There are numerous new things that I gained from Comm 299, most of them are perhaps the most useful skills for my future careers. Not only do I learn how to write an excellent resume and cover letter, but most importantly, I also learned how to enlarge the opportunities to get the job. Not a lot of people know the trick in doing so, but in Comm 299, I definitely have the golden key.

Acing the interview was another thing I learned from the course. I now know what to expect during an interview such as what to wear, what to bring, what to ask, how to behave and a lot more. Interview was a really important phase in applying a job; it determines our stance, whether we are considered or not for the job, being put in a backup pile or get short-listed.

On top of all that, I get to understand a bit further about my personality, strengths and weaknesses. Taking Comm 299 course, made me understand deeper about the qualities of myself and how can I really make use of them for my future life.

Lots of people have influenced my life and shape who I am today. So far, one of the most influential people in my life is my teacher. She taught me the greatest thing in life; perseverance.

She taught me literature and I knew it wasn’t my subject at all. Literature was uneasy for me, perhaps one of the toughest subjects I have taken. To be honest, I did cry when I was working on the assignment because I just couldn’t do it. I’d have to say, my teacher played a big role throughout the process. She told me to never ever give up, when you fall, you can always get back up. She had tons of great quotes, but one of her greatest quote would be; “with great power comes great responsibility”. Of course most of you know that this isn’t her original quote, she took it from none other than the Spiderman movie. What she meant by that was, as we get older, our responsibilities become greater. If we’re unable to handle things today, it is impossible to tackle greater things in the future. At the end, I graduated with one of the highest scores in literature. I believe that great changes may not happen right away, but with effort and perseverance even the difficult may become easy.

Wal-Mart, Topshop, Adidas, Calvin Klein, Gap, Levis, who doesn’t know all of these brands? Most of them are our favourite brands.

It has been a consumer’s nature to buy things at its cheapest. There will be more demand when prices of goods are lower, vice versa, less demand when prices of goods are higher. Of course, this economic theory only applies when the goods are normal goods. Seeing the nature of consumers’ behaviors, it is usual to for businesses to set their product prices low. To achieve this goal, businesses have to try to minimize their cost of production more specifically their cost of goods sold. Labour is one factor of productions which apparently the most possible factor to be minimized by lots of business (compared to the other three factors: land, capital, entrepreneur). Labour cost is being cut, well not cut but minimized. Most companies alternate their manufacturing or production process to lower paid labours such as China, Bangladesh, India et cetera. In other words, they are outsourcing their productions.

In fact, their ‘outsourcing’ action is only a friendlier word of ‘sweatshops’. Sweatshop (sweat factory) is a working environment considered to be unacceptably difficult or dangerous — especially by developed countries with high standards of living. This raises a few business ethical issues. First of all  Sweatshop workers often work long hours for unusually low pay, regardless of laws mandating overtime pay or a minimum wage. Second, child labour laws may be violated.

Check out the following article regarding The top 10 worst sweatshops abusing companies. and 2010 Sweatshop Hall of Shame.

Here are some photos which picture the lives of sweatshop workers and their living conditions.

‘An entrepreneur is a person who has possession of a new enterprise, venture or idea and assumes significant accountability for the inherent risks and the outcome.’ That is a very common entrepreneurship definition most of us know, but what most people don’t know is that there are several types of entrepreneurship; social and traditional.

Often, people associate entrepreneurs as a profit centered businesses, they prioritize in maximizing their profit. Partially, their perceptions are correct. That is what we know as the traditional entrepreneur. The other half is social entrepreneurship, individuals with innovative solutions to society’s most pressing social problems or simply society centered.

Muhammad Yunus was only 35 years old when he established his own business called Garmeen bank. Unlike other banks, Garmeen give out extension of very small loans (microleans) to those in poverty designed to spur entrepreneurship or popularly known as microcredit. Hhe recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principals to organize, create and manage a venture to achieve social change. His business helped poor people to escape poverty and he is known as a social entrepreneur, ever since.

This is a little video of Muhammad Yunus upon his social entrepreneurial business.

In short, he is the most influential social entrepreneur in the 21^st century.

Most of useful inventions came from total accidents or failures (as in the case of 3M post it notes). What amazing about it, is that it always works and mostly successful!

Jane accidently invented Sugru,

“I was making things with silicone sealants and sawdust, and started using the leftovers around the house,” she says at her east London base. I modified a knife handle to make it more comfortable. My boyfriend said, ‘Imagine if everyone could do that — like with stiff jam-jar lids.’ It was a great idea.”

Who would know that this incident made her an entrepreneur! She pioneers change. The physical appearance of Sugru is very much like a clay except that it is made of silicon, more durable, malleable, dishwasher proof, heat resistant and cools off at room temperature (and become solid). Basically it is for hacking, improving and repairing stuff. It can also work as a protection for your phone and keeps them safe from accidental dropping.

Jane + Sugru = entrepreneurship. It is a new ‘enhance clay’ product, aiming to new markets. If previously clays are only for kids, Sugru is here for everyone of various ages. Since this is an innovation of clay, the productions method will also be different.

Here’s a quick video of what it looks like.

Last lesson I had Murray Carlson and a special guest of Sauder’s Dean, Dean Dan Muzyka to talk about financial crisis and financial breakdown. One major cause of global financial issues is mortgage or what most of us known as a bank loan purchased to buy homes. I found the topic really interesting and found a video which correlated what the lesson was about.

The video states one major reason of why people failed to pay back their mortgage loans; the bank is too lenient in giving out mortgages. They don’t pick future borrowers selectively and neglects employment documentation and income reports  during the borrowing process. In other words, the banks too easily give out loans. A few years ago when the global economic condition was on recession, mortgage was claimed as one of the major reasons causing a drop in stock sales, value of bonds. Banks were losing money because people couldn’t pay back the money they have borrowed.

One of the firsts Morgan Cars

Not many people are familiar with Morgan Cars, especially those who are not into the European automotive industry. Morgan Cars is a car manufacturing company that produced hand made cars and is famous for its signature classic cars. The company produced hundred of cars with approximately 163 employees, annually. Comparing the market shares of Morgan Cars to other British based automotive companies – Bentley, Rolls Royce, Mini Copper, Aston Martin, Jaguar Morgan by far has the least market share. But yet, Morgan Cars can still stay in the industry for more than 100 years. How can they do this? The answer lies in its target market. Morgan Cars does not target a huge market like other British automotive companies do. Instead, it focuses on a specific on small segment, which I find quite interesting. This market is formally known as niche market.

A few nights ago I had dinner with my friends in West Broadway, on my way back to the bus stop I saw a Blockbuster store. Coincidently, earlier that day I was discussing about it in class. The business is experiencing a major turnover which is clarified in an article on http://www.bnet.com/blog/retail-stores/blockbuster-scrambles-for-cash-and-stalls-for-time-but-neither-will-save-it/386.

One major reason for their bankruptcy is the change of customers’ preferences. People nowadays like convenience. Another reason is the shift of physical media to online digital delivery, due to advance technology. Linking this to Michael Porter’s five forces analysis, one of their main substitutes is movie downloads which could be obtained from peer-2-peer (P2P) technology. P2P download is more convenient in so many different aspects. It is cheaper (even free), more convenient since you don’t have to leave your sit to get the movie, and no need to provide space to keep all the DVDs.

Forever 21, is a shop a popular clothing shop in the realm of young adults. The store sells fashion forward items in very affordable prices. When it first open in Jakarta a few years ago, it became one of the ‘it’ stores in the city.

Switching gears to Vancouver, as I am here for almost for two months now, I noticed that Forever21 uses a business strategy in terms of their business location. Forever 21 only have a single store in both in Jakarta and Vancouver.

Apparently they also have sub stores such as XXI Forever, Heritage1982, Gadzooks21, For Love21, Twelve by Twelve, Faith 21, Love21, HTG21, 21Men. Relating this to what I’ve learned in class, I noticed that this is actually a strategy of forever 21 to expand its target market. Since the original store, Forever 2, targets women and young adults, they open up other stores to expand its market. Judging from the name, it is pretty obvious that 21Men targets men consumers. Similarly to Twelve by Twelve, it’s a store that sells higher end of fashion trends almost like couture. Such sub store targets the upper class of women.

Who doesn’t know Pepsi and Coca Cola these days? Those are the most popular and the most consumed soft drinks worldwide.

There are actually a lot of unethical approaches in the marketing world. A few days ago I saw two of my friends gave a speech about an unethical advertisement that they saw. As you can guess, this one is about Pepsi and Coca Cola. It was a classic advertisement and I am pretty sure most people have seen it. Basically, the ad was telling that a young boy trying to buy a can of soda from a vending machine. Since he was short, he couldn’t reach the top button that has “pepsi” on it. Therefore he had to buy two cans of coca cola (which button is placed lower) for him to stand on and eventually made him tall enough to reach the pepsi button. At the end of the commercial, he left the two coca cola cans and drinks a can of pepsi can that he just bought.

Luckily this ad was never been commercially used, however there is one on youtube. Here’s a video of it.