Category: Uncategorized

NOTE: Dear Rosie, if you’re marking these blogs, I sincerely apologize for making them so long-winded. I’m attempting something different from the other blogs in that I’m looking deeper into what we’ve learned rather than apply what we’ve done in individual cases (we’ve had enough of that!) Hope you’re not irked. -Chris.

P.S. This post, and my very first one, pretty much have nothing to do with COMM101, so you can probably skip them. Unless you’d want to read them, which is also cool.

As a followup to my previous long-winded post, I really wouldn’t have come full circle without finishing one of my very first posts on this site.

So here it is.

A successful person comes in many shapes and sizes. He can be a successful person only to himself (a druggie that thinks that being a druggie is awesome and cool would be successful to him/herself, but not to me). A successful person can also be successful to others, but not to themselves (Ever talk to one of those people that you think is absolutely perfect? They’re funny, handsome/pretty, smart, talented, and all that jazz, but when you actually TALK to them you find that they’re not inspired at all, and that they think really low of themselves? Yeah, those people).

In my opinion, a successful person has to be content. Content for who s/he is, and with what s/he does. A successful person has to have the admiration of those that s/he loves (because if they be hatin’ on you, they ‘aint worth it. But if EVERYONE be hatin’ on you, somethings wrong.).

Everyone’s criteria is different. Here are some of mine:

A successful person:

–Can support and fend for himself. Because Hoboes can be happy, but usually aren’t the most successful.

–Supports his family. Because you fail at life if you don’t. Be a man (or woman). Do the right thing.

–Contributes to society. No one likes a rich jerk that doesn’t care about anyone but himself. There are other people in this world, bub.

–Is compassionate and humble. Money and power go straight to your head. You can see it everywhere. Almost all of the people that I highly respect are the most humble people I’ve ever met. Which means I don’t respect a lot of celebrities (Oooohh! Snap!)

–Is loyal. You can be as great as you want, but if you’re constantly changing sides you probably don’t really believe in any solid values. This criteria is iffy, but still important.

–Knows what s/he wants. I am guilty of failing this category. Yet, all successful people know what they want, and go for it with all their heart and soul.

You’ve just read Chris’ ten cents on life and success. Do what you want with it. Discuss. Throw it away. Delete it from your brain. Invest the ten cents in the stock market. DO whatev’s.

Chris, signing out.

So, here we are. We’ve come full circle. End of story. (Volume 2 coming out in stores near you).

I had my very last Comm101 class today. It was an unspoken momentous occasion. I’ve had a lot of fun in this class, and I’ve *learned* lots.

*learned*.

More than anything, I’ve had a change of opinion, a broader perspective on Commerce itself. I’ve met a lot of cool people and heard many different opinions. In terms of “learning” I only explicitly learned the most basic, fundamental points for the various areas of Commerce. I have much to learn.

The experience outweighed the learning. But what did I learn?

If there is one thing that I learned this term, it’s Branding. Branding is all-important. Firms spend millions on establishing their Brand. Branding is pretty much what Marketing is made out of, and I love Marketing. After Comm101 I’ve learned to love Marketing even more, and hate Finance a bit less (I have this funny vision of Finance and Marketing being husband and wife; they quarrel every day and they never agree, yet they rely on each other to survive. Funny stuff.).

But, yes. Brands. Brands differentiate firms from each other, and allow each firm to shine. Brands attract consumers. Brands are where it’s at.

Now here’s a thought. Perhaps Brands aren’t limited to firms? Maybe there’s a Brand in all of us.

Firms spend ridiculous amounts of money to build their brand. Some people I know spent ridiculous amount of money on clothing to look good. Some brands want to come off as tough and build to last, others want to come off as cheeky, fun brands. Some of my friends are wannabe-gangsters (haha), and a lot of them are just fun and insane.

Firms want to differntiate themselves. Sauder students want to stand out.

You may think me insane, but wouldn’t it make sense if we were *all* representatives of our own brand-ourselves?

You may be screaming by now. “NO, CHRIS, NO! STOP SCREWING AROUND WITH TERMINOLOGY. People do random acts of kindness because they WANT to. Firms do it so that they LOOK good. People aren’t that shallow.”

Think about that for a second and you’ll see a contradiction.

But although all firms care mostly about profits, is it possible that some firms just care about helping society? Does the chocolate shop run by that elderly couple down the street looking for profit, or do the couple just want to sell chocolate? Do soccer players play for the money, or do they play because they want to?

Hopefully I’ll be able to look back on this post in a few years, put my face in my hands and say “oh gawd, chris…”. That’s cool. That’s fine. You have to look back and realize how dumb you sounded in the past, before you realize how much you’ve learned.

And that’s exactly what I’m thinking about right now. Looking back, seeing how much I’ve learned. Was a really ignorant in the past? Slightly. Am I better now? A bit.

I’ve got a lot to learn, and dagnabbit, I’m going to have a lot of fun doing it. So thanks for putting up with this emerging brand. My posts may be around three times as long as they should be, and the things I talk about tend to be more philosophical than they are case-based.

But, hey, every brand is different. I’m different. And I hope you, as a consumer, have enjoyed this.

-Chris, out.

So here is a link to an interesting economics-related article that I may or may not expand on in the near future.

I just realized how intimidating my blog looks with nothing but giant walls of text in them.

So here is a picture of a cute bunny.

I lied. The blog post was so massively awesome that it needed not one, not two, but THREE separate posts. Holy moly.

We have established that annoying children usually get what they want, depending on the parental strategy that their parents employ. Firms take advantage of this fact, and target children to indirectly target their parent’s wallet. Fair enough. But why is it that only certain firms survive to take advantage of this gold mine of opportunity?

Children have short attention spans. Very short attention spans. You’ll need something incredibly addictive to keep their attention in one place for a given time, and that’s where video games come in. Video games are expensive; one Nintendo DS game will probably last around 20 hours before the kid gets bored, and will cost anywhere between $25 to $50. Starcraft, the bane of good report cards, costs $60 for pretty much a life sentence of stay-in-room-itis. And World of Warcraft, goodness forbid, has an upkeep cost of $15 a MONTH to keep a child lonely from age 5 to 35 (just kidding there, gamers. I love y’all.)

But what is it that keeps a child interested? This is where entrepreneurs come in. Oh, FINALLY I mention the key word here. In class, Davis mentioned “Club Penguin,” where young children can play safely on the internet in an online game called “Club Penguin.” The creators of club penguin are successful entrepreneurs: they found their niche, and they stuck to it. And it worked. Such success reminds me of similar online games such as Kingdom of Loathing (KOL), Runescape, and the all-familiar NEOPETS.

All online games have something in common. An engaged community and a constant flow of new material will achieve both a sense of familiarity and sense of novelty to the young underdeveloped (or really developed, depending on who you’re talking about) mind. Back in the day there were 150 pokemon. Now there are over 500. Does it seem strange that it took a milennia to find 150 pokemon, only for the pokemon world to discover nearly 4 times as many within just a few years? Is it not strange that Ash still remains 10 years old after spending his whole life catching pokemon for a living? None of that matters. Pokemon are fun, children have achieved a sense of familiarity with Pokemon, and Pokemon is STILL coming out with new items.

The card game industry is also making a giant profit off of children. Whoever first started the concept of trading card games was not only a successful entrepreneur, he started a revolution. Imagine, firms selling pieces of paper for over a thousand dollars, then releasing the same card en masse to drop the price to around $30, but still giving veterans the incentive to keep on buying. Not only are they making a profit on mere pieces of paper, firms like Konami are able to RECYCLE their ideas to keep the money flowing. But the fun doesn’t stop there! Every month they release yet ANOTHER set of cards to keep the cycle going! A naiive child/duelist/nerd will never attain that sense of “I am satisfied with the cards that I have” feeling because they will NEVER be able to prefectly mod their deck.

I apologize for the usage of jargon, hopefully it makes sense to most of you.

An entrepreneur can create an innovative idea that can take society by storm, but a GOOD entrepreneur will always be able to keep that idea fresh. Take a look at this. This is genius. Professionally-written “teaching” aspiring duelists how to play the game at a higher level.  Deck analyses to inspire new ideas. Heck, even RANKINGS on worldwide tournaments.

Essentially, Konami has created an artificial sport, with it’s own league of nerdy followers (including me, at an objective, casual level). It’s not an easy task. Many card games have tried and failed to create the same scenario. So I agree with the statement that entrepreneurship is very hard to succeed in, but may result in mountains of profit.

My examples may seem childish and my jokes may be lame, but something should definitely make sense from this. People make MONEY off of this stuff, and anything that can generate millions of dollars in profit must not be ignored…

Christopher Lam, out.

(Alternate title: Fun, Games, Children and Money.)

Sex sells.

Bet I caught your attention there, didn’t I.

Although sex may attract a portion of the adult population, even that small portion are unwilling to admit the fact that they’re attracted by it. The clothing industry has taken advantage of the simple marketing strategy of “sexy things are…sexy!” in order to reel in attention and make a profit.

But there is another power at work; that which is even more seductive than seduction itself, and inifinitely more difficult to ignore.

That, my friends, are children’s toys and card games.

Think of it this way. You’re a father/mother, and your son/daughter has just spent a couple hours screaming mercilessly, continuously, loudly, begging for that newest gundam/barbie toy. To them, bright colors and interesting concepts are even more attractive than sex (and it better be!). And children hit the jackpot: A source of uncontrolled desire constantly bugging the source of essentially infinite money. The adult doesn’t even have the power to mentally confront the relentless desire; they can only give in to the ear-gnashing howls of their children.

So firms take advantage of that. Beyblades, Pokemon, YuGiOh, Magic, Lego, Board Games, VIDEO GAMES, children’s movies, all of them target children and incur their ear-splitting wrath on their parent’s wallet. With such an effective route, what firms WOULDN’T want in on the action?

This blog post is so awesome and massive that it has to be split in two parts. The first part is pretty much a precursor to the second one. Enjoy. I guess.

For the past two comm101 sessions, we’ve gone over the definition of entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship. All I can say is: Wow, is this hard to define. Essentially what I can gather from the article provided, after digesting it for a few tasty hours, is that entrepreneurship is primarily based on an innovative idea that could potentially lead to a big payout, but with high risks to take. This concept of entrepreneurship can also be subdivided into categories, with social entrepreneurship resulting in a “big payout” in terms of benefitting various aspects of society which are NOT directly correlated with massive profits.

Now, I highly appreciate the idea of entrepreneurship, but I don’t think it’s that simple. Take for example “Silly Bands” discussed in class. Sure, they caught on quick, but I feel that that’s only half the story. Innovative products are only awesome for a short amount of time, and consumers are bound to lose interest after a while if upkeep is not maintained.

View part two for my take on successful firms exhibiting (possibly? surprisingly? discuss.) entrepreneurship.

NOTE: This blog post was updated on the day that I regained my internet-only to find that I needed a blog post on entrepreneurship within hours for my comm101 class. This is the best I could do given the time constraints. Now that my internet has been reclaimed, I will write a BETTER article on entrepreneurship based on new information I have learned from comm101. Why rewrite a better article? Because everyone needs to improve. Why not delete this post? Because covering up mistakes will never account for anything.

Also, I love silly putty. Stuff is magical.

Based on the definition of entrepreneurship presented in the article, that it is *almost* synonymous with a small business, differentiating in the increased amount of risk, speed and potential profit, I feel that the Silly Putty industry would be a great example of a company exhibiting great entrepreneurship. From mere plastic/clay, they have been able to market their product as something more than just doughy plastic…

I feel that innovation is one of the largest components of entrepreneurship. The associated factors of risk, speed and potential profit all stem from the base innovation which sparks a potentially momentous idea. Sure, marketing takes a large part in selling a product and making it big, but essentially most large companies are based from small ones…

ERROR 404: [dne]

[Internet Disconnected; entrepreneurship blog to be updated.]

[EDIT: Internet reclaimed, life under control. Blogpostings resumed…]

The other day in comm101 our class talked about marketing tools such as the fishbone diagram and the usage of quadrants to determine a brand’s position in the market.

After some discussion I realized something. Although these tools do help a brand place itself within the market, they are hardly as useful when identifying revenue, profit, and other major factors that influence a brand’s success.

In fact, these tools don’t help at all when it comes down to individual customer choices; they serve only as a general guideline to where brands should target an audience. This made me realize that, to fully understand a company, a wide variety of tools and perspectives must be be employed; the use of just one tool may  lead to incorrect assumptions.

Take McDonald’s for example. It’s super-popular. But it’s not cheap. In fact, it’s not cheap, and it doesn’t taste very good. Same with KFC. As I was creating a quadrant diagram, I wondered why such successful companies place so low in the taste/price quadrant. Then I realized something: Cravings.

We have unhealthy food. A lot of us do. And when we want some fast food, we get fast food no matter how pricey (McDonald comboes are $8 vs. A&W’s $6 with-discount) or disgusting (KFC Double Down, anyone?).

And then there’s advertising and classical conditioning. I could talk for years about this. McDonalds has their trademark kid’s meals, and their commercials target young children with their happy “golden” glow. What happens when these children become accustomed to McD’s and eventually grow up? Cravings. Classical conditioning: Toy=Good .:. Food = Good..

And then there’s advertising. A&W constantly has deals. One Uncleburger and a large fries for $5. Spiffy! But wait-what about the drink? Sadly you’re going to have to dish out $2 for a weak small root beer. Talk about taking your money.

So many factors. So many ways to take our money. I’m going to have a helluva good time debating in Marketing.

Chris Lambchops, out.