After quite a bit of work we are proud to launch our new website.

I hope all the contents will be translated as soon as possible. Unfortunately it is just in German at the moment. More languages such as English, Spanish, French and Chinese/Russian are planned already.

The reconstruction of the University has begun…

Not very much time went by, at least it felt like it, and the semester number 3 is over again. As usual the exams at the end will show if it was a successful one or not. Unfortunately this time was very stressful. We will see what comes out.

Another sideeffect of the semester being over is the departure of our international students from Georgia, France, Spain, Turkey, Finland and Switzerland. I hope you enjoyed your stay here in Karlsruhe and I wish you all the best for your further studies. Maybe we’ll meet again in the next summer vacation time…

The Merkur Internationale FH Karlsruhe has a new president starting January 16th,2009. Prof. Dr. Michael Zerr, founder of “Yellow Strom” will become the new president. The designated president Mr. Ernst Hunkel will receive a big stag party on the 15th of January in the Gartensaal of the castle in Karlsruhe.

About 200 guests are expected and I am looking forward to playing a little cabaret for him together with my colleages of the student council.

Stay tuned for pictures and a little report on that issue.

Today’s life is full with commercials. Everybody sees it while walking through streets, watching TV, reading the paper, even while using the bathroom you can see brandnames all over the place. Is that a reason why big commercial companies are trying to effect people by using more personalized commercials? Have we grown tired of being a consumer all the time?

Is sponsoring the answer? Is sponsoring of schools or a sportsteam different? Just turn on your television and watch a soccer match. Everything is sponsored. Starting with the jersey, the pants, the nets of the goals, the stadium itself, the beer, etc. In a flood of sponsoring one single name of a sponsor won’t be outstanding and might not be seen.

So why use sponsoring at all? Can you get more popular by sponsoring?

The answer: Sure, you just need to find the right target group and the right “product”. For a University like Merkur Internationale FH Karlsruhe it is possible to get more popular by sponsoring other graduation classes of different highschools for example. This is one project I am working on right now. I hope it will be successful. I will provide more information as soon as the project is running, but right now it is just announced, so stay tuned for more information and maybe I will be able to answer the question of the topic very soon…

This is the question that really interests me. You don’t have a product you can sell comes to most people’s minds at first, but is this really true? Isn’t the information you can receive by visiting Universities a product as well?

“You just have to be creative and you can sell everything to anybody” other people might say, but is this the thing you want to do? Another important question, because tricking people into something just to receive money is not the thing you want to do as University.

Your graduates count on the reputation of the University. They are a part of it as well as each professor and each student, even though they are not there anymore. Those are the important things to keep in mind before even starting a campaign. But didn’t we forget something?

Research!

What are the other Universities doing to improve their rep? Are they better?

Well, I don’t want to talk too long and for that reason here is the perfect answer:

Nothing and nobody is perfect. The will to create a better thing is the correct way to improve. There is no perfect campaign for the University. The only way to create a good campaign is to be prepared as good as possible. And this is the key to good marketing as well

so far 4 now.

Finally the first week for our first semesters and our incoming students is over. After a nice first week programm the studies begin with a normal schedule. Good luck to all of you. I hope you are enjoying your studies at the Merkur Internationale FH Karlsruhe and you will succeed in your exams at the end of the semester.

Our international students who are here for one semester are hopefully feeling “home” as well

Best regards from me!

We are awaiting some foreign students to come to Merkur this wintersemester 08/09.

As soon as there are news, I will write about this issue.

Meanwhile please visit our Merkur homepage (click me).

Best regards,

the Admin

We once again had the opportunity to meet another person that had a lot success in his life.
Mr. Gauger, former speaker of the management @ 1&1, came to us to talk about the development and the role of the internet.
Many important aspects like the “Software as a Service”, platforms,etc. were involved in his presentation. It has been one of the best presentations I have ever seen, and I have to admit, that this was very impressive. Not only the content of the presentation, but the presentation itself was very nice.
Many usefull hints for “internationalizing” a company were talked about as well.

It is close to the end of our second semester @ Merkur Internationale FH Karlsruhe. Sounds nice, but unfortunately this means for us poor students nothing else but: final exams!!

But not only the finals are giving many of us a bad headache. There are at least two more presentations and a turn in deadline for our English report. The whole June will be a hardworking month for all of us before the first internships start. Let’s hope for us all that everybody is able to pass the exams with good grades and of course without getting sick, so the internship is not in danger…

At least I don’t have to do one, but I hope I can get a job somewhere in England for that time to improve my English, get connections, work and of course gain some experience. I’d really like to do this, but we’ll see… life is not a fairytale

It is nice having people around that are able to show you the importance of things. Biggi Mestmäcker and Bernd Röthlingshöfer are two of those people that are able to bond you while they are talking. But it is not only the talk, that bonds you. It is the content they are talking about that makes it interesting.

We had the chance to meet them during a marketing course at the Merkur International FH Karlsruhe and they gave a guest lecture on networking, blogging and how those are related.

By the way: Both were invited by Prof. Dr. Zerr and met the first time in person @ Merkur, even though they know each other for a long time by blogging