Marketing Education in the Future

I just read a teaching job posting for Medill Northwestern, where “young men and women are shaped for the successes they achieve in journalism and the Medill-invented field of integrated marketing communications”.  That claim sounds like something Al Gore would say, but the school does look interesting–like it’s blurring the line between journalism and marketing!  The line is definitely blurring in the wine industry.  The pr world is changing quickly.  So, what type of teachers are going to teach the integrated marketing communicators of tomorrow?

There are several interesting job postings, but there are 3(!) job openings for faculty that can teach:

Candidates will have strong experience and the capacity to teach in two or more of the following areas:

·   Multimedia reporting
·   Informational graphics for the Web
·   Flash production skills, especially ActionScript, XML and the integration of Flash front ends with data
·   Contemporary Web design practices (HTML/CSS)
·   Interactive (Web/mobile) and interface design
·   Web technologies (especially JavaScript and database integration);
·   Data visualization
·   Video and/or audio storytelling for digital platforms
·   Photojournalism

The track is tenure or clinical. Both professionals and academics can earn tenure at Medill. Rank will be assistant or associate professor. Global interest and/or experience is a plus at Medill.

I didn’t really start to focus on these concepts and skills until a couple of years ago.  I learned basic html and basic programming as an undergrad but never applied it.  I didn’t learn any of these skills while earning my MBA.  My Business Administration PhD focused on marketing academic journals–how to publish a paper in a marketing academic journal by doing a regression analysis, structural equation modeling, or an experiment (no multimedia, web, or design skills learned).  It wasn’t until the first Wine Bloggers’ Conference that I really started to learn these concepts and skills.

I taught some of these skills and concepts listed above in my two Introduction to Marketing classes this semester.  It was my first time teaching a lot of these concepts, so the class was a little unstructured, but I was impressed by a lot of the final projects that students worked on.  One student started a wordpress.org blog at ChrisVarela.org and another student made a great video on how to throw a curveball that he posted on his tumblr blog KiethThompson.tumblr.com.  I hope that students continue to learn these concepts and to practice these skills.  It takes some ganas, but there are so many great resources available online that can help you learn whatever it is you want to learn.

Next semester I’m not teaching Introduction to Marketing.  All the Introduction to Marketing sections are going to be combined into one big class and taught in a lecture hall for the first time at Sonoma State.  This is what Florida State started to do a few years ago as I was finishing my PhD.  I don’t think big lecture halls are a bad thing, but it’s difficult for a teacher to keep hundreds of students attentive in a huge room.  When a teacher is in a smaller room he or she can engage students easily by walking up to them.  A huge room forces the teacher to engage students while on stage.  Textbook companies have made clickers and other interactive devices to help students pay attention to lectures in a huge room, but I think students are good at recognizing when they’re being taught something that is important and when they are being taught material that came from a marketing academic journal a long time ago.

I look forward to teaching The Global Wine Industry in January, Introduction to Wine Blogging in February, two sections of Marketing Research (completely revised syllabus) in the Spring semester, and Promotions Management (completely new syllabus since I’ve never taught this class) next semester.