David K. WEEK 4

Welcome to week 4 of my blog! The week started with several facilitators to begin to wrap up the three books for the course. After that there were three exciting and experiential learning experiences! It began with a trip to Community Broadcasters located in Elmira! They run several radio stations locally. I never knew how much marketing goes into the radio and it was very interesting! Once again, this experience has widened my view on marketing. The process of getting companies to advertise within their stations is very complex but he did a very good job in explaining it.

The next highlight was visiting WETM-TV in Elmira, New York! It is a local television station, and an NBC affiliate. They have recieved many awards as a television station, and it was very cool to see how a smaller station operates. Compared the the NBC studios in New York city. They had similar rooms and areas of business. We got to look behind the scenes and even go onto the green screen.

Taken by: Professor Wolfe

The next highlight was visiting Tioga Downs Casino and Resort. The casino business is very interesting and relies heavily on marketing. Tioga Downs has so many events going on all the time and it is important for the marketing team to stay on top, in order to bring in more people! It was also very cool to hear that the owner cares a lot about the community, as well as family. So, they do a lot of family oriented events to keep it welcoming and fresh! This was a very cool experience and I hope to go back!

Taken by: Professor Wolfe

Smith, B, Week 4

Hello and welcome back to my fourth blog! What an exciting week of class we had this past week. With 7 facilitators total and 3 more field trips.

Monday, we had 3 facilitators, who all did an awesome job of covering their sections in all 3 of the books. Leaving us with a lot of valuable information.

Tuesday we had the pleasure of going to Community Broadcasters right here in Elmira. Here we learned about how radio stations work, what they do to really give their stations an edge over their competitors, and we even got a tour of the building and got to see the broadcasting rooms which was pretty neat.

Image taken by Professor Wolfe

The next day we another awesome trip as our class got to go to WETM-TV. This was very cool being able to learn about the local news and what they do. They actually do a lot for local businesses as well by opening the public up to the their businesses. We got a tour of their workplace and even got to go on their news set and see the green screen and how that works which was very fun.

Thursday, we went to Tioga Downs Casino. I had never been to a casino before this, so it was pretty cool to me seeing how extravagant and vibrant everything was there. There was so much to the casino that went into it to make it an attractive place to go. Many of the events they do there sounded very fun and it seemed they had specific events just for certain target markets like age groups. Overall the casino was awesome and all the people who talked to us there were very nice and had a lot of useful information for us! 

Image taken by Professor Wolfe

We finished off the week with 4 facilitators including myself. I believe my classmates and I all did a very good job covering what we were supposed and did a good job finishing off the year as the last facilitators.

Gillam, C, Week 4

Welcome back to week 4 everyone! 

Can't believe this will be my last blog for entertainment, media, & sports marketing. The past four weeks have flown by!

Week four has been filled with lots of experiential learning experiences. We went on three field trips and had seven presenters. 

Picture Credit: Myself

To start our week off, we had the chance to visit Community Broadcasters here in Elmira. We had the opportunity to meet with Bruce, who oversees the sales department. He gave us a presentation on radio marketing and what he does on a daily basis. Bruce stated that there are three important steps when having a company sign with Community Broadcasters: this includes sending “warm letters,” phone calls and then end with a walk into your clients offices. Community Broadcasters has five radio stations: Wink 106, Wingz 104.9, The Wolf 100.9, WWLZ 101.3/820, and classic country 1490. They are the top radio studio in the Twin Tiers. They nearly double the next closest group in the rankings.

Picture Credit: Myself

“Your clients success is your success.” - Bruce

Picture credit: Myself

On Wednesday we had the opportunity to visit the WETM-TV station. WETM-TV is located in Elmira and they have over 200 channels throughout the country. When we first arrived we met a lady named Lisa and she gave us a tour of WETM. First, she brought us the to the sales department section and she explained what exactly they are responsible for. The sales department people travel to various places, selling commercials to companies. We then made our way to the controlling room. Throughout our time in here, Lisa discussed what the various computers and controlling keys are for and what the director is responsible for. Our final stop on our tour was the studio room. This is where they record the news everyday. Lisa was even nice enough to show us the green screen and how the meteorologist needs to know certain techniques when being filmed.

"The ultimate goal is to make clients happy with the commercials we create." - Lisa

To end our week, we had three people facilitate on Friday. Throughout the presentations we learned about the theater industry, the global entertainment marketplace, how people can doubt your abilities (EX: Tom Brady), today’s world and the impact entertainment has had on us, travel/tourism, resorts/technology, and lastly Under Armour’s “I will what I want campaign.” All four presenters did a great job today facilitating today.

This week was filled with many experiential learning experiences! I have throughly enjoyed this class and writing a blog each week helped to make this class so special!

McDonald, K, Week 4

Hello and welcome back to my blog for the fourth week! Thank you so much for tuning in every week to hear about our adventures. Last week was another busy one with three different experiential learning trips here locally around the Southern Tier. On Tuesday we ventured a little north of campus and visited Community Broadcasters, LLC. On Wednesday we walked south of campus to WETM TV. And on Thursday we took a bus over to Nichols, New York to visit Tioga Downs Casino Resort. We finished the week by hearing from a few facilitators about our course books on Friday. This week concluded our experiential learning trips except for a end of year celebration we will be attending at the Corning Museum of Glass this Thursday, but that's for next week's blog!

Image Taken by Kyra McDonald

Our first stop this week was at Community Broadcasters, LLC which is home to several of the local radio stations such as 100.9 The Wolf and Wink 106. We learned about their marketing processes from Bruce S. who works in the sales department there. We were also given a tour and were able to see the studios in which the radio shows are recorded. This trip was particularly interesting for me because radio is not something people really think about as marketing-heavy, but it clearly is and it was fun to learn about it in that way. When we walked down to WETM TV the next day, it was another day focused on media marketing. We were again given a tour and we talked with Lisa about how WETM TV makes money which is solely from selling advertisements. This means the sales department is extremely important and they have to do their job in order for the whole company to run smoothly. Although I do not watch WETM TV and their news, I watch many other TV channels, so again it was interesting to learn about the marketing side of something that I watch almost everyday, TV.

Image Taken by Kyra McDonald

Image Taken by Kyra McDonald

Our final experiential learning trip for the week was over at Tioga Downs Casino Resort. Although we weren't allowed on the Casino floor, it was still a very cool trip. We met with a number of people that work in marketing and human resources at the Casino Resort. Christina L. and Jim W. met with us and talked to us about marketing, and after them, Michelle J. and Karen S. came in and spoke with us about their work on the HR side of things. After the talks, we were shown around the facilities, including out near the horse race track. It was interesting to learn about how the Casino has turned itself into a Resort and is hoping to bring in customers from both in and out of town as they market themselves as a "gateway to the finger lakes." 

Image Taken by Kyra McDonald

The week ended by hearing from several facilitators as we finished the last few sections of our course books. These sections focused on sports marketing, sponsorships, entertainment marketing, theater, travel and tourism, fashion, art, and merchandising. They were all interesting and each different part gave a good look at all the different parts of this course. We have covered everything from theater and performing arts marketing to sports marketing and ad campaigns. These books have allowed us to deepen our understanding of these topics in a way we wouldn't be able to solely with lectures and field trips. 

This week was another great one in the life of an Entertainment, Media, and Sports Marketing student. The readings aligned well with our experiential learning trips and it made them that much more exciting and informative. I am grateful for the opportunities I have been given through this course, and I can't wait to see how we finish the term off next week. See ya then! Ciao!

Rosen, A, Week 4

Hello everyone and welcome to my fourth blog post for MKT 3915, Entertainment, Media, and Sports Marketing: An Experiential Learning Experience!

With week four now over, we've entered the final stretch in the 2017-2018 school year! There's only one more week until school's (finally) over and I couldn't be more excited. We took our final three field trips for the term in week four but first, I presented my book club readings on Monday.

I've really enjoyed all of my classmate's presentations and tried to incorporate techniques they used in my own presentation! I covered all three of our textbooks and even had three informative videos for the class to watch. I began my presentation talking about myself, something I'm not very comfortable doing, but it went well and it was smooth sailing from there on. I really enjoyed hearing what my classmates thought about the controversial topic of NCAA athletes being paid. It was one of my discussion questions and we heard a lot of really good points on both sides of the spectrum. 

Our first trip of the week came on Tuesday, when we visited Community Broadcasters and spoke with Bruce S. Although Community Broadcasters is in the radio business, Bruce told us that what they do is a lot more than just radio. The company also does work in the online and social media space for cause and sports advertisements. After listening to Bruce's presentation, we got a tour of the facility, which was smaller than I would've imagined for a radio company. 

On Wednesday we walked over to channel 18 WETM news located in Elmira. We were hosted by Lisa S, who gave us an expansive tour and really shared her knowledge with us all. Lisa has been in the TV business for decades and had valuable information for us in many different facets of the company. My favorite part was when we got up to the writer's room since I'm currently employed as a writer and this directly correlated with one of my passions. The desk space was pretty small and it didn't seem all that glamorous, confirming my thoughts on not pursuing a journalism job full time after school. We were taken to the studio and got to test out the green screen used by the meteorologist for weather reporting! Lisa told us that meteorologists need to graduate with a degree in meteorology in order to be referred to as a meteorologist. 

Image Credit: Myself

Image Credit: Myself

We took our final trip of the term Thursday to Tioga Downs Casino! Although it's admittedly not a great hobby to have, I've always been fascinated with gambling and enjoy visiting the Casino every once in a while. I've been to Tioga Downs in the past, as my dad likes to stop by on our way up to school and back, so I kind of knew what to expect. I thought it was one of our best appointments, if not the best, of the term. I really learned a lot in our two hours at Tioga and was impressed with the preparedness of the staff that presented to us. Our entire class was really focused the entire time and asked a couple of really good questions. My favorite part of the trip was definitely seeing the suite in the hotel, which you don't get to see every day! 

Image Credit: Myself

Image Credit: Myself

Image Credit: Myself

Four weeks have gone by so fast, it's almost hard to believe! With only one week remaining in the course, we'll be tasked with preparing a case to present on Friday before we leave for summer break! I can't wait to get to work and wrap up this course, as I have a fun summer planned ahead that I'm eagerly awaiting!

Olsen, M, Week 4

Welcome back for Week 4!

This week we had students present on their readings and 3 field trips!

To start off our week, we had 3 students present on their readings from the three books. What I found to be most interesting from this weeks reading is from The Definitive Guide to Entertainment Marketing by Lieberman and Esgate pages 178-192. What was most interesting from this section is how gaming is so popular in today's day and age across all ages and genders. It is stated that “eighty percent of the ten top-grossing iPhone apps in America-and 85% of the top 20- are now free” and that this is because of those individuals making in game purchases which is where they make their money (Lieberman & Esgate, 2014, p. 181). I have a few friends that have spent a significant amount of money on games such as Candy Crush, Pokemon Go, and Kim Kardashian: Hollywood all free to play, but when they get stuck or want something they spend the $.99 or more to get it!

Image Credit: Amazon

On Tuesday we went on a field trip to Community Broadcasters, a radio broadcasting company. There we spoke with Mr. Bruce S. who is a local sales manager, CRMP. He gave us a presentation on how they sell commercial spots on the radio, how they market their radio station at events, and how they have converted with the changing technologies; streaming services. We also were given a tour of the building where we were able to see the rooms where the radio hosts control their stations.

Image Credit: Myself

On Wednesday we went on a field trip to WETM, a NBC-affiliated television station in the Elmira area. There we spoke with Lisa S, who is the Integrated Digital Specialist. She gave us a tour of the facilities and told us about the marketing they do. We were told that some companies buy commercial slots at specific times or during specific events while others will buy slots that can be aired any time and date! During the tour of the facilities we were able to see where they film the news, do the weather and sports broadcasts, and do interviews with guests.

Image Credit: Myself

On Thursday we went on our final field trip to Tioga Downs Casino and Resort. There we met with Mr. Jim W. and Ms. Christina L. They spoke to us about the casino, the new hotel, the events they host, and the promoting that goes along with it. Tioga Downs has 942 slot machines, 32 table games, 12 poker tables, 160 hotel rooms, an arcade, a health and fitness center, a full spa, 3 pools, a waterslide, and 8 dining outlets. I think that the events and promotions they are hosting are all great ideas in order to expand their name. They host Winterfest to get families in the doors, they host Senior Day every Wednesday, they hosted a Water Pong contest and have concerts that targeted at all ages and families.

Image Credit: Myself

To wrap up our week, we had the final three students present on their readings. What I found to be most interesting from this set of readings was from Sharara’s Why We Play, pages 47-53. What I found to be most interesting from this section is that Tom Brady, arguably the best player in the NFL was the 199th pick of the 6th round in the NFL Draft. A quote that I really enjoyed from this section is "Tom Brady is not an athlete by success – he worked extremely hard to get where he is today,” (Sharara, 2017, p. 50-51). I feel a sense of connection to this quote because I was arguably the worst flyer on the cheerleading team my freshman year. I had a lot of experience tumbling due to being a gymnast, but very little experience being a flyer, let alone a college level flyer. I worked extremely all of my freshman year and by the end was recognized as “Most Improved” and “Rookie of the Year” which was a huge accomplishment in my eyes. Now fast forward to 2018 and I was recognized as a 2x “Most Outstanding Flyer” award (2017 and 2018) and “Cheerleader of the Year” for the 2018 season. Everyone can do what they set their mind to, they just have to have the drive to do so and I am proud of myself for having the drive to accomplish what I want and set out to do!

Image Credit: Amazon

I can't believe that this course is coming to a close! This course has truly been so amazing and I am so grateful for the opportunities that I have had!

~Marissa Olsen

Melvin, K, Week 4

Welcome to week 4 of my blog! This week we kept it local and explored the businesses closer to Elmira. We started and wrapped the week up in the classroom listening the last of the facilitators. Tuesday is when the class started the adventures.
Monday and Friday were both days of listening to classmates speaking about their assigned sections readings. A couple of the facilitators touched base on different platforms of gaming industry, the music industry, radio, the television industry, the power of advertising, and different athletic brands.

On Tuesday the class headed to Community Broadcasters, LLC which is a local station that owns five different radio channels. Here we heard about the marketing strategies that are important to running the station. The speaker spoke about how the station has to reach out to different businesses in order to sell advertising slots. Some examples of different sports marketing that Community Broadcasters is in charge of is the Buffalo Bills, the Buffalo Sabres, and Penn State Football. A quote that stuck with me was, "quality isn't always cheap and cheap isn't always quality." That quote was said to explain that when businesses are buying advertising spots they are very expensive, but for good reason. The more money spent on the ad, the more likely the ad will be effective. After a brief lecture, we went on the tour of the facility.

Photos all taken by Me

On Wednesday the class went to a similar place, but this time was television. WEMT-18 was the destination. Here we were given a behind the scenes tour of the building. We also learned about advertising and how they need to make sure that all commercials are shown or they will not get paid for it. WEMT was run fairly similar to Community Broadcasters in the way of selling ads.

Photos all taken by Me

Thursday was the most interesting trip of the week for me. We stopped off at Tioga Downs Casino. We met with the marketing manger and another employee on the marketing team. They spoke briefly on the history of the casino. The casino used to be a quarter horse racetrack called "Tioga Park". Then it was purchased by Jeff Gural who made it into what it is today. The marketers then spoke about some of the different strategies used. One of my favorite quotes was that the casino is marketed as "the gate way to the finger lakes". This grabs the attention of travelers making their way to different stops of the finger lakes. We then finished the trip off with a tour.

Photos taken by Me

Thats a wrap of the week! Tune in for the last week of activities.

Jerolman, M, Week 4

Hello Bloggers welcome to the final weeks of my Entertainment Media and Sports Marketing class! 
   What another amazing week we had in the classroom and hands on with experiential learning. Monday was a class day for us this week while we had 3 people present their facilitators report. My classmate Caroline went first and discussed the same three books we have all been reading for this term. She talked about the Definitive Guide to Entertainment Marketing and what she learned from her sections. She discussed the gaming industry and how it has evolved into three different platforms; social, video, and mobile. Mobile marketing and mobile advertising are two areas that she read, are continuing to grow. Another thing Caroline talked about was in Why We Play, the power of advertising at the Olympics; Coca Cola, Protector & Gamble, Nike. She discussed how sports have been used since the Olympics started out to promote peace and international corporation. We also heard from 2 other classmates they discussed the topics of Sports crossing the line from athletic competition to entertainment long ago and Under Armor has been so successful is because people they don’t “pick a team.” 

On Tuesday we went to the Community Broadcasting station right down the street and got to see what it’s like from a radio station marketing perspective. They talked about how they have sales people that go out every day to companies like restaurants or car washes, to sell they time on the radio to market their company. Community Broadcasters is very well known around the upstate New York area, even up into Buffalo, having 5 different stations. They talked to us about client’s success is YOUR success. Some quotes they shared with us were, “Follow through and Follow Up, Stay Visible when you’re not “visible”, Continue asking questions, Bring value with every interaction.” Those quotes seemed to be very important and the way they run their business. They have 5 different stations consisting of different music and bringing different audiences. For example, WINK 106 is aimed towards adults 18-49 with the top 40 hits music and the hottest promotions. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing that radio side of promoting and marketing. 

Photo Taken by: Me

My favorite country station around here.         

      On Wednesday we got to see the WETM news station down the street as well, getting a tour and seeing how they market themselves. They are similar to the radio station, where they have sales people go out and sell time on the TV (around 60 seconds-2 minutes) for people to market and promote their businesses. They mentioned that sometimes they get people that come right to the station sometimes and buy the air time right from them, but mostly sell through their sales people. Their most popular way of selling is in packages. They sell the packages because that is what makes them more money. They talked about how they have a big news station in Syracuse, where all the TV is ran through just subbing off into each station. They station is owned by a company called NextStar, which is in charge of everything that goes on. They even sent a specific sales person from NextStar to work in Elmira and keep an eye on everything. The main goal at WETM is to obviously to air the everyday news, but also help set up target markets for businesses to get out into the public and spread the word of what they are selling! I enjoyed the TV station and seeing what they have to offer to the marketing and promoting world. 

Photo By: Me

Photo By: Me

                                       

      Thursday was my favorite trip this week! We got to go to Tioga Downs Casino Racing and Entertainment Resort. They truly did an amazing job presenting to the class how they run their business and how they market for the community. They have their own marketing team which creates and run promotions throughout the whole casino. The marketing team tries to come up with ideas to get people to the Casino. They usually create a prize structure and write rules and submitting gaming commission. Some promotions they run is every Wednesday is senior day where seniors get to play free play and casino points. They talked about how important social media is for them, mostly Facebook, where they come up with a promotion for that day or weekend and puts on Facebook where most of their customers come from. The casino does a great job also promoting on signs around the property so while people are playing they see what is coming up next in their building! I really enjoyed learned about marketing in the entertainment industry! 

Photo By: Me

Photo By: Me

We had another great week of experiential learning! 

Thanks for reading! 

MaddyJ                                                                          

Olsen, M. Week 3

Welcome back for Week 3!

This past week has been an absolute blast full of fun adventures! We had students report on their readings and three field trips!

We began our week with students reporting on their readings of our assigned books! I did my report on Monday and what I had found to be most interesting in my readings was about book publishing. No one ever really thinks that one can be successful without a publisher or big publishing agency but E.L. James did just that with her trilogy of Fifty Shades! I found that to be extremely fascinating that she became so successful on her own!

Image credits: Amazon

On Tuesday, we went on our first field trip of the week to New York City! We started off at a marketing agency in DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Brooklyn Overpass) called Big Spaceship. The office was very modern and laid back; they even had dogs in the office! There we met with two women, one who was an EC Alumni named Olga! They spoke to us about how they are a modern company that is very ambitious in the things that they do for their brands. It was cool listening to someone who graduated from Elmira College and seeing her successful!

Elmira College Alumni
Image Credit: Professor Wolfe

After touring Big Spaceship, we went on to tour NBC Studios in Manhattan. It was awesome being able to see the sets of the shows that I have watched over the years! We saw the set of Late Night with Seth Meyers, Megyn Kelly Today, and MSNBC just to name a few! 

Image Credit: Myself

On Thursday, we continued our field trips with a trip to Rochester, Buffalo and Canandaigua! In Rochester, we visited Tipping Point Communications! There we met with Barbara P. who spoke to us about how at their organization they do content marketing in order to stay ahead and get the results their clients desire. We also spoke to Todd C. who spoke to us mainly about how he uses social media to market his ideas and get the word out there for sports among other things!

Image credit: Professor Wolfe

After Tipping Point Communications, we ventured to Buffalo where we went to the Key Bank Arena. We met with Cara F. and Kevin K. who gave us a tour of the arena and also gave us a presentation on marketing the arena for sporting events and concerts. This was very enjoyable because we got to see the arena from the ice level and from the press boxes at the top of the arena.

Image Credit: Professor Wolfe

Image Credit: Myself

To end our day we went to Canandaigua where we attended the New York Wine and Culinary Center, which is now named New York Kitchen. There we were able to try some yummy food such as pretzels and cheese, pizza, meatballs, and chocolate truffles! That was definitely a great ending to our day!

To wrap up our week, we went to Watkins Glen International, in Watkins Glen, New York! There we spoke to Chris and Jose who spoke to us about the challenges they face only being able to host Nascar once a year! 

Image credit: Professor Wolfe.

Although this was a very busy week, it was very enjoyable to be able to go to these amazing places and speak to these professionals. I am looking forward to the trips we will be taking this upcoming week!

McDonald, K, Week 2

HEY EVERYONE, and welcome back to my blog! I hope you all had a wonderful week and are excited to hear about the experiences we had since the last time I wrote an entry. This week we did everything from facilitations to guest speakers to experiential learning trips. We had a total of eight facilitators this week which allowed to dive deep into our course books and learn about material that we will be able to apply to our experiential learning trips during the next few weeks. We had a guest speaker by the name Paul B. on Thursday and he shared with us his expertise in the IP law industry. And for the highlight of the week, we traveled up to the Corning Museum of Glass and got an inside look on the marketing initiatives they have in place. It was an exciting week, so let's dive right in!

Throughout the week, on many different days, we had facilitations which allowed us to examine our readings and stretch our thinking. We read many sections of the three books we have for this course, and these sections ranged from discussing copyright and trademark laws to explaining the digital disruption and its effects on different industries to looking at brand marketing in sports. The section that I found the most interesting was in The Definitive Guide to Entertainment Marketing when it focused on the digital disruption and how it is effecting cable TV, publishing, and gaming. The digital disruption is caused by society moving mostly online and it has had some major impacts on certain industries. One of the industries that is getting hit the hardest is the newspaper industry. People in today's society want to be able to get their news as quick as possible and so they seek it out online instead of waiting for print newspapers to show up at their house. This is becoming detrimental to newspaper companies and forcing them to come up with new ways to reach customers. Another large section of the reading focused on copyright and trademark laws which was the topic of our guest speaker's talk on Thursday. 

Image taken by Alison Wolfe

Paul B. shared much of his knowledge on the topic with us and it allowed us to see the information in our books in real life. The focus of Paul B.'s talk was trademarks, infringement, and copyright. Trademarks, which do not need to be renewed, are any words, names, or symbols that are used to distinguish goods and services. Infringement is the likelihood of confusion between two items. This can be caused by similarity of goods, purchasing outlets, pricing, or even the look or sound of the name. A copyright is an original work of authorship that does not extend to the idea, only the expression of that idea. All of this information was shared with us, but mirrors much of the information in our book, and I am extremely grateful that Paul B. took time out of his day to provide us with that experience. 

Image taken by Kyra McDonald

For our experiential learning trip this week, we took a bus up to the Corning Museum of Glass. This was extremely exciting as we toured the museum, saw a glass show, and even got to talk with Robert C. who works in marketing for the museum. During our tour of the museum we learned many new things about glass and the history of it. One piece of information that I was not aware of is that glass is actually green, not clear, and that is because of the iron in it. In the middle of our tour, we stopped in to see a glass show where they had a professional blowing glass in front of an audience. When we sat down and talked to Robert C. a little later on, we learned that these glass shows and other glass demonstrations that are put on all over the world are marketing techniques that draw people to the museum and help accomplish the museum mission of telling the world about glass. Robert C. also shared with us how the museum is catering their product, the museum itself, to younger generations and what we learned is that the museum lets kids and teens in for free. Although they lose out on the revenue from those ticket sales, they make up for it in different ways. Hearing from Robert C. was a real pleasure and the whole experience definitely made my week!

Image taken by Kyra McDonald

Image taken by Kyra McDonald

There were so many moments this week that stretched my thinking, whether it was while reading the books and listening to the guest speaker or trying to apply the concepts we learned about entertainment marketing to a slightly different field of arts marketing. As this course continues, I look forward to learning more about media and sports marketing and seeing what we have learned through our books, in action. I hope you all enjoy these updates and make sure to come back next week for more! Ciao!  

Gillam, C, Week 2

Welcome back to week two of my blog everyone,


This week was full of more opportunities and experiences. We had several facilitator reports, a field trip to the Corning Museum of Glass, and a guest speaker. 

Having the chance to visit the Corning Museum of Glass was an unbelievable opportunity. When we first got to the museum, a tour guide met us off our bus and started to give us a tour. Throughout this tour we saw various glass pieces from all different cultures from thousands of years ago. 

Image Credit: Myself

Image Credit: Myself

These are just some of the many beautiful old glass pieces we were able to see throughout our tour. 


After having the chance to go through the museum, we then made our way into a studio where they were giving a hot glass demo. This was a very cool experience, as it is was my first hot glass demo. Throughout this demo, there was a lady on a microphone who explained all the various steps needed to create a glass sculpture. 

Image Credit: Myself

Image Credit: Myself

The guy in the picture to the right was rolling the hot glass into pre shaped metal. The glass blowing process takes a lot of time and experience. 

To end our wonderful day at the museum, we had the amazing opportunity to listen and speak with Robert C. Robert is the Chief Marketing Officer at the museum and he takes on a very important role everyday. Throughout his presentation he talked to us about the journey of the Corning Museum of Glass. Twenty years ago, no one really knew or went to this museum. Today, it is one of the top museums in the state of New York. Robert talked about how this museum became so successful. He stated that it took three steps, “Marketing, Visitation, Revenue.” As easy as this sounds, it was not that easy. This took lots of time and patience. Throughout the rest of his presentation he talked about certain key factors that led to the success of the museum. One of the things that made the museum so successful is the 2300 degree program. Robert C actually came up with this program and to this day it is still running. He ended his presentation by stating that today “All ages attend.” The museum brings in over half a million people a year. The museum has staff that puts on glass blowing shows on cruises, and all throughout the world.

"Come see glass, come see glass made, come make glass yourself." - Robert. C

Image Credit: Professor Wolfe

Throughout this weeks facilitator reports, the book Why We Play really caught my attention. The main idea of this book so far has been on athletes. The author, Yasmeen Sharara talks in depth about what it takes to consider yourself an athlete. Her definition of an athlete is, "Somebody with a body" (Sharara, 2017, pp.46). It doesn't matter if you're an Olympic swimmer or if you walk a mile everyday. If you have a body, you can consider yourself an athlete. After explaining what it means to be an athlete, Sharara then talked about how brand companies have well-known athletes represent their brands. Well-known companies such as Nike, need to have a reputable athletes so that they can sell their products to certain consumers. Having reputable athletes where certain brands really helps to advertise and sell products at a rapid rate. I really enjoyed reading this part of the book because I can relate myself to what she is explaining.

I can't wait to see what experiences this week will bring!

Thanks for reading,

Caroline Gillam