Chantelle Mathany
In my dream job, I would be working as the Vice President of Marketing at the Greater Des Moines Convention and Bureau or some other tourism-oriented nonprofit organization. Today, we toured the State Capitol in Des Moines and heard from Dusky Terry, a former representative and Central Iowa Power Cooperative director about the inner workings of government. He discussed some of the issues facing Iowa, like the unemployment rate and trying to get people to stay in Iowa to do business. This is important to an organization like the GDMCVB because we want to retain talented people to work in Des Moines so it attracts new businesses. It’s also important because if everyone wants to leave Iowa, there would be no one to take advantage of all the great things our partners offer. The tour was cool but we had to do a shortened version of it so we didn’t get to see all the little things that make the capitol special like the First Lady Dolls, the stories behind the paintings, and the third floor mosaics.
We also visited the Vermeer manufacturing facilities in Pella, Iowa. I had heard Vermeer’s name but didn’t know what they did, so it was really cool to finally see how such a big company is tucked into the heart of the Midwest. Even though manufacturing is only 12% of our nation’s gross domestic product, it’s really important that we have private companies like Vermeer in Iowa because it offers so many job opportunities in the local setting. The Vermeer facilities and the manufacturing industry in Iowa affect the tourism industry because they allow us to retain talent in Iowa to take advantage of all the great opportunities to offer. There were a couple of young presenters at Vermeer that were in high positions for their ages, so it was also cool to see how you can grow so much if you get into the right job and stick with the right company.
This afternoon, we participated in a business simulation that focused on Value-Added Agriculture, by Industry Masters. The simulation was provided by Management Development International, Inc., with Tycoon Systems and our session was ran by Dan Topf. I was on a team with Eric Crawford and Laura Roth and we had to assign roles for each person in the company. I chose VP of Planning because I’m detail-oriented and like to read ahead and look ahead to see what I can predict about the future. We learned a lot of skills, for example – sometimes, you just have to leave things alone. We stayed in first place for the first two years, then the third year we dropped down to third place by the end. I learned that sales price and marketing have a direct effect on inventory levels and how fast you’re getting product out. I also learned that additional investments into capital equipment can help improve the value-added of your product. We also should have focused on two or three strategic positions versus trying to dip our feet into all of them while still trying to specialize in two or three. In 2012, I will graduate in a competitive environment for jobs, profits, everything. I can use the skills I gained from the business simulation to help improve my chances of securing employment by focusing on proper planning and strategy review, as well as competitor evaluation and accounting analysis. In the tourism industry, focus on planning and strategy is integral, so this simulation helped me a lot.
Overall, it was a really fun and informative day. I learned a lot of new skills that I can use both now and in the future and can’t wait to see what tomorrow holds.
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From reading this blog, Chantelle, it looks as though you are on the right path to your "dream job". Marketing is a very big chunk of the pie when you're trying to run a successful company. A business can't soley be ran on just marketing, or just financials. And after reading your blog, it looks like you learned that.
Matt Baker
| Aug 10, 2010 11:34 PM
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