The arc initiative program at Sauder offers a number of rewarding opportunities in developing countries such as South Africa, Ethiopia, Colombia etc. The programs offered bridge the gap between the poor and the rich, different races, communities, and gather many talented, potential candidates whom, in unity will create a better tomorrow. This, like the arc, promotes a two-way flow of learning and sharing.
Personally, I think the UN and Social Enterprise obtain different values and roles. They are not the same, and they cannot replace one another. ENP defines social enterprise as “businesses owned by nonprofit organizations, that are directly involved in the production and/or selling of goods and services for the blended purpose of generating income and achieving social, cultural, and/or environmental aims. Social enterprises are one more tool for non-profits to use to meet their mission to contribute to healthy communities.” Social entrepreneurs take immediate action and initiative regarding social, cultural, political, economic issues rather than taking passive actions. I think that with both the UN and social entrepreneurs in collaboration, more international conflicts or problems could be resolved. Arc’s role is to provide these entrepreneurs the opportunity, resources, motivation to innovate.

Checking different business and fashion blogs occur on an hourly basis for me and it fascinates me every time to see ordinary people reaching out to big comapanies and becoming well-known fashion bloggers. I have came across a blog post titled “Are Bloggers Building Relationships With Brands…or PR Firms?”, learning that it is absolutely important to build relationships with the right departments of a company.

In the blog post, the blogger’s acquaintance has built a relationship with a major brand through their PR team and received an invite to the fashion show. However, keeping in contact with the PR did not exactly help further the relationship with the brand itself. In my opinion, I think it would be more effective to build a healthy relationship with brand employees. Most brands outsource their PR department to firms that specialize in it – One is to cut cost, and another reason would be to focus more on a company’s core activities. Many working with a brand speaks to a firm’s PR first, but since these are not brand employees, building a relationship with a brand through their PR team can be short-lived. By outsourcing the PR department, workers are only obligated to come up with and implement strategy that the brand may not be able to do in-house. Therefore, if the brand disagrees with the representing PR firm or seeks a way to minimize cost , the brand can always switch to a new PR firm. This is why it is necessary to focus on the researching process in order to catch good opportunities and establish long-lasting relations with major firms.

As I was browsing through some business blogs on LinkedIn, I came across a very interesting title that places “marketing” and “sex” side-by-side (rare). I would already be interested knowing that this post talked about marketing, but the title was just so odd that it caught my full attention.

The blog itself is about the essential contents that marketers should consider when devloping approaches. These aspects include the intimacy, atmosphere, recipocrocity, size (etc.) of materials that represent a brand. The way this article is written is very interesting, as the blogger compares each of these marketing characteristics to how people feel towards sexual appeal, or just sex itself.

My thought on this blogpost is that, although many people(including myself) would feel pretty uncomfortable reading the title, many of the expamples actually do make sense and help me relate. For example, the fact that there should be absolute intimacy between an ad and the consumers just like how close a couple would become in order to satisfy certain “immediate needs”; or the best feeling when content becomes a genuine “give or take” and the audience react and express towards a marketing campaign, being just like the reciprocity of couples. All these aspects do emphasize on the importance of marketing and how it is very relevant to human nature, which in turn affects the purchasing power and demand of certain goods and services.