As today’s business students prepare for their future careers, new professions are opening up in social media even in the most mainstream businesses.  Companies, eager to create an “online brand presence”, clearly understand the need for educated resources who are comfortable online whether its developing and/or managing social media sites, online communities, blogs, podcasts, video sharing, twitter feeds, SEO, data mining or whatever.  You pick the forum.

Since all of this is evolving territory and “systems” change as fast as the tools themselves; there is no textbook to teach the how-to’s.   Practitioners have to be nimble, inquisitive and endlessly fearless to try new stuff.   As there is no “box”; thinking outside of it is a given.  As a business professor, I love to encourage my students to develop the curiosity and discipline they need if they wish to maintain relevance long term.  I developed the “weekly quiz” drawn from Mashable and TechCrunch to guide them to think about online news as a business commodity – just like a banker reads the Wall Street Journal.   Instead of a general news source, we use the online news that writes with an eye towards the business implications and cutting edge creative breakthroughs associated with the new online world.  Who’s pushing boundaries, who are the next great players, what’s the hot new thing, what are the current trends?  That’s what we want to know.

How well are you keeping up with this fast-moving, ever-changing environment?  What are your favorite resources?  Let us know and have fun with the quiz; I know my students certainly do…lol.

Weekly Quiz #6 – Bentley University MK-361 e-Marketing class
1. What’s up with Angry Birds?
2. IntoNow gets 1M – 1M what?  Who are they and what do they do?
3. What is up with Twitter??

Photo by Code Ninja⚡