This particular post comes from Marjorie Van Halteren. Many of you know Marjorie as our Geopolitics and Ethics professor but she is highly respected by her peers outside school for her skills in broadcast communications. She recently gave an extremely interesting presentation on the run up to Super Tuesday in the US presidentially primaries, here at the school, alongside Randy Bobbitt - more on that in a future post. It's been really interesting watching the students get to grip with the idea of digital marketing, other than a website page and it was they who came up with the podcast theme. This was their baby, but Marjorie is a great coach.
"....The other day, a student asked me the original meaning of the word pod. Webster’s defines a pod as “a small herd or school of marine animals, esp. whales,” or of course as referring to “seed pods, such as the fruiting body of the pea family,” ie "pea-pod," but which “applies to any dry dehiscent fruit with more than one seed.” And who can forget “pod people,” a nickname given to an alien species featured in the 1955 novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney as well as the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers?
It was the computer giant Apple that changed the word pod forever in 2001, with the introduction of the ubiquitous mp3 player, the ipod. Now of course we have podcasting, which refers to the burgeoning universe of audio and video programs shooting around on the internet produced by everyone from individuals, chat groups, fan groups, artists, internet record labels, big and small companies, newspapers and broadcasters, to, yes, why not, business schools!
This year’s third year Marketing Option in IMiM have undertaken their own effort. We listened to various podcasts and discussed what we saw as the possibilities of what a school could produce to promote itself. Everyone agreed that rather than advertising ESC outright, what we wanted to do above all was provide a service for incoming international students, and Welcome Pack was born.
There are five podcasts in the series, covering subjects such as how do you find housing, what to do about administration, things to do in Lille, what associations can offer, and solving various problems.
The intention of these recordings was to help new students as much as possible in an engaging way, with the idea that this would communicate an upbeat and engaged image of the student body. But as the professor who recorded and edited the series, I observed a larger phenomenon, that was much more subliminal, but none the less powerful: that is simply how much sheer pleasure and energy are generated when young people from diverse cultures work together on a goal. I think that, although the intent of the project was to offer a service through content, the real allure of the podcast is undeniably the students themselves, their personalities, and their warmth.
You’d want to come here and hang around just to spend time with them! Once you get here, even if you hail from Mars, you’ll never feel like part of an alien species.
That’s Welcome Pack 2008, coming in June to http://www.esc-lille.fr/ , this blog, if possible and a copy of itunes near you." ... Marjorie van Halteren.
It was the computer giant Apple that changed the word pod forever in 2001, with the introduction of the ubiquitous mp3 player, the ipod. Now of course we have podcasting, which refers to the burgeoning universe of audio and video programs shooting around on the internet produced by everyone from individuals, chat groups, fan groups, artists, internet record labels, big and small companies, newspapers and broadcasters, to, yes, why not, business schools!
This year’s third year Marketing Option in IMiM have undertaken their own effort. We listened to various podcasts and discussed what we saw as the possibilities of what a school could produce to promote itself. Everyone agreed that rather than advertising ESC outright, what we wanted to do above all was provide a service for incoming international students, and Welcome Pack was born.
There are five podcasts in the series, covering subjects such as how do you find housing, what to do about administration, things to do in Lille, what associations can offer, and solving various problems.
The intention of these recordings was to help new students as much as possible in an engaging way, with the idea that this would communicate an upbeat and engaged image of the student body. But as the professor who recorded and edited the series, I observed a larger phenomenon, that was much more subliminal, but none the less powerful: that is simply how much sheer pleasure and energy are generated when young people from diverse cultures work together on a goal. I think that, although the intent of the project was to offer a service through content, the real allure of the podcast is undeniably the students themselves, their personalities, and their warmth.
You’d want to come here and hang around just to spend time with them! Once you get here, even if you hail from Mars, you’ll never feel like part of an alien species.
That’s Welcome Pack 2008, coming in June to http://www.esc-lille.fr/ , this blog, if possible and a copy of itunes near you." ... Marjorie van Halteren.
