I recently took a trip and had a couple of interesting incidents that we can all learn lessons from. The first was in the airport before I even left Buffalo. My wife and I were headed for France for a week – she’s a French teacher at an area highschool so loves to get back to France every few years for a language and culture “innoculation.” Since it was an international trip we arrived at the airport a bit early and had time to eat at the new Anchor Bar (birthplace of the famous “Buffalo wings”) branch recently opened there. As we were waiting for our food a professionally dressed young woman came in and the waiter engaged her in light conversation that revealed she had been in town from Boston to interview with a major regional bank for the day and it went “very well!” She then sat down, pulled out her cell phone, and conducted a very nasty conversation with a guy she had recently dated. The tone and conduct of this young woman’s conversation would have immediately dropped her from my personal list of employee candidates – I wouldn’t want her dealing with my customers if she treats her acquaintances like that!
I have a number of acquaintances in the human resources department at the particular bank she was interviewing with and it was very tempting to tip them off to the character, or lack thereof, that I observed in this young woman. I didn’t do it, but it could very easily have been a bank employee sitting in the next booth, who would have tipped off HR. Buffalo, particularly, is a small town kind of place where everybody knows somebody who works at… So, in Buffalo, and everywhere, be aware that the person eavesdropping on your conversation or conduct could cost you, or get you, that job. Conduct yourself professionally and respectfully all the time.
Another observation on the trip was in an old mountain town in the Verdon gorges area of Provence, France. Wandering through town we came across an old man and his dog sitting in an out-of-the-way “shop” and stopped to talk. If you take a close look at the picture you will notice
that the old dog has a pacifer, or “binky” as some people call it, in his mouth. And the old guy is a bit hunched over and and pretty harmless looking. Well, among the strange mix of things available in the old man’s “shop” such as dried lavendar, antiques, lavendar distillate, and cow horns from Africa, was wild boar pate, that he made and canned himself. It turns out that the old pacifer-sucking dog and the old man go out in the mountains and hunt down wild boar, cook it, make it into pate and put the boar in a can – not the expectation that comes to mind when you first see this pair. Just goes to show that first impressions are not necessarily valid. (And, no, I didn’t buy any of the wild boar pate.)
We should always show respect to the people, and animals, we come across. Looking for that next job or business deal you never know when you might need a good hunting companion! Or you might just get a fascinating story. (Dave Frasier, Assistant Dean)
Textbooks are great for conveying theory and historical practice but there’s nothing like finding out what is going on in real time in the real world. Our Marketing Management core course has been providing many opportunities this semester – see the SMART blog item below. Last Friday was another opportunity when we hosted Andrew Meurer from 
took students through the development and marketing history of 
Buffalo. The snow is gone and I’m hopeful that we’ll see daffodils soon.
Schembri,president of SMART USA and local owners of SMART cars, for a dinner where the top plan from each student cohort will be presented. Then Mr. Schembri will react to the student plans and relate more about current plans the company has.
in the 
