What’s irrelevant to one group, may be something cherished to another group.

(photo credit: Artizans.com)

Taseko’s controversial copper-gold project, New Prosperity, strives to create significant economic and social value.  While the key highlights of the result include a federal government revenue increase by $4.30 billion, it may at first seem that only benefits will come out of this project. However, it is a different story for the Tsihgot’in people, as the project proposes to use their land. For these individuals, preserving their land means protecting a history of tradition. When one believes in protecting something they highly value, it becomes an obstacle to the company destroying that value. The Tsihgot’in people’s protest becomes a key external factor to Taseko’s vision, who now have barriers to their project.

Values that can only really be understood from the Tsihgot’in people’s point of view, are the tribal park’s cultural, heritage, and ecological values. While companies see it as just an ordinary piece of land, it is certainly not “just” a piece of land for the First Nations. They believe that it contains life, ranging from wildlife to salmon spawning areas, that must be protected. With the mine being created on this land, they believe their values will be destroyed.

Similar to Enbridge, the Northern Gateway to them is a $2.6 billion revenue and job generating project. To the aboriginal communities, this project only calls for potential accidents that could disrupt the land they treasure. Land is precious and once an accident occurs, the effects are irreversible.

The conflict between the First Nations and their adversaries turn into a battle of cultural values and profits. Are the profits and economics benefits from the project enough to overthrow the precious values of the First Nations people? Is bringing in economic benefits a valid reason to demolish something cherished by another?

Did you say Blackberry? What is that again?
Their latest creation, the Passport, may be a creation that was just a little too late.

This once extremely popular brand has slowly died down over the years. Its notable competitors, Apple and Samsung, have been taking over the cell phone/electronics market, lowering the popularity of Blackberry. The big touch-screen trend has not failed to appeal to a large variety of the mobile user market, ranging from teenagers to adults of all occupations.

While these companies have made a value proposition of creating a convenient, large touch-screen phone for anyone of all ages, Blackberry concentrated on the customer segment of business workers. What has Blackberry been doing wrong? Nothing, really. When the touch-screen trend was occurring, the company could have made major adjustments to their products. By focusing on the big touch-screen trend, they could have jumped onto the bandwagon and brought in extra profits. At the same time, they would have had to figure out how to turn that point of parity into a point of difference, as touch-screen phones have been and are still quite similar to one another.

(image from Yahoo)

However, because their brand promise is to provide phones with quick emailing and texting service meant for businessmen and businesswomen, focusing on touch-screen phones was not entirely necessary. Blackberry is positioned in many consumers’ minds as a business phone, and integrating a focus of touch-screens into their phones could have possibly lost customers. By introducing this big screened Passport now, is it too late for Blackberry to defeat their competition?