Sara Kerr

Musings

recent posts

about

Lover of Snow, Winter Vacations, Good Beer & Great Music, Minnesota Weather, French Wine & Sidewalks. Yogi for life.

Category: St. Catherine University

  • How Irish is St. Paul? All Roads Meet at the Celtic Junction

    Depending upon who you ask, St. Paul, MN is very Irish– about 7% today (per the Census Bureau) but the second most populous ethnic group in the 1850s. Regardless of the statistics, Irish culture plays a big part of the St. Paul culture:  10 Irish mayors from 1932-1972 and the last two, as well; A Plethora…

  • Academic Integrity: Courage

    Courage What does courage mean in college? Claiming your education? Be honest with yourself? Doing the right thing when it’s extra work? Regardless, you need to be fearless. http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/woman-fists-with-fearless-across-the-knuckles-royalty-free-image/118374682  

  • Integrity: Fair Play

    Today in MKTG 2350 Integrated Marketing Communications we begin two modules: Academic Integrity and Intellectual Property Rights. http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/vintage-kids-alphabet-blocks-saying-fair-play-royalty-free-image/171664848

  • What do I need to know to work in marketing?

    The question should really be, what skills do I need? For me, it’s how should I prepare my students? They need to understand social strategy, to measure sentiment, create a visual experience, and analyze like an economist — and write really well, too. 2013 Marketing Jobs Outlook from Monster.com, last year, sums this up well: Demand…

  • Class Blog Post #2: Julie Hewitt Lipstick

    My Integrated Marketing Communications class writes an almost-weekly marketing communications blog. My goals are to teach the blogging medium and business writing skills. I promised to write 500 words with them every week. Here’s my first post. The topic is my favorite thing. I assign this topic to have my students market it across the…

  • 10 Reasons Why Winter is a Good Thing

    Butterflies descend from my ceiling, my drapery wires, on the woodwork, and from my indoor Norfolk Pine tree? Why? It’s too cold for a Minnesotan like me to go outside. If it were 70 and sunny everyday, my office would still be half painted, the butterflies would still be in their boxes, and my creative…

  • 5 Days, 5 Airports, and a lot of Walking

    Once upon a time I used to fly to Amsterdam just to listen to a band. (No, I wasn’t rich, I just had great flight benefits with Northwest Airlines). Now I travel occasionally to academic conferences and for the rare vacation. I’ve been home for about 18 hours after traveling in a circle from Minneapolis-St.…

  • Digital Storytelling – “Cluck:Telling a Story with Photos and Video

    I hate chicken blogs.  Not cooking chicken, but raising chickens-for-eggs blogs. Google that and you’ll find 745,00 blog posts. And yes, mine are amongst them. Yes. I have TWO chicken blogs. One that no one reads and one that people love. The Daily Chicken tells the same story of baby chicks, stinky coops, and gorgeous…

  • Creative Strategy Development

    Developing creative strategies is my students’ most difficult assignment in Integrated Marketing Communications. Learning that tactics are not strategies is much harder than finding an audacious or at least original idea. We begin with goals and translate them into ideas and strategies. Sometimes we simply play with taglines and work backwards to see what they…

  • (Re)Think Breast Cancer Prevention: A Fresh Approach from Canada

    “Integrated Marketing Communications?–What does that mean?” The easiest way to explain this to first year students is to show them first and then present the theory and terminology. Last fall I introduced class with (Re)Think, a Canadian breast cancer charity. The group’s work impressed me, but my students–the target market–were underwhelmed. Recently I chatted with…