Technology continues to develop everyday and improve every aspect of our society. Compared to the lifestyle simply a decade ago, we live in a very convenient and advanced society with luxuries and comforts brought to us by the advancement of technology. One of the biggest improvement that I find most convenient and useful is the advancement in education. The environment in class in schools have changed drastically with new innovations that help with presenting and sharing information.

With technology continuing to help develop education, new innovations such as education apps are appearing that help kids learn new concepts before they are taught in school. Kids are beginning to enjoy the applications on smartphones and computers that exposes them to learnings in a fun medium.

Willam Liaw blogged about this topic in his post ‘Another Way to Learn?’. I agree with his point that as these applications continue to double in the app world, kids will have a larger selection to the type of education they can learn before hand. And as kids enjoy playing these educational games, they absorb more information and will develop their thinking faster. This generation should take advantage of this education which we didn’t have.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/williamliaw/2013/11/17/another-way-to-learn/

Nest released a new product called ‘The Protect’ which is a smart smoke detector that collects data about its environment before setting the alarm off. All houses have built in smoke detectors but the universal complaint is that they are too sensitive to smoke and frequently set out false alarms with high pitch sounds that shrieks.

The Protect when detecting smoke, speaks out in a voice and sends out warnings rather than a high pitch sound and lights up in three different colors, each representing the urgency level of the smoke rather than rapidly blinking lights.

I think this new product will be a huge competitor in the market as it brings various features that is an improvement to the ‘faults’ of the previous smoke detectors. The biggest complaint for this product,however, is the price. The Protect is set at a price of $129 US while regular smoke detectors range from $15-$80. Even though the product may be reviewed differently to different consumers, I believe this product will be a significant product that may eventually be widely used in households.

(image ‘The Proctect’, google image)

After reviewing Cameron Lawrence’s blog post on ‘A Phone Worrth Keeping’, I was interested to see the development of new products that are being made to beat out the most significant brand image in the technology industry. Lawrence introduce’s a new product, the ‘Phoneblok’ which is a new phone that is expected to be a new competition to Apple and Samsung, the two major companies in the phone industry.

I do believe that this new product, if let out on the market, with its new features that stands out from those of its competitors can be the biggest advantage to its marketing and can be a strong, rising competitor to the major industries. It is too early to make an assumption that Lawrence made,however, that once this product is on the market, Samsung and Apple’s sales will decrease. This product could potentially have many flaws and because its business position is to clearly differentiate itself from its competitors it does lack a point of parity. The success of the PhoneBlok is unknown but once it is on the market, it will be interesting to see how the phone industry will be affected.

(PhoneBlok: google image)

A Phone Worth Keeping

This article is how Apple has been under investigation for possible tax fraud. It is allegedly been hiding over $1.34 million dollars US from the Italian taxman. There has been various businesses who try to pass by without paying taxes for their financial benefits. In the article is presented fashion designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana who got suspended  prison sentences and ridiculously large fines for tax frauds. Not only do company’s fraud tax payments but there are also financial statement frauds.

In class we learnt what financial statement frauds are and how companies deliberately misrepresent their data to create an impression of the companies’ success and growth. Both public and private businesses commit fraud to mislead their investors or to maintain bank funds and meet the expectations of shareholders.

It is hard for such large and media- centered companies such as Apple to commit financial fraud because there is so much attention on their success and financial growth. Even though there will always be businesses trying to misrepresent their financial data, I hope that Apple, in this case, learns to be truthful to the public and present their company in the right way.

http://www.bnn.ca/News/2013/11/13/Apple-under-investigation-in-Italy-for-alleged-tax-fraud-Report.aspx

“Conventional wisdom says creating a brand is about differentiating your product. Think again” (Keller)

This quote reflects how businesses position their brands by trying to differentiate their products from those of their competitors. Yet what managers are neglecting are ‘understanding the frame of reference within which their brands work and addressing the features that brands have in common with competitors (Keller).’ Yes, it is important to have a quality of difference between a company’s product from that of another but it is also important to consider ‘points of parity’ with other products.

In class we learned about brand positioning and value propositions and this concept can be applied to this article which reviews the Sceptre Speaker SoundBar. This new product has various new features that makes it stand out from its competitors yet the product has too many features that it is adverse. For a product to stand out it also needs to have similar traits to that of competitors for consumers to believe that the product is legitimate and playing within the frame, similar to having the ‘minimum requirements’ to compete in this market.

(image: ‘Sceptre Speaker SoundBar’, google images)

http://fcis.vdu.lt/~n.klebanskaja@evf.vdu.lt/fov1-00098617/FOV1-0009D4C0/KEVIN-~1.PDF

Upon reviewing Matthew Anderson’s post ‘Sweating for Samsung’, I reflected on the current education system that young Koreans are going through to prepare themselves for employment. As a Korean who’s heard of the harsh and arduous education system in Korea, it is hard to hear that student suicide rates are increasing. They spend an abundance on preparation for applications and on top of this is stress caused from the anticipation of being selected as an employee. I do agree with Anderson that the company could help applicants with the application process and help alleviate the stress. This great amount of stress is unhealthy for the prospective employees and for the future success, the company should find a way to help these applicants. It comes to surface that companies should invest in the care of the physical and mental state of employees and prospective employees as well. For the success of the company, the personnel must be able to be fully effective and the build up of stress can lower the efficiency of the workers and the results produced by the company.

(image: ‘stress’ from google images)

https://blogs.ubc.ca/matthewanderson/2013/11/08/sweating-for-samsung/

Twitter is a social media site that is used globally, with most of its users outside of the United States even though it has American roots. Even though it is used globally, it lacks advertising experiences in international countries compared to those in the States (Joly). Twitter is now focusing on how to increase it’s advertising in foreign countries which can bring in much more financial profit.

The company is continuing to “increase the monetization of its platform” by increasing the promotions and advertisements. It’s advancing how to single out online advertisements especially since ’65 percent of its revenue came from mobile ads’ (Joly). This new promotion will only be effective if consumers in emerging markets use smartphones yet many still use low-cost phones that has no access to Twitter.

Twitter will continue to be and only become more successful as it develops its features and advertising and will increase its usage in international countries.

Jolly, David. “er’s I.P.O. Plan Has an International Focus.” . N.p.. Web. 8 Oct 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/05/business/twitters-ipo-plan-has-an-international-focus.html?ref=media&_r=0>.

While the Hong Kong Disney Land has lost millions of dollars,it’s hoping to have the successful Marvel figure, Iron Man, bring about new financial results (Barnes). “Iron Man 3” ‘took in $121.2 million in China this year (Barnes)’ so the Hong Kong Disneyland is looking for something that will create new turnaround effects. The Hong Kong Disneyland has been criticized for its small size and lack of various attractions.And they believe that they will be successful once there is a new product and will bring new and more positive attendance numbers.Based on the fact that many Chinese children have grown up without the exposure to traditional characters such as Mickey Mouse, the generation now shifted to Marvel characters such as Iron Man, which is assumed to attract more visitors to Disney Land (Barnes).

Disney is at a point where it has to change its products to match the interests of this generation. Kids are growing up without knowing the characters that were once popular and creating a need for Disney to bring about new products. In this case, the Hong Kong Disneyland needs to bring in a Marvel theme ride that was very popular in China to attract more visitors and bring effective financial results.

Barnes, Brooks. “To Lift Hong Kong Park, Disney Deploys Iron Man.” . N.p.. Web. 8 Oct 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/08/business/international/to-lift-hong-kong-park-disney-deploys-iron-man.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&ref=business>.

BlackBerry reportedly claims that the company’s loss was due to the “Z10 Inventory Charge”, which is ‘the loss associated with creating a stock of flagship handsets that subsequently failed to sell(Sakr).” While the company was preparing to launch the new BlackBerry Z10, the company’s co-founder, Michael Lazaridis, spoke up to oppose the features of the new product. He emphasized the uniqueness of the keyboard device and distinguishing the company from others, such as Apple and Samsung, which had products with all-touch screens (Sakr). Yes, BlackBerry was differentiated from others but this decision, regrettably, was a fatal mistake that made it fall behind technologically.This division from other companies, subsequently prevented the company from competing with the other companies as BlackBerry lacked the innovations that kept other rivals in the Smart Phone market.

While individuating the company from the other Smart Phone companies with its features may have been a wise marketing idea, BlackBerry failed to keep itself in the competing market and eventually brought its own failure upon itself.

Sakr, Sharif. “BlackBerry loses a billion dollars in three months, blames it on failed Z10.” . Engaget, 27 Sep 2013. Web. 8 Oct 2013. <http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/27/blackberry-loses-a-billion-dollars-on-z10-charge/>.

Blog 1: Ethics

Desperate to loose weight, some women choose to use diet drugs or “weight loss pills”, frequently coming across illegal drugs with harmful and banned ingredients that forgoes medical testings (1). Mediator, an amphetamine-derivative drug, is now believed to have taken the lives of thousands who wanted to lose weight and stands in the eye of one of France’s worst pharmaceutical scandals.

It came to recent attention that Pierre Dukan, a retired french doctor was ‘censured by France’s national medical body for failing to observe medical ethics in prescribing(2)’ diet drugs and has killed hundreds of people by damaging their heart valves. It is not illegal to  prescribe diet pills however, Dukan, was sanctioned for prescribing Mediator for long periods of time, with a sole purpose of personal promotion without ‘exercising enough care in his proposals. (2)’

There is no question that prescription and diet drugs are businesses, however, when doctors start ‘practising medicine “like a business” (2)’ we question whether medicine is to benefit the patients or the doctors and pill salesmen. The society turns to doctors to fix or ameliorate medical conditions but with doctors becoming more focused on personal businesses, who is there to trust? It doesn’t matter if doctors try to promote personal businesses as long as they stick to their ethical code of conduct and put the people’s health before their own profits.

Work Cited

(1) http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/diet-pills-danger-surge-women-2060938

(2) http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/09/pierre-dukan-france-mediator-prescription