Graham Hand's Blog

” If  the United Nations was fully funded why would we need the Arc or social enterprise”?

If the United Nations were fully funded we would still need social enterprises and the Arc because the United Nations has policies that disable them from helping society in ways social enterprises and the Arc can. Social entrepreneurs do not have to deal with the bureaucracy of geopolitics and the obstacles of diplomacy. This allows for change to happen much more efficiently.

Lets consider Muhammad Yunnus who created Grameen Bank. His company provides economic aid to people living in impoverished countries, improving their lives much faster without having to go through a unnecessary bureaucracy. Now consider some of the procedures the UN must go through in order send aid to people. They must access the situation, create a plan, the idea or policy must be presented to a committee, the policy must then be passed and then implemented according to UN policy. After all of this is done the UN may then send aid which may no longer be effective.

Grameen Bank’s method of assisting does not face as many obstacles as the UN does allowing for the provision of aid to much more efficient.

Source: http://skollworldforum.org/about/what-is-social-entrepreneurship/

http://www.un.org/en/sc/meetings/voting.shtml

Images: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2006/grameen_postcard.jpg

Richard Branson is an icon I inspire about and maybe one of the most influential humans in the world. His blog is a direct link to his personal life and career as well to other successful entrepreneurs. Such insight can be used as a tool for young entrepreneurs and students like myself. What I find most interesting and useful about Virgin’s blog is the section for entrepreneurs. This section is very relate able to the content we learn in comm 101. For instance: corporate culture, innovation, marketing strategies and start ups are all shared concepts.

The most interesting post I have read is by Joel Runyon who wrote about creating your own corporate culture and to abandon the stereotypical culture of starting at “8:00 am sharp” as he describes it. Culture is the first factor I take in consideration when I apply for a job or when I was applying for university and I bet the majority of the world does as well. In the future I would like to work in an environment similar to that of Google’s where promotion of creativity and innovation is the corporate culture. This dream seems to be very large and far ahead of me. Richard Branson once said “Dream big by setting yourself seemingly impossible challenges, you then have to catch up with them.”

Source and quotes:

http://www.virgin.com/entrepreneur/how-to-kiss-corporate-goodbye-and-create-your-own-culture

Images:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/9e/Virgin.svg/1151px-Virgin.svg.png

The obvious solution to make more profits is to cut costs but is it the most efficient or  effective solution? After class nineteen I was surprised hearing how happiness drastically effects the productivity of employees. I did some searching of my own on the idea and found a study by University of Warwick in England that supported the idea.

In the study participants were given free chocolate, drinks, fruit and shown comedy skits; these participants were 12% more productive than participants who were asked about family tragedies when performing tasks. The statistics speak for themselves. It is clear to me now that keeping your employees happy will maximize productivity of the company.

However the example we used in class, Zappos, I believe was overspending on their employees. For instance humans can only be so productive and once we reach our maximum productivity there is no way of becoming more efficient. It seems that Zappos’ employees productivity may have already been maximized considering they spend a huge amount of resources on their employees only to generate a 5% profit. In order for Zappos to have a higher profit there needs to be cuts on costs.

My point is that there are different solutions for different companies. Cutting costs or spoiling your employees is not always the best solution but a balance of the two can be better than one.

Sources:

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/new_study_shows/

Image:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/content.sitezoogle.com/u/2461/494aff0d3f609ef3aae4f8df339dcd2150ec9eb2/medium/success.jpg?1403735129

It is obvious that China has a serious environmental issue that has been threatening the health of it’s citizens with only 3 out of 74 of it’s major cities meeting the minimum air quality standards in 2013. The industrialization of China has come with an economic boom but has created nothing less then a environmental disaster. With lack of laws in place protecting the environment in China makes me wonder who is responsible for this disaster?

In order to address these issues you must look at the ethics of these companies. These companies do not care about the environment it seems but rather they only care about minimizing costs in order to maximize profits. These bad business ethics are being encouraged by international companies that are out of China such as tech companies, clothing brands and car companies. Nike is seen as a green company that has good business ethics. Greenpeace has investigated factories that Nike has been using and found the opposite.

The Ningbo plant has been polluting the river it is beside with toxic chemicals. This plant produces for Nike which Nike has confirmed but denies using the wet process of the plant. Nike still is promoting these bad ethics by continuing business with a plant that is polluting the river. In order for this disaster to be resolved companies like Nike need to make changes with who they do business with.

Richard Lee’s Blog: https://blogs.ubc.ca/richardlee/2014/09/21/companies-changing-education-for-the-better/

Sources: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/jul/13/greenpeace-links-western-firms-to-chinese-polluters

Innovation is not just creating new products that replace the old ones, but rather it is the recreation of our economies, society and planet. Charles Darwin’s Evolutionary theory is what best describes innovation, to summarize: only the strong and those who can adapt to change survive.

Innovation is having an idea and trying to achieve it whether it is from nothing or manipulating an existing concept.

I disagree with Lucy’s statement that “Innovation has been taken as a much too broad concept” because innovation is happening on a day to day basis on a very broad scale. New products are being made, countries are going through revolutions, new technologies are being created and plans to colonize Mars are in the works. All of these innovations are far apart from one another.

A question I would like to ask is who is responsible for making innovation happen?

I believe responsibility falls in court of the entrepreneur for he or she has the ability to take the discovery or technology of an engineer or scientist and manipulate it in a way that will benefit/change economies, society and planet. Innovation is causing us to evolve.

Source: https://blogs.ubc.ca/lucystephenson/2014/11/04/innovation/

Images: http://logicalfaith.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/evolution-1024×640.jpg

http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121118055707/assassinscreed/images/thumb/a/af/Question_mark.png/380px-Question_mark.png

Mercedes- Benz has created a concept car that may replace their current SUV and crossover lineup; the major difference is that the entire car’s surface is a solar panel. In my opinion Mercedes- Benz is moving towards becoming a sustainable company with their new innovative car. This hybrid concept car would  have a cheaper fuel economy which would release fewer green house gas emissions into the atmosphere. The car is also designed to be driven in urban areas meeting the needs for societies that are becoming larger and denser as the human race grows. I would also say this would allow for Mercedes-Benz to become more apart of the hybrid market generating more sales and innovating other massive car companies to become greener. These effects satisfy the three requirements for triple bottom line which outline in my opinion how the company is becoming sustainable.

Additionally, I believe if Mercedes- Benz is serious about replacing their current SUV and crossover lineup with a single hybrid car that that shows Mercedes- Benz is wanting to become a car company stopping climate change. This idea to move over to a hybrid SUV is meeting the needs of the present by selling a car that doesn’t only rely on fossil fuel to compromise for the future of the planet.

Source: http://www.autoblog.com/2014/11/03/mercedes-vision-g-code-concept-beijing/#continued

Recently, Mount Klappan has become the battle grounds between the Tahltan Bands and Fortune Minerals Ltd over an estimated coal deposit that could be worth $10 billion of revenue. Unfortunately this open pit mine would be built in an area known as “Sacred Headwaters” that is the source for the Skeena, Stikine and the Nass rivers; all of which are major Salmon rivers.

The area is culturally/spiritual important to the Tahltan Bands which is why there is protesting against the development of the area. The Tahltan people are not against development of their lands and are open to businesses from external groups, but the problem with Fortune Minerals is that they have not consulted with Tahltan band enough. This area of land is historical and was the life of the Tahltan people in the past where it was used for fishing for Salmon.

The historical and cultural value of these headwaters, Klappan mountain and three rivers to the Tahltan people are an external problem for Fortune Minerals. This conflict has slowed down the process of setting up the mine and brought the media’s attention to the conflict. The combination of the mine not moving forward and bad publicity has caused Fortune Minerals stock prices to drop. Fortune Minerals has decided to allow the government of the province and the Tahltan Band to discuss and sort out issues regarding the mine. In my opinion Fortune Minerals has stopped moving forward to diffuse any tension between Tahltan Band and to divert all of the media’s attention away from itself in hopes of stopping their stocks from dropping any farther.

Resources:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/markets/stocks/summary/?q=FT-T

http://rabble.ca/news/2014/05/indigenous-protests-mt-klappan-show-respect-land

http://www.theprovince.com/business/resources/First+Nation+bans+Fortune+Minerals+from+mining+Mount/9686960/story.html

For one thing, the Quant e-Sportlimousine sounds and looks like a spaceship from a science fiction novel, but fortunately it is not. At the 2014 Geneva motor conference this year the car was presented as the first of its kind; electric powered by salt water. If I were Tesla motors or and car company for that matter I  would keep my eye on this new company. The Sportlimousine out competes any Tesla car with 920 horsepower, maximum speed of 217.5 mph, 80% efficiency and can travel up to 600 km with one tank of its fuel. It seems that lithium ion powered cells are looking like the technology of the past and the future is with electrolyte flow cell power system.

Resources: http://themindunleashed.org/2014/09/move-tesla-new-car-powered-salt-water-900-horsepower.html

At the UN Climate Summit this year $200 billion  was pledged by groups of financial institutions making it seem that the world is shifting away from the burning of fossil fuels. The truth is that exploiting fossil fuels are still apart of the world’s long term plans. Instead of America planning to change itself it has decided to focus on helping other countries steer away from fossil fuels. It seems as if America is more focused on boosting their economy rather than fighting against climate change. Mean while Shell and ExxonMobil told investors that even if the government decides to invest in climate change that their businesses will still be turning profits. It seems apparent that everyone has recognized that climate change is real but no one is going to stop it.

Resources:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/29/despite-the-un-climate-summit-fossil-fuel-firms-are-still-in-for-the-long-term

China has announced to ban the burning of sulfurous coal in the next four months. For Australia this is bad news. Australia’s recent growth has been due the export of coal into the Asian market; the biggest buyer is China. China purchases around one third of Australia’s coal production which is “50 million metric tonnes of thermal coal” according to DW’s article. As China cuts back on the consumption of coal this will create room for a new economy to provide energy to China; potentially a greener source of energy. At the UN Climate summit it is expected that 50% of energy consumed in China will be clean by the year 2050 according to CCTV America.

Resources:

http://www.dw.de/china-tackles-air-pollution-with-ban-on-sulfurous-coal/a-17925534

http://www.cctv-america.com/2014/09/23/china-investing-in-green-nuclear-technologies