Siobhan Olofsson of the Hanly Centre, our IMI Diploma in Marketing Strategy with Digital Marketing Scholar for 2011-12, describes her experience thus far on the programme:
I have been participating on the Diploma in Strategic Marketing and Strategic Online Marketing at the IMI since November 2011, on behalf of my organisation, a charity working in the voluntary and community sector. We recognised a number of knowledge gaps within our organisation which included marketing strategy. To continue to provide relevant services to those that needed them, and to allow us move confidently towards the future we needed to address these gaps.
I can say hand on heart that my strategic marketing ‘knowhow’ was nil prior to this adventure. I am a psychologist not a marketer and these past 4 months have meant a steep learning curve for me, though marketing and psychology are second cousins in many respects.
The IMI are providing me with a great resource. The practical nature of the course and the thorough strategic thinking leadership and guidance, have been excellent. The programme has helped me focus on strategic organisational marketing concerns. I believe that this opportunity will help my organisation avoid costly marketing mistakes as I have access to practitioners and academics who are top of their game and give freely of marketing insights and knowledge. I am a great believer in learning from others’ successes and failures and this programme will save me from many of the pitfalls I would have encountered had I not availed of it, I have no doubt!
60% of our marks go towards developing a marketing plan. While this has been an agony in the garden for me, the effort I have put in to gathering data is paying dividends not only for the programme, but for other initiatives the Hanly Centre is undertaking. I know without the structure of this programme this research work, which is crucial across many facets of the organisation, would have been put on the longest finger. Now it’s almost done!
I have studied in and with a variety of 3rd level institutions both here in Ireland, the UK and Sweden at both undergrad and post grad levels and, in my experience, I can say without reservation that IMI have provided me with a learning environment of excellent standard which recognises the value of the practitioner and more that adequately bridges the academic/practitioner divide (something that can be the Achilles heel for many tertiary institutions) within a supportive environment. I am delighted to have had the opportunity to study here.
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