An article in the Vancouver Sun was published today about the inappropriate behaviour that employees tend to develop during the holiday season. Accountemps identified 5 “personalities.”

First, “the-not-so-secret shopper”, who overextends their lunch hour to shop for holiday gifts. Secondly, “the Cookie Monster”, who cleans the break room out of holiday treats. Next is the “Sniffler”, who shows up to work despite being sick. Then there is the “party animal”, overindulges at the company Christmas party. Finally, is the “Grinch”, who spreads anti-holiday cheer.

While this article does point out common holiday behaviours, it tends to point out the obvious, and gives very little value to the reader. The article offers no approach for employers to stifle or handle the inappropriate behaviours, nor does it add anything of value to the original information provided by Accountemps.

The article has very little use or qualifications to be published in the business section of a prominent newspaper.

Abby’s post “No matter how hard we try to avoid them, presentation skills are essential” is in response to the article “Why Is Good Public Speaking Important” on publicwords.com.

Abby makes many credible points in her post including: “In the business world, the ability to present well can be categorized as a ‘soft skill’, yet how you present yourself, an idea, and your company serves as the tipping point to success.”

She is completely right. At the end of our presentations on Monday our professor, Elaine Williamson Sprague, told us that what sets us apart from the Economics majors is Sauder’s focus on presentations. These skills in public speaking, creating engaging and efficient presentations as well as the ability to work in teams are the key to future success.

The article points out that “good presentations can turn around a bad situation, good public speaking can create enormous opportunities and healthy competition amongst employees and a good presentation can change the world.” These are things we must always keep in mind and work towards when we are dreading creating a presentation, and speaking in public.

Presentation Zen is a blog written by Garr Reynolds about “the issues related to professional presentation design” . His blog was ranked number 32 on strategistnews.com ‘s Top 50 Best Business Blogs 2011. Reynolds views are clearly respected, and recognized as he was invited as one of the guest speakers at TEDx Tokyo.

Reynolds blogs, are abundant with external sources, references and video clips to provide background knowledge and examples of the techniques he’s commending or critiquing. The posts are well organized, with clear headings, ideas clearly leading from one point into another. The posts are often concluded with a list of related articles and a “take-away” section.

One of the blogs downfalls is it’s inconsistent updates. The blog goes through long lull periods, often up until a whole month. Currently, the blog has not been updated since Oct. 31st.

One post I found very interesting was about the importance of smiling. Something the TA’s had reiterated to us a number of times throughout the last lecture.  I chose to review this blog after the last lecture because it is a skill that is often neglected by many business people. This blog is worth perusing, and is made enjoyable with the number of visual aids.

TED Ideas Worth Spreading – Smile – Ron Gutman

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Japadog fits the definition of entrepreneurship to a tee, according to the various definitions of the word found on quickMBA.com. Japadog has presented a new and unique product, acquired a niche market and was started by Noriki Tamura, a man who works for himself and has “pioneered change”.

If you are a Vancouverite you already know what Japadog is. If you just moved here, like myself, you’ve probably been asked at least half a dozen times if you’ve had one yet.

When Tamura moved to Vancouver from Japan in 2005 he had dreams of opening a sidewalk crêpe store. However, he quickly discovered street-venders here were only allowed to sell beverages, muffins and pre-cooked hotdogs. He was able to obtain a permit by lottery, and instead started to develop a unique hotdog menu.

Japadogs is what happens when your metropolitan city’s street-corner hotdog kiosk meets a japanese restaurant. The hotdogs menu is extensive, an array of toppings: wasabi, japanese mayo, cabbage, seaweed, teriyaki sauce and much more.

A questionable combination perhaps, but upon consumption your taste buds won’t be doubtful. Tamura provided Vancouver’s downtown with a unique feature enjoyed by all.

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I read two of Michael Bean’s blog posts, one about the risks of inbound marketing, another about the decline in TV viewers.

The first post talks about inbound marketing, which involves “the customer finding you”, meaning that we find companies and products via search engines, Twitter and “liking” it on Facebook. Michael is of the opinion that this marketing technique is risky, and companies using commercials on TV (outbound marketing) have the upper hand. However, he explains that ideally both tactics will be incorporated in a company’s marketing plan.

While I agree with him, that at the present time both tactics are of extreme value and importance to obtain customers, companies that use “outbound marketing” may not have the upper hand much longer. In Michael’s second post mentioned above he explains that there has been a large decline in TV viewers. His reasoning? No one wants to watch commercials and today there are many options to avoid them (the internet and PVRs).

I believe companies who depend on television commercials should now look to posting their ads on websites such as Megavideo, Putlocker and Videobb. These sites are frequented by people avoiding commercials and by who are busy during “primetime”.

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The Financial Post announced announced McDonald’s is planning to spending 1 billion dollars on renovating 1400 Canadian restaurants. Renovations include double drive-thru lanes, wifi, fire places, flat-screen televisions and revamping the inside with stone accents, all this to “modernize the chain” and help the company compete with Canadian fast-food chain Tim Horton’s.

This is surprising as a majority of the McDonald’s in Canada just went through renovations two years ago, with upgrades identical to the ones listed above. When McDonald’s became and official sponsor of the 2010 Winter Olympics held in Vancouver McDonald’s across the country were transformed into bright, trendy restaurants.

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Although this is an expensive endeavour considering most McDonald’s have been recently updated a move in a cleaner, more modern appearance is the way to go. McDonald’s took a hit about 7 years ago, after the documentary SuperSize me came out. McDonald’s went through many criticisms about the ingredients and lack of nutritional value in their menu as well as the cleanliness and process of preparing and storing food. Since then McDonald’s has made a number of changes for the better. This more modern, upscale look will keep McDonald’s moving in a positive direction and maintain their popularity among consumers.

Since September 17th the Occupy Wall Street protests have been growing. These protests are mainly aimed at the American Government and Wall Street executives. The marchers are protesting the influence money has on the government, that the government has yet to prosecute any Wall Street executives who acted illegally and immorally leading to the economic crisis the United States that has affected a number of other countries’ economy as well. Other causes of protest include social inequality and insufficient social and health care.

The movement is set to hit Canadian cities on October 15th. The protests have been highly organized, but “leaderless”, run instead by committees responsible for legal issues, medical, media, food distribution, even running a library.

It will be interesting to see how local governments and authorities in Canada deal with the peaceful protests. I think the response will vary from Western to Eastern Canada. After the 2010 G20 Summit in Toronto there are a lot of activists and citizens disappointed in the police force’s response. The Toronto sector has cut off communication with police, while the Vancouver Police remain informed of protestors agendas.

The protests are self-sustaining, a sort of commune they could last longer than the average protest.

Since my last post about smartphone consumer rates the iPhone 4S has been released and Steve Jobs, the visionary behind Apple, has passed away. This has lead to a media frenzy about how Jobs shaped today’s technology and speculation about the direction Apple is headed in his absence.

The article “How Apple outsmarted RIM and Nokia” is a further exploration of the smartphone shift. It’s not the qualitative facts – percentages of consumerism of one smartphone compared to another, but rather the explanation of that shift. The article pinpoints the factors that make the iPhone both user-friendly, and trendy.

The iPhone marketing and advertising is credited to Steve Jobs, a huge factor of consumer popularity is due to Apple’s omnipresence. Apple ads are both ubiquitous and have a way of capturing the consumer -similar to your favourite sports team- you just want to revel in the collective identity and success. Apple’s success compared to Nokia and Rim however can be credited to Jobs’ creation of an “eco-system.” The eco-system is iTunes and the app. The app network will continue to attract new businesses to develop their own apps for the iPhone. This system creates stability and insurance for Apple’s future.

Throughout the past few months newspapers, blogs and other media outlets have been flooded with stories featuring the smart phone. Articles regarding Canadian telecommunication company RIM’s struggle in the market as stocks plummet, as well as endless “hype” surrounding the iPhone 5 ( to be released any day now.)

An article in the Globe and Mail this past week outlined BlackBerry’s declining preference among consumers. The picture below shows that from June until August only 9% of consumers purchasing a smart phone chose a BlackBerry.  On top of that, 29% of BlackBerry users said that they were going to upgrade to an iPhone in the future and of all smart phone users 55% said they planning to acquire an iPhone.

The media keeps telling us the BlackBerry is going under, but as a Sauder student it’s harder to believe. Since moving to UBC this fall my BBM contacts have doubled. BlackBerry’s seem to dominate Sauderite’s preferences. Is it because of BlackBerry’s reputation as the classic “business phone” and we’re all trying to play the part? Or are we all just waiting for the iPhone 5 or mobile contracts to end?

It will be interesting to see if RIM makes a recovery in the following year.

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Automobile manufacturers are constantly trying to differentiate their products from competitors through luxury, fuel efficiency and price. What lengths will they go to to achieve increased market shares? Manufacturers’ urgency to put the model with “the most” on the market first, can result in inadequate testing, reoccurring flaws, and thus major recalls. Recently, Toyota recalled over 9 million cars worldwide that had sticky gas pedals resulting in accelerations problems.

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Business-ethics.com outlined “Five Critical Lessons” about the Toyota Recall. “Aggressive growth can create unmanageable risk”, “Get the facts quickly, and manage your risks aggressively”, and “Accept Responsibility” are lessons that address Toyota’s ethics cocerning the recalls. Prioritizing consumers’ safety after Toyota’s objective to overtake GM as the leading car manufacturer was unethical. Furthermore, when the recalls were initially addressed Toyota was indirect about the source of the problem, and how the car arrived on the market. Rather than blame the pedal supplier, spokesman Mike Michel said: “Our position on suppliers has always been that Toyota is responsible for the cars.” Ethics is designed to create a certain level of trust between corporations and consumers. By altering their objectives from quality to increasing profit, trust between Toyota and the consumer has been breached.