Heading to the Summit in Chucktown. Listening to Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.

SteepleWeb has been really busy. We have another developer on board – Scot with 1 “t” so we are less than a month away from finally being out of beta. We are actually having our SteepleWeb Summit in Chucktown next weekend to finish the new site, iron out a few things, and launch!

We’ve also been working with Plainfield North because they are hosting a road race as a fundraiser for their track team. I tried to get a quick WordPress theme, but couldn’t find anything I liked or could quickly adapt. I eventually just handed coded the site which was kinda fun since I haven’t done that in a long time. I tried keep it somewhat similar in theme to their team site at www.tigersxc.com. There are a few more changes that need to be made, but the site is up and running at www.runfastcat.com

As I was sitting in the airport waiting to go to Mexico with Amanda and my family, I was playing around on my phone and was looking at Harvard Business Review’s site and found their e-mail newsletters. There are several different newsletters to get, but I choose to get “the daily stat” which gives short, one-paragraph interesting stats. For example, people who are disagreeable earn more than those who are agreeable (about 7%), and Catholics also have higher earnings. I also signed up for a monthly marketing newsletter.

This last semester in marketing 654, we had to choose a company and do a marketing analysis on it. The project was supposed to be 40 pages. My group decided to analyze Netflix since they had taken a LOT of missteps the past few months. One challenge that we faced with this project was that the industry was constantly evolving. We would get pretty far on the paper and Netflix would decide to do/not to do something. And then a competitor like Blockbuster would do something which would have an impact on Netflix. The day the first part of the paper was due, Blockbuster changed its pricing and we had to change things up. Well, we drilled the first part and got some really positive feedback.

We then had to go back and decide on a strategy that Netflix could implement over the next year. We were a bit rushed since the semester was coming quickly to a close and we had a presentation to do as well. The focus we decided was to regain the 810k+ customers that Netflix lost. We were very narrow in our strategy and just focused on e-mail marketing. We, unfortunately, did not do anything with a broader rebranding strategy.

Overall, I was happy with the analysis our group did on Netflix and the industry, but was a bit disappointed with the strategy part. I am, however, really looking forward to taking another marketing class, but this semester I am only taking accounting (the marketing class I want to take is on the same day as the accounting class that I need to take).

Anyway, here our final analysis of Netflix (and yes, things have changed since we submitted it)

The dogs rustled me out of bed a bit before 7 this morning and I was surprised to see a dusting a snow. Instead of going back to bed after feeding them, I decided to brew up some coffee and sit down and work on a website. Derk’s is setting up a road race this spring for Plainfield North High School and SteepleWeb is doing the site. This is the first time in quite a while that I am coding a website from scratch, so I had to dust off a few cobwebs. Right now the site is about 4 hours of work away from being live, but it’s turning out to be pretty good. I’ve decided to use a jQuery slider to spruce it up, but it is giving me a few troubles. This might take a few more carafes of coffee to finish.

The semester finally came to an end last week. I got an A in marketing, but got a B in operations management. I missed class earlier in the semester and missed an in-class assignment which kinda hurt. When the final came around, I had to get a 100% to get the bump in the grade. I did get an A on the final, but not enough.This past weekend was kinda bizarre not having to do any homework or studying.

The next few weeks will be enjoyable. I am going to be working really hard to get SteepleWeb to launch and I have a few internships/jobs I am going to be applying for. Upwards and onwards.

I can’t believe I haven’t posted anything in a few months. Here is a synopsis:

-Taking two classes is rough. Marketing class is a lot of work (a LOT) but interesting.
-Starting to look for summer internships again
-Tried planning my next semester and it’s not what I wanted. Looks like I am only taking one class which I don’t like. I should have taken 2 classes last spring when I took organizational behavior.
-SteepleWeb is slowly coming around. We have an undergrad computer major helping us convert the code. Full scale launch is coming!

Back to reading some more case studies. Only 2 more to do today, 1 white paper, and some grading. Oh, and the Bears’ game.

Wow, I haven’t had any time to update this in the past week or two. School started this week and boy, am I not used to waking up at 5 am. I am looking forward to this year because we have a new department chair (not that big of a change), new principal, and our former principal is now the superintendent. Our superintendent is looking to make some radical changes to the district so it is and will be fun to see how the district reacts to change (note: write about change later).

I have also been spending a lot of time redesigning SteepleWeb, and have just started the process of starting a not-for-profit organization to benefit EIU track. Oh, and Nate started a project to write a mini-book about EIU Track. I am taking 6 credit hours this fall that start after Labor Day and my marathon is just under 2 months away.