Value of Education - Seth Godin asks

Seth Godin asks "What is school for?" and offers 27 wide-ranging answers. It's an interesting question because it questions the role of educatio in society. For marketers, the question might be addressed from the perspective of defining the benefit being sold by educators. Is the return on educational investment measured in the overall productivity level of the population of a society? Do better educational systems generate greater GNP? Is this the beter metric, or would it be better to compare relative IQs or MENSA qualifications across societies? Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, has written about the application of his approach to evaluating differentiators of great businesses to the non-profit sector, with interesting insights about how the core 'flywheel' model shifts in non-profits.

My suggestion for #28 on Seth Godin's list is: #28. Learn to think critically. As a parent investing in the college education of a child who has chosen to major in Classics (not the major with the highest level of "I got a great job upon graduation" results), I firmly believe he's becoming a better human being able to think critically about the world around him. I suppose this also implies that I believe that better thinking among people will ultimately lead to a better society.

Tweet Tweet Tweet...Metrics?

Lots of talk about Twitter for marketers these days. Is there a return on investment model for marketers using Twitter? Haven't seen it yet. As a tactic, it can work well as a tool to engage in the conversation with consumers about your brand and, more specifically, about issues relevant to your brand and your consumers. But is it any more measurable than pr, advertising, or other tactics? Is direct response for link activity really the way to measure the impact of tweeting acivity?

I love the innovation of Twitter as a new form of communication. As a marketer, it's as interesting as the innovation of email marketing, followed later by IM, as tools for digital communication. If you have a developed a useful metric (not platitudes, actual metrics) for measuring the marketing benefit of using twitter for brand building, I'd love to hear from you.

Future of local news

I came across an excellent article by Sean Carlton on CLickZ discussing the future of newspapers and print media in the digital age. Much has been written on this topic over the past few years, but this article provided the most concise summary of the comparative strengths of each media source. Local news will thrive. Print will be a part of the communication, but digital offers incredible opportunities to innovate the delivery of local content. Ad supported online local news will likely be part of the solution and this directly relevant content will become a source of ROI for marketers seeking to reach consumers on a local level.

Best Inauguration Events

It's 2009 and the first major event of the year is the Inauguration of Barack Obama as President. Inauguration events will be everywhere, from the many Washington, D.C. inauguration events to online Presidential inauguration blogging. The question from MarketingWitz today is: What are the inaugural marketing events that your business might be implementing to drive business this month? Leave your answers here at MarketingWitz.com.