Teaching the first course in Information Systems is a challenging task. Students come to the course with different backgrounds and some students come with little to no background. Teaching the course in a pure theory format would be uninteresting, and teaching it in a purely technical manner could discourage certain students. Student engagement is a challenging task. The “so what” syndrome is common among these young learners! We increased student engagement and made the course more practical by using a framework that combines the Porter model, mini cases and social media. Porter's strategies (cost leadership, differentiation, focus and the Five Forces) establishes a framework and examines how IS/IT supported businesses operate and compete in the real world. The mini cases highlight the actual implementation of IS/IT in the real world. Social media highlights what is happening now: NFTs, metaverse and so forth.
