Scheidegger; we show you how it's not done!

Last night I was watching TV, when I saw this commercial for Scheidegger, an educational institute.




While I watched it, a couple of questions immediately popped in to my head. So, let's analyze this commercial for a bit.

First of all, it is said that more than 1 million people have a diploma of Scheideggers'. Sure, sounds like a lot, but 1 million people out of how many that started a study there?
The commercial continues to say that it is makes complete sense that 1 million people have a diploma. This sounds strange already, because why exactly does that make sense? Well, the explanation according to the commercial: It is because of in-class lectures and personal guidance.
This might sound like a good reason, but think about it. In-class lectures? Doesn't almost every school or university offer those? As for personal guidance, that's no unique feature either. Yes, it might help, but it is no reason why it would make sense that you'll get your diploma, since we all know that getting your diploma is mostly up to yourself and your effort and motivation.

The commercial continues to say that they give a warranty: when you don't pass, you can try it again. Where exactly is the warranty in this? It is no warranty that you will indeed get your diploma, since you can easily fail again the second time. So what then? Is it a warranty that you can definitely try again? And if it is, how does that make Scheidegger a better educational instute than others?

Well, let's see if maybe it all comes together in the end. The commercial ends by saying 'Scheidegger, where you always succeed.' I think this is meant to be a slogan which you can see in two ways. First they want to say that you can always find something you want there. Well, that's probably not true, but they do have a variety of studies there and besides, it is not really an exceptional thing for marketeers to say.
However, the more important meaning of the slogan is that you will always get your diploma. Which simply cannot be true. It just can't be that there has never been anyone starting a study at Scheidegger and not finished or not passed it. And no, I'm not going to proof that, but I don't suppose that anyone wants to argue with me about that fact. So, the commercial gives untrue information.

Given that this is a commercial for an educational institute, I would expect it to be smart. But this commercial definitely isn't. Actually, this would only convince me not to subscribe there. However, it is a good example to be used in marketing lectures to show the things that can be wrong with a commercial. A small credit for that contribution.

Stella's story

The story of Stella. A 24-year old girl, working with children with difficulties in their behaviour, ages varying from 4 till 12 years old. Finished her studies about 1,5 years ago. Loved her job.

Until something happened. One of the boys at work got in a fight with another child. To protect the other child, and because it is her job, she jumped in between and got hit on her shoulder. She needed surgery, but didn’t completely recover. Now she is not able to do her job anymore, since she can’t lift up the kids anymore, which is definitely necessary with her job. Besides, the day this happened, she was not only hit physically, but also emotionally. Sometimes she is scared, afraid a similar thing will happen again.

While she was very good at her job before the accident, she is not anymore, through no fault of her own. What’s changed?

Nowadays managers are always looking for the best. They only want to hire the best employees. Keywords are ‘professionalism’, ‘well-developed’, ‘success’ and ‘responsibility’. They want to reach their goal and expect their employees to give their best. In return they will reward their employees through wages, bonuses and a good working environment. They try to motivate their employees this way.

This all sounds good, but there are other factors influencing performance. Well-being, for example. Nice colleagues and a good working environment might help, but there’s more. Let’s get back to Stella. Nothing’s really changed in her work environment, but her well-being is not even close to what is was before. Shouldn’t managers take this into account as well? Instead of focussing on the performance and well-being of the organization as a whole, shouldn’t they also focus on individual performance and well-being?

This might be complicated. Especially in a large company, it might be difficult to discover personal problems, and ever more difficult to fix them. However, those drastic changes, like the case of Stella, are definitely noticeable. Besides, they definitely influence performance and thus the results of the company. So you’d say that the company should take the individual well-being of its employees into account. Still, you might question if this is taking the company’s tasks one step too far. The interests of the company and its individuals might be conflicting. Maybe, in Stella’s case, she should go looking for another job. It might be better  for both the company and Stella. However, she might never feel as good about her job as she did before the accident again. What do you think? To what extent is Stella’s case the company’s responsibility?

The world in 50 years...

This week I had to think about what the world would look like in 50 years. Of course the first thing that comes to mind is technology: in 50 years we will probably have computer that can do anything, robots that will do everything for us, maybe technology will even be implemented in the human body, in the way that we will have a built-in mobile phone.

You might have your doubts about how positive these predicted changes are. Productive, sure. Easy, definitely. But just a little too easy maybe; everything will be done for us, so people might get extremely lazy, and, as a consequence, fat. However, in 50 years we might already have found a way to solve that problem.

So much for the obvious scenario. But what if it does not turn out to go this way? What if, between now and 2061, something goes extremely wrong? What if new technologies make it too easy to start a war, to kill thousands of people at the same time? And what if that happens? What if half of the world does not survive, and the other half blames technology for it? This might sound a bit theoretical and you might think it will never happen, but it could happen. And what if the world then decides that technology is evil and cannot be used extensively anymore? At that point, the whole world goes back to, say, the 1950’s.

Extreme politeness. Collectivism. Face-to-face conversations. Dishwashing by hand. Could that be our future? Could it go the exact opposite direction from what everyone is expecting? And if it does, will it last or will the world start developing itself again the same way it did 50 years ago? And will we end up in the same state as we are now in another 100 years? Is such a future possible at all? What do you think?

Hello!

Hello everyone and welcome to my very first blogpost. I guess I'm not being very original when I say that this is actually something I have to do for the course 'Business Information Technology', but that is the point of this blog. In the next 10 weeks you can expect blogs about anything I may have heard during a week of lectures and that's keeping me up all night thinking about it (or at least I thought was interesting).
So, if you want to know more, stay tuned, discuss and share. Hope you will all enjoy it!