Last week I spent a few days in a classroom with 21 Chinese high school students, sent to the U.S. by their parents to learn about business and marketing. Marketing virgins, every one of them. And they surprised me — sharp, creative, genuinely funny. But they got stuck on the exact same thing I watch seasoned marketing executives get stuck on, week after week, in rooms that cost a lot more than a classroom.
Their assignment for the week: invent a new enterprise in the field of Social Entrepreneurship. Build the brand. Build the marketing. Bring it to life.
Their first drafts came in fact-driven. Strong claims, hard numbers, real specs. Confident cases, built like little legal briefs.
