Creative innovation requires taking risks, accepting failure, rejecting convention and exploring unproven methods.

Like blog states, “successful innovation is a numbers game of high output for minimal success with high reward.”

And companies are cost minimizers so why would they risk that?  In the field of innovation, very rarely do your ideas make  it big. Do you have a grand idea that you think will change the way we view the world or do business? Well too bad because the likelihood of that happening is slim. Companies don’t want something costly and they don’t want something risky either. So how is anyone able to come up with an idea that will change the face of the game?

I’ve talked about the high price of a degree before but in this case I’m responding to Vanessa Lau’s post about entrepreneurship.

I agree with her. As she says, “Many successful entrepreneurs, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckenberg, didn’t even complete their degrees, and look at them now!  You can even google the list of billionaire drop outs, and the list goes on and on.” 

So the question remains, what makes a Business Man successful? I, for one, do not think that it has to do with the degree. You can have all the degrees you want but that doesn’t make you a quality business person. It’s all about the idea and willingness to see it through to the end. I bet a lot of us in Sauder are at University for the sake of getting a degree. We’re not particularly passionate about business. We’re just going through the motions of getting a boring a degree then getting a boring job.

Why would anyone ever want to work on a holiday? Especially on a day that’s meant to be a day of being thankful. But stores like Walmart and Target see it as a day of making as much money as possible. 

“Every year the opening gets earlier and earlier. Before long, we will be open all day on Thanksgiving,” she said. “Thanksgiving is a day about families, and giving thanks for what we have got. There are a lot of single parents at Target. This just ruins the holiday for them.”

She said she had been surprised by management’s attitude to the holiday. “I have always enjoyed working here and they have always seemed flexible,” she said. But not about this. “Their attitude seems to be: if you don’t turn up for work, you don’t have a job.”

I’m all for maximizing profits but this is just too much for me. Why does maximizing profits have to supersede the morals of being a decent human being?   I understand that Businesses are free to do as they please. If being open during holidays was a poor choice then it would reflect in sales. But, it doesn’t because people want to shop. So I guess things we’ll just continue to get worse.

I’m not even going to address the corruption or scandals going on within the government but whoever thought that increasing the price of rice would increase demand clearly needs to go back to school.

“In theory, the policy makes perfect sense. If you pay farmers above the market rate for paddy they will earn more, Thai rice – already known for its quality – will rise in price and in turn force up prices on world markets.”

How in the world does that make perfect sense? If you increase supply and arbitrarily raise the price without any increase in demand why would that ever be successful? Isn’t that just basic economics?

I think this is why Professor Gateman hates government intervention within the market. Because all they ever do is leave things off worse than how they were before.

Investment Banking is a dangerous game. There’s no question about it. Especially when there is little to no liability.

2012 has been a hard year for banks in general. There have been a large number of scandals and people are just sick and tired of Banks.

Thomas Jefferson once said, “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.” 

Investment Banking is only dangerous because banks are dangerous. They care nothing about their customers and more about achieving a profit. This attitude coupled with almost no liability leaves Banks with far too much power than they deserve. I believe the article is right in stating that Banks need to start feeling the consequences of their reckless attitude.

The internet has helped the world progress to many different heights in a variety of aspects. But to call it one of “the most important education technology in 200 years”  seems a bit of stretch to me.

We all know how expensive education is and I doubt Online Education will disrupt this highly profitable business.

Perhaps I just can’t see the big picture, but I see the Online education as a great tool to help you learn while you are still studying in school. They’re almost a substitute for tutoring. However, the traditional education model will always be more effective because employers are still relying on degrees/certificates from well renowned institutions.

In the end, I don’t see, at this point, traditional learning institutions being hard hit by a few online courses. As a university student, I should know that you don’t pay for the education. You pay for the credibility of the university.

Apple has a knack of making millions due to it’s brand name. No matter what it does on the sidelines.

One of Apple’s manufacturers, Foxconn, is under fire again. “Workers went on strike at Foxconn’s Zhengzhou complex in central China on Friday,” and the result is tight availability for the new iphone 5. I say good.

We all know of Foxconn’s history so to know that the employees still haven’t given up gets me fired up. While the rest of the world was excited about the new iphone 5, I’ll be excited about the limited quantity of the product entering the market because it’s producers are fighting for their basic rights.

I don’t think there is much I need to say.  We know Foxconn and Apple are wrong. Even they know that they’re wrong. So please enlighten me how anyone can justify buying their products?

It seems that China is starting to lose some business. “Reshoring” is starting to become common practice among businesses and I can’t decide whether this is a good thing or bad thing.

You could easily list out all the points as the why it’s good. Helps the local economy and what not.
But as we slowly pull out of China we’re going to leave China in a terrible economic state. I know that countries should be looking out for themselves, especially in the state the World is, but as we’re all grasping for the top we’re going have to kick some people down.

As much as I’d like the world to be picture perfect; I know it can’t happen. So I say bring the companies home.

We’ve all done it before. We’ve browsed store catalogue through store catalogue online in order to find the best deals. It seems that Best Buy is learning the tactics of it’s consumers.  They’re thinking about cutting their prices online in order to better compete. 

As the article says, Best Buy is in a bit of a slump at the moment. They’re thinking about cutting costs by shutting down stores while founder, Richard Schulze, believes, “a combination of lower prices and good customer service as the key to saving the company.”

A combination of Apple’s great customer service and cheaper prices online would work… if you were Apple. Best Buy just doesn’t have the ability Apple does to grab it’s costumers. If anything it may just prolong Best Buy’s slow demise.

A deadly fire killed hundreds in Ali Enterprise’s factory in Karachi, Pakistan. You’d expect that a tragedy like this could have been prevented. And you’re right. It could have but in a world where money takes precedence over safety, things like this happen more often then you know of.

There have been numerous occurrences over the years where lack in safety has taken a back seat in order for the company to make more profit. Just to quote a few from the article:

• September 2012: At least 38 killed in a fire at a fireworks factory in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu
• August 2004: A fire in a supermarket in Paraguay kills at least 364 people
• November 1993: More than 80 workers killed in a fire in a toy factory in southern China
• May 1993: At least 188 people are killed in a fire at a Thai toy factory

Almost all these buildings lacked little to no fire extinguishers or fire escapes. In some of the factories, like Ali Enterprise’s, fire exits were blocked off for more storage space. There was one way in and one way out and people were running to escape before the only entrance was smothered in flames.

The lack of safety for more output is a common practice in third world countries. Why? Because they want to meet the demand of their employer. Giant Businesses that have no care of where their product is created. It’s not like it’s subtle either. We, as consumers, are aware of this fact but we’ll still buy the product. To ask a simple question, why?

Footage of the Deadly Fire  

Pictures of the Tragedy 

Additional Reading