Photoshop Phriday

There are a lot of bizarre little Web sites on the Internet. One of them is SomethingAwful, which does a pretty good job of being funny and sometimes offensive. They have a contest every week called Photoshop Phriday, where you are given a theme and offered the chance to create an image to go with that theme. Sometimes they put out a starting image and people make changes to it. Definitely amusing, if you are not easily offended! That is always the problem with sites that are based on user contributions, of course.

Link to site

The End of Another Semester

So, the semester comes to an end again, a group of students moves on, and a new group prepares for the Spring semester.

Back in the stone ages of the 1990's, when I was in college, some fraternities used to carry around books containing teacher ratings. Of course, nowadays, it is much easier on the Internet. I love the idea behind ratemyprofessor.com - this is a free site that does not require signing up, and it allows you to anonymously post ratings for your professors.

Of course, there are always students who dislike certain professors who everyone else loves, but the more ratings a professor receives, the more accurate you would assume the rating is.

In terms of positives in my class, I know I have a passion for the material and I do try very hard to make it something students can relate to. I also try to encourage dialog in the classroom, and make it safe for students to ask questions. I also try to be entertaining and avoid using the PowerPoint presentations. Sometimes students don't like that teaching style. I also know some students dislike that they need to read the book, be on time to class, and turn work in on time. Personally, I feel like timeliness is critical one students transition to the business world, so I choose to emphasize these things in my classroom.

It's a great site, and here are links directly to my ratings pages:

Ratemyprofessor for me (Passaic)

Ratemyprofessor for me (Bergen)

When Web marketing goes wrong...

There are a few companies making names for themselves in marketing. LivingSocial, Groupon, Gilt Groupe, and restaurant.com are some of the sites that have popped up that offer consumers deep discounts on various types of services. LivingSocial and Groupon are sites that are especially geared towards localized services. For example, my students and I looked at the sites the other day, and we saw packages such as a spa day, keratin hair products, and a day of go-kart racing, all offered at a discounted rate. The advantage for a company is they attract new customers by offering a discount, and the advantage to the consumer is they save money.

Is this a sustainable business model? I am not sure. I do know you sometimes hear horror stories about sites like that. Generally, they have to do with the stampede effect created by Groupon and LivingSocial. As opposed to restaurant.com, which will give businesses a random amount of business, Groupon and LivingSocial tend to bring a stampede of business in around the same time. Some companies report regular customers being driven away by deal-seekers.

These sites do allow businesses to limit the amount of purchases (see Groupon terms here). However, businesses sometimes underestimate the demand for deal-seekers. For example, a British bakery recently offered a deal for a dozen of their gourmet cupcakes for $10. This was 75% off their normal price. This bakery chose to do all the deals at once (link to article), rather than spreading them out over a few weeks, and also chose not to cap the number of purchases, which many companies do. The normal monthly sale volume was around 1,200 cupcakes a month, they ended up making about 102,000. The owner had to bring in temporary workers just to meet their end of the bargain.

Now, could Groupon do a better job helping the customer avoid disasters like this? I am sure they could. However, the bakery owner also has to realize that caps exist for a reason, and should have seen the potential issue with opening it up to everyone with no restriction. That said, you have to feel for the owner who made this decision and cut in to what was likely a thin profit margin.