Out of Date Business Planning Process

What kind of mindset do you have? Do you actively check social media sites or focus around your schedules? Do you go with the flow or plan your day ahead of time?

When looking at our current society, we see companies operate with all different real-time mindsets. Companies actively draw from the distance past or far into the future in order to operate day-to-day. They plan and operate based off what has already happen or what they hope to happen, but rarely do these companies do this in the now. These companies have learned that this is the best mind-set to have being that it is how it has always have been. At least that was before they had all of this technology available to them.

Within David Meerman Scott's "Real-Time Marketing & PR," he states that "responding to events in real time is uncomfortable; it requires quick thinking and taking risks." My question to that is why is responding to these events so uncomfortable? I understand companies would be uneasy to step out of their norms, but the opportunities they might gain are so much greater. With technology and social media at its current state, the risks are starting to be marginalized. We are now able to gain massive amounts of information such as feedback or ideas from current platforms within minimal amounts of time.

By no means am I saying these companies should drop there process model because it does provide plentiful amount of benefits. All I am saying is that companies need to take that first step into planning and reacting in the now as soon as possible. They need to establish positions and departments that strictly deal with planning and reacting in the now. This step might allow them to reach their future goals that much faster being that they do not have to wait until the information or outcome is in the distance past.

Until next time,
Matt

MSU needs to set the bar

Michigan State University is known worldwide as one of the top institutions in both academics and athletics. They have a reputation of holding high standards when it comes to what they ask of their students. On the other-hand, they need to make it apparent that their student athletes are no different.

Late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, depending on how you look at it, MSUs Mark Meyers was caught and charged with operating while intoxicated. He later was suspended from the team indefinitely that following morning. Meyers is a junior and the backup safety for the universities football team. Now being a backup player does not seem like a big deal but for his position, it is crucial to have depth in replacements.

Granted this event only happened a few days ago, I feel the course of action the coach and university has yet to be as harsh as it should have been. The university and team share these high standards and I feel only suspending him indefinitely is not the coarse they should have taken. They should have simply cut him from the team, no if and's or buts about it. There should be a no tolerance policy with these types of things regardless of if they are a starter or a bench warmer.

Being that I am from Michigan, I do love MSU and especially their football team, but this type of thing is just not acceptable. I have no bias because I would still say the same thing even if it were the starting quarterback in this position. 

Until next time,

Matt

Paying to attend, not to learn

As college students, we pay massive amounts of money to gain a higher education and it is from which that we forget the core concept of such. We are the consumer of what these institutions are selling, which in this case is a higher education. My thought is that if we choose to pay x-amount for a class that gives us this higher education, then why is it that we are being penalized in our grade because of an attendance policy. We are the ones paying for the class, so why is it professors are still holding are hands as if we are in second-grade? If we are the ones paying to skip these classes, then let us skip and earn the grade we deserve from such. It is not the responsibility of the University or professor to make sure we get to class each day, so why is this age-old policy still around?  

                                       

Now professors, I understand why most of you all have the same policies, I really do. Some might say it because they do not want to deal with the ignorant students who would skip all semester and then ask for the lectures again when it is crunch time. Professors might also egotistically argue that if they are going to take the time from their day to teach that the students should take the time to be there each day. I even had a professor here at ONU tell me that the only reason why she has an attendance policy is that it has always been that way. Another commonly argued point is that when a student enters their career field that they will have to show up every day regardless. That statement has so many things wrong with it that I will just leave it at that otherwise this blog would be ten times as long. Now I am sure there are thousands of different reasons that might be argued for attendance policies but all of which forget the core concept, which is who is the one actually paying for the class. 

All I am saying is if a student does not have the responsibility to go to class then the University and professors should be more than happy accept that freely earned paycheck. College is not a free ride, you must pay x-amount to ride said ride and it should not matter whether you were on it for the whole time or half the time, you paid for the experience so it should be your choice on such.      

Until next time,

Matt