Kevin Hung's Blog

I still remember as a kid, lying down on the grass watching the night sky. I was amazed by the sheer size of the universe and how each glimpse of light could be a planet, a star, or even a whole entire galaxy. I had a sudden realization how minute we are compare to such beautiful objects hanging in the night sky. I wondered as a kid if I will be able to go a step closer to the space and see the stars that I dreamt of. In a recent blogpost by natures.com, Virgin Galactic scored a contract for NASA’s research programs which will bring additional funding to Virgin Galactic to continue its development of the spacecraft. The future of the company looks very promising. You might wonder, how is company so successful in building its client base to seek funding for its program?

In March of 2010, VSS Enterprise of Virgin Galactic completed her maiden flight. This was a major step for the company and the possibility of space travel in the near future looks promising. According to the Virgin Galactic website: A flight costs $200,000, and deposits start at $20,000. When a client pays the deposit, they become a member of “the world’s most exclusive club with privileged access to all aspects of the project as it progresses”.

Virgin Galactic attracts its customers with very unique marketing campaign and strategy and make them feel they belong to a very exclusive and elite class that something money alone cannot buy. Virgin Galactic uses niche marketing, targeting a very elite class of clients. For the maiden flight of its fleet, only hand picked clients are invited to the viewing where the majority of the media were blocked. The clients were flew to the future site of the spaceport by helicopters for the viewing and were treated like astronauts. The company gave the clients a tour of the facility, the build of the spacecraft, as well as make go through some training of an astronauts to not only train them for the space experience but also to build the hype for the day of the real flight into space.

So far over 500 people have paid the deposit and willing to pay $200,00 for a few minutes of weightlessness including actor Ashton Kutcher who is the 500th astronaut. Despite the high development cost, Virgin Galactic is also to find funding through unique marketing strategies to attract customers, allowing its dream fly high into the clouds.

Honda introduced its dexterous and sporty hybrid coupe, Honda CR-Z, in January 2010. The new model combines the ever-so-popular hybrid technology and elements of a sports car. The result is almost a replica of the famous Honda CR-X from the 1980’s, a two seater and somewhat fuel efficient coupe that is without the horsepower. Wait a moment… is this a sports car inspiration or another smart car with a lengthier frame?

The CRZ delivers a modest 124 horsepower with its 1.5 four cylinder engine. The average American family car comes in at about 200 horsepower. Although the CR-Z is a two seater and supposed to be lighter, when its battery runs out and fails to deliver extra power it becomes an “overweight Fit”. A sports car with less horsepower than the average family car? I don’t think so.

Now lets talk about the eco-friendly button on the car which Honda is very proud of. CRZ delivers a well-respected 31 mpg in city driving. However, in comparison to the Toyota Prius’ 51mpg, the answer is clear. Why buy a two seater when you can get “more for less”?

Honda is making the same mistake as Tata did with the Nano. The idea is great especially for auto buyers in crammed countries like Japan and Taiwan, but in North America where the travel distance is much greater and where we generally have a larger family, there is no way we can fit passengers into an oddly designed trunk compartment.

Making into the Sauder School of Business was one of the biggest highlight of my life. I take pride being a part of the big Sauder family because I know I worked hard to achieve it. However, after experiencing the real university life I always yearned for in high school for, my level of confidence plummeted. The work load of university courses spiked and I am no longer top of the class no matter how hard I try. Combining with all the extracurricular activities out there my peers are involving in are just too overwhelming for me to keep up. It seems at that time my university life is going down the drain.

Fortunately, everything changed with the help of Comm 299 lecture and the resources it provides for all the students. It thought me how to start to get involve with various of activities such as fund-raising events and conferences. Where to find the resources and answers on my own and how to be on top of my game. As I have a better knowledge of the events around me, I am able to take the initiative rather than just focusing what is in front of me. Few days ago I applied to the executive positions for the 2011 Me Inc. Conference which is something I thought I would never be able to do in the beginning of the year. Even if I don’t get the position, it is still a great learning curve for me that will lead me to my dream career.

I had a pleasant half hour reading an old WIRED article called Dumpster Diving written by Torontonian Cory Doctorow. It is all about a man named Darren who makes a huge living salvaging electronics from Toronto’s dumpsters. Granted environmental legislation has taken a bite out of that business because of garbage police who insist that electronic trash be sorted, labeled and delivered to recyclers, but I am still awed by the entrepreneurial spirit and organizational skill of the featured dumpster diver. Anyone would agree with Darren that a proprietorship which has zero capital outlay, no overhead cost beyond a tank of gas and a midnight snack, and which often yields a thousand dollar with a few hours of work. (Sometimes up to $10,000) It’s a “niche” worth developing.

I can’t help wondering how many Darren’s there are out here in Vancouver. Further, I am curious as to the utility of using dumpster diving as an economic indicator. In the first instance, electrons become outdated faster than any other product including fashion. The discarding of unwanted hardware is colossal. But would a sudden upsurge in orders lead a wholesaler or manufacturer to mark down older stock or simply discard it? Possibly no two managers would make the same call.

Of course Doctorow only covered the issue from Darren’s side of the fence. When a retailer or a manufacturer fills his dumpster, severe things had happened. The first thing is a dollar value has been given to the material which has to be accounted for at tax time. Additionally, serial numbers, lot numbers or batch numbers are kept because discarded items are no longer covered by warranty. Further, should these goods – damaged, expired or even pristine turn up in a consumer’s hands, and fail, there is a great risk to the brand or reputation of the company. All business mangers understand this. Dumpster divers don’t care.

According to a report on the Canadian Statistics site, Canadian GDP dropped 2.9% in 2009. With China’s GDP continuing to fly like a rocket, the Canadian figure should be setting off an alarm bell to the parliament. Why is that? Could it have something to do with the Nation aversion to discussing the “p” word (productivity). Until Canadian overcomes their squeamishness on these issues, we are not going to get our hand around the throat of this productivity dragon.

In December 2005, when the liberal government was preparing a pre-election mini budget, the finance minister hired the polling company Decima Research to discover which words should be avoided when explaining government’s economic objective. By far the most offending word is productivity. This is bad news because as Canada’s population ages and the available workforce shrinks, only two factors can possibly keep up with the need to fund the nation’s social safety net – productivity and sky high prices for our natural resources. This was not a simple telephone pole a series of ten focus group section held in the major cities. The groups loved the words prosperity, growth and innovation. They hated the word productivity and as a result minister Goodale switched to the only “p” word that will pass muster – “prosperity”. He decided that “rates and ratios” and “obscure statistics” were to be avoided. (Vancouver Sun December 2007 “Productivity a negative word”)

Currently on Statistics Canada website reports that Canada’s GDP declined 2.9% in 2009. The wikipage “Comparison of Canadian and American economies”, has something to say on this issue although the information is dated. “Canadian workers are estimated to be 82% as productive per hour as their American counterparts”. It further says Canadians are more productivity in construction and natural resource sectors.

The CGA association defines productivity as “the efficiency with which goods or services are produced by a given set of inputs, such as capital, raw materials and labour”. They list six key factors that are causing decline in our worker’s productivity. None of them had anything to do with employee initiative, motivation, or work ethic. The employee is rendered blameless just as he was when minister Goodale was working to craft the message that would hoodwink the Canadian voters.

The goal of companies are to make profit. They are free to take any measure or action within the laws and regulations set by the government to maximize their profit. Unfortunately some companies are willing to take the risk of practicing unethically action for their own benefit. Sometimes they get away with it, but when they are caught its a huge price to pay.

On October 26th, Glaxo settled criminal and civil complaints with $750 million US for knowingly selling contaminated baby ointment and an ineffective antidepressant. This is just one of the “growing number of multimillion-dollar whistle-blower lawsuits”. Cheryl D. Eckard, Glaxo’s quality manager was fired after warning the company regrading the contamination of a plant in Puerto Pico. What’s the point of the point of having a quality manager if you are going to fire her? Clearly Glaxo only wanted to meet the minimum requirement to obtain its license.

On October 10, 2010, Virgin Galactic had its first successful sub-orbital flight. This marks another milestone for human in the space exploration. Not only will it serve commercially but also provide support to “agency exploration, science and aeronautics mission” for NASA. Reference. NASA will also rely on Virgin Galactic to provide transportation to the International Space Station (ISS) as NASA sets its aim on more wondrous missions. Earlier this year, the US congress has granted NASA over $100 billion US to support its mission for the next 5 years. NASA BUDGET

There are more urgent problems that the US government is facing at the present such a health care, national defense, and financial crisis. Moreover, nearly 1 billion people in Africa are without access to safe drinking water. Is it ethical for the US government to be allocating such an significant amount of money into the space program? Perhaps the answer is Yes which might be a surprise to many people. Stephen Hawking, Physics Nobel Prize recipient, stated that “the human race will not survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space since there are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I’m an optimist. We will reach out to the stars.” If humans continue to destroy the Earth, one day Earth will no longer be able to sustain life. Without the space program, we will not have the ability to deal with it when that day comes.

In late September, RIM announced their newest product, the PlayBook, hoping to gain market share in the tablet world. Along with the purchase of QNX, RIM’s future looks promising and many fear that it will gain an unfair competitive advantage. However, RIM is sticking its neck out into a market that has been dominated by the Apple iPad since its release in early 2010. Apple has set great “barriers of entry” by setting a very high standard and has an almost invincible reputation. In order for RIM to succeed, it must catch up with Apple’s technology and gain the consumers’ trust. Microsoft will soon hit the same wall with its ambition of targeting the Smartphone market.

Microsoft released its new mobile phone operating system called the Windows Phone 7 hoping to “recoup lost ground from Apple and Google” Microsoft unveils its Windows Phone 7. Although its new software received some strong early reviews, “It’s a gamble” said Al Hilwa, an analyst at IDC. It is shifting its focus away from corporate users to retail consumers, just as RIM is aiming its Playbook. Microsoft is dancing around in a market that is dominated by Blackberry and iPhone See Statistics. Will we see a third major competitor in that field? Perhaps not. In the short run, the company will face a tough obstacle trying to gain market share in the Smartphone market. Although the market will become more elastic as other companies and Microsoft catch up with the game, Apple and RIM are already ahead of everyone else. It would be smarter to target a whole new group of consumers or focus on what it does the best, computer software. Who knows if one day Apple OS will overtake Windows as Microsoft raises its sights.