You get some rest after the weekend and we can get a new start every week.

Today in Sports and Entertainment Marketing we went over our rosters for the Fantasy football league, and we went talked about the need for teams to meeet the needs of customers.  We saw an 8-minute video clip about Bill Veeck, the legendary team owner of the Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Indian, to get an idea of where Sports Marketing really began. No Homework!

In the Intro. to Marketing class we took the vocabulary quiz.  Some of the kids forgot about the quiz, so please make sure to check the blog to refresh your memory.  We also defined marketing and talked about goods and services and what goes into developing, promoting and distributing these. No Homework!

Today we worked in assigned groups on various tasks withing the store.  Tomorrow we will be meeting with our rep. from Jansport.  I will be ordering pizza!!!!

It's the weekend!!!

Great day today.

In Sports and Entertainment Marketing we discussed the ticket sales debacle with Michigan State and Florida Atlantic University and we went over what Marketing is and how it applies to sport.

In Intro to Marketing we discussed the Marketing Concept and the fact that if companies can give customers what they want at a price they are willing to pay, they will be successful.

Don't forget that there will be a vocabulary quiz on Monday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Have a great weekend and Sparty On!!!!!!!!!!! 

9/9 Wrap up

In Sports and Entertainment Marketing we finished setting up our teams for the draft.  It appears we must have gotten it set up too late for week one of the NFL season.  Yahoo has us slated to automatically draft our teams after this week's games are over. Tomorrow we're going to take a look at the messy job of selling the MSU vs. Florida Atlantic game at Ford Field.  Somebody really screwed this up.

In Intro to Marketing we discussed the issues of privacy involved with Flash Cookies and internet advertising and information management as this was the topic of the Wall Street Journal article that was assigned for last night.  All of the students received a vocabulary list composed of words from the article that they did not know.  We defined 5 or 6 of the 15 words on the list in class and the students are supposed to define the rest of them for tomorrow. Here is a link to the list.  Students will be given a vocabulary test on Monday covering the 15 words on that list.

In the school store we discussed the Red Alert shirt as well as our upcoming meeting with Jansport.  Tomorrow, we will break up into groups and start working on inventory, displays, newspaper advertising, web site, video advertisements and orders.

Big game tomorrow against Clarkston.  Red Hawks better wail on Clarkston.  I really can't stand those dumb helmet s that they wear.  Go Hawks!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also, my other favorite team, the Freshman Adams Highlanders laid the smack down on Southfield Lathrup yesterday by a score of 26 - 0.  Great Job Fellas.

2nd Day Sports and Entertainment Marketing

We just got our teams together today for our Fantasy Football League  the teams are as follows:

Team 1 : Patrick and Perkins
Team 2 : Jamel and Piotrowski
Team 3: Fox and McGlone
Team 4: Hill and Rusinosk
Team 5: Leone and Bezerra
Team 6: Harrison and Lance
Team 7: Thomas and Stevanovic
Team 8: Carlson and Whitlock
Team 9: Nicholson and Wesala
Team 10 (And most likely future champion): Mr. Holder

Students will need to come up with a name and a city for their teams (Names should be appropriate for school).  They will then need to evaluate and rank players for tomorrow's draft.  They will have time in class tomorrow to work on that.

Remember that the League is on Yahoo Fantasy sports and the league ID # is 754997 and the Password is RedHawks and it is case-sensitive.

Good Luck (You'll need it) 

I Always Feel Like Someone is Watching Me

All Intro To Marketing students need to read this article tonight.  Please copy these questions onto your paper before answering them. All assignments must be done on a computer. They can be emailed to me at rkholder@hotmail.com or printed out turned in via paper in class.
After reading the article I would like you to answer the following questions:

1. Write down at least two words that you did not know.

2.  Explain what Lotame does and then write down why you belive this is or is not an invasion of user privacy.

3.  Give an example of some examples of situations where very personal information could be obtained by companies without the user knowing.   The article gives a couple of real life examples.

4.  What is the price of targeted ads on the internet according to the article.

5.  How does user tracking benefit consumers?

First Day

Great first day.  Looks  like we've got a great group of kids.

Today we just took attendance and discussed what the classes are about.  I also passed out a hard copy of the syllabus to every class except for my 6th hour Intro to Marketing Class.  (Sorry guys. I'll have copies for all of you tomorrow.)

School Store kids need to bring in ideas for our "Red Alert" t-shirts.  Each student needs to have at least one idea.  Hopefully we can get those ordered this week.

Sports and Entertainment - We will be going over the syllabus tomorrow and setting up teams and getting ready for our fantasy football draft.

Intro to Marketing

Hope you had a great summer! 

How can you really screw up summer?

Looking forward to teaching you all about how marketing really is the driving force in the U.S. economy.  I think you're really going to like this class. 

I've put a copy of the syllabus in Google Docs.

Sports & Entertainment Marketing

Welcome back!!!!

I'm looking forward to a great year.

To make things a bit easier, I've posted a copy of the class syllabus on Google Docs.  

Counting Down

OK.  I think I'm ready.  School starts on Tuesday, and yes, I am ready to get going.  I really do dig my job.

Alex's freshman football team at Adams is 1-1.  Couldn't finish the first game agains Clarkston, but ran away with yesterday's game against Farmington.

The Makos are 0-2. It's been a rough start but the kids are working hard for the most part, and the ones that aren't, are now beginning to learn what hard work is.

The Red Hawks are 1-0 with a big game against Pontiac tonight.  I really think they're going to have a great season.

All of that said, it's time to start school.  I'm really looking forward to seeing the students again.  I just got a text message from one of my favorite students, and a former player asking if she could observe my class to fulfill a requirement for on of her teacher education classes at Oakland.  What a thrill.  That's my bonus.  It doesn't come in the form of a check or a new car.  It's just a great feeling when a kid tells you that you did a good job and that they appreciate what you've done for them.  Those are the bonuses that I get.  I love it.

It's time.  Let's get started

Football Season

Excited about football season.  My oldest son Alex is playing his first year of football at Adams High School.  Go Highlanders!!! (No offense Redhawk faithful)  My 11 year old, Nick, is playing for the Auburn Hills Makos.  Fear the Bite!!!  I will be the head coach this year which has been a bit of a struggle to get started.  I'm not a football coach, but I'm learning.  Toughest sport I've ever coached.  Gonna need some help from Coach Hep.

Spartys are looking to be a pretty formidable competitor in the Big 10.  I'm thinking about getting tickets to the game against Florida Atlantic at Ford Field.

Chevy Volt

GM announced the Chevy Volt three years ago at the Detroit auto show.  It was sweet looking and they said that it would be available in 2010.  I hate when companies show you a cool product and then tell you that it will be available in the distant future.  Well, GM will finally be selling the volt in November of this year.  It doesn’t look like the concept car that they showed us three years ago.  Not near as sexy.  Why not develop a product and once it’s finalized then show it to the consumer and sell it to them? http://www.businessweek.com/autos/autobeat/archives/2010/07/chevrolet_volt_fatigue_setting_in.html

Should we pull teachers out of the education process?

Kind of fired up.  Besides my Web EDU class, I’m also taking a class about working with at-risk kids.  Some of the criticisms of the depersonalization of education was right on the mark.  I think that the prevailing sentiment of running schools like businesses is dangerous.  I’m not sure that businesses are heading in the right direction either.  I think that our society is trying to move toward taking the teachers out of teaching.  This article has some interesting insights on this idea. http://www.mlive.com/opinion/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2010/04/guest_column_technology_cant_r.html

First blog post. Whoa!!!!!!

OK.  I have now created my first blog.  Feeling pretty good about myself right now.  I’ve got to do some investigation and find out how to add documents.  Not sure if I can do this using blogger, but it would certainly be nice to be able to add assignments to my blog posts.  Any help would be appreciated.