Note: this was written 21 May 2007 at 9:30 PM Beijing Time.
I arrived in Xi’an this afternoon for a few days of recovery following four days of classes in Beijing. In addition to recovering I can have a chance to update everyone reading the blog on the China trip.
Thursday through Sunday were spent in class. This is one of two electives that are part of my Executive MBA program at the University of Maryland. The class was Service Marketing, which was a very interesting topic. A lot of the marketing activity built around a service offering involves making the intangible elements tangible, whether it’s the environment, collateral, people who will deliver the service or processes that will support service delivery.
One of the things that I really enjoyed about the class was that it was divided in such a way to favor case discussions and presentations by teams. The professor had assigned some pre-course reading and a case write-up to familiarize the students to process of analyzing a service case and developing sets of recommendations relevant to service marketing. This equipped us to review additional cases and make team presentations of analysis and recommendations. This was much more interactive and educational than a straight lecture.
I really enjoyed getting to know my classmates, and I enjoyed the team that I was on. The class was actually very diverse with a number of countries represented, which was a bonus that I hadn’t originally expected. The students were working in a number of very impressive functions both for local Chinese firms and multinational firms. There were locals and ex-pats as well as big-company executives and entrepreneurs. I hope to keep in touch with my classmates, and I was actually sad to say good-bye when the class came to an end.
Today I am in Xi’an and really taking more of a recovery than heading out for any sort of night on the town. Tomorrow I am off to see the terra-cotta army, and I am sure that I will have many pictures to post after that particular trip.
