College Lecture Material

I am taking a class in microbiology - - the macroscopic study of microorganisms and viruses - - and I am particularly interested in a sub-area, immunology. Immunology specifically studies the way in which the body fights off microorganisms and how we maintain health even in the midst of billions of antigens. Somehow the body recognizes and teaches itself what is internal and what is foreign and it's the how & why that comprises much of the work in this ara.

To learn more, read a powerpoint presentation based on an article written by Aude M. Fahrer et al in Nature, Vol. 409, 15 ebruary 2001 and presented by Amy Marie Sepan at a seminar at Clarion University of Pennsylvania. To check it out, look right to the featured article.

The Mega-Deals Are Back in Commercial Real Estate

So you want to know how true players in the commercial real estate space get the big deals done? Many investors do. Analysts who monitor the real estate industry say investors who left traditional brick-and-mortar industries -- such as real estate -- during the dot-com and telecom booms have come back.

This has resulted in large amounts of capital driving massive real estate deals according to Wharton Business School professors and industry experts. The school's Samuel Zell and Robert Lurie Real Estate Center recently organized a meeting with three panel sessions, one of which was called 'Mega-Projects in Real Estate: Where Are They and How Do They Work?" to discuss recent trends.

Attendees learned about the challenges and creativity required to get big deals done. The panelists discussed aspects of structuring, underwriting, pricing, negotiating, financing and execution. It's safe to say that mostly everyone came away with the knowledge that while risks are high in commercial real estate transactions, so are the potential rewards.

Should Your Next CEO Be a Philosopher?

This in from one of the Wharton Business School's e-newsletter's called Knowledge@Wharton. According to the article, a Wharton professor and an Israeli venture capitalist believe that a firm's financial success comes more from a deep understanding of the customer's philosophical perspective than other areas such as effective marketing, research and developement, building brand loyalty and other efforts. Zen anyone?

Toxic Breast Milk? By FLORENCE WILLIAMS

Apparently you are what you eat. Ms. Williams wrote this article for a January 9, 2005 issue of the New York Times. In it she asks readers to imagine human milk from mammary glands with an ingredients label. Read down and one will see 100% of the nourishing and life-enhancing minerals and vitamins needed by babies. Keep reading. Tests show that along with the good comes the bad: trace amounts of of DDT (the persistent pesticide) PCB's, dioxin, trichloroethylene, perchlorate, mercury, lead, benzene, and arsenic.

Where is this coming from? Ms. Williams notes that the small amounts of paint thinners, dry-cleaning fluids, wood preservatives, toilet deodorizers, cosmetic additives, gasoline byproducts, rocket fuel, termite poisons, fungicides and flame retardants passed to infants comes from the mother's diet, neighborhood and, increasingly, her household decor.

Source: The New York Times

Philadelphia (Free)dom

City government in Philadelphia appears to be using wi-fi technology to attract new business and also offer a free perk to those who currently reside within its limits.

Marc Levy wrote an AP article that ran on December 1 on the Washingpost.com. website and reported that the City of Philadelphia had struck a deal with Verizon. This new development has helped the city move along in its quest to provide free and/or inexpensive high-speed wireless access to all businesses and residents.

The city's website has several news briefings on the subject. I've quoted one of them:

"... the goal will be to provide some level of free wireless Internet access to everyone living, working or visiting in the city. It is anticipated that some sort of tiered service levels will be created for higher levels of service and individuals and organizations will pay a fee for these higher tiers of service/ How these levels of service are defined and the fees associated with them will be part of a much larger effort to create a public/private partnership to move this initiative forward..."

Update: Buzz Marketing and the Blog

Two interesting articles on the rebirth of word-of-mouth marketing, now called buzzing. The angle of the story was seen through the career and business of Elisa Camahort, founder of a San Francisco marketing firm called Worker Bees. One piece was written by Jane Allen in Vault.com and the other by Sheila Ann Manuel Coggins in About.com. Both authors describe Ms. Camahort's journey to the marketing profession and how she used buzzing to do it.

I liked the articles because both described another former corporate/creative type, and it was interesting to read about Ms. Camahort's approach. She started a company, established a sophisticated web presence and began to use a unique brand building strategy with actual results. The key for me was finding a good example of subtle, effective marketing with interesting prose, flowing from a well-written blog. The more I research this newfound blogging space, the more I really appreciate that.

This should be an interesting year as more and more major and boutique ad agencies grow their business blending buzz and guerilla-like marketing tools with traditional campaigns. I was intrigued enough by how Ms. Camahort used blogs in marketing for the arts for San Francisco clients - - -
among them the Foothill Music Theatre's Blog
and The TheatreWorks Blog
that I created one for an NYC theater group called the American Theatre of Harlem. If/when I receive responses to a query that I wrote, I'll follow this post with a published article in a circulated magazine or newspaper.

That being said, let me give a free plug of the Worker Bees Hive (my shorthand for the company’s portfolio). See below:

David Curley Web Design

Flashlight Graphics

Joy Design Studio

TriDigital Inc Web Services

Carla Befera & Co. P.R.

"Silicon Veggie" in the Metro

42nd St. Moon Blog

Elisa's Personal Blog

Foothill Music Theatre's Blog

SC County Democratic Party Blog

The TheatreWorks Blog

The Worker Bees Blog




*************************************
NOTE: The original post on 1/9/05 mistakenly cited TheatreWorks, another Worker Bees client, as the blog/buzz case study. The correct client is the Foothills Music Theatre. For more information on Worker Bees, email Ms. Camahort directly at elisa@workerbees.biz. or call the company at 408.504.5708.

Health Care Marketing
How then do healthcare marketers determine an e-marketing strategy?

According to Daniel Fell in healthleaders.com the key is the organization's specific goals. He lists three defining criteria:

Brand Building - mix of online branding strategies and consumer information services.
Driving Traffic to Physicians - offer referral services and promote the services/practices/clinis of individual physicians
Product-Specific Marketing - - create an interactive channel to draw patients into the service or serve existing patients with health management tools

Interetsing piece ... his article and discussion on six channel strategies is worth reading.

Looking Back: Bayer and Company ... The Way of Vioxx?

A recent book authored by Diarmuid Jeffreys' "Aspirin: The Story of a Wonder Drug" takes a look at what may be a too-sensitive consumer marketplace that could have even aspirin in question. Jeffreys' writes:

" ...imagine that this wonder drug had been introduced today. Would it have been approved? No doubt early testing would have shown the anti-coagulant properties. But instead of seeing this as a benefit (aspirin and related compounds are used to treat heart attacks today) it would likely have been seen as a fatal flaw preventing widespread use – in today’s risk averse climate, you can’t have people getting anticoagulants over the counter, and the idea that a drug with such a side effect might be used very widely would send shivers down the spine of the regulators. Even worse, imagine the discovery a few years after approval that aspirin does increase risks of bleeding. It would have gone the way of Vioxx, a much more specific cox inhibitor than its ancestor...."

As remarked by Diarmuid Jeffreys in his book Aspirin: The Story of a Wonder Drug.

Marketing and PR Blog Examples

By B.L. Ochman

• Loosetooth uses this blog to drive traffic to a Cafepress store, which handles order fulfillment.

• CEO Blogs List

  Actually,
  that's a misnomer. This is a list of weblogs authored by people who are
  in a leadership position in various organizations (corporations,
  non-profit, etc.)

  Hundreds of CEOs are blogging, and the vast majority of their blogs are just plain dull ... as in "who cares?"

• CEO Bloggers Club:

  An international blog dedicated to helping CEOs be better bloggers.

  Membership rules: you have to agree to update your blog at least three times a week.
  

The Online Journalism Review

A web-based journal produced by the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. The Online Journalism Review covers the full range of journalistic issues in all media, but with a particular emphasis on the Internet.

Blogging, Citizen Journalism and the Website as Public Square

Jay Rosen a journalism professor NYU, press critic and writer follows the media industry through his blog PRESSthink. Mr. Rosen has a post covering a consultant's report to the Greensboro News & Record editor. The report details how best to take the and "... re-create the print product online... understanding the culture of the Internet, and of blogging in particular ..."