Innovation and Ideation

Today was the kickoff of our second Academy Week. Our speaker was Ralph Blessing, Managing Director of Chicago Office and Senior Partner at GfK Strategic Innovation. He talked about his career and some of the amazing products he had a chance to work on: Coppertone Sport Continuous Spray, Degree Antiperspirant, and Axe to just name a few. He explained the needs approach that GfK uses to help develop products to fill in shelf "white space." It was a really great presentation and it got even more interesting when we went through the process to create a new product. We picked Quick Service Restaurants as our category and then just brainstormed ideas, concepts and positioning. Look for our Mediterranean/Tapas QSR soon with our own branded olive oil and hummus (which we will expand into grocery) soon!

After we finished our scheduled activities we were able to work on our team projects...my team split up and worked on our own, we should come back together tomorrow ready to knock this out of the park.

It's Thursday?

Where has this week gone? I had every intention of blogging all this week, but like life it got away from me. I am on my way to class and then have a meeting with my Academy directors to discuss our CMA project and then I should have the rest of the afternoon and evening to myself. So a real update should be coming soon...I promise!

Internship - check, Schoolwork - ??

Everyone thinks I am on easy street now, my dream internship under my belt and the rest of the semester should be smooth sailing right? Um, no. Now that we are out of the core the number of teams I am on has grown exponentially (from one to four!) and now that I have a leadership role in Kelley Women, that seems to fill in any of the space not already allocated to school projects.

Accounting thankfully is not a lot of group work, but we have lots of cases to prepare for every class. Thankfully, for me Charlton is forced to take the same class so I have a study buddy at home to make sure I am not allocating costs to projects based on some silly driver like times they turned on the light switch.

Brand Management has a fairly in-depth project where we value a brand. My team (of 6) is valuing Tiffany. We have to look at the consumer perceptions and then a few different valuation methods. The good thing about having a team so large is we can have mini-projects within the project. Each pair has their own valuation, mine being product based. We also have a survey we all created to gauge customer preferences, so if you are reading this and want to help out...click here.

Market Research has a project too, teams of only 4, but so far it seems fairly straightforward. It is more of an exercise to get us using SPSS so our professor is walking us through it. Perfect!

Then there is my KIP class where we have teams of five to work on case write-ups and our industry presentation in a few weeks. Our first case write-up was on the Israeli Special Forces and really interesting. As for the industry presentation we are going with agriculture as CPG was too hard to find resources on.

Lastly, there is my CMA project where we are working on a global entry strategy for Kitchenaid...something like what we would see in our internships. It is fairly vague and we haven't gotten too far in, but I already know more than I ever thought I would on Japanese cooking tastes and trends.

And if that wasn't keeping me busy enough, there is our readings, homework, housework (still haven't done laundry this week!) and try to keep up with my friends. Pulled in 500 directions, and this was supposed to be easier than the core?

Target ♥s P&G

CMA Friday this week, has been my favorite session so far. But I do have a bias as my class' "Target Girl" We had representatives from P&G come to campus and discuss some new initiatives to a department in the store. It was great to hear about how collaborative their relationship is and how they can utilize data each has to best serve the guest. And to top it off, we all headed to the Bloomington Target for a personalized store tour. It's days like this that I don't mind being at school at 9 am on a Friday.

Two of my favorites meet...

in the middle of Kitchenwares! I am so excited about Giada's new partnership with Target! I really think she resonates with their target guest and it should be a great venture for the both of them. I can't wait to see how it does, and better yet tastes (at least the sauces and not the pans) as I had to show a little restraint after spending quite a bit on jewelry there during my last visit. I will definitely have to ask about it during my store tour with the CMA on Friday.

Another Day Down

I am that much closer to being done with the Core. Not sure how I feel about that though, there is something very comforting to show up to the same seat everyday surrounded by the same people. I am excited for all of the new classes next semester but I am going to miss all my Core professors. Especially Management! We had one of the best sessions today (our case was on AirAsia) and to close Professor Semandi had one of the most moving speeches I have heard, I was getting a little teary by the end. The whole class was really moved and gave him a standing ovation on top of our typical Kelley clap.

After class I had a quick trek meeting to try to get everything straightened out with the rest of the trek leaders, then Charlton and I headed out for lunch and to the grocery store to stock up for finals week. At the Kroger I had a total geek out moment when I say the Joy of Cooking line in the freezer section, we had done a case on it with Jewel-Osco during CMA week so it was interesting to see what Kroger chose to stock and where they placed it. You know you are a CMA'er when you get super excited about that kind of stuff.

Back at the house it was time to study, eat dinner, send emails and have phone interviews. Oh and find out I will be VP of Internal Affairs for Kelley Women! We had some great candidates running and I am really honored that I was selected, so excited to help lead the organization next year.

Almost done, so hard to believe it!

It keeps going and going and going...

Another day of class, an afternoon of informational interviews, an evening of slam sessions (with the director of GCS no less) and elections. Just another day at Kelley, sure doesn't feel like the core is winding down at all.

Tomorrow is a day jam packed with CMA activities. Breakfast with General Mills, case question prep with Scotts, and who knows what else. Let the Marketing begin!

What is it REALLY like...

to be a marketer? That was the question of the day yesterday. Our CMA day had a panel of 6 recent alums who talked candidly about their jobs and the cultures of their company so we could get a better sense of what we can expect during our internships. Then we had 4 break-out sessions with them to work on some cases that they have had to work on. It was a lot of fun and they ranged from how do we evaluate what is important to the customer nutritionally to how do we set up our planogram. It was nice after being bogged down with our case competition to be reminded why we are here.

We finished up at about 3, I vegged for a bit and then headed to the grocery store to pick up our turkey. Then it was time for my first "Ladies Club" dinner. We went to Cafe Django, an Asian fusion restaurant. It was pretty good and it was fun for all of us to celebrate the holiday.

It's weird not having to go to school today, or not having to do research. I have a feeling today will be filled with a lot of cleaning, packing and working on my exam for CMA. But what an improvement over case comp! Yay for Thanksgiving break!

So got up this morning and didn’t feel any better. I would have loved to stay home but I felt I needed to go on the Academy trip for participation points. Picked up my friends and one of them was feeling as miserable as I was. After an hour or so of sleeping on the bus, we got to Eli Lilly headquarters. Their building was really nice and the presentations we were able to catch were really great too. We only lasted until lunch and then the two of us were done. We hoped to just hang out on the bus but our gracious hosts at Lilly took care of us and got us a cab back to Bloomington (thanks!)

Once back in town we headed straight to the health center to see what we really had. Long story short, we were both diagnosed with H1N1 (swine flu) So after dropping my friend off basically crashed on my couch. Emailed some professors to warn them about next week and emailed some classmates. Had to cancel an SAC dinner and a brunch we were hosting. And miss P&G.

Oink, oink…I hate being sick!

Give it a whirl!

Weds was a great visit to Whirlpool. However, I had started to get sick so it was hard to be on my A game. However, I did get some great questions in and we got to learn some great stuff about the company and have lunch with some recent full time MBA hires.

At around 2 we headed back to Bloomington, where we didn’t get home until 8. I was starting to feel really sick at that point but really couldn’t get ready for the bus ride today. Just went straight to bed. Thank god for Nyquil!

Off to Michigan

Today was another packed day! We were abroad the bus by 7:45 and headed toward Miller Coors. They took us straight to the in-house pub on the 16th floor. We got to meet with brand managers, media, sports marketing and on premise marketing. We got some great exposure to the brands, how they interact with retailers and distributors and try to postion their product. Then we grabbed a box lunch and headed to Itasca to meet with Jewel-Osco. It was good to get a sense of another aspect of marketing and how they work with various BMs.

Now we are we headed toward Michigan to meet with Whirlpool tomorrow for an all day visit. Should be exciting to peek inside a durable goods company. Now if I could fight off this impeding cold, I would be all good.

Bye bye Chi-Town!

It’s time to head to Miller & Jewel-Osco

Movin' On Up!

After having a fun filled day with Kraft and the Weinermobile it was off to Chicago for the CMA. While 4 hours of bus travel is never that much fun, I did get some reading in, some sleeping in and some episodes of Scrubs. And it is always nice to escape to a big city even if it is just for a little while.

However, I was really disappointed we didn’t find out that we would have the night to ourselves sooner. I would have definitely looked up some restaurants and really explored the foodie scene here instead of just going to Rock Bottom with a bunch of classmates (Although that was fun, we had like 1/3 of the CMA there so that was cool) Didn’t get to see much of the city, there just isn’t enough time. Hopefully I can make a trip up here after the core to really make use of being so close.

Tried to turn in early but yet I am still up! Better get to bed because I have a bus to catch at 7:45.

We’re here! Chicago watch out, Kelley CMA is coming!

Oh I wish...

Woohoo Weinermobile! Gotta love the Consumer Marketing Academy!

All packed up and ready to go for CMA week, Addie seems less than thrilled.

All packed up and ready to go for CMA week, Addie seems less than thrilled.

Another day completed in the Kelley MBA program thanks to the goal! Finished my first final, went to an amazing multi-channel presentation put on by a senior consultant at Target, and then lunch and networking with 2nd year CMA-ers.

What better way to celebrate the end of week 5 than with a visit from my little brother! Even though his flight was late we were able to get him to Nick’s (One of Playboy’s top 10 college bars) and to the Upstairs to celebrate my friend’s birthday with Beer Golf. We finished off the night at Steak ‘N Shake. Goodbye week 5, hello, weekend!

I wish I could have done something like this for my Quant midterm, it would have made me feel a little better about it! Even meeting with my team at 7:30 to review some more did nothing to prepare me for the kick in the pants the test gave me. Just wanted to curl up and hide somewhere when it was all done.

But I couldn’t! Fridays are not free days, they are opportunities for even more activities! Lunch was a scarfed down ham sandwich (thanks Oscar Mayer) and a quick meeting with my peer coach to make the last few changes to my resume before sending it off to GCS review. Next up my first Academy Friday! Where we had a four hour introduction to the Consumer Marketing Academy, our fellow academy members, our directors and the world of brand. All in a great session and I am looking forward to all the events planned that will give me more exposure to the consumer marketing niche.

Then without a minute to lose, it was time for the MBA Bowl! Are you ready for some football? A first vs. second year party? Even though the field was a mess the guys would not be deterred from their own very Friday Night Lights, which ended up more like Friday Night Mud Wrestling. Was a great game, Charlton got in some sacks and one of my team members had some excellent catches. And the most important part….we WON! Great way to end the week!