Annie Huang's Blog

In the discussion today, we were given a worksheet to fill in ideas on potential environmental issues in UBC and ways to be more environmentally friendly. Our idea was to increase the fees for parking. As many students choose to commute to school by driving instead of busing, it is highly polluting the environment with the high emission of carbon dioxide. I know people who drives to school just for the sake of “looking cool” and to show off their proficiency in driving, to their friends. The surprising fact is that they do not even live far from the campus and are within fast busing distance.

UBC is spending a grand amount of money to make the school more sustainable. It is unfair for students to abuse the effort of UBC and continue to increase their carbon footprint. Therefore, it is reasonable to increase the parking fee to make up for the sustainability projects and to lower the chance of students driving.

Picture from: http://www.clker.com/clipart-6863.html

According to the reports from Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, tuition for undergraduates have risen by 6.2% annually since 1990. In Canadian universities, it costs an average of $6,186 per year, for a student, not including books, food, and residential fees. From the growth rate, the amount may be increased to $7,330 in four years.

Although students could get student loans, it is extremely difficult for them to repay their loans unless they find an occupation with sufficient salaries. The average debt of $27,000 for students after graduation is rather large and is not a good way for graduates to start their career path.

This puts pressure on the families of students as they have to take out second mortgages to help pay off the debt or even delay their retirement. The government is more willing to lend out more loans than lowering the tuition fee. In my opinion, I believe it is because some families do not apply for loans and pay the tuition themselves. These include families with higher income and international students. Therefore, the Canadian government will attain a higher return from tuition fees.

Article from: http://business.financialpost.com/2012/09/11/tuition-fees-ballooning-in-canada/

Picture from: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2008/05/15/f-highereducation-tuitionfees.html

During class, we were given the assignment to make a phone app for chocolate. Our idea was to use the measurement technique. Our app begins with a page with pictures of all the chocolate that the company manufactures. When the picture is clicked, consumers will be able to see information about that specific chocolate such as what the ingredient is, how the chocolate is made, where the different ingredients came from, etc. It is essentially an app that gives the consumers information about the components of the different types of chocolate. However, the actual point of the app is to see which image of chocolate appeals to consumers the most. Do most consumers like white chocolate? Dark chocolate? Round? Square? Flat? Our ultimate goal is to extract those data from the amount of clicks from consumers in order to determine which chocolate design is more appealing.
      

Images from:

http://parents.mit.edu/s/1314/04-parents/index.aspx?sid=1314&gid=31&pgid=252&cid=4331&ecid=4331&crid=0&calpgid=61&calcid=4329
http://www.umassmed.edu/healthyheart/chocolate.aspx
http://032304b.netsolhost.com/WordPress/?p=644

Due to the dangers of Hurricane Sandy, airlines cancelled thousands of flights and affected insurance companies negatively. The airlines in U.S. Northeast is stopped for at least two days and over 10,000 flights were cancelled from Washington to Boston. Passengers from oversea (Hong Kong, Europe, etc) are stranded there. The damages done by Hurricane Sandy to houses and properties caused insurance companies to lose up to 5 billion dollars to repair for the damages. At the same time, businesses are affected as there are power outages and disruptions in major East Coast cities. Consumers are less likely to do their holiday shopping at department stores and this results in major retailers losing billions of dollars. Hopefully the economy will recover from this disaster.

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Hurricane+Sandy+could+billion+damage+more+than+Irene/7464935/story.html

The title of the article, “Babies born in late fall face disadvantage making it to the CEO’s job, study reveals”, had caught my attention. It had always peaked to my curiosity in regards to a person’s probability of succeeding due to birth-dates because of my devoted interest in horoscopes and personality tests. My interpretation of horoscopes allowed me to believe that people born between January and June are “A type” people (more goal oriented and logical) and that people born between July and December are “B type” people (more emotional and calm).

However, studies actually show that in a classroom, younger children absorb less information than relatively older children. This does make sense because one who is born in February would have had six more month to learn their ABCs or numbers compared to one who is born in August. This gives older children an advantage in their elementary school years as they always seem to understand the teacher more compared to a younger student who may have trouble with alphabets and numbers. In my perspective, I hope this is not a definite causation factor because I am an August baby.

Article from: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Babies+born+late+fall+face+disadvantage+making+study+reveals/7436057/story.html#ixzz2AHJKakuU

Picture from: http://businesstopdogs.com/business/the-basics-for-the-budding-entrepreneur/attachment/adorable-baby-boy-in-suit-on-cellphone/

I agree with Andrew’s position on the fact that brand name is crucial to a company’s success and recognition. The Seattle Premiums Outlet as he mentioned, has attracted a huge amount of consumers from Canada to the United States because of its well known brands such as; Nike, Aeropostale, Ecko, Nike, Coach, Polo Ralph Lauren, Gap, and Burberry. The strength of the Seattle Premiums Outlet is that they do not invest in advertisements, their existence is merely a word of mouth. They are known to sell branded clothes and shoes for a relatively lower price than in the stores in Canada. During holidays, families and friends often travel the two and a half hour drive to Seattle, have a buffet in the Tulalip Resort Casino. Men can enjoy their desire to gamble and women can bring their children to the outlet and finish up their Christmas shopping! Having the Tulalip Report and Outlet side by side, they complement each other because they target different markets and is convenient for all members of a family.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/andrewleong/

The business plan project was quite interesting. My team went through all the business plans in all the volumes. It was quite impressive to see how much information there is in each business plan. The plans were extremely detailed as it showed the financial summaries, objectives, strategies to achieve goals, point of different, market analysis, target market, competition, risks, marketing strategies, and etc. Most of these are things I had learned in marketing. I was tempted to purchase these books as they appear helpful if I want to start a business. Different businesses have different benefits and risks, it is important for me to know the advantages of my region and my target market to know which business plan to choose. My group has chosen a business plan that is not common in Vancouver. The reason we chose it is because it has a huge point of difference. We do not see this business anywhere and my team is quite passionate about this business because of its potential of having a monopoly. We are quite certain that it will attract most target markets.

For the video assessment, it allowed me to pay more attention to the video lesson. Usually it is quite difficult for me to concentrate on videos if there aren’t a lot of pictures. However, knowing that there is an assessment for it, I had to pay attention to every word and floating diagram. Although it said that I can have unlimited tries for the assessment, overall it showed only the mark for the first attempt. I am not too sure if it will actually go towards the final mark.

The articles were rather long and overly detailed. I read it many times and was unable to concentrate on the important concepts because I was distracted by the huge amount of numbers in the articles. There were too many examples of different company’s actions and I lost track of what the article was actually about. I hope the articles could be shorter and to the point so that it will be less confusing and more interesting.

Having a lesson on marketing gave me a better insight on how marketing actually works. In high school, I was taught the 4Ps, price, product, promotion, and place. We were never really taught about competition and the various methods of building a brand. it was extremely helpful to learn how to make a perceptual map. It allowed me to categorize various brands of the same parity into different categories such as price, flavor, or how well-known it is. I have seen this kind of categorization before but have never used it first hand. Doing it today allowed me to realize where different brands stand in consumer’s minds.
The draft we did in class was rather difficult because we were trying to get the sentence to make sense. Our product was Godiva and it was hard to think of function of chocolate other than the fact that it can be consumed. One point of difference is that it is a well known expensive brand and that it would be quite classy to give away as a gift. Overall, I believe our group collaborated well and were gave a significant amount of effort for this mini assignment.

With the increasing natural gas price, the Governor of Pennsylvania is introducing the use of shale gas instead of promoting the use of solar energy. The Governor declares that by using solar energy, its cost will exceed the cost of using shale gas. However, he also states that one of their reasons for using Shale gas is to bring up the price of the natural gas so that the fuel operating cost will increase. This does not benefit the taxpayers as it supports oil companies in maintaining their profits. With the introduction of solar vehicles in the market, most fuel companies will have to close down. The State Republican Senator Mike Turzai collected signed supports to oppose against the use of solar vehicles. He states that using solar energy will increase the electricity bill by $1 billion, however, there is no proof to support this value. Solar vehicles has the ability to solve one of the world’s most crucial environmental issues by reducing the emission of carbon dioxide from cars, fueled by natural gas. Having unlimited solar energy, the use of solar vehicles should be encouraged and supported. The government should not oppose against solar cars just so that they won’t offend the influential fuel corporations.

http://www.examiner.com/article/gov-corbett-says-yes-to-shale-gas-incentives-but-no-to-solar