In Felix Huang’s blog I found interesting article about new Coca-Cola Life. There is new Coca-Cola’s product was releazed called Coca-Cola Life. It is a lower calorie version of Coca-Cola, having 27kcal/100mL, containing 60% of the calories of classic Coke.^[1] 

I partly agree with Felix’s opinion. From one side it’s just one marketing strategy, that will probably benefit company’s profit. I never understood people who believes in Coca Cola Light. In my opinion it’s also one of marketing strategies, for people who want to drink less calories pop. But if you want to lost your weight or stay healthy why do you even drink any of those soft drinks? People tend to be naive and believe in advertising and everything that it says, so Coca Cola could benefit from releasing new product.

However, on the other side, as Felix said, there is a lot of “diet” types of coke. Why did they release almost same product, but with different name tag and bottle color? Coca-Cola offers more than 750 beverages including more than 200 low- or no-
calorie options. Coca-Cola Life complements this portfolio and is one of more than 45 beverages in The Coca-Cola Company’s global portfolio currently sweetened in whole or in part with stevia leaf extract^[2] . 

To sum it up, it’s understandable that tendency for soft drinks rapidly drops, so company doing its best to save their position in market. As long as it will benefit company why not?

It was my first week in The University of British Columbia. I came from abroad, from a country where I didn’t get used to use my laptop for lessons. I used to write by hand in a copybook. When I first came to my Comm 101 class I felt so depressed and frustrated. Almost everybody were sitting with laptops, searching for something, typing, playing etc. When the class started there were even more technology involved. Online camera, iclickers, microphones. Online preparation! For the first time in my life I felt stupid. I thought I was soooo far from technology. I never thought it will be so close to me, however, I knoe hoe to use it, but it was so unusual. I use a lot of technology, but I don’t like it. From one side, it’s much easier to teach students when they actually see material, when they can respond quickly, or share their idea to the rest of the class. But on the other side, its one more distraction in class, moreover, you learn better when you write by hand.  And it’s not only about educational system. it’s about smartphones, electronic devises and other robots that “helps”us.

I don’t like this technology era, so does Stuart Jeffries. In his article he claims

“For years now I’ve been driven mad by the ever-increasing electrification of our world.”

People stopped thinking their brain. They use auto-corrector to check word spelling, google to find information, facebook to talk and iPad to read books. Do you even remember that smell of a new book. We have to reduce our internet usage hours and start noticing people around. 

There is a cool video, I saw the other day, that encourages you to think of our life. I strongly recommend it to watch!

Look UP!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS9Wte1gX9g

I found really interesting classmate’s blog about Blackberry’s new phone, Blackberry Passport. In her blog she mentioned that Blackberry phones are not that popular and qwerty keyboard already experienced its age. Iris also mentioned that Blackberry better to stop producing qwerty keyboard phones and address its attention to touch screen phones. Even though, I agree that more people prefer touch screen phones, however, I would disagree with this recommendation. Producing phones with qwerty keyboard is Blackberry’s concept, and that’s why they are unique in one sense. Moreover, company already produces touch screen smartphones. Mainly, Blackberry try to make phone comfortable for business purpose, so it will be easier to work. Imagine you are working in very prestigious place. You have an important meeting in a few hours, and you realized you want to add something to your project. Either you will spend a lot of time trying to type letter in touchscreen smartphone, where it’s so difficult, or you simply use qwerty keyboard, and add a few words. It’s perfect combination: qwerty+touch scren.

I had a chance to see Blackberry’s new phone and test it. From my point of view this phone is very comfortable and easy to use. Of course it can’t substitute laptop, but for some urgent important work it’s very useful. There is small demand for those types of phones, because not a lot of people need it. But still, there is few of them, who uses this.

From the article  it says that Blackberry’s CEO expect high demand for their new phone. There is a lot of compositors in the market, so it will be a little bit hard for company, but  I believe that “Passport” will be popular.

Do you think a lot of sustainability? Do you care about future of our Earth? You should start. We will not have second chance to restore our earth and start all over again but with less loses. We live only once, and we want to live our full life safely and without scares. How do we do that in the world where there everything energy consuming and environment polluting. UBC is one of the main fighters for resource efficiency. In 2011 there were opening of The Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS). It’s truly unique and very important building for our society. It shows how humanity can use resources given by nature in a positive way.

“It’s designed to be net positive in four ways for the environment and three ways for human health.” said UBC Professor John Robinson in his interviue to The Globe and Mail

 “CIRS is a multi-use space with facilities designed to encourage human interaction, explore new approaches and advance globally-significant sustainability research”.

I agree with Pr. Robinson, that all universities in the world, especially in Сanada, should do same types of researches and experemenеs with sustainability in terms of improvement our daily life.

From one point of view, It was probably cost project for UBC, but on the other hand it’ll safe a lot of university’s money in future. Moreover, this building will encourage other people, especially UBC’s future students in sustainability to think widely and watch in the world from different perspectives. Not only can we harm our planet, but also help it.

In our course we’ve been doing a lot of work regarding the Tesla electric cars. However, there are also plenty of other brands. But is it a stable market? Is it reliable? According to the article, Paul A. Eisenstein made a research in the electric car market.

Most of the electric car companies are suffering from low demand. In order to increase demand, they are trying to reduce prices. Ford has been able to reduce its price to $9 000. Among other companies that are cutting prices is Chevrolet, Volt plug-in hybrid, Honda Accord plug-in, and Mitsubishi i-MiEV battery-electric vehicles. However, Tesla hasn’t decreased its price from its already expensive vehicle (as we already know, Tesla is a premium expensive fully electric car). If such large companies have the need to reduce their prices in order to increase demand, does this mean that market of electric cars is not that popular? I think yes. I like the idea of electric cars, it is environmentally friendly and it will probably help us save the Earth and keep it clean for a longer period time. Unfortunately, as data shows this market is currently unpopular. People prefer to buy gasoline cars than electric or hybrid.  Electric cars can be a second car in a family, nonetheless, not all families are that rich, and they simply can’t afford such expensive and inconvenient car.

So, why are such big and successful companies entering this market? Firstly, according to Paul A. Eisenstein, there is special law in California called Zero-Emissions Vehicle mandate, which was very interesting and new for me. This law encourages every big manufacturer to produce “green” vehicle. Second reason is, in my opinion, that companies are desperately trying to involve people to an idea about sustainability and saving environment. Even though they probably have losses from selling these cars, they hope to be rewarded within next few years to come.

Given that I am an international student, I haven’t had the chance to do lots of reaserch regarding First Nations people. However, I got the opportunity to get to know some of the culture pretty well. I lived in Vancouver for a few months in 2013, where in autumn I was fortuante enough to attend a UBC exhibition regarding the First Nations people. It was an awesome experience for me. I learned a lot, and even had the pleasure to speak with some of them. They presented stories about their lives, and we watched a movie called ” Where the Spirit Lives”. To anyone wanting to learn more regarding First Nations people, I strongly recommend watching this movie.

From the political view, long ago, governments literally were trying to bring down the aboriginal culture. Thankfully, they recently apologized for the mistakes. “Historically, the Canadian government has catered to aboriginals only when it needed them. It needs them now” by Thomas Walkom. Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (AAND) provides funds for almost all the social programs and services for the Aboriginal population. They even have lower tuition fees for education.

I think that the aboriginals affect the economy of Canada. The government invests a lot of money in Aboriginal Education. Educational levels among First nations are rapidly growing. More and more people are getting involved with jobs. Income for aboriginals and non-aboriginal are slightly different, $14,198 compared to $20,264 respectively.

There is a significant difference between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians in terms of the lifestyle factors, demographic employment, education and income. As stated “Life expectancy for registered Indians at birth is increasing and will continue to increase” However, most of the aboriginal population still suffers from disadvantages in comparison to the non-aboriginal population.

How often do you use your phone? Do you check your Facebook page frequently? Do you “tweet” something interesting you saw? Or do you upload a photo on Instagram? The “Internet” and “phone addiction” era is already here. People prefer to read articles online, watch tv online, even write to relatives who live abroad, online. So why don’t companies use this phenomenon? They certainly do!

According to the article (From the UBC library) a few big companies gained success using internet and technology. As stated, Dove’s Real Beauty Campaign and Nike were able to get to the next level of sales and made it even bigger, just by inventing an interesting and useful webpage group on Facebook and other Internet spaces. Internet, and particularly companies’ websites allows us to find almost all the information we need. Wheather it’s checking a price of any given product, to even making orders online, and getting it delivered straight to your home. For instance, there is a new widespreading news about the iPhone 6. Everyone ardently discusses the new device. Have you seen this huge lines at the Apple store? Did you stand in these lines for over 5 hours waiting to buy a new phone, or did you use Internet?

Moreover, the author provides us with examples of everyday life, where we really are in constant contact with companies without even realizing it. There are a lot of pop-up windows with advertisements in almost every page we enter, mostly related to searches we have made. Willy nilly, do we pay attention to it. We will either close it, or leave it open. Furthermore, we get these advertising messages or phone calls from sales managers.

Internet offers a great opportunity for business growth. Sauder students should know this:)

Our society faces many problems. Wheather it’s world economies, geopolitics, or even something more important for people is their health and health of their family. Have you ever noticed how many people smoke? I personally don’t smoke, but it was always interesting to me. When walking down the street, and I notice just how many people smoke, it’s a stagering amount of people. And the next question that pops to my head is the following; “how harmful it is?” How can we reduce the number of smokers? Modern technology offers us E-cigarette. I’m sure everybody is familiar with it, but for those who don’t know, it’s An electronic cigarette (e-cig or e-cigarette), personal vaporizer (PV) or electronic nicotine
delivery system (ENDS) is a battery-powered vaporizer which simulates tobacco smoking by producing an aerosol that resembles smoke © http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_cigarette.

Somewhere I agree with Julie Netherland. In her blog article She gives her point of view regarding e-cigarettes. Electronic cigarettes helped  decrease a great number of smokers, however death rates from cigarette smoking stays constant. From my point of view, e-cigarettes are no more than a toy. It will never help quit smoking. People have their own mind sets, they decide what they are willing to do. No one is more responsible for your life than you. Nicotine patches and gum is based on self-hypnosis. It’s not a surprise that researches show it’s not working. Moreover, Netherland mentioned “e-cigarettes will increase smoking among youth or people who have never smoked. So far, however, the research does not bear out these fears“. These people will start smoking just to “try”, or probably to show their “coolness”. Most of young people start smoking due to precisely that, show off in front of others. Inventing in these type of cigarettes will probably help in the long run. But know, that this was made only for business purposes and play with people’s emotions, because the question regarding of health and wellness was always, and still is, prominent.