Ian Schoeddert's Blog

The concept of pivoting was defined in class yesterday. To me it was new to me as a term, but not as an idea. I can use the analogy of a secret crush: when you’re in a deep committed friendship with someone, but secretly wish you could be something more. Or as my generation calls it: the Friend zone. It is extremely difficult to change directions, from friend to lover. It comes with confusion and miscommunications, misunderstanding that a chat over coffee was actually a “date”. Many who have tried to break through the friend zone have failed.

A recent success story however, would have to be Tangerine. (Or if you can remember a firm called ING Direct). It was purchased by Scotia Bank in 2012 and in the last two years went through a rapid but well organized rebranding. The Financial Post’s Mitchel Osak dives into the complications that came with the pivot, and differentiates creating a good plan, and executing one successfully. Tangerine broke through the friend zone in less than 18 months, a feat many companies can only fantasize about.

Photo from The Food Network.

Comm 101 has several learning outcomes as an introductory course. The explicit points here are to open our young minds to all the different possibilities of paths to follow on our way through our degrees, what tools to use and what skills to develop. But I’ve also noticed something else happening. One by one I’ve seen my colleagues being picked off. One class topic will just grab them, and they’ll have chosen. They’ll understand what interests them and in a flash they’ll know why they are here. You can see it during in class discussions, and you can see it in their blogs. Just like Sophia’s: you can see that accounting has caught her and she’s not looking back. She sees accounting as more than simple financial statements but as a way to make a difference and help people. Passion.

Another example of someone who found their passion would be Emma Smith. With Zimt, she had an dream and was able to realize it. She spoke of the amount of work and dedication it took to arrive where she is, and that inspired me. In 2012 the business broke out of Vancouver, and now sells across Canada with plans to expand into the US in March 2015.  It’s a story of hard work paying off, I hope to one day be able to work as hard towards something  as entrepreneurs like Emma have been doing.

Image from Zimt

The most important part of becoming wealthy is not spending your money, but of course this is never possible. Instead, a method of spending has been brought to my attention through a financial blog post called Get Rich Slowly. The point writer Holly Johnson makes is that being careful about when you spend money can help a budget stay on track. Johnson tells the story of how she and her husband brought their spending under control by always being one month ahead on payments.

When learning about the Time Value of money in class I was inspired by the idea that value and wealth can be created over time, if calculated wisely. Johnson’s idea relates perpendicularly as the consumption of wealth over time is equally important. When it comes to my own spending, with the little income I have as a student, I have to be very careful.  I believe if I can stay a month or more ahead that will mean I won’t ever miss a payment or incur late penalties. Instead I’ll be able to use my money where it counts: creating value over time.

Image from “Get Rich Slowly” blog.

Jill Lepore’s article: “The Disruption Machine” (June 2014) is an analysis on disruptive innovation theory. According to Lepore the theory does little good to predict the outcomes of business endeavors. What the article revealed to me was that in any industry “Everyone is either disrupting or being disrupted”. It is clear that in business there are many more failures than there are success stories.

Lepore is quick to point out that disruptive innovation is not a study of success rather an explanation for why businesses fail. Every day I take advantage of products that at one time or another broke through and completely re-wrote convention. I use email, I send text messages, and I am able to access info

rmation about anything, from anywhere in the world. All of this I take for granted. But what about the ideas that never made it? Ideas that were too early for their time, or did not have enough support, or were beaten out by competitors. Sometimes making things too cheap or too simple takes away value, and therefor disruptive innovation is not necessarily always the best rout.

It is impossible to predict whether or not an idea will succeed. This serves as inspiration to try my own, and perhaps have a chance to leave a mark on the world.

 ILLUSTRATION BY BRIAN STAUFFER.

Yet again it’s easy to see how humanity’s drive to make money outweighs our considerations for the expense on the environment. An article featured in the Vancouver sun describes a situation in the mainland of British Columbia here a large scale Taseko copper mine threatens the local biome. This habitat contains vital spawning grounds for salmon, the last untouched white pine forest, and the only grizzly bear refuge left in Canada. Where provincial legislation have failed to stop the mine, a BC first nation has come to the rescue of the land and declared it a Tribal Park.

A question lays in front of us: Is the mine really necessary? Well, unfortunately yes. According to an industry blog, demand for precious metals will continue to rise over the next seventy years, and mining must fill the gap between demand and the supply created by recycling. To avoid destroying remote areas with mining operations, I think instead of the industry having to change how metal is produced, the responsibility falls once again on consumers. We must start introducing social sharing programs, for example car share to combat consumerism. The economies of the world can become less dependent upon raw materials over time. This however, will only take place if our greed for money and ownership can be subsided, and the environment put first.

Ebola has been a word on prime time news every night for the last couple months, and as Matthew Chiu addresses in his blog, the economic effects of the outbreak might be severe. As the epidemic turns into a pandemic, many predictions for the coming months are being blown away, and revised. But how are these predictions formulated? A 2007 article by Thomas A. Guarett suggests many economical predictions for epidemics are based off of the 1918 influenza outbreak that ravaged the globe after the First World War. However a lot has changed since those days.

It makes me wonder how the modernized world will respond to a pandemic. There are many new helpful factors being set into play: such as technology, transportation, global support. Governments however are still not equipped to deal with this scale of crisis, can we trust the politicians of the world to keep the outbreak under control? As the disease spreads, so to it will spread astronomical healthcare, insurance costs will follow with, not to mention the death toll. Labour and food shortages are generally the local consequence but what will the effect be on the rest of the world? Can the economic effects of a pandemic like this, really be predicted?

Understanding money is like attempting to comprehend the meaning of life. The problem stems from discussions around money and economics. The language is twisted and confusing to outsiders. John Lanchester’s article Money Talks, speaks in depth about today’s economic system, and the discourse surrounding it.

Lanchester lays much of the blame for the 2008 collapse upon experts intentionally making terms more complicated than necessary. Lanchester gives examples of where the language of economics has failed: “To bail out means to slop water over the side of a boat. That verb now means an injection of public money into a failing institution…Credit now means debt… inflation means money being worth less.”(33). Lanchester describes these terms as “reversified”, that is to say their meaning is the opposite of an original impression.

I think a larger flaw in the monetary system instead stems from a lack of education and awareness. Many children don’t have a chance to learn about money until they are in the thick of debt for post-secondary education, while paying rent and taxes. It’s a pattern that allows young people to be taken advantage of, where even a small amount of knowledge would help people make better decisions. My grade ten planning class should’ve included lessons to teach soon-to-be tax payers, savers, spenders and investors, basic skills in money management. The world assumes we all know. It’s the same with the meaning of life, but none of us have a clue.

Works Cited

Lanchester, John. “Money Talks.” The New Yorker Annals of Argot 4 Aug. 2014: 30-33. Print.

Picture from The New Yorker

Recently, a new marketing strategy has fallen into place with video games. Publishers have started releasing their incomplete games with added incentives, encouraging consumers to purchase the product without knowing anything about it.

In his opinion article on pre-order culture, Ben Kuchera suggests that pre-ordering could be seen as gambling: consumers who pre-order games have no impression other than what is released as previews from the publisher. There are no reviews available, no opinions to help a consumer’s choice before spending money. Kuchera claims “That’s not marketing, that’s customer hostility” (2014).

I personally have noticed this as a consumer, spending money on video games is no longer a simple purchase. The exclusivity of content limits choices customers have. Ultimately pre orders lead to the releases of incomplete titles, to sell the missing pieces separately. In some cases, retailers like Game Stop sell “exclusive content” meaning you have to purchase the game there to receive all of what the game has to offer.

Consumers who do pre-order games simply encourage publishers to continue with this new manner of manipulation. It’s up to us, the consumers to stop the publishers from continuing on this pattern.

Works cited:

Kuchara, Ben. “You Shouldn’t Pre-order Alien: Isolation (or Any Other Game).” Polygon. Polygon, 10 July 2014. Web. 19 Sept. 2014.

Picture from Game Stop

British Columbia’s largest credit union (By membership) Coast Capital Savings has continued to show loyalty to their customers and community.

There are several things that make Coast Capital Savings (CCS) stand out among credit unions in BC. CCS is dedicated to donating seven percent of pre-tax profits to community, while still offering completely free services that help Canadians save, manage, grow, and protect their assets. CCS offers opportunities to youth (both citizens and employees) with the goal of creating skills and offering experience for leadership rolls, while empowering them to make decisions that can positively affect their communities.  Together with UBC’s Sauder school of business the credit union has created the iHub, which sponsors ethical business entrepreneurs in the Vancouver area.

Coast Capital has been named one of BC’s top employers (2014) and in 2005 received the Ethics in Action Overall Leadership Award for Large Business. This contradicts Milton Friedman’s article: “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Profits” where he claims that it is not possible to take social ethical responsibility as a business without taxing its stakeholders. CCS has found a balance to be both financially and socially successful. As an institution, Coast Capital’s mission is to “change the way Canadians feel about banking forever”. This is a standard other Canadian businesses should strive for in their respective fields.

More info:

CCS Community Report 2013: https://www.coastcapitalsavings.com/About_Coast_Capital_Savings/Corporate_Information/Corporate_Social_Responsibility/Citizenship_Report/?intcid=f_amp_bn_140808113141

Picture from: https://www.coastcapitalsavings.com/About_Coast_Capital_Savings/