Hello and welcome to the early fall 2007 IMC blog! I?m Todd Hudak, and for the next nine weeks I will be blogging about my experiences in IMC 620, Analysis and Measurement, taught by Dr. Grace Gao. I will also talk about the IMC program in general.

First, let me share a little bit about myself. I was born and raised in northwest Ohio, Findlay to be exact, which is also the hometown of Ben Roethlisberger, for you Steelers fans out there. I?m a lifelong Steelers fan myself, as my parents are originally from the Pittsburgh area.

My family moved to South Carolina around the time I finished high school, for the weather, and I have been in the Palmetto state ever since. I graduated from the University of South Carolina in 1993 with a bachelor?s degree in journalism. (Naturally, I am a huge Gamecock fan too.)

I started my career as a newspaper reporter and editor at several weekly and daily newspapers in South Carolina. Then I moved into university communications, spending six years at Francis Marion University in Florence, S.C. About 10 months ago, I began working at an advertising, marketing and public relations agency in Columbia, S.C., where I also reside. The name of the agency is Semaphore Inc. My title is writer/strategist. I write print and broadcast ads, and any number of marketing materials including brochures, magazine articles, and annual reports. I also devise marketing strategies and campaigns for my clients. My primary clients are the 20 electric cooperatives of South Carolina, but I also work with other entities ranging from businesses to educational institutions to non-profits.

I have one brother, who lives in San Francisco and works for a charter school organization. My parents live in Florence, where my mother is a high school English teacher and my dad works as a project manager for a construction company after retiring from teaching music. I am single with no kids, which I think is an advantage in the IMC program from a time-management perspective. Sometimes it is difficult enough for me to work full-time and keep up with classes too. I really respect and admire my fellow students who also balance a family in that mix.

I am on the one-class-at-a-time pace in the IMC program. I started in January 2006 and expect to graduate in summer 2008. I decided early on that for me, this was the best move. I really want to get as much as I possibly can out of each class. I do admire my peers who are tackling two at a time though. Sometimes I wonder how they do it!

IMC 620 is my ninth class in the program. The word on the street is that it?s one of the tougher courses in the program. I think part of that stems from the fact that many of us in the IMC program are primarily creatives and writers, and are not especially strong in math. I definitely count myself among this number. However, I do see the tremendous value of the topic. As we have learned in other courses, analysis and measurement is paramount to any IMC campaign. I downloaded the SPSS software required for the course to my computer last night. I didn?t have a chance to experiment with it, but at this point I?m not sure I?d know what to do with it anyway!

While the prospect of this class is a little daunting, I am relieved to have Dr. Gao guiding the way. I was fortunate enough to have her for the Research Methods course, and she was one of the best professors I?ve encountered in the program. That is really saying something, because top to bottom I have been immensely pleased with the high quality of instruction in the IMC program. I know that Dr. Gao has the professional knowledge and temperament to deal with non-math types like me who may be a little intimidated by the subject matter.

Well, I am sure everyone is having a busy day looking through the course materials and posting their class introductions. I do hope that faculty, current students, and prospective students join me for this journey over the next nine weeks. I appreciate any comments, feedback, and experiences anyone would like to share. My intent is to post at least twice a week, so check back here for updates. Best of luck to all for a great early fall term!