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Human rights blogger, Claire recently talked about equality in the workplace. She states that close to 50% of the workforce is represented by women in the United States but yet they make up only 14% of senior executive positions at Fortune 500 companies. Research has shown that competitiveness and aggression is less common in young women because they were taught not to be. Claire stated that there are much higher standards for women than men and women should be mentored to accurately measure their potential. I agree that the bar is often set higher for women in the workplace, but making a commitment to the advancement of women is unnecessary. I don’t believe by having a higher rate of female senior executive positions will make a difference. A business can only be successful with team work, therefore women and men need to treat each other as equals and have equal rights in the workplace. This transition is a long term project that can’t be changed over night.

Long Wang’s blog post License to Print Money is about a topic that is commonly talked about in my household. Obtaining a bachelor’s degree is not as special as they use to be. Agreeing with Long, university has become a must and students are expected to attend university after secondary school. A couple decades ago, students would be able to come out of high school and get a decent job. University entrance standards were low because it was not common to receive education after high school, nor was it affordable. Now in our society, students fight to achieve the high university requirements because they are aware that a bachelor’s degree has become a necessity. As Long stated, knowledge does not seem to be as valuable as before.

My mother has also been aware of this situation and an analogy she used is a bachelor’s degree is like a ticket to enter a draw. Once you are entered into this draw you will be one of the many tickets that could be drawn and without this ticket the slightest chance of being chosen will be eliminated. I strongly agree with this statement and as students we must adapt to these changes.

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Snappy Socks is a company that portrays the characteristics of Schumpeter’s view on entrepreneurship. I was first introduced to this product through Canada’s top television show Dragons’ Den. Corla Rokochy a mother of five and a multitalented entrepreneur identified a common laundry dilemma and thought of an innovative way to solve this problem by adding a button to help keep socks together. She came up with this new product to target the frazzled mothers who could use the time of sorting socks to do something else.

Even though Snappy Socks may not have profited in several millions of dollars, within a short period of time this product was being sold in retail stores all across Canada and has generated over $15,000 in sales. Rokochy took a big risk of introducing this product because it is so simple. She made a simple modification and made a brand new product out of it.

The successful invention of Snappy Socks has not only identified Rokochy as a entrepreneur, but a mompreneur.

Watch a clip of Snappy Socks on Dragons Den here.

Click here for source.

Zappos, the largest online shoe shop with a great customer base. What makes this company different from other online shoe stores? As we have talked about this in class, they have great human resources management. They realize that working in a 24/7 call centre may cause high levels of stress. In that case Zappos tries to make the day at work as pleasant as possible, such as providing free food. The company believes that by creating an excellent organizational culture will not only benefit the company, but the customers also. Zappos offers free shipping, 365 day returns and rare real human call centres. They believe by having great customer service will cause automatic word of mouth recommendations, and that is exactly what happened.

A few days before this class I myself have attempted to place an order to Zappos for a pair of rain boots. Before entering my credit card information I discovered Zappos is only available to consumers in the United States. This may be a disadvantage because while this business is growing rapidly it is not keeping up with demand. I believe it will be beneficial if services were offered to the entire North America.

Zappos is such a great company to work for, their employees found it was necessary to make a music video about it.

Read article here.