Today was the day my first year Marketing Research students got to run their focus groups. It was strange because I had them doing their sessions simultaneously in two rooms. At 9am the groups were a bit lopsided - so 2 big groups and 2 with only 3 participants each, but I spent some time coaching the moderator on reflection - that things going not quite right represent excellent learning materials. There was a real mixture - some excellent work ones, some that were more challenging - but that gives us loads to talk about next week in the debrief. Looking forward to getting the video footage back, and I also took photos.
Gratterpalm Video Conferencing
Another first; I set up an opportunity for students to 'meet' some employees from Ad Agency Gratterpalm - we did this over Skype. Four groups of students went in and interviewed Junior Designers and Account Execs. They also got to talk about their visual cvs. I didn't sit in the interviews - reasoning that it might make them more nervous. It was brilliant seeing them afterwards though they were so buzzing. I also got a really nice thank you email from one of them.
At the last minute I got a couple of my Ents Students (also on the course) to do voxpops interview with the students before and after they went in - we got some great footage. I intend to edit this and use it to reinforce the value of the exercise to the rest of the class, to send back to Gratts as a thank you, also maybe my PGCTHE and beyond...
