Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.

Exchange: people giving up something to receive something they would rather have.

Conditions of exchange:

1. There must be at least two parties.
2. Each party has something that might be of value to the other party.
3. Each party is capable of communication and delivery.
4. Each party is free to accept or reject the exchange offer.
5. Each party believes it is appropriate or desirable to deal with other party.

Management Philosophies:

1. Production Orientation: a philosophy that focuses on the internal capabilities of the firm rather than on the desires and needs of the marketplace.
2. Sales Orientation: the idea that people will buy more goods and services if aggressive sales techniques are used and that high sales result in high profits.
3. Market Orientation: a philosophy that assumes that a sale does not depend on an aggressive sales force but rather on a customer’s decision to purchase product. It is synonymous with the marketing concept.
4. Societal Marketing Orientation: the idea that an organization exists not only to satisfy customer wants and needs and to meet organization objectives but also to preserve and enhance individuals’ and society’s long-term best interests.

Marketing Concept: the idea that the social and economic justification for an organization’s existence is the satisfaction of customer wants and needs while meeting organizational objectives.

My report: how can you go wrong with this movie? Its got action, based on a true story, some women to look at… a well done movie. It seems like these guys never got breaks from cops and death. I doesn’t seem like the lows are really worth the highs.

Rating:

About it: Martin Scorsese explores the life of organized crime with his gritty, kinetic adaptation of Nicolas Pileggi’s best-selling Wiseguy, the true-life account of mobster and FBI informant Henry Hill. Set to a true-to-period rock soundtrack, the story details the rise and fall of Hill, a half-Irish, half-Sicilian New York kid who grows up idolizing the “wise guys” in his impoverished Brooklyn neighborhood. He begins hanging around the mobsters, running errands and doing odd jobs until he gains the notice of local chieftain Paulie Cicero (Paul Sorvino), who takes him in as a surrogate son. As he reaches his teens, Hill (Ray Liotta) is inducted into the world of petty crime, where he distinguishes himself as a “stand-up guy” by choosing jail time over ratting on his accomplices. From that moment on, he is a part of the family. Along with his psychotic partner Tommy (Joe Pesci), he rises through the ranks to become Paulie’s lieutenant; however, he quickly learns that, like his mentor Jimmy (Robert DeNiro), his ethnicity prevents him from ever becoming a “made guy,” an actual member of the crime family. Soon he finds himself the target of both the feds and the mobsters, who feel that he has become a threat to their security with his reckless dealings. Goodfellas was rewarded with six Academy Award nominations including Best Picture; Pesci would walk away with Best Supporting Actor for his work. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide

Strategic Planning: the managerial process of creating and maintaining a fit between the organization’s objectives and resources and evolving market opportunities.

Planning: the process of anticipating future events and determining strategies to achieve organizational objectives in the future.

Marketing planning: designing activities relating to marketing objectives and the changing marketing environment.

Marketing plan: a written document that acts as a guidebook of marketing activities for the marketing manager.

My report: I’ve had these thoughts about starting an organization that helps people live better and accomplish their dreams and after seeing this movie for the second time, I am having the urge to make that happen. So today I’m going to start drafting the organization’s goals. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time and I think it’s time something happens. I don’t think I need to have money to help others. Right now my asset is time and I’m sure I can use some of that to someone’s advantage. I’ll write more about this later on. Good movie by the way. Different and entertaining for the most part.

Rating:

About it: One woman decides to change the world by changing the lives of the people she knows in this charming and romantic comic fantasy from director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Amelie (Audrey Tautou) is a young woman who had a decidedly unusual childhood; misdiagnosed with an unusual heart condition, Amelie didn’t attend school with other children, but spent most of her time in her room, where she developed a keen imagination and an active fantasy life. Her mother Amandine (Lorella Cravotta) died in a freak accident when Amelie was eight, and her father Raphael (Rufus) had limited contact with her, since his presence seemed to throw her heart into high gear. Despite all this, Amelie has grown into a healthy and beautiful young woman who works in a cafe and has a whimsical, romantic nature. When Princess Diana dies in a car wreck in the summer of 1997, Amelie is reminded that life can be fleeting and she decides it’s time for her to intervene in the lives of those around her, hoping to bring a bit of happiness to her neighbors and the regulars at the cafe. Amelie starts by bringing together two lonely people — Georgette (Isabelle Nanty), a tobacconist with a severe case of hypochondria, and Joseph (Dominique Pinon), an especially ill-tempered customer. When Amelie finds a box of old toys in her apartment, she returns them to their former owner, Mr. Bretodeau (Maurice Benichou), sending him on a reverie of childhood. Amelie befriends Dufayel (Serge Merlin), an elderly artist living nearby whose bones are so brittle, thanks to a rare disease, that everything in his flat must be padded for his protection. And Amelie decides someone has to step into the life of Nino (Mathieu Kassovitz), a lonely adult video store clerk and part-time carnival spook-show ghost who collects pictures left behind at photo booths around Paris. Le Fabuleux Destin D’Amelie Poulain received unusually enthusiastic advance reviews prior to its French premiere in the spring of 2001, and was well received at a special free screening at that year’s Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The past, present and future of human existence are just as dark as they were thousands of years ago before we learned about science, evolution and came to think of ourselves as the supreme beings on Earth. We all are born, we live and we die. That’s about as sure as we know things are. Science says we came from monkeys and before that from a big bang… it’s a theory…. Some religions say we came from a guy named Adam and his female partner Eve, who were both part of God’s seven day creation of this world… that’s another theory…

Truth is, we don’t know. Now that we consider ourselves supreme beings on the face of the Earth we want to think we’ve got it all figure it. Hell, we are even sure of the spiritual things like we’ve got souls and, in effect, we do go somewhere after death because… well we will live forever damn it! We are the human species and there is nothing better and more capable than us in this world. Now, I know of ego-centrism and ethnocentrism, but what do we call the centric views of a whole species?

I know I’ve come out sounding like a know-it-all sometimes, but life experiences have humbled me and made me recognize that even if I was to become the smartest person in the world it wouldn’t do any good without the help of others. And so I’ve also came to recognize that when I don’t know something it is better to say “I don’t know” than to pretend I do. Prove me wrong and I look like a fool. Say “I don’t know” and I’ll learn something new. Isn’t that better? I mean, do we really have to go around pretending like we know what comes after death as if we went there and came back? Can anyone in this world guarantee that when the physical dies I will still remain in the form of a spirit? A soul? Can anyone guarantee that when I die I just won’t stop existing?

Stop the bullshit! People feeding each other crap they believe by pure faith, but never actually experienced. Thanks for sharing your message, I’ve heard it, now let me make my own decisions. Talk to me about what’s happening here, now! Show me that you can leave in peace with what we have here, now!! Look at us… we’ve got so many subdivisions we can’t even describe ourselves in one word. Before Christians, Muslims, Americans and Japanese, Asians and Africans, Blacks and Indians, Aryans, Latin Americans, Chinese, Haitians, Buddhists and every other group we’ve made we are Humans. Bound together by micro organisms organized in a way that allow us to create more of us. These same micro organisms are part of every living thing and we use it to survive. Show that you care before we self destruct…

My report: It’s the best Bonds movie I’ve seen. This one is more real. He’s not the pretty boy that always wins and gets the pretty women. Well… he did get both, but not without suffering. The story was also good.

Rating:

About it: Actor Daniel Craig assumes the role formerly occupied by such screen greats as Sean Connery, Roger Moore, and Timothy Dalton to set out on the character’s very first 007 mission. James Bond has earned his “00″ status by masterfully executing a pair of death-defying professional assassinations. Now assigned the task of traveling to Madagascar to spy on notorious terrorist Mollaka (Sebastien Foucan) for his maiden voyage as a 007 agent, Bond boldly goes against MI6 policy to launch an independent investigation that finds him traversing the Bahamas in search of Mollaka’s notoriously elusive terror cell. Subsequently led into the company of the mysterious Dimitrios (Simon Abkarian) and his exotic girlfriend, Solange (Caterina Murino), Bond soon realizes that he is closer than ever to locating well-guarded terrorist financier Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), the man who has personally bankrolled some of the most prevalent terrorist organizations on the planet. When Bond learns that Le Chiffre is planning to partake in an upcoming high-stakes poker game to be played at Montenegro’s Le Casino Royale and use the winnings to establish his financial grip on the globe, M (Judi Dench) assigns beguiling agent Vesper (Eva Green) the task of watching over the fledgling agent as he plays against Le Chiffre in a covert attempt to destroy the nefarious gambler’s well-established monetary stronghold in the underworld once and for all. Bond will need more than his legendary gambling skills in order to win this dangerous game, though, and after allying himself with local MI6 field agent Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini) and CIA operative Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright), the endlessly suave super-spy puts on his poker face for a high-stakes game of cards in which the stakes are not measured in dollars, but human lives. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide