The week so far

Read chapter 1. Check. Watch video of Jeff Bezos. Check. Watch the first Prezi. Check.

Prior to this course C570 Manileno had one module as his "marketing background".  So suffice to say, he didnt know all too much.  Of course he was exposed to and oftentimes bombarded with several facets of integrated marketing communication, one of the elite courses at his university, but it was all a bit too hazy for him as its been ever since.

Somehow the first week so far sticks a bit deeper than his entire experience with marketing to date.  First of all C570 Manileno as you might have guessed is from Manila and thus he had no idea who Jeff Bezos was, even if he had on numerous occasions purchased books and consumer goods on Amazon.com.  The video was refreshing if not inspiring as this side of the world sorely lacks the type of enigmatic figures that typically challenge your core.  My ultra favorite "thing" that Jeff Bezos knows is that "its always day one".  It invites several themes that are most important to strategic marketing and I guess to life in general.

Its always day one suggests that there will always be room to innovate. There will always be room to grow and get better.  If every company or person had this mindset, to have the giddy little kid inside all pumped up for his first day of school, to have the puppy love butterflies in their stomach first day of a playground relationship then we'd never stop getting better.

At the same time, "its always day 1" can also encapsulate what we always say in financial markets, you may have gotten burned and lost millions today, but tomorrow is another day.  Another day we can make it back. Another day to get ahead in the market.

The second most pressing thing that captured my limited attention span would be that marketing is not a one way street, in fact its an perpetual process of learning about your market and then ensuring to cater to that market.  Its an on-going process of obsession with knowing who what when and where our customers are and then most importantly, letting the market know that we know who they are, not by words but through service.  This will truly help me not in strategic marketing but with the role i have in the financial markets.

So as I reflect on the first week's highlights, I smile fondly on the insights that it took me one week to pick-up after the years and years of being exposed to its very way of life.  Week 1 down.  So far, so great.