LaFarge based Organic Valley is a $184 million company with dairy, meat and egg producers in 16 states and one Canadian province. It’s the third largest brand name in the entire organic foods industry, according to the latest Mike Ivey Column.
Virtual School Marketing
Anne Davis writes: “Wisconsin Connections Academy, Wisconsin Virtual Academy and, in particular, the just-approved iQ Academies at Wisconsin are using paid advertisements, billboards and direct mail to woo students during the state’s three-week annual open enrollment period that begins Monday and runs through Feb. 20.”
No matter what they spend, Northern Ozaukee school Superintendent Bill Harbron is asking K12 representatives to make some adjustments to their marketing approach this time around to avoid overselling the school.
After a short but intense campaign last year, the virtual academy received more than 1,000 applications. About 455 students actually enrolled, and the enrollment has continued to drop ever since as parents have discovered the program doesn’t fit their needs, Harbron said.
“There’s no sense recruiting a large number of students (and) then having them enter the program and drop out,” Harbron said. “We want parents to make a very realistic choice for their child.”
Fifth Avenue American Girl Store
Doris Hajewski updates us on Mattel’s American Girl Company (formerly the Pleasant Company), including their new Fifth Avenue store. American Girl, based in Middleton, was sold to Mattel by Pleasant Rowland for $700M in 1998.
$100M of the proceeds is funding Madison’s Overture Center for the Arts.
Spellbound/Outbound/SchoolBound?
Glenn Reynolds discusses the fabulous documentary, Spellbound in light of the current outsourcing rage.
Glenn also points to a few education blogs: Kimberley Swygert | Joanne Jacobs | Erin O’Connor.
On Not Getting Tenure @ HBS
Fascinating Post by Michael Watkins on not getting tenure at the Harvard Business School.
First Entry
This is a new entry to test your Movable Type installation.
We have installed Movable Type on your server and configured the paths for the initial weblog in the system per your request. Do not delete this weblog (“First Weblog”) unless you know what you are doing, because it is already configured for your server.
You also do not want to delete the author that has been created for this weblog. Edit the user information to change the name, password, or other information. It is strongly recommended that you enter your birthplace in the author information so that your password can be recovered if you lose it or forget it.
This weblog is using the default Movable Type templates; if you wish to edit the style of this weblog yourself, you may find the Default Styles to be useful. You can also edit the templates themselves; more information on template tags and customization is in the manual.
This entry is just for testing purposes, and can be deleted or edited whenever you wish. Thank you for choosing Movable Type!