Penn State Bloggers Encourage Donations for Alabama Tornado Relief

Kudos to Ben Jones, a senior student at Penn State and founder of the Victory Bell Rings blog, for trying to organize Penn State football related blogs to encourage donations for our friends in Tuscaloosa Alabama and surrounding communities in the South.  Other blogs such as Nittany Whiteout and LinebackerU.com  are also joining the effort and asking people to donate.

Great idea, fellow bloggers!  And let me join in also by encouraging my readers to make a personal donation to help the people in Alabama and other southern states.

Coming Up for Air (Maybe...) for Penn State's Blue-White Game

Oh my.  I feel like I have really abandoned my faithful readers this winter...a season which only now (maybe) is starting to turn to spring at University Park.  Although I'm not sure.  The weather is particularly nasty for this version of the annual football scrimmage known as the Blue-White game.

I do apologize...it's just that, well, when you're teaching eighteen credits in ONE semester, it's hard to do anything else but prep for classes and grade papers. It's been a tough semester.  And the weather hasn't helped one bit!

Joe Paterno's 400th Win Necktie Being Auctioned by WPSU

Are you a Penn State fan that loves Penn State memorabilia?  Do you collect one of a kind Penn State items that are especially meaningful to you?

Or maybe you love Public Broadcasting at Penn State and want to support them in a unique way.

Or maybe you just think that having a special memento of Joe Paterno's 400th win - the necktie he wore that day - is worth something to you.

In any case, check out the items that are up for auction online as part of Penn State Public Broadcasting's 19th Annual  Connoisseur's Dinner and Auction at the Nittany Lion Inn in University Park, PA:
 
http://wpsu.org/events/conndinner2011_auction

This is the same site that auctioned off JoePa's iconic eyeglasses last year.

Have fun with this.  Certainly it's a great cause that provides a lot of good programming.

Penn State Football: As First STEP Choices Are Made, the Software Seems to Work

It's probably not possible to speak for anybody but myself when faced with a forced relocation of seats at Beaver Stadium due to the STEP process announced last fall that moves both the student section and visitor section and causes current season ticket holders in those seats to be relocated to new seats.

What I can say is that a lot of our concerns about relocation due to STEP were relieved once we were able to access the rather sophisticated "Virtual Venue" on January 5th and view what seats were available for us in each section.  While there were some sections blocked, that didn't matter to us.  We were  interested in tickets in only one section, and that section was available to us and had plenty of alternatives.

Penn State Vs Florida: Trying to Gain Perspective on a Disappointing Loss

Greetings from Centre County PA where the mood right now among the Penn State faithful is one of outright pessimism and dismay after Saturday's grim Penn State loss to the Florida Gators.

It wasn't the fact that Penn State lost the game.  It was HOW the team lost this game that is hard to shake off.   It was just a very ugly ending. 

To paraphrase a Penn State colleague with whom we commiserated over a drink at the hotel bar in Tampa on Saturday night, "We came, we stank, we left."  He used a more modern "s" word but I can't bring myself to use that word in writing. 

Penn State vs. Florida at the Outback Bowl: It's Finally Here

Maybe now the focus will be on the players rather than on the two championship coaches leading the teams.  Maybe now we can concentrate on the game rather than on Joe Paterno's health.

There was nothing unhealthy about Joe Paterno's Pep Rally talk today at the Tampa Bay Convention Center in downtown Tampa.  In fact, it was classic Joe Paterno - he was funny, engaging, and enjoying his ability to rev up the crowd with jokes about Gators with funny looking jaws and "We Are..." cheers.

Penn State Football: STEP Reality Sets In As New Seats Available in January

Yesterday we finally received a letter from Penn State's Nittany Lion Club giving us our designated date and time to choose our new seats at Beaver Stadium.

Four of our season tickets in Section WA are being relocated due to the Seat Transfer and Equity Plan (STEP).   Originally we were supposed to select our new seats in November.  But then there was a letter sent to us explaining that the selection dates were pushed back to January.

The actual time window for this first phase of the seat selection process will now begin on January 7, 2011 at 10:00 a.m. and will continue through January 28, 2011 at 6:00 p.m.  According to the letter we received:

"All selection times are assigned in NLC point total order and are eligible to begin selecting every 3 minutes.  This means that the longer you take to select, the more season ticket holders with lower point totals are eligible to secure seat locations before you do."

So what does that mean for us?

The Google AdWords Thank You Video for A Campaign That Failed

Aside from the fact that I love Penn State football, I write this blog because it forces me to understand and to experiment with social media marketing.

As a marketing professor, I can discuss in my classes the impact of blogs on opinion leadership that can shape consumer behavior.  I can experiment with content and see what draws the best responses.  I can use Google Analytics to perform a statistical analysis on who's visiting my blog, how often, and from where.