Katelin Maxson, SIFE team member and project manager, achieved a $1,500 grant to be used in the sustainability program. Click here to learn more.

Coach & Equipment “Engineered like no other small bus”®

In keeping with firsthand experience adding to the curriculum, BUS 330 Operations Management class, with Prof. John Miles, tours the local Coach and Equipment factory which manufactures custom buses.  As the operations and management course focuses on key topics such as product and process design, plant capacity, manufacturing technology with the emphasis on current practice touring a manufacturing company is illustrative of what the students are learning on the college campus.

Row 1  Matthew Palmieri, John Lull, Charles Engel, Trevor Field, Kyle Stephens, Mason Brown, and Gino Marcello     Row 2  Carl and Steve of Coach and Equipment, Nick Simpson, Prof. John Miles, Karen Hines, Morgan White, Elly Disbrow, Katelin Maxson, and John Zhang

As a part of Organizational Behavior (MGT 345), the campus TeamWorks! ropes and challenge course is used as an instructional tool within the course work as taught by Professor Ann Tuttle. The class heads to the outdoor challenge course where decision making ability is key. 

The experience is designed to have students work in teams to accomplish several goals.

Teams must sustain communication and coordination to navigate the obstacles before them.  All must work cooperatively together utilizing communication skills, team work, idea generation problem solving, support and trust. 

 One activity involves two students – one blindfolded.  The sighted student must lead the blindfolded student through an area “mine field”.   In this exercise students need to deal with giving and receiving multiple orders at a time as well as exhibiting leadership and followership abilities.

Following the challenge course activity students are required to write a college level reflective paper about their experience.  What a unique and marvelous way to gain insight into to one’s own leadership, group dynamics, communication abilities and a great deal more.  This class enhances future graduates’ abilities as they look to the future.

And that’s the problem with market research. If you’re introducing a device that’s the first of its kind and ask someone if they think they’ll like it or need it the answer is almost always no. That’s why my students didn’t raise their hands when asked if they wanted one. They have no idea what that thing is. In some ways it’s like what happens when something new appears in the art scene. You know it’s happened to you: a new band comes along and the first time you hear their music it stands out because it’s different and you aren’t sure you like it at all, too strange. But hear it a few times and then you get it and soon it’s your favorite new find.
Things that are really new have to create their audience. And all the market research in the world is useless before that happens.  Here’s  what I think the iPad will do. It started fine with pent up new adopter sales (700,000 units including online orders) but it won’t have the steep growth curve of the iPhone. Phones were familiar after all, everyone had one and many were willing to trade up to the new iPhone. But the iPad will create its audience. I’m sure of that. Why? Because Pogue and Mossberg have made careers out of speaking for and to their demographic and their demographic is me too. So where they point I’m bound to follow.  Me and millions like me. So although not having the same push as the iPhone the iPad will start slower but will build into a long strong demand for this new device that’s going to be a delight to the most of us who don’t create content, but love to consume it.

Volunteers from the surrounding 5 counties trained at Keuka College in January and have been preparing returns at the local libraries and the Yates County Office of the Aging. Dial 211 to get help with your taxes.

The business management division at Keuka College has been collaborating with this program for the past 4 years and this would be a great field period for students – its not hard to become an to becoming an IRS certified volunteer tax preparer, we do it in our tax courses.

Remember to call 211 to make an appointment for tax help now

And for PR pundits, professionals, professors and students it’s been a blast. He was too silent; he did it just right. His sponsors were gone forever; they’d come back in time. Well Tiger finally broke his silence the other day and spent fifteen minutes attempting to make amends. You can find him here:

We watched his performance in class and it was pretty clear that our hero had not hit anything like a hole in one. Big agreement. It was a very scripted performance and only occasionally did you sense the presence of the real person. And what’s needed for moments like that is someone the audience can feel and relate to. Now in the elaborate dance of modern PR, this statement was a step he had to take, the public act of contrition that we’ve seen so often lately, our equivalent of the ritual suicide: the media confessional “I have transgressed but I am in therapy, and I shall become worthy of you once more.”

It wasn’t a complete success.

The art of PR is like the art of make-up. It shouldn’t announce itself. Your make-up, if perfect, should appear to be no make-up at all, just the natural you finally shining through. (This is cultural by the way, as in some countries make-up is like a decorative mask that announces itself loud and clear.) The craft behind Tiger’s statement was much too apparent. For example his stout defense of his wife against the accusations that she had physically assaulted him with a golf club (what’s her handicap?). No one thinks she’s done anything wrong at all; she has our complete sympathy. But there he was defending her and putting himself on the side of the angels: a loyal protector and family man. The class didn’t buy much of that.

Some sports heroes are natural PR stars, but not many of them. My latest hero is Lebron James. And not just because he is without a doubt the greatest basketball player on the courts today. Let’s put him up right there against his big rival for that honor: Kobe Bryant. You might argue, as some of my students did, and quite forcefully, that Kobe has it all over Lebron on the court. Maybe. But not when it comes to the world of PR. Compare the two when they’re on camera and talking to their publics.

Here’s Kobe at a press conference:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg4liZ782XU.

And here’s LeBron:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnuYT6RNt0c.

LeBron is natural, relaxed, you can sense the real person sitting in front of you. Kobe, nervous and on script all the time. If Tiger has been able to be there the way LeBron is that fifteen minute performance would have been the real beginning of his return, not just a step in what will be a much longer ritual path to forgiveness.

For those who are unfamiliar with SIFE, it is an international college based student “academic competition” organization that promotes the principles of free enterprise through a variety of educational (example: teaching students the perils of credit card abuse) and direct assistance to entrepreneurs and small businesses (example: co-sponsoring a “Winery / Marketing Forum” to bring winery owners and lending sources together). These projects continue throughout the academic year, then in the spring the SIFE teams compete in regional competition. Competition consists of an evaluation of what has been accomplished and how well the team tells its story in a very formal presentation by generally 2 – 6 SIFE team members. The winners (there are several) at regional competition qualify for national competition. Judging the teams is done by a panel of approximately 20 judges drawn from private industry, most of whom are senior executives. While at competition, SIFE team members also visit the many recruiters who are searching for talent within this “self-selected” group of students. Keuka’s track record is excellent, winning at regional competition eight of the past nine years and generally finishing as first or second runner up, and twice winning, the first round of competition at Nationals. This is especially notable for a college the size of Keuka, and is attributable to the passion, dedication, and hard work of the SIFE team members. It should be noted, that while SIFE is primarily a business-centered team, Keuka’s team enjoys a cross-section of students from many different majors across our campus. This sets us apart from most other colleges. The support of our campus administration and faculty is another significant advantage we enjoy.

We are once again very excited about our team and their chances for success in competition. We feel we have a great project line-up, strong team and project leadership, many team members who have spent countless hours on SIFE projects, and a capable, largely experienced presentation team. In some ways this is the “perfect storm” of experience, passion, and hard work. There will be many long days of preparation ahead of us as we prepare for competition.

As faculty advisor to SIFE, along with my partner Amanda Harris, we encourage any Keuka student interested in being part of an awesome, winning academic competition team to contact any of the SIFE officers (Ryan Ellingworth, Michael Fischer, Kaitlin Wood, or Brett Thoms).

Cheer us on! March 24 will be here soon!

Editor’s Note: This is one of our videos in a series of fast classes, in which faculty and staff members discuss their areas of interest and expertise.

Lectures have been, are, and always will be part of the collegiate academic experience.

Alex Perryman, assistant professor of management and finance, says lectures “do not teach you everything you need to know. However, they give you insight into what your lecturer considers to be important in the subject, help you identify and understand the key concepts, and stimulate you to think critically about the subject.”

With that in mind, Perryman uses this video to help students get the most out of lectures. He encourages active listening and good note taking, among other tips.

One big Perryman no-no: skipping lectures.

And it’s probably wise to not skip this video.

The efforts of the existing liquor store retailers (and some distributors) are nothing but a thinly veiled effort to restrict competition. The arguments made by the retailers and their lobbyists are desperate attempts to restrict the actions of a free market. Their arguments about accessibility of wine to under-age drinkers and other scare tactics are simply not substantiated in other states where such sale is permitted. They simply want to avoid competition.

Threats of a boycott, both implicit and explicit, made against those wineries that go on record as supporting grocery store sales are at best unethical. Our local wine industry is CRUCIAL to the economy in the Finger Lakes region. It is also a critical element of the local tourism industry and one of the few sources of economic growth we have. Restricting sales to grocery stores will reduce this growth and threaten the long-term survival of this valuable industry.

Permitting the sale of wine in grocery stores would also add sales and other tax revenues which are desperately needed by the state and local governments.

Encourage your state legislator to support grocery store wine sales!

Neil Siebenhar