Month: October 2011

Referring to Helen Ip’s blog post “Not Enough jobs in the U.S.”, there are about 14 million Americans who are unemployed and cannot find a job. Even though the labor department has announced that they have created 103000 job opportunities, but that certainly has not lowered the unemployment rate with a significant impact.

My assumption to why the labor department is having struggles to lower unemployment rate is the kind of jobs they created do not match with what the unemployed people want, or vice versa. For example, a fresh college graduate  is looking for a job that is relevant to what he or she has learned in college; however, there isn’t any current relevant job openings available. Therefore, he will be unemployed until either certain specific job opportunities to him are open or he can no longer afford his living expenses that he has to work for something that he doesn’t enjoy.

My recommendation to the U.S. labor department is to research what kind of job opportunities that most  of the unemployed people are looking for. From there, the department can work with some government departments and organizations to create the kind of jobs that people actually desire.

In North America, Harley-Davidson (HOG) is known as a high-class/luxurious brand of motorcycle. However, after six years of operating in China it still sells less bikes than in its home based Milwaukee, whose population is 2,300 times smaller than China’s. Now the question is Why Harley can’t rev up in China?

The main reason that Harley is having struggles on its sales is the strict vehicle restrictions in China. Motorcycles are banned to go on elevated highways and major thoroughfares to curb noise and thefts. There are just too many roads that motorcycles cannot ride on and the rules vary over place to place. And now my wonder is how prepared Harley was with market research before it entered the China market?

Before Harley decided to start selling its bikes to the Chinese, they could have done a research on the popularity that people use motorcycles to transport in China and more importantly, how much the vehicle restrictions would influence its sales. Therefore, Harley could have had different strategies like modifying its bikes to match with the regulations, such as reducing the bikes’ noise level and carbon dioxide exhaustion to increase its sale in the Chinese market.

Comments on Jimmy Liu’s Blog and Maricel Saenz’s Blog

BlackBerry with its fantastic email-receiving and reliable security systems has always known as a very  reliable smart phone which makes many people’s lives a lot easier and more convenient. Yet, couple days ago there was a major BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) service outage and most or all BBM users around the world were affected for up to three days. With the lack of new innovative and refreshing phones and features recently the satisfaction of many BlackBerry and non-BlackBerry users with RIM (the Canadian BlackBerry making company) is going down the hill even faster.

On the other hand, what are the upsides of the BBM’s outage this time? We see there were lots of complains and news flowing in the Internet immediately, but what does that mean? It means that BlackBerry is a huge deal to people and people rely on it very heavily to reply emails and communicate via BBM. Although this BBM outage might have dropped some prospective BlackBerry buyers to eliminate BlackBerry as an option, most current BlackBerry users will still keep using their BlackBerrys as number one item to hold in their hands. This stumble of Rim will soon be forgiving and even forgotten.

Article: BlackBerry outage: Another burning platform

Comments on Derek Huang’s Blog and Sarah Wang’s Blog

Steve Jobs, the technology godfather, has passed away on Tuesday. In the past decade, he not only changed the smartphone, music and tablet industries. He has also changed the world and how people live tremendously with his innovative ideas. Furthermore, Steve Jobs has also become an icon of every single Apple’s product presentation. The approach that he introduces his new products and the sense of humor he has have certainly impressed so many people, including myself.

With a mind to create incredible and unique products and the ability to effectively sell them to thousands of millions of customers, Steve Jobs is like a superhero figure in the business world. He also once said “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me… Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.” I completely agreed with this quote of his. The success of business is not only determined by the amount of profits a company makes, the satisfaction of work also matters very much.

It is depressing to see that Steve is now gone, but his spirit and belief will always stay in my heart to keep me moving forward.

Article: Steve Job’s biggest contribution

Comments: Angelica Cabrera’s Blog and Tique Chandler’s Blog

Before moving to Vancouver, I had been living in Hong Kong for thirteen years. During the thirteen years, there was always a domestic helper in my house since my parents both had to work and there was nobody else who could take care of me and my sister. We were very close together and I’m very glad that the Hong Kong’s High Court finally passed the law that the domestic workers from the Philippines are allowed to apply for permanent residency in the city.

Although I certainly understand that giving the domestic workers a permanent residency would cause the government a lot more money on education, public housing and health care, having basic human ethical rights are even more important. If these domestic workers are working for the Hong Kong citizens and contributing to the city, they should definitely deserve the permission to stay in the city permanently.

Moreover, this is only a small step that Hong Kong has taken to improve its worker’s conditions. To further develop it in a long-term run, a higher minimum wage, better work benefits and shorter mandatory working hours will have to be accomplished to reach the ultimate goal.

Article: Philippine immigrant maid wins landmark Hong Kong case (BBC)

Comments on Piper Hoekstra’s Blog and Nadia Gunderson’s Blog