St. Joseph's University

I did a guest lecture at St. Joseph's University (Philadelphia) last night, for one of the MBA classes in marketing. A former colleague of mine from J&J, Laura Barry, is the professor and she asked me to join her for a class. I have such fond memories of Laura so of course I jumped at the chance.

It came right on the heels of my first television segment that same morning on the local Philadelphia news. My first opportunity to talk about my book in front of people .... "The Experience Effect" live, if you will. And what a great experience!

Laura was one of the first to read my book, back before it was even published, and she had also given the class chapter five, "Kiss a Few Babies". It's the chapter about really getting to know your consumer by living their life for a day, or two, or three! So the class had already been exposed to the book which made it even more exciting.

What great fun! I told the class that I'm not a professor or a marketing theorist or a statistician ... just a real guy doing real marketing. I wanted the entire class to be interactive with lots of discussion and personal examples.

The class dove right in ... they talked about their own examples of "The Experience Effect" and asked a lot of questions. We talked about the brands we love and the emotional connection we've made with them. Apple, W Hotels, Dunkin Donuts, Applebees. J.Crew, Exxon. Yes, we even talked about Exxon!

Funny thing is that I learned a lot too. It's so wonderful to stay connected to the next generation of marketers, even before they become marketers. Keeps us all fresh, which is a key ingredient to great marketing.

So I'd like to say thanks to those wonderful young men and women for a great experience last night, and for being the first to talk about my new book. Thank You!

What's your experience? Jim.