Bournemouth University invited me to their recent B2B Marketing Colloquium. Along with a fair few professors and more PhD's than you can shake a stick at there were a few of us "real world" practitioners.
I really didn't want it to be this way, I really thought that academia was much more up to date than it clearly is. Importantly the fundamentals of marketing are obviously still being taught but the delivery has changed dramatically in recent years and I'm really not sure academia realises this. I've recruited many graduates over the years into sales and marketing type roles but interestingly my selection has been more based on personality and attitude than their degree subject.
The papers that were presented were interesting and I found a fair few nuggets of interest among them but I would like to see all that research perhaps driving some forecasts and predictions for the future. However I guess that isn't their primary role.
In "the real" world of course the likes of Ovum, Gartner and Forrester interview all their clients, stick their fingers in the air and then sell that information back to their clients. Now that's a clever business model!
In conclusion it was a good event and everyone learnt something. I'd be happy to present in future and its great that these sort of events exist. Yes I want any graduates I hire to know the history of marketing, there was no internet when I started but equally I want them to hit the ground running with up to date methodologies already instilled in their minds.
I really didn't want it to be this way, I really thought that academia was much more up to date than it clearly is. Importantly the fundamentals of marketing are obviously still being taught but the delivery has changed dramatically in recent years and I'm really not sure academia realises this. I've recruited many graduates over the years into sales and marketing type roles but interestingly my selection has been more based on personality and attitude than their degree subject.
The papers that were presented were interesting and I found a fair few nuggets of interest among them but I would like to see all that research perhaps driving some forecasts and predictions for the future. However I guess that isn't their primary role.
In "the real" world of course the likes of Ovum, Gartner and Forrester interview all their clients, stick their fingers in the air and then sell that information back to their clients. Now that's a clever business model!
In conclusion it was a good event and everyone learnt something. I'd be happy to present in future and its great that these sort of events exist. Yes I want any graduates I hire to know the history of marketing, there was no internet when I started but equally I want them to hit the ground running with up to date methodologies already instilled in their minds.