Market Confluence

Every once in a while there is a rare confluence of events in the classroom in which things start to “click” and real learning happens. Having been a Teaching Assistant in my grad school days, I know what a thrill it is to witness that instant when light bulbs go on and fresh young brains add a new wrinkle. That confluence of events is happening this term in my Marketing Strategy class, capably led by our professor, Darryl Banks. I had high hopes for this course this term, because I opted out of the Entrepreneurship elective to take this elective, plus the fact that Marketing was something that seemed to resonate in me in terms of interest and abilities. It is a pity that not more people opted to take this elective, yet at the same time it is fortunate that this class is not filled to capacity, as the dynamics would have been very different. With 18 students in the class, there can be no wallflowers or idle seat warmers and the discussion is sure to be lively.

The class is more seminar than lecture, Dr. Banks more philosopher than pedagogue. Darryl has the ability to let the discussion get out of control a little bit and then reel it back in, sometimes cajoling, sometimes humoring, but always with candor. Just to give you a flavor of the discourse, our class discussions this weekend ranged from “is every possible customer response quantifiable?” to “has technology qualitatively or quantitatively changed business?" and finishing up with a discussion on what is “rational” behavior. Some real tasty morsels there.