Responses to Other Students: Respond to at least 4 of your fellow classmates with at least a 100–200-word reply about their Primary Task Response regarding items you found to be compelling and enlightening. To help you with your discussion, please consider the following questions:
· What did you learn from your classmate's posting?
· What additional questions do you have after reading the posting?
· What clarification do you need regarding the posting?
· What differences or similarities do you see between your posting and other classmates' postings?
STUDENT 1:
· What was your most significant learning in this course?
Honestly, I have enjoyed this class and obtained so much useful great information to be able to understand marketing and how to market a business in every aspect as well as the steps in doing so! I can’t even pick one week that was better than the rest . I feel they were all great and they were very informative to help build a business weather it be online or a store front business! Week one was great because it helped us get the understanding foundation of marketing and differences and best way to develop our marketing for a business. From informing us on paid advertising, earned advertising and helping us know the marketing mix to be able to do any kind of marketing campaigns needed for a business. This unit also introduces public relations and advertising strategies and why they are needed and their impacts. For the second week, we got into the objectives, communication with consumers through our marketing mix , as well as branding an consumer behavior which helps us understand our customers to know what their needs and wants are.
Also, in week two we got to dip into the management aspects of these marketing strategies and objectives to help a business grow by using the techniques of advertising and public relations. I feel these two weeks I learned a great foundation and made be have better understanding between the two with differences and best way to benefit in using both ways within a business. When it came to week three I was familiar with some things like SWOT analysis due to prior classes and competition within the business. One my favorite parts in week four was the steps in using these methods , how to communicate what I want them to know about the brand and services or products . The project and learning about the brand being a leader or a follower was very great insight. I totally had different perspectives on this until our lesson. To me I thought follower was a brand that came out after the leader and copied some the ideas which was not the case even company that was second could have become a leader which was great to learn.
So when it came to this class I feel it was great class for me to have to take to add to the marketing parts I had already known ! Without this course I would missed out on a lot of marketing options when it came to public relations because I was never told in detail what or how good it helps with a company only negative aspects of public relations . I would of loved to have this class longer I’m sure there is much more to this that was lacked due to short period of time! I feel that the individual project some were helpful but some of the things we were required to do just made no sense but overall they were great very hard to do on mobile. I feel this class was doable but when came to the formats this class was not mobile friendly causes me issues on being late with assignments due to no computer access! Other than that everything else was fabulous!
· How did participating in discussions help your understanding of the subject matter? Is anything still unclear that could be clarified?
Participating in discussion boards were great! I do feel
Some were very short and lacked some knowledge but I understand many have busy schedule and lives but I feel some could have advanced their posts. On the other hand, ones that did post had great content and helped with adding more knowledge helping others gain better perspective of the topic at hand giving clear guidance and advice which always is beneficial! Anther thing I really enjoyed that most don’t do is the teacher responding back to each student with an additional question to help us dissect deeper into the topic and engaging with the teacher always helps a student understand and be more successful.
I Lastly, there was few things with this course I wasn’t too happy with! I was not to fond of this class not having a book for materials. I feel materials like books on specific topics help us now and help us in future for when we are no longer in this course. Seemed like all the materials were links and many didn’t work and was very frustrating to know when this class is over we have no material to have ! I will not remember everything in every class and the books help me go back to resources and this class didn’t provide books. Another thing I was not thrilled about was it was All projects there was not any intellipaths with materials either so between lack of books and intellipath I feel I lost some knowledge that I could have gained on my own since these courses are very short! As far as the live lectures they were unbelievably great! The teacher was fabulous. He has great leadership, great knowledge to share and provided great direction and that matters the most!
I wish everyone the best of their last week and continue on a great journey to success
STUDENT 2:
I found a lot of topics in this course to be extremely useful and interesting. The first was learning what the difference between advertising and public relations is. Then, a deeper dive into public relations because before I took this class, I thought that it was mostly just about celebrities keeping their public image up. I also enjoyed learning about the different types of advertising such as informative, persuasive, and reminder.
The refresher of the different cohorts and thinking about what companies targeted what age group was useful as well. The unit three individual project was probably my favorite part of the class. I had a lot of fun with that assignment when it came to being able to make up my own company and essentially try and sell it to the public. It allowed me to think of some ideas that I may be able to utilize in the future if I am able to open my own company someday.
There was a part in week two of public relations that broke down PR into categories such as build, create, provide, stimulate, and reinforce, I would have liked to get a deeper understanding of those concepts that way I may be able to apply them if I can open my own business. I believe it is always a good idea to learn new ways of essentially trying to sell the same product from the same company. It may also be useful to know for a new company so that way they will be able to find new and better ways of selling their products or creating new ones that would elevate their business in the future. Overall, I learned a lot from this class and Dr. G, and look forward to the time when I’m able to apply it.
STUDENT 3:
Some of the most compelling topics I learned about in this course consisted of the SWOT analysis, which is used to help identify a competitive advantage. Furthermore, we learned about the use of information technology to create a competitive advantage, and the PESTEL analysis which I have never heard of prior to this course. I now have a better understanding of the PESTEL analysis which will help me in my future classes.
Participating in discussions helped me gain a better understanding of the material. I attended every live chat which I thought was helpful with me completing the following weeks assignment. Reading other classmates post and responding in the discussion boards helped me gain a better understanding of the material and gave me a different viewpoint. Along with the discussion boards I thoroughly enjoyed doing the intellipath. The intellipath is great because it allows you to go back and redo it for a higher score. There is nothing that is unclear at this moment that could be clarified.
I do not think there are any other approaches that could have yielded additional information. This has been one of my least favorite classes I have taken thus far here at CTU. I think the live chats were helpful, but very demanding having to enter the chat right on time and not leave early or extra credit wouldn’t be given/wouldn’t be able to enter the chat if late. As far as the breakout groups go, this was the first class I have taken that has that, which I didn’t really care for. In addition, I think there should have been more of an explanation with grading when not receiving all points possible for the discussion boards. I understand that this is a 400-level class and there is going to more expected out of you.
I wish you all the best of luck in your future classes!
STUDENT 4:
Strategy Formulation and Processes
The most compelling topic for me during this course was unit 4 on PESTEL analysis, I had not participated in a course that had covered the PESTEL analysis prior to this course. The PESTEL analysis can be a major asset to any organization that is concerned about external factors, but the PESTEL analysis is only beneficial if the organization can take advantage of the external factors. Additionally, in unit 2 we covered the SWOT analysis option which can be used with PESTEL analysis to make up for its shortcomings. I had a previous course that covered SWOT analysis, so this course allowed me to check my own understanding of the analysis method as well as learn any additional aspects that I did not already know.
The discussion board posts offer a lot of opportunities to learn additional information about the course topics that we have been discussing in each unit. By reading others' posts and responding to what they had posted to the discussion board, it offered an opportunity to answer any questions that were left over from our own discussion board posts. The discussion board posts made by others can also include new information that I had not found in my own research of the material. In past courses I have struggled to understand what the questions were asking, but by reading what others had posted to the discussion board it allowed me to get an understanding of what was being asked.
For additional information for this course I could have done more research into the topics that we had discussed. For instance, I could have gone to additional sources like YouTube for information on the individual topics we covered. I also could have read through more of my classmate's posts to uncover any information that I did not find from my own research.
