Saint Joseph's University

Guest Speaker From Venezuela

Staff — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 07:46:46 +0000

We had a guest speaker on Feb 16^th, during the class of international communication. The lecturer’s name is Ricardo Maldonado who works for Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce to create marketing campaigns to market Philadelphia in Venezuela. He unveiled Venezuela to students from the MIM program.

In his lecture, he mentioned some features of Venezuelans at first. For example, they love talking about family, work and hobbies; personal space doesn’t play a significant role in their daily life; they have no sense of time and never are punctual; they make jokes everywhere at any time; baseball is almost a religion in Venezuela; it might be the only country which still cares classical music; and Venezuelans prefer listening to the radio to watching TV.

Then, Mr. Maldonado talked about some taboos in Venezuela. Marketers should be quite careful in choosing the right color and words in terms of colors represent different and competing political parties.

Many facets about Venezuela had been covered. And students were most interested in especially two of them. One is that Venezuelans love talking about politics and the other is that how much they spend on beauty products. The answer was shocking: Venezuelans spend about 1/5 of their income on grooming products including plastic surgeries. Because the surgery is too expensive and might be unaffordable to some family, some social issues posed by this phenomenon exist. But it is undeniable that Venezuela does a good job on plastic surgeries.

The lecture is a big help in this course because students need information internationally so when it comes down to the real business, students would know better about how to communicate with local companies, and to avoid offending people and to get their products appealing to locals.

International product development and brand management

Staff — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 07:16:25 +0000

International product development and brand management is a required class for all MIM students and an optional one for other students. This course aims to provide an overall view and fundamentals about how to make a product and a brand successful internationally. Professor Barry is the instructor. She’s very careful and considering. Textbooks are: 1. Crawford and DiBenedetto. New Product Magnagement. McGraw-Hill Irwin, 9th edition. 2. Keller. Lessons from the World’s Strongest Brands. Pearson Prentice Hall, 3rd edition. Students are expected to be well prepared in order to maximize the benefits of this very empirical course. Like most courses, students will have two exams and a group project to show what they have learned, how well they have absorbed book knowledge and how capable they can use it in their own project.

We have guest speakers this semester. Their lectures and real working experiences would benefit us to a great extent and broaden our horizon as well. Interactions between the professor and students are very useful and interesting. Students are very active and willing to share their opinions and experiences with others. Case studies and discussions are core elements in the study of this course. Studies of successful brands like Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts tell students some basic rules in managing a brand. On the other hand, discussions help students to express themselves as well as absorb different opinions. Certainly, most attendants are from the MIM program, but we still have quite a few MBA and real business people as our classmates whose stand points are different. International students are from China, Saudi Arabia, Poland, and India and so on, so students can enjoy diverse cultures and vary opinions which are of great importance in this class. Discussions are always intensive just like debates and could bring everyone a brain storm which enable students to look at the world from a different angle with a more comprehensive perspective.

MIMers’ Chinese New Year event

Staff — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 07:14:54 +0000

Chinese New Year is also known as the Spring Festival. Chinese New Year to Chinese is just what Christmas to American. And the whole festival lasts 15 days. People are supposed to do different things on different days; people should visit their relatives on the first day for instance. There are also superstitions behind those customs. For example, people should not cut their hair in the first month of the year. Otherwise one’s good luck would go. On the last day of the past year, family members decorate their houses with red staff because red is considered the luckiest color in Chinese culture…

In order to celebrate the Chinese New Year, MIMers dined together on Feb. 15^that Chinatown. Although the Spring Festival was on the 14^th actually, we decided to celebrate it one day later because the 14^th is also the Valentine’s Day. 32 students participated in this event including both old and new members in our program. Professor Choh and her family were with us, too.

Chinese students took responsibilities to explain traditions, customs, and even the Chinese calendar to other students. 2010 is the year of Tiger and people who were born in the year of tiger should wear red in the whole year for good luck. There are 12 animal names; so by this system, year names are repeated every 12 years. About half of our Chinese students are “tigers”, and they were quite excited about this year because 12 years had passed since the last year of tiger.

Yummy food was served. And everyone loved the roast duck. It served with a roast duck, some sauce, spring onion and pancakes. The Chinese students showed everyone how to make it: firstly you should get some duck and dip it in the sauce. Secondly you’d better add a few pieces of spring onion. And finally you have to wrap all these staff in a pancake. Then just enjoy it! I believed it was the most impressive dish on that day because everyone was praising it. The food was great, everything was great. It was quite successful afterall.

my first thanksgiving in the US!

Staff — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:03:38 +0000

My name is Jane and I’m an international student. I was very excited about my first thanksgiving here in the US because I had never celebrate thanksgiving in china. My roommates were just as excited as me, and we decided to bake a turkey by ourselves. We rarely cook at home so it was a big deal. We gathered together in the afternoon on that day and got all materials prepared. The turkey was even bigger than we expected so we worried about whether it could be completely cooked. Google helped us a lot about the question: how to cook a turkey. And we found out that we should fill it with some filings! Thank god that we did the Google search! Otherwise I couldn’t imagine how the taste would be.

However, what the filing should be? After a brief discussion, we determined to bake a “cross cultural” turkey (I learned this term from class). That was why we filled the turkey with a Chinese dish: some rice, mushrooms, chestnuts and so on. When baking, one of my friends opened the oven several times to check if it was OK. Others were all waiting for it and curious about the result. Fortunately, after hours busy work, it tasted great and we were so satisfied with our cooking skill.

We also had dumplings that evening which were made by ourselves. The kitchen was in chaos. Some were busy preparing dough and others were busy with the filing. We had 3 kinds of filings and each of them tasted good.

The whole night was full of fun and all of us stayed up really late that night. Thanksgiving is great!

Mark Your Calendars!

Staff — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:54:06 +0000

The Philly Ad Club Student Outreach Committee is pleased to announce “The Agency Crawl” - a wonderful event for Philadelphia area students interested in exploring local agencies in the advertising industry.

The Agency Crawl will take place on Friday , November 13, 2009 , from 12:45 sharp to 5:00pm. Students can expect to spend about forty-five minutes at each of the following agencies: Brownstein Group, LevLane, Digitas, and Tierney. You’ll get a chance to see their award-winning work, talk to people in the biz and experience for yourself what an agency is all about!

All currently enrolled students including May 2009 graduates are invited and encouraged to attend. The price for the event is $20, but members of Philly Ad Club Students will only pay $10.

The Philly Ad Club is only able to accommodate 50 participants for the event, so please register as soon as possible! Registration for this event may be done online at www.phillyadclub.com

If you would like more information about the Philly Ad Club Students program, please visit www.phillyadclub.com . The Phlly Ad Club is constantly working to provide local students with opportunities to explore and network within the Greater Philadelphia advertising industry.

We hope that you will benefit from the Philly Ad Club’s upcoming Agency Crawl!

Mid-Autumn Festival in Chinatown!

Staff — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:15:53 +0000

The MIMers as well as several faculty members dined together in Chinatown on October 3rd to celebrate a traditional Chinese festival—the Mid-Autumn Festival. This event provided a good cross-culture experience and a golden opportunity for everyone to better know each other and to deeply understand customs from other cultures. Chinese cuisines and moon cakes, which are special to the festival, were served.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar, which is usually around late September or early October in the Gregorian calendar. It is a date that parallels the autumn and spring Equinoxes of the solar calendar, when the moon is supposedly at its fullest and roundest. The traditional food of this festival is the mooncake, of which there are many different varieties.

However, there is a legend behind the Mid-Autumn festival. As seen in Wikipedia, this is why the moon shines brighter during the Mid-Autumn Festival:
“Once upon a time, the earth had ten suns. They burned the crops and people suffered infertility. Houyi sympathized with humans, so he decided to shoot down nine suns and leave one for the benefit of the people. After he shot down the suns, he was treated as a hero. He had a beautiful wife named Chang’e, and they lived happily together. Houyi had a many apprentices; they followed him to learn hunting. One day, on Houyi’s way back home, the emperor of the immortals gave Houyi two pills, each of which granted eternal life as a reward for shooting down the suns, one was for Houyi, and the other for his wife. He warned Houyi, “Make no haste to swallow the pill.” Houyi was to wait until New Years Day, on which he and Chang’e were supposed to eat the pills together. Chang’e put the pill in her jewelry box for safekeeping. But Peng, one of Houyi’s apprentices, discovered their secret and decided to steal the pill. One day, when Houyi and other apprentices went to the mountain, Peng pretended to be sick so that he could stay home. After everyone had gone to the mountain, Peng sneaked into Chang’e’s room and forced her to give him the pill. Chang’e knew she couldn’t fight Peng, so she ate the pill herself. However, after eating it alone, she began to float. Unable to come back to earth, she took flight and flew far, far away. She did not want to leave her husband, so she stopped at the moon, which is the body closest to Earth. After Houyi found out what happened, he was very angry and heartbroken. He looked up into the night and called Chang’e’s name. He discovered that inside the moon there was a lady’s shadow that look like Chang’e, so he ran and ran and tried to reach the moon. He failed due to the wind.”

Christine and her husband, Albert, were the most gracious hosts!

Among the guests were Dr. Michael Solomon and his wife, Gail.

Other guests included Prof. Carolyn Choh and her daughter, Claire!

Cutting up some traditional mooncakes to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Nate, our successful first-time chopstick user!

Rockin it

First years!

Visit from the COO of the World Trade Center of Greater Philadelphia

Staff — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 03:45:06 +0000

The MIM program hosted our first of many speakers throughout the year. Dino Ramos, the Chief Operating Officer of the World Trade Center of Greater Philadelphia, was cordially invited to speak to the current students in the MIM program. Mr Ramos educated the audience on a range of services offered by the World Trade Center, including networking opportunities, trade education, trade assistance and internship opportunities for students.

Students also provided suggestions for topics for future speakers throughout the year.

For more information on services provided by the World Trade Center of Greater Philadelphia, visit www.wtcphila.org

September: MIM Networking Reception

Staff — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 05:33:27 +0000

The MIM networking reception, held on August 27th, brought together all the students in the MIM program. Held at the Mandeville dining hall, the reception allowed the new and returning students to mix and mingle. The reception offered food from different cultures and cuisines, allowing students to break out of their comfort zone and venture into the culinary unknown.

Both the new and old students were introduced to the Marketing department faculty. Students were given the opportunity to discover more about their peers and their backgrounds over good food and excellent company. The Marketing faculty showed up in full force to mingle with the new students and answer any questions.

With new friendships formed and old ones renewed, 2009 shows much promise for engaging classroom discussions and good times to be shared.

Here’s to the start of a new academic year!

Staff — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 05:31:01 +0000

The start of the ’09-’10 academic year kicked off with the Masters in International Marketing orientation to welcome the new students to the program. The orientation brought together students from diverse international backgrounds such as the US, Poland, Trinidad and Tobago, Saudi Arabia, China, Taiwan and Singapore, among others. The afternoon orientation allowed the new students to meet one another. Christine Kaczmar-Russo, Director of the MIM program, was there to meet everyone and also introduced Dr. John Lord, Chair of the Marketing Department.

The new students were given a tour of the extensive campus and online resources along with a host of refreshments. As introductions were given, it was noticed how varied and diverse the student population was, with students hailing from various cultural backgrounds and working experiences.

My Summer Life in Philly

Staff — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:44:20 +0000

I’m a Chinese student in the MIM program. My name is Lantian Ge. I am staying in Philly during this summer vacation. All my roommates went back to China, which made me feel a little bit lonely. Shuang, my classmate, moved into my apartment to accompany me. We are so happy to live together. She is so nice and she even does the cooking for me everyday. I really appreciate her kindness.

Right now, I work in Center of Food Marketing 4 days a week. We do some marketing research. I also work on the typesetting and designing of our newsletter.

Both of us work for our MIM program on internet marketing. I do things on Twitter and Linkedin. She sets up groups on Myspace and Youtube. We want more people to know about our program. This is interesting work. I had never used Twitter and Linkedin before, so I learn a lot.

�

Shuang and I also do research with Professor Michael Solomon on the popular 3D online community Second Life. We want to know if there is any difference between people from different countries when they are choosing their virtual images in Second Life.

On weekends, I go to the Philly House to learn about the Bible. Yesterday, we talked about forgiveness. People should forgive others, which can also set themselves free. First of all, we need to forgive ourselves. I like these kinds of lessons. I can learn how to think and live in this world and also how to make myself a better person.

The weather here is pretty good, sunny but not very hot. I hope it won’t be too hot in the coming months. My summer vacation is busy and happy. I enjoy it very much!

Photo: My friends and I in my friend’s house