Regarding Ron AshKenas’s “Don’t Ask for Feedback Unless You Want It”, I thought it was an interesting take on the psychology behaviour of humans.

Throughout education, we were taught that we should always ask for feedback for any of our work because having others’ opinions will further stimulate our critical thinking. However, this behaviour is not necessarily beneficial. In fact, Ashkenas states that we only ask because we feel obligated to. We may not actually feel the need to ask for feedback if we are already confident about ourselves, but we still ask anyway because we feel socially mandated to.

Personally, I find myself guilty of this behaviour when I ask my friends about decisions that I have already decided. However, I believe it is the reassurance and support that my choice was correct that I go ask for my friends’ advice. If you are absolutely confident what you decided to right for you, asking people for their feedback might instead hinder your outcome as their suggestion may advice you to think differently.

After reading the Arya Radjendra’s blog post about making a sustainable social good, I completely agree and I would like to add on to this idea with a bit of my insight. Many people are now gearing towards creating a business not solely based on generating revenues and profits, but rather, how to create a business that can socially benefit the society.

Making a socially responsible business is of course a good cause, but the challenge for these businesses is how to sustain it in a long term period. The fresh milk seller visited by the Arc Initiative from Sauder shows exactly how this can be done. The owner realized that it is a highly profitable opportunity for a milk business and opened stores within the area to sell fresh milk. This is done by transporting milk from the farms in the rural areas everyday to achieve this. This business could be classified as a social enterprise because

1) The owner created jobs for the drivers to transport the milk each day.
2) The farmers are able to exchange the excess milk supply from the cows for extra money or goods.
3) The citizens that live in the area are able to buy fresh and organic milk that is healthy.

Today, another Sauder BCom alumnus, Tom Dobrzanski, came to speak for a few minutes about his ventures into the music business. Honestly, I’m very impressed and pleased with the amount of guest speakers and professors the class has brought in. Thank you Comm 101!

Anyways, I thought it was very inspiring to listen to Tom talk about his business as he was able to incorporate what he had learned from school and apply to his interest, music. It was particularly fascinating to learn that it was by chance he became involved with his band and the realization that linking his degree to a business in the music industry was possible. Many people come into business school with the hope of finding a job with satisfying pay after graduating; I too fall in this category. However, we fail to realize that working on a job we are passionate about is equally important. I believe in order to find true happiness, it is very important to follow your passion and work on a job that you are actually interested in rather than simply for the sake of a good pay. I am jealous of these people that have found their passion and work as I have not yet found mine, but I am inspired to do the same.

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