Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School professor, recently commented that what really motivates employees are mastery, membership and meaning. These concepts are less mentioned as refer to organizational behavior.

She found people put money after those three criteria. It can not be an absolute tendency, but some people do judge values differently.

Basically, they demonstrates mastery, which focuses on the professional skill development. With the fierce competition in company, employees sometimes care more about salaries and promotion rather than solid skills. While, sticking to mastery leads to active atmosphere.

While, membership is more common sense, but here emphasizes the interaction between the whole company and every individual. People do not only get the recognition that they are a part of company, but actually involved in by relating themselves with company, for instance, “bringing outside interests to work.” Zappo can be a good example of this culture.

The last point is meaning, in other words, value. They are not merely work for profit, but for the gained satisfaction as they contribute to society. They consider their work as a part of society function, thus they bring solutions or even values to others. In return, they get the sense of happiness, which is the ultimate goal of life. In terms of social value, I believe social enterprise is more or less work on it.

Overall, three newly discovered motivations are more powerful and permanent factors.

Reference: http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/10/three-things-that-actually-motivate-employees/

I recently read a blog article Response is Marketing which was written by Chris Brogan. He is a publisher of a business magazine Owner Magazine and the CEO of a media company Human Business Works. He often relates short stories to business concepts and show personal perspective.

He pointed that “responding is marketing, is business, is an opportunity” in this blog. The corn idea is that timely reaction or even mutual interaction is required. Based on his opinion, my understanding is that immediate response help establish relationship between people. Only then you get the response from others, you can take further action as a response. In the process of evaluation and reaction to the response, the ultimate need turns more clear. If we put this idea into business, it can be a part of customer relationship, a crucial part of business. It can be related to lean startup, which focused on quick hypotheses, test, adjust and make hypotheses again. Then, response will be very important in such business model.

Make it simple, response is marketing.

Reference: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/a-response-is-marketing/

Learning the application of social enterprises, I found it is practical and valuable. In order to maintain the popularity and function of a business, companies need continuous  innovation and modification. It was concluded five top social softwares that were considered as best examples of this kind of business. These are Jive, Yammer, Kaltura, Salesforce and Oracle.

Among them, Yammer is quite special, for it was founded by the former COO of PayPal, and the organization allows only “VIP” customers to participate communication. Microsoft bought it last year, and it was commended as a “smart move” since over “2000,000 employers use the software worldwide, including 85% of Fortune 500 companies.” This organization attracts people for its high standard of think tank.

Another organization Kaltura is known for “video-related social enterprise software” and an interactive project “Corporate Tube” which connects employees and customers. This organization emphasizes on the creative communication way and gets advantage already. It seems Kaltura saw the core of business– pelple.

Overall, more social enterprises aim at helping business to get to a new stage with innovation and rational analysis. This kind of organizations become more important as the society value ideas as priceless thing.

Reference:

http://mashable.com/2012/08/15/business-social-enterprise-technologies/

I recently read Sauder Fan’s blog, which talked about a new invention, coin card. It includes information up to eight cards. Holders can switch cards through a circular button. It is also tied to one’s phone as the identity verification. The security solution makes the product more popular. The coin card was initially produced by a startup business.

Such new tech is fit well in startup mode. Because technology requires creative modification and continuous update. Since it was first launched, it should refer to public’s response to improve the product.

From the marketing angle, the company gets opportunities as it is the first get into the industry and consumers are fed up with this need. However, since it was a startup business, it means there are potential competitors with the relative low cost of money and time.

As it is a fast growing society, things require efficiency, this convenient card might be noticed among the public. I am looking forward to see the development of this new tech and changes it makes.

Short Video: Coin Card Info

As an apple fan, I only learned the new product of blackberry on friend Rio’s blog (https://blogs.ubc.ca/rioxinranli/2013/10/08/blackberrys-new-smartphone/). She introduced the newly launched smartphone Z30, which considered as a revolution with new feature– touching screen.

Rio said blackberry firstly believed in the full keyboard design, then focused on the tabulate touch screen design, they totally missed the best time of getting into the expected field. My suggestion is establishing a stronger relationship with customers. They lacked the sense of customer’s preference when worked on new product, so they lost the market of touching screen product first and then smartphone. Customer’s opinion is always important when consider a lean startup, maybe as well as referring to a new product. Samsung is doing well on this part as they frequently design and launch new products with little changes.

However, though decided to make a change, Blackberry is left behind too much, it was obviously showed in the data. The following picture shows features of Z30.

Compared to Z30, iphone 5s actually gets a more detailed information about battery, and it extends the battery life of 4s. Also, iphone 5s has more choices of capacity besides 16GB. For the touch screen, Apple would never be slow, it even add a new function– fingerprint, which is fresh and attractive. Though Blackberry is ready for the 4G LTE, Apple actually supports 4G as well, it also considers about 3G to take care of customers from some countries like China.

But still, we are looking forward to Blackberry’s change.

It is getting to another black friday, I am thinking about the possibility of having a new iphone while holding the broken one. Actually, the broken iphone is just an excuse, and black friday is the real attraction.

More and more stores and sellers are considering holidays and festivals as opportunities to promote sales and get a incredible increase of profit in the period. The most common example is special deals on black friday, and similarly, there are promotion sales on Single’s Day(11th Nov) in China. It has been proved to be an excellent strategy when referring to selling products.

According to the SWOT analysis, promotion sales get more advantages than disadvantages. Take Apple as a typical example. The unique designed and high quality products are popular among customers. Also, fewer discount compared with other brand making the chance treasurable. Opposite to these strengths, weakness is the high price which may prevent a proportion of low income group. While, Apple gets opportunity like electronics are tending to be more common and affordable. In contrast, the threat is numerous competitors are in this industry, and they are offering good products and the sales as well. It means more choices and possibility of losing part of potential customers.

Overall, Apple’s advantages outweigh disadvantages, people are crazy about getting Apple products, you may see long lines outside apple stores or other markets that sell Apple products. If you are careful enough, you may find me waiting in the line!

Earlier in September, Microsoft made an official announcement that it would gradually purchase Nokia, the previous giant in mobile industry, “for a total transaction price of EUR 5.44 billion in cash”.(http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2013/sep13/09-02announcementpr.aspx)

Actually, there were constant speculation that Microsoft would give up the partnership with Nokia since their first cooperation. As the hit of brand new smart phone–iphone occurred, Nokia’s market kept shrinking in a dramatic pace in recent years. While, as a new contender in mobile industry, Microsoft suffered from the intense competition with several well-known brands. Thus, Nokia seemed not to be the best choice for Microsoft. Especially, suspicion rose to a new extent when Microsoft forbade Lumia users’ update of new Windows Phone system. Additionally, rumors that Microsoft would focus on their own smart phone appeared to cause a distrust between the two partners.

However,it was surprisingly to found the ongoing purchase, since the common sense is that partner should be absolutely helpful with profit of business. Though, “Microsoft aims to accelerate the growth of its share and profit in mobile devices through faster innovation, increased synergies, and unified branding and marketing.”(http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2013/sep13/09-02announcementpr.aspx)

Personally, I doubt the combination of two declining companies (for the overall comparison to previous achievements). Nevertheless, market is changing fast, consumers can not tell the future in next second. Let’s looking forward to their new stage.

Here’s a short funny video about the purchase: Hitler’s reaction when Microsoft bought Nokia

I first saw the version of “the voice” is “The Voice of China”, which hit the public immediately. Before its emergence, there was a popular television show already occupied the first place among various reality shows in China for years. However, audience was shocked by the creative format of the new program, and contributed a lot to the profit of the show. Thus, a series of analysis about the business model were covered to discuss the success of “the voice”.

First of all, it gets a better value proposition than other similar shows. It creates original “turning chairs”, which feed audience with the preference of fresh format and the appreciation of pure voice, rather than shallow stage performance. Another point is that the original version “The Voice of Holland” really gets good partners. Many televisions   negotiated to buy the copyright of “The Voice of Holland”, which considered as the key resource, and a bunch of advertising companies contacted to cooperate. For “The Voice of China” season 2, the advertising earnings was 1 billion RMB. Besides, the target crowd can be an interesting part, because it doesn’t only care about young people like many other shows do, rather, it accepts all people within different ages, occupations and experiences. Actually, actions of modifications are occur to different versions to fit in with local environments.

Overall, an entertainment hurricane is emerging and we want to know how long it can lasts.

Alibaba recently launched a new e-business production Yuebao, which aims at  online financial fund, including corporate debt and government bonds. Significantly and surprisingly, without any marketing strategy, “Alibaba’s Yuebao has grown to 2.5 million users who have collectively deposited RMB 6.601 billion ($1.07 billion)” within only half a month.

Though there was no specific marketing plan, I see advantages of Yuebao. Obviously, the value of the brand Alibaba arises public attention, since they already succeed on a third payment platform Alipay. In addition, Yuebao exactly feeds consumers with value proposition. With higher interest rate than most banks, it easily attracts customers. Also, as Yuebao is connected to Alipay, it achieves a broader business with multifunctional transaction, for instance, transfer money and payment for online shopping. Besides, Yuebao launched its program on App store, which makes it more convenient on cell phone.

Jack Ma, the previous CEO of Alibaba commented that “China’s financial industry, especially the banking industry, only serves 20 percent of clients, and I see there are 80 percent of the clients are not covered. Financial services should be about serving the layman, rather than playing inside your own circles and make money yourself.”

Some netizens are impressed and believe that China’s finance industry will occur an earthquake since Yuebao makes a huge change within an expanding range.

Personally, I worship Jack Ma who is so creative that encourages lots of Chinese people, no matter as a consumer or as a learner. Through his several speeches, you can tell his value and conscience, that is the reason he gain trust from public. Finally, a little story to end the introduction is that my mother has already put her money in Yuebao.

Link: Short Video  Alipay service gains rising popularity

Reference:

Alibaba’s New Online Personal Finance Product Hits 2.5 Million Users, $1 Billion Already Deposited (http://www.techinasia.com/alibaba-yuebao-personal-finance-product/)

Milton Friedman, a notable American economist once pointed out that the mere responsibility of businessmen is create utmost value with scarce resources. However, the premise is obey juristic and moral criterion.

While, some businessmen can easily abandon the restraint with the temptation of self interests. Such phenomenon generated from distinct situations, but they finally reflect one fact that business ethics is collapsing.

Mostly, corporations care least about customers expectation and reaction, for instance, Sanlu Group, whose product did great harm to innocent infant. To made more profit, it replaced nutritive ingredients by fake components and caused illness and death.(http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/sep/18/china)

Besides customer, competitors can be targeted. Companies may make trick to obtain advantages. Referring to Baidu Inc. and Qihoo 360 Technology Co., who keep fighting with each other, both believe the other exploit their technology and resources.(http://www.venturedata.org/?i480890_360-accused-Baidu-browser-malicious-shielding-Baidu-said-it-confuse)

Actually, regardless of the procedures, the only consequence is that businessmen ruin reputation and potential market by giving up business ethics. Though some may realize this point, temptation of money reamains a challenge.