Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic has a useful book — Storytelling with Data. This contains lots of good advice on Creating Stories With Data Visualizations and generally improving data visualization. She tries to ensure the reader does not lazily follow the first thing a software (e.g., Excel) recommends. This is important, she gives many examples in the…
Category: Academic Marketing
Why Are Coronavirus Maps On The News So Unhelpful?
This was a topical post on data visualization and population. I have refreshed it a little. While the specific maps have changed, As of late 2020 the maps are better now. E.g., they often show cases per 100k of the population rather than simple totals. That said, the point is still relevant. When showing maps…
Should Marketing Models Change As Consumers Work Out Marketer’s Tactics?
The Lucas Critique is a well know argument in economics that challenged many traditional results. The critique suggests that economic agents (here consumers) are forward looking. Consumers adapt their expectations and behavior given the marketers’ actions. Successful promotions tend to train consumers to expect promotions. This can mean the promotions may become less successful going…
Academic Life In The 18th Century
As a bit of variety today I will make some notes on academic life in the 18th century. The source is a book on the friendship between two of the great figures of the enlightenment, David Hume and Adam Smith. Dennis Rasmussen outlines their friendship. It is clearly remarkable that such great thinkers were such…
The Growth Rate Of Modern Science
How has modern science progressed? This is a tough question to answer for the last few generations. It is even harder if you have aspirations to go back a lot further. Lutz Bornmann and Rudiger Mutz certainly don’t lack for ambition. They look at the growth of science since the 17th Century. The growth rate…
Credit Hours, Outcomes, Academic Missions And School Brand
Mark Garrett Cooper and John Marx have a lively take on the American research university in their book Media U. They discuss the linkage between academic missions and school brand. Popular Features Of Universities Allow The Intellectual The authors discuss how American research universities have always required an audience to deliver value. A key point…
Good Practice In Undergraduate Education
One of the strangest things about being a professor is that outsiders think this means you are primarily a teacher. As a researcher, you feel that you aren’t primarily a teacher. (Some snooty colleagues even find being called a teacher a bit of insult). The particularly strange thing is the outsiders do have a sensible…
Bribery Works With Students
In what might be classed as a stunningly unsurprising result Michael Hessler and his colleagues did an experiment to demonstrate that bribing students with cookies helps with evaluations of teaching. The headline is that bribery works with students. Broadly speaking I have no doubt that they are right. I have seen a few criticisms of…
Thinking Differently About Business School Cases
Bridgman, Cummings, and McLaughlin in their 2016 paper about the case method tell us that the conventional history of the development of business case teaching is missing some vital elements. Cases nowadays come from the perspective of management. There exists a management objective that the students are trying to deliver. This excessively managerial perspective is…
Net Promoter And Lessons For Academic Research
I value academic work that speaks to the issues of managers and others outside of academia. The Net Promoter Score/System (NPS) is widely used by managers and so it can be valuable when academics look into this metric. What then can we say about Net Promoter and the lessons for academic research? Reviewing The Literature…
