Friday, September 30, 2005
Welcome!
Welcome to this blog. It's an experiment. I feel that students in our program are too isolated. Isolated from both each other and from interaction with faculty outside of the formal class experience. The purpose of this blog is to encourage interaction--the exchange of ideas, the discussion of problems, brainstorming solutions. Another goal is creating institutional memory. Each of us bring a unique set of experiences, abilities, and interests to the program. Yet, as things now exist, there is little capacity built into the system for people to learn from others' experiences in any meaningful way outside the classroom. I hope we can change that. This blog is a first attempt to do so. I'm a pragmatist, so if this doesn't work it's back to the drawing board. But I have high hopes that this will prove to be a great tool for all of us to use over the coming years.
Wes
Wes
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Hi G:
What I'd thought is that we'd give this a try with a small group first. And once we (ok, I) understand how it works I'll invite the rest of my master's students to come on board.
W
What I'd thought is that we'd give this a try with a small group first. And once we (ok, I) understand how it works I'll invite the rest of my master's students to come on board.
W
I think I can finally see a pattern emerging in my research that may direct me. It has to do with the landscape and the general activity around the wineries. Thanks for that last article, by the way, not a bad one at all. I helped crystallize that thought in my head.
Hi Stephanie, welcome. This is easy. I think it's a good idea to try out as well. We don't have very much time on campus to speak to one another regarding the different issues we may be facing and this can certainly make it easier. It will be ideal to exchange information about what we are doing as we get nearer to completion of our degree requirements.
Jamie raises a good point about registration for Spring 06. Cristian Morosan, one of our Visiting Research Scholars, will be teaching 529, Marketing. Sandro Formica will be teaching 521 Management. Ted Tedrick will be teaching 507, Research & Quantitative Methods, and I'm not sure who will be teaching 519, Meeting, Convention, and Event Management (I'll find out and post that info asap).
I'll be teaching 544, The Gaming Industry, which, with the opening of racinos and slot resorts in PA, should be pretty interesting. Remember, legalized gaming creates a need not only for gaming managers but also for people to work in other industries that will have a b2b relationship with gaming.
Turning to the strategic side of selecting courses, here are a couple hints:
1. try to invest your electives (both STHM & Fox) in courses that fit your career goals,
2. think strategically--try to plan your course sequence through graduation. If you need to find out when classes will be offered, ask,
3. decide which of the tracks (management, e-commerce & IT, or research) you want to follow, and
4. think about how you can use the classes you take to build upon your exisiting skills and interests. part of this addresses asking the question--"where do I want this degree to take me?" And part of this involves thinking about your goals and how to achieve them and not being afraid to ask (me, other students, other faculty, industry people, etc.)
Just some thoughts.
Wes
I'll be teaching 544, The Gaming Industry, which, with the opening of racinos and slot resorts in PA, should be pretty interesting. Remember, legalized gaming creates a need not only for gaming managers but also for people to work in other industries that will have a b2b relationship with gaming.
Turning to the strategic side of selecting courses, here are a couple hints:
1. try to invest your electives (both STHM & Fox) in courses that fit your career goals,
2. think strategically--try to plan your course sequence through graduation. If you need to find out when classes will be offered, ask,
3. decide which of the tracks (management, e-commerce & IT, or research) you want to follow, and
4. think about how you can use the classes you take to build upon your exisiting skills and interests. part of this addresses asking the question--"where do I want this degree to take me?" And part of this involves thinking about your goals and how to achieve them and not being afraid to ask (me, other students, other faculty, industry people, etc.)
Just some thoughts.
Wes
Just wanted to share some ideas from the conference I recently attended. I was in San Antonio for the Leisure Research Symposium. Leisure research probably has a more fully developed set of theories to draw upon than we see in some of the tourism and hospitality literature. In no particular order I've listed some of the ideas that came to me while listening to various presentations.
1. The gap between managers' perceptions of what guests want and guests' own perception of what they want.
2. The involvement construct. A useful tool in understanding leisure behaviors is the idea of involvement--a construct that examines the centrality of an activity to an individual. People with high levels of involvement express this through different behaviors, levels of knowledge, etc. when compared to people with low involvement. Some of the literature looks at this through the concept of 'serious leisure' while other authors speak of involvement. A third concept that is related to these two is the idea of specialization. Little work has been done in our field (except for Havitz's work on involvement) with these constructs.
3. The role that culture and ethnicity plays in shaping behavior.
If any of these topics sound interesting I can help point you at the appropriate literature.
Wes
1. The gap between managers' perceptions of what guests want and guests' own perception of what they want.
2. The involvement construct. A useful tool in understanding leisure behaviors is the idea of involvement--a construct that examines the centrality of an activity to an individual. People with high levels of involvement express this through different behaviors, levels of knowledge, etc. when compared to people with low involvement. Some of the literature looks at this through the concept of 'serious leisure' while other authors speak of involvement. A third concept that is related to these two is the idea of specialization. Little work has been done in our field (except for Havitz's work on involvement) with these constructs.
3. The role that culture and ethnicity plays in shaping behavior.
If any of these topics sound interesting I can help point you at the appropriate literature.
Wes
Actually, it does sound really interestesting and promising. I wouldn't mind being pointed in the direction of research of serious and ethnicity and culture. Never know what threads I may pull from that.
Check the Wednesday 19 Oct. Inquirer for an article about public opinion on Philadelphia's quest for the 2016 Olympics.
wes
wes
Interesting article in the Sunday Inquirer on the impacts of home appreciation along the Jersey Shore "Squeezed out at the Shore" (you can find it and an interesting data base of property values by community at philly.com).
If you are looking for a topic for a paper for a class or thinking about a project / thesis topic doing something on the impacts of real property appreciation on the Shore would be an interesting, useful, and sexy topic.
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If you are looking for a topic for a paper for a class or thinking about a project / thesis topic doing something on the impacts of real property appreciation on the Shore would be an interesting, useful, and sexy topic.
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