Dear reader,
Apparently, a Rubik's cube can always be solved in 26 moves or less. Considering that I have yet to actually solve a Rubik's cube, that seems daunting to me. Can you imagine what sort of power you would have if you could solve a Rubik's cube in 26 moves or less? Amazing.
Weirdly enough, the same daunting feeling that I get when I look at a Rubik's cube was the same feeling I had at the beginning of this year. Theoretically, I knew that many before me had successfully made it through the ISM program. However, in practice, it was more difficult than it seemed before hand. This past week, I have been continuing to work on my Final Product. My mentor and I have drawn a sort of roadmap that details what steps I'll need to take to complete this project. Basically, it's divided into three large chunks: marketing research, marketing strategy, and creative execution. I'll be focusing mainly on the first two, since my field is strategic marketing and not graphic design. Currently, I've finished the research stage and am working on developing marketing strategy for a small business that I'm familiar with, my martial arts school. This is the most difficult part of the entire project.
There are procedures that I follow when conducting marketing research, and performing the research itself has not been particularly difficult. However, analyzing the results of said research and forming strategy from it is the real challenge. I have to be careful to draw useful conclusions and integrate them in a meaningful manner into my strategy. Additionally, strategy isn't something that you can get from a machine, or from manipulating a physical object. It's literally all in my head. Sometimes thinking and strategizing can get tiring just from sheer mental exertion.
Although I can't solve a Rubik's cube, I know that after I finish my final product I will have solved a real-world business problem.
Until next time,
Eileen Bau
