Guestlecture: Where is the center of marketing
Earlier today I gave a presentation to some 50 “master of marketing” students at the VU University of Amsterdam. They are about to finish their Geomarketing course and I was invited for a guest lecture. Students have ‘enjoyed’ (I trust) classes about Basic knowledge – spatial data, Geodemographics & DM, Location & Travelling and Proximity & Contagion.
Prof Scholten, the first speaker, kindly introduce me, but I forget what he actually said. Too much focus on my presentation. After a short introduction about myself, I talked about Geography and Business, Location Based marketing and Social media and the hyperlocal. My main points: Geography has strong government roots; it is a great platform for business and get ready from much, much more: social media and hyperlocal marketing.
It was really interesting to dive into the ‘hyperlocal’ part of geomarketing. I very much liked the Virtual Spatial project by Bryan Valentini and Georgia Bullen. This is where I see professional statistical data meet consumer data. An interesting research area! I checked beforehand with two students whether my mindmap of the presentation was on the right track. Would not want to deliver something, they are not interested in…
So why does Esri – let me – do guestlectures? We enjoy explaining, showing (off) geography, we have all gone through education ourselves – and still do. And yes, we like it when students test our software (and give us very clear and honest feedback!) and stretch the boundaries of what GIS can do. Not just for them…