In the following article, it asks if it is smart for entrepreneurs to hire friends.  The article begins with asking entrepreneur Kip Tindell, starter of The Container Store, what his views are on hiring friends.  He comments that his current girlfriend, who later became his wife, joined the startup at the time, and is still serving as the chief merchant years later. He then quotes, “To me, it just seems like common sense to do business with those you love and trust the most.”  The article then continues on with aspects to consider before hiring a friend: only hire the good cousins, communication IS leadership, and blend work and play.

I agree to some extent with the article’s points.  If the friend is a hard worker, and have a mutual understanding of what success looks like, then yes go ahead and hire them. Relating back to the class discussion we had when we were asked if we were to start up a business, would you want to be alone, with a partner, or with a team?  I answered with a partner.  When reading this article I connected back to this discussion, and thought would I want a friend to be that said partner?  Now having read through this article, only if they had all those aspects, especially the aspect of trust, then I’d agree with Kip Tindell that doing business with those who you love and trust is a yes.

Germany has officially stripped their tuition fees for post-secondary students, following many other European countries.  This all began in 2006, first lowering tuition costs to around $1,409 CAD and eventually completely stripping of all fees.

“McCormick believes the German case is an example of the power of student organizing to pressure governments.” (Freeman, 2014)  In Canada, undergrads pay an average of $5,959 per year, and that’s not even including residence fees or textbooks.  There is lots of debate of whether tuition should be free or not.  Some Canadians argue that this would be a huge burden on the tax system and it would diminish quality of eduction, also that Canadian tuition is already largely subsidized.  However others believe that “university enrolment is dominated by upper-class students.” (Baglow, 2014)

As a student, it is a dream come true for free tuition.  The cons are understandable, but I believe the good outweigh’s the bad.  A very large argument seems to be the high tax aspect, although I think that many Canadians would happily pay more on taxes if they could let their kids go to school for free.  Also with more people attending university, there would be increases in incomes and the tax burden would become less.  Lower income families could also send their children to school without any worries.  I don’t see Canada following Germany in the soon foreseeable future, although it is a hope that they may take small steps towards it.

McCain Foods is something that you always see when passing the frozen food aisle.  I personally remember being a child and begging my mother to buy the McCain Smiles – the infamous potato fries.  However these days, they don’t seem to be as popular and you don’t see their commercials anymore.  “The Canadian frozen food manufacturer is responding to a demographic shift.  (Kranshinsky, 2014)  The old advertisements were geared towards families and young children, although their new advertisement is of couples and friends – due to the fact that more households now consist of two people or less.  McCain is now adapting to the changes of the environment and society, and so they must adjust their customer segments.

In this day and age, everyone seems to be going towards the natural and healthy spectrum.  Frozen food doesn’t exactly fit in the “natural” characteristic.  McCain aims to do a whole rebrand, also having a completely new logo which is much more appealing to their now new demographic.  They are also trying to rid of ingredients that seem unnatural in their ingredients list.  McCain will still face a lot of apprehension with marketing frozen fries as healthy and so it will be interesting to see where their new strategy will take them.  This could be a positive evolution or either a realization of a decreasing industry.