Month: October 2011

I recently stumbled upon Lisa Wong’s post called, “Tweet Me that House”. This blog post stood out to me because it involved real estate, which is a division that really interests me. Her blog post was based off an article from the Globe and Mail on how a realtor from New Jersey is mixing real estate searches with social media and bringing his three-year-old idea to Canada. His brand is known as BHGRE, standing for Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate. It may sound rather harmless but this new take on real estate will boost the stationary real estate market. The article mentions that real estate tends to focus on the agents selling homes rather than appealing to their customers that are buying or searching.

I think that the combination to social media with real estate will be successful. I have always been very interested to check MLS (Canadian Real Estate Association) about once a month to see what is going on with housing in my area. I find it very interesting to see how the price of a house that has been on the market for a long time can fluctuate. When I compare how much time I visit MLS to Facebook I realize that if house listings were on Facebook I would be checking the housing market regularly.  In the real estate market there are several different types of buyers. Firstly, there are buyers that are on a mission to purchase a home, there are searchers who are happy with their living situations but keep an eye on the market just from curiosity, there are long time searchers, people who are usually looking for a second home or an investment property who have no time frame on their search and there are businesses looking for property and investment opportunities. I think that the mix of social media with the housing market will be very useful for the searchers and investors since they are not on an exact mission. You never know what you will stumble upon on Facebook.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/marketing/tweet-me-that-house/article2189742/

This article questions whether American business schools put enough focus on Globalization. Some schools may do a great job at promoting their International focus, but Pankaj Ghemwat of IESE business school begs to differ. He believes that business schools are not international enough with 5% or less international undergraduate students and most case studies focused on America. The University of Chicago may seem very international with three campuses in Chicago, London and Singapore but surprisingly, the same material is taught at each location.

This article stood out to me because I would have never thought to question whether Universities have false advertising when it comes to things such as an their focus on International Business. I feel that UBC doesn’t fall under this category. For instance many of the articles we have read are international focused such as Ryanair, Russian Vodka and Euro zone crisis. Sauder also has a very high international student ratio. Most of my friends at UBC are international because my residence is about 75% international and exchange students. I have noticed in Comm 101 class that international students add depth to discussions by explaining their views of concepts based on living in countries other than Canada.

Source: http://www.economist.com/blogs/whichmba%3F/2011/09/pankaj-ghemawat

Sweden has a butter shortage due to increased demand for butter. New diet trends as well as the downgrading dairy industry contributed to this shortage. The failure of  the dairy industry cannot be blamed on the price of farming and production in Sweden, which is similar to both Denmark and Holland. Milk production dropped by 15% over the last 20 years and the demand for butter rose by 18.2% over the past 3 years, it makes sense that butter is becoming a rare commodity. Substitution methods are being used in this situation to try and keep the butter industry afloat, Swedish cream production is being put on hold as Danish cream is being imported to Sweden.

This situation ties in very well with our first class in Comm 101 where government intervention’s benefit on certain industries was discussed. For example, Russian Vodka, and how inelastic and elastic demand can be related to goods. This article discusses many strategies from Econ 101 such as the factors that change demand. In this case, the factor that increased the demand for butter is consumer tastes and the reason why the quantity is lower is because of the decline of dairy farming in Sweden.

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-news/global-exchange/globe-correspondents/butter-shortage-has-swedes-churning/article2191753/

Just like Fashion, Advertising has its week in New York to shine and set new trends. This week is the week where Advertising experts from as far as Brazil and companies as big as Facebook and Nike share their ideas on ad innovation. This year at Advertising week events include a Financial Forecast with companies such as Google and ZenithOptimedia as well as a Multicultural Media Talent Pipeline where 100 students from 14 universities in the states learn about opportunities for multiculturals in the workforce. Two lucky students will be offered paid internships with InteractiveOne.

This article caught my attention because I am very interested in Advertising but I had never heard about Advertising week. I would be fascinated to know if they talk about concepts such as positioning and perceptual maps. This article can be related to classes 6 and 8 because at Advertising week the newest trends of  “getting into the mind of the consumer”[1] are discussed. There is also a multicultural focus this year at Advertising week which is a somewhat unexplored consumer base in places such as the United States. I definitely hope to attend Advertising week sometime.

Article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/03/business/media/a-bigger-more-ambitious-advertising-week-is-set-to-begin.html?ref=media

iPhone 5 Faces Tall Order Living Up To Al Gore’s Hype

This article solidifies that the Apple iPhone 5 will be released on October 4^th, 16 months past the release of the 4^th generation iPhone. The 5^th generation iPhone is expected to have a sharper processor and camera, a sleeker and lighter design as well as a more advanced network system and graphics. It is also expected to have GSM and CDMA capabilities. The launch of a new iPhone will definitely cause Apple’s stocks to rise as well as their reputation in the mobile industry.

The long awaited release of the iPhone 5 ties into the law of demand in that the longer Apple waits to release it, the higher the demand will be upon its release. If an individual’s phone contract is ending in late September, they will want to wait for the iPhone. This fall I bought an iPhone 4 and ended up returning it a week later because the sales lady lied to me about how long it would be until the new one was released. I will definitely be going out to snag a new iPhone 5 as soon as I can so I can get as much value out of it as possible.

Team, Trefis. “iPhone 5 Faces Tall Order Living Up To Al Gore’s Hype .” Forbes. Forbes.com LLC, 29 Sept. 2011. Web. 4 Oct. 2011. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2011/09/29/iphone-5-faces-tall-order-living-up-to-al-gores-hype/>.