Academia has been intertwined with my life at least since 1986 from the "other side"- that of a teacher. That is when I started teaching as a Grad. Teaching Assistant at Clemson, teaching a Computer Applications course with a Lotus and dBase III and a Word look-alike each. Since then, I have taught O.R., B to B Marketing, Advertising, and a few other courses on and off (Communications too). But most consistently, Marketing Research has been a staple. I did not change its name either, though something like Analytics would be even more market-friendly, and it's fashionable to do analytics even if you don't know what it is.
At IIM Indore, I taught a few new courses too. But before that, at IMT Nagpur, I experimented with a Seminar on Thought Leadership. I gave topics involving people, books or ideas to groups of students, who then had to make a presentation. A critique by another student or two, and my thoughts finished it up. Very interesting, works well with about 10 groups of 3-4 students. I repeated this at Indore with sixty students, and a co-faculty.
Digital Marketing was new, so I wrote a case assisted by Saumya, about IIM Indore's early attempts, and then collected a few experiences from students and alums. Resulted in an edited book, Digital Marketing Cases From India. This course I taught in about 10 editions across different programs, some of them to Executives. IMC, or Integrated Marketing Communications was a newer avatar of Advertising, and my first course to MBA students at Indore. I also did a Simulation course on Marketing in MBA first year, for a year. Some Indore alumni had a company called Biziga that developed it.
For Ph.D. students I developed three elective Seminars- on Digital Marketing, Tourism and Retailing. Students found Tourism the most interesting, I heard. So I co-developed a Workshop for PGP/MBA also on the subject of Tourism, with Jayasimha, a colleague. It was a hit.
Of course, there were variants in some executive programs, where I taught the core marketing course (last I did that was at IIM Lucknow in 2001-2003). We did a course for HPCL in Indore that was year-long, on Weekends. Repeated it at their Pune training centre for future batches. Also did a sort of induction program once. Indore used to have a centre in Dubai, and I taught there a couple of times. Meeting two Smitas (one a former colleague from IMT, another from KIAMS, a former student) was a highlight of the Dubai visits.
