I believe that the Arc is a “two way bridge” that is valuable for both civilians in developing countries and developed countries. Through this relationship, students are able to gain knowledge and perspective of how to run a business and create solutions by being able to experience problems first hand. While students are immersed into a different country and culture, they are also able to learn and understand the countries “social customs, trust building and business practices.” As well, local communities are able to benefit by learning how to maintain and become independent in their community in the long run. Whereas, the United Nations may help civilians indirectly, and provide them with short term support. Ultimately, the United Nations would not solve their problems, help to sustain local communities, and help further grow their businesses, but make them become dependent upon the funding from the United Nations, which is concerning. However, the United Nations plays an important part globally, helping keep peace, the spreading of HIV/AIDS and providing universal education. Therefore, both the United Nation’s and the Arc are needed on a global scale to make the world a better place.

In class, we discussed how Zappos had organizational culture where their employees were motivating themselves having the same values and beliefs as the company. This along with having a good environment, and benefits which help relieve employees stress, aid in Zappos success by having a high quality of service. I discovered an article and I think that a person’s job and mood are interrelated. If a person is content then they are more likely to do a better job. However, if a person is happy, it is most likely created from their job as an average American will spend 10.3 years of their lifetime working. When people are not passionate about their jobs, they consistently do not show up, or their quality or work isn’t productive. It was interesting that America had a “disengagement crisis at a staggering $300 billion in lost productivity annually.” Google provides nap pods, free meals, and free facilities, and in return employees are productive and passionate, and a low turnover rate is shown. Recently, Google started covering the cost of Foundation Medicine’s DNA tests for employees and their family-members suffering from cancer. This will further encourage employees to dedicated themselves to their work. I believe that these are not the only factors that will help companies succeed, but is one of the more important factors in helping a company thrive.

I agree with Yasmin Bendror’s blog in which social media is a game changer for businesses. With Americans spending on average of 37 minutes or more on social media, a higher time-spend than any other major Internet activity, including email, they will be more susceptible to hear about products and services. I believe that companies can reach their target market more often and be able to get feedback more quickly and more easily. In addition, another benefit of social media is that companies can connect with their customers after their purchase, to strengthen their customer relationship. Companies can be more easily accessed as well as their customers because customers can receive updates, promotions or earn special discounts, which help the company grow. Although businesses are quick to approach social media, “businesses that use social media as part of a planned corporate approach are 1.5 to 2 times more likely to anticipate revenue growth than ad hoc users”. Therefore businesses should have a strategy for social media and make it more effective. Overall, the number of people accessing the Internet via a mobile phone increased by 60.3% to 818.4 million in the last 2 years. This reinforces how much it is becoming a huge part of everyday life; therefore businesses should invest time, money and effort into social media.

Many images of expensive luxury cars and exotic vacationing are often found on social media. Why? Social media isn’t just a way for people to connect and communicate, but for people to post extravagant and luxurious photos depicting their wealth and luxurious life. This may be the case for many people, but what they don’t know is that they are incriminating themselves. Social media is public and anyone can access their posts. Social media has become very prevalent in today’s society and it has now become a helpful tool for the Canadian Revenue Agency to find people whose lifestyle does not match up with their income stated on their tax return. The Canadian Revenue Agency calls it “Indirect Verification of Income” and it’s an audit technique employed by the CRA. For example people who are sending their children to private school, taking luxurious vacations at resorts and driving a luxurious car but only are reporting that they earn around $45,000 on their tax return per year, will be more susceptible to an audit by Revenue Canada. If caught underreporting income, they may be subject to tax penalties or even prosecution. Therefore people should be careful and watch what they post because you never know who is looking at your social media page.

Being a Vancouverite and a student, Calen’s Blog about Vancouver’s housing industry really caught my attention. I have known that Vancouver’s housing industry has been increasing rapidly, but not to its full extent. Prices in the $2-5 million range have risen by 49% since 2009! I learned that this is mainly due to foreign investors, who are securing their money by buying property in Vancouver. It’s unbelievable that Asian investors, mainly mainland Chinese, make up “90% of sales of properties costing $5 million and more.” All of these foreign investors and inflation of prices are causing concern among many Vancouver residences. Therefore, I am really fond of Calen’s idea of making “investors” who are spending a small amount of time in their homes pay an extra fee. This would really support Vancouverites and others, who really work hard and deserve to live in the city. Recently Vancouver is ranked as the second least affordable major city after Hong Kong for the past three years which depicts how the extreme the housing market is becoming. Ultimately the escalating prices in housing is hurting students like myself because after accumulated loans, low employment rates, and income that isn’t sufficient enough to support young adults, we will not be able to afford housing.

Don’t you ever wonder why people always encourage to “look, but don’t touch” when it’s clear that it shouldn’t be touched. Well, sometimes people don’t realize that touching the object can harm the individual as well as cause damage to the object. The phrase is heavily stated for tourists visiting the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. This is because the coral reef is becoming more fragile and if efforts are not put towards sustaining it the coal ecosystem may soon “be reduced to piles of rubble,” Jonathan Erez stated. The Great Barrier Reef being one of the seven wonders of the natural word, contains over 1,500 fish species, and 30 species of marine mammals. It’s a spectacular sight, but recently there has been a fourty percent decline in deposition of calcium carbonate in the coral due to higher acidic levels in sea water, resulting in weaker reefs that are able to withstand the vigorous ocean activities. In efforts to sustain the reef, I agree that the federal and Queensland government’s Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability plan isn’t very effective, as it has unspecified actions. I believe that with the coral reef deteriorating, this may lead to not only a huge loss of biodiversity, but a loss in Australia’s economy in which it generate $5.6 billion alone from the great barrier reef in the tourism industry. Lastly, it depicts how crucial climate change is affecting many important ecosystems on the planet.

Three British Columbian First Nations leaders took a strong stance in favour of building LNG pipelines over the Site C dam project in Canada. Getting First Nations support for any major economic development involving land use and extraction of natural resources as stated in the article will become very crucial in the future as they possess a substantial amount of land where potential gas could be drawn upon, and because natural resources are becoming more valuable. I believe that the First Nations are being very strategic about supporting the LNG over Site C dam because the plan for the Site C dam is further developed and more likely to be approved than the LNG project. Furthermore, they are in favour of the Liquefied Natural Gas project and more opposed to the Site C dam project due to the dangers of massive flooding opposed to a “spillage” from the pipeline which apparently dissipates into the atmosphere. Although there is support from the First Nations for LNG pipelines, it will be a long time before it is approved as there are still concerns for the extraction of the natural gas by fracking, even though it is apparent that public opposition to the LNG pipelines don’t appear to be as strong as it was towards the Northern Gateway pipeline.

In a recent Canadian study, McDonald’s and Tim Hortons emerge as Canada’s favourite restaurants. This is shocking to see McDonald’s taking the top spot in fourteen categories which include best fries, best tasting food overall, best chicken burgers and sandwiches, because people are becoming more health conscious. Although it wasn’t as surprising to see Tim Hortons holding the top spot in best coffee, breakfast, and dessert. Tim Hortons and McDonald’s have been around for over 50 years showing that people favour security and quality of the company. Even though recently Starbucks has become popular, creating a strong brand identity it shows that is hard to knock off the top competitor of the ladder in the positioning of a company, as Tim Hortons and McDonald’s beat out Starbucks in the best coffee category. It remains questionable whether Tim Hortons will continue to be rated one of the top Canadian restaurants once it is acquired by Burger King. The authentic Canadian experience may diminish. Although it may lose Canadian consumers, it also has an opportunity to gain even more consumers and potentially become international in which the cost of losing Canadian consumers will be lower than the gain of consumers worldwide.

It was astounding for me to read how “donations aren’t going where contributors think they’re going” in Jessica’s blog. Especially for situations where donations are crucial to help others. I agree that it is unethical that Invisible Children which is an organization to bring awareness about Kony 2012, profited immensely by only spending thirty seven percent of the donations on African-related programs. Moreover, a substantial amount of money received went to marketing and bringing awareness, which was unnecessary considering thousands of articles a day were being posted, and social media played a big part in promotion. Even Kate Costello who is executive director of Governance Matter said “people should question why such a company appeared to spend more on marketing than on programs to help people”. However, many organizations such as the Canadian Cancer Society are also gaining more money, but using less of it towards the main cause, as in 2011, under 22% went towards research and the rest went towards fundraising and administration. However, what people don’t realize is that people will become less reluctant to contribute, and as a result of it will harm organizations who in fact use the donations for their specified purpose. Ultimately, this spiral downfall will affect those victims who are in need of the support.

Recently, Home Depot shares have plummeted 2% after having record sales with a 5.8% increase for the third quarter.  This is due to the fact that there has been an investigation of a possible data breach, which has now been confirmed. With Home Depot being the fourth largest retailer by revenue it is shocking that their security is not as secure as it should be.  Ultimately, the breach of security is denting consumer confidence for people who shop in stores and online, and causing companies to spend a substantial amount of money for identity-theft monitoring. With large companies such as Neiman Marcus Group Ltd., P.F. Chang’s China Bistro, and Target having similar breeches within past years, it is slowly forcing Americans to convert to chip-enabled cards. I think that it is quite interesting in how the United States who are leaders in the world of technology are following Canadian technology with chip- enabled cards, which will prevent credit card theft.

photo: https://time.com/3306343/home-depot-hack-confirm/