After browsing the net, one company I found with outstanding company culture is Google! I was surprised to find out after watching a TV program that they offer their employees an amazing spread of benefits. These include free meals, laundry facilities, gym access, haircuts, generous health benefits, slides instead of stairs, games rooms, and nap rooms. The list goes on and on. 

All the fancy things aside, one perk of being a Google employee that really stood out to me was their “20% Time Program”. Employees are allowed to spend 20% of their time on whatever creative projects for the company that their hearts desire. I found this to be a really interesting benefit because I believe it serves 3 purposes.

The first purposed it serves is to intrinsically motivate the workers. They feel like they’re working at something they have control over and are given a sense of responsibility. Another purpose is provide a productive break for employees. Instead of giving them time to just fool around, Google gets it’s employees to do something useful to the company, and at the same time serve the  purposed to entertain them.

One of the greatest experiences I’ve had in my life was my time at Shad Valley, a summer science and entrepreneurship camp for high school students at sponsored by Research in Motion.

Throughout the duration of the camp,the students are exposed to lectures from real professors and industry professionals, potential-pushing group challenges, and exposure to university residence life.

The main focus of the camp is the entrepreneurship aspect of it. After the first few days of orientation, the students are split up into groups and presented a theme. Each group needs to come up with an product that corresponds to the theme. By the end of the camp, each time will have completed a business plan and created a prototype, which they present in front of a team of industry judges. The winning product from each university goes on to play in the Shad Cup. I ended up being on the winning team from Dalhousie University last year. Shad provided me with the exposure to business plan writing and basic business skills that helped give me a head start in the business world. I would definitely recommend this program to anyone!

In response to Jasmine Chan’s blog about the merging of Skype and Facebook, I agree that the move is a bad business decision. I use Facebook weekly, and I still didn’t even notice the new feature until her blog pointed it out. The integration of different mediums of social media may appear like a good idea on paper, but it’s forgetting something important.People use websites for what they’re known for, just like people go to McDonald’s for hamburgers, and go to IKEA for furniture.
There are advantages to having the two technologies separated. Maybe someone wants to use Skype the same time they use Facebook, or maybe someone likes having the two systems separated.

Most people know Facebook for it’s networking and Skype for its video-calling. I feel like this business move was just an attempt for Facebook to keep up with Google+, a competing networking site that has video-chat abilities. Facebook is trying to be the one stop for all your social networking needs, but maybe “one stop” isn’t what everyone wants.  My opinion aside; whether or not this was a smart business decision, only time will tell.

After browsing a few articles on BPM, I came across one that really caught my attention. Failures in Performance Management by Dalmeny Close gave me a better understanding of how so many businesses can suffer at the hands of their managers. One well-known cause of poor BPM we learned from class is the usage of improper metrics. This means implementing measurement tools as incentives for rewards, that end up being detrimental to the business.An example is awarding customer service centre employees for their number of calls. In the end they will take more calls, but satisfy the customers less than they were satisfying them before.  I learned from the article some other key points to successful BPM. The list includes:

• Making sure the employees share the same objectives of the business
• Making targets clear and understandable
• Providing updates on progress towards goals
• Creating feedback loops
• Providing a way for managers to have their own performance reviewed
• Remembering that your staff are only human
• Make sure your managers are competent and self-reflective

The valuable part of performance management is it can be applied to many areas other than business. Every organization needs proper performance management to help achieve their goals.

In response to Stephanie Fung’s blog post, I agree that TOMS Shoes may be operating with good intentions, but their “One for One” campaign seems to be stealing the sales of local shoe salesmen in needy countries. It also does not empower the needy children, but in a way teaches them that they need to rely on outside aid.

I believe TOMS should consider remodelling their social enterprise, looking at other present day social enterprises  that empower others to make a difference. A good example is Save on Meats in Vancouver, which employs criminals and people from the street to work for them. They teach them valuable skills that they can use to become a valuable part of society and inspire them to help others in need.

Despite the problems with their current social enterprise strategy, TOMS should be praised for it’s effectiveness of marketing, and it’s fight for a cause. It has helped popularize the idea social entrepreneurship in today’s world, and when looking at the state of some third-world countries, is a pretty important accomplishment.

New social enterprises have been springing up every day in Canada. One that got my attention was St. John’s Bakery in downtown Toronto, run by the St. John Mission. The bakery takes volunteers from the streets and teaches them valuable skills in order for them to give back to the community. One touching story from the Globe and Mail

was about a man named Gordon Brown (left) who spent 16 years as a crack cocaine addict on the street and was taken in by the bakery. He now is the lead baker of the company, a cooking teacher for kids, and a speaker for United Way, a charity focused on the well being of kids and seniors

In class we defined what social entrepreneurship as a business seeking a desired social change, but in Canada, there is still no legal definition as to what a social enterprise actually is. This dark area of legality is preventing businesses to form business-charity hybrids; an impediment to the betterment of society. I say that the Canadian government needs to come up with a legal definition if it does not want to be behind other countries in social entrepreneurship.

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After sitting down with my Big Mac this weekend, I thought about what made McDonald’s the successful and ever-so distinctive fast food chain it is today, and I made a connection to “points of difference” we covered in class.McDonald’s has always been ahead of its competition, and that’s why it’s on top nowadays. So I drew up a list of its POD’s:

• McDonald’s is part of a select few chains that offer a dinner and breakfast menu. McDonald’s offers 24 hour drive thru’s at many locations
• McDonald’s targets children with the famous “Happy Meal”
• McDonald’s offers the relatively cheapest fast food
• McDonald’s  offers special recipes for burgers and sauces.
• McDonald’s has some of the highest health standards out of all chains.
• McDonald’s offers free wifi at every location.
• McDonald’s offers plan pens and video games for kids at select locations
• McDonald’s spends a ton of money on creative advertising.
• McDonald’s advertises towards children as well as adults
• McDonald’s offers an extensive menu of burgers
• McDonald’s offers scholarships to its employees
• McDonald’s restaurants sometimes have multiple floors

After coming up with my list of POD’s, it was easy to see why McDonalds became the largest hamburger chain in the world

After reading Three Questions You Need to Ask About Your Brand”, by Keller, K.L., Sternthal, B., and Tybout, A, I thought I knew it all about product positioning. In my pre-class research, I came across an additional subject; product permission. In it’s essence, product permission is a question of whether a certain brand can be successful in a certain industry. It pertains to both well established brands moving into new territories, and fresh companies trying to break into the markets. Some examples of large companies the article talked about were bleach producers. Nobody wanted to buy bleach other than Clorox, because they were known best for bleach. Wendy’s Restaurants used to have  taco bars, but they were deemed unprofitable. The public did not perceive Wendy’s at a restaurant that should serve tacos. Brand permission also determines how much a specific product can be changed without public protest. One example I found, was years back, Tropicana tried to change it’s packaging, but the public’s desire for the traditional packaging caused  a drastic drop in sales.  I agree with author Chris  Grams. If you’re introducing a new product, do your research first, and take things slow.

Here is a video on Tropicana  fiasco.

Zero-Live’s “Adformer”

Ever since the Reese’s Pieces in Steven Spielberg’s ET, product placement in media has seemed to climb almost exponentially every year. According to Brandcameo, in last year’s Transformers: Dark of the Moon, there were a total of a whopping 42 brands, in the mere 154 minute long motion picture. Some of the brands included Louis Vuitton, Starbucks, and FedEx. This made me ask the question; Am I watching a movie, or just a 2 and half hour-long commercial?

It’s scary how desensitized and unaware the average person these days is to these placements. I had no idea there were this many in this movie, until coming across this website. It goes to show you how well marketers are at getting their message out to consumers, despite the thousands of messages and stimuli we experience each day. Through the process of product  positioning, companies can get their products embedded in the minds of target market, through the simple knowledge of knowing the target audience for the movie.

Sex and The City- 101 PP’s

                                                                     Blades of Glory- 54 PP’s

Think about what you’re watching next time you see a movie! Those marketers are sneaky.

That steep monetary price we pay for our Apple products seems like it’s enough already, but what most people don’t know is that these sleekly designed products come at a human cost also. According to  the New York Times, the Chinese company Foxconn, in charge of iPad assembly is violating Chinese labour laws: forcing it’s employees to work every day of the week without overtime. Employees reportedly suffer from leg swelling and cramped living conditions. The Daily Mail reported two explosions within iPad factories that killed 4 and wounded 77. As of January 27th, 2012, there are reports of 18 attempted suicides in Apple factories, preceded by the installation of suicide nets.The Mail also spoke to a former Apple executive that had this to say: “We’ve known about labor abuses in some factories for four years, and they’re still going on. Why? Because the system works for us.”

Personally, hearing about company with business ethics like this makes me shudder.   If Apple genuinely cared about improving the standards of their manufacturing plants, maybe they could just spend a little bit of the $250 they make selling each iPad to make a difference.

Article: Allegations of labor abuse in Apple’s iPad factories in China