Lianne McRadu's Blog

I thoroughly enjoyed my year in Comm 299. Both terms I found extremely helpful. Not only did Comm 299 introduce us to some of the skills we will be working on and building on throughout our commerce degree here at UBC, but are skills that everyone needs to work on and have in general!

Public speaking

– I throughly enjoyed this class because I have not had a class before that was just dedicated to practicing my public speaking. It was a small class with a really easy going environment. The class dynamics made it really comfortable for everyone, and we had a lot of fun. I throughly enjoyed my TA. He was very nice and gave positive criticism. There are many things that I had never considered before when public speaking. Things like speed, hand gestures, posture, and  a format of content were never things I really considered, but am now more aware of when I speak.

Resume & Cover letter, Interviewing

– I enjoyed this part of the course because I was quite honestly embarrassed to show anyone at Sauder my previous resume. Although a few times in lecture the terms “a group of robots,” and, “same,” came up when discussing how we were taught do our Resume and Cover letter, and Interview, I can honestly say I was happy in how we were instructed to do these. I now have the basic foundation for these skills, and we can now tweak and build onto these skills. This class also made me aware of how serious employers take this, and the importance of conducting myself in more of a business manner.

Things I generally liked about this course:

– Homework amount

-Time commitment

-Class format

Believe it or not, growing up, I was never one to really commit to an activity and pursue it with a passion that other students my age did. I was average at playing instruments and participated in school sports teams. For example, I played the piano, but definitely did not fit that typical “asian stereotype,” never even completing a single examination. I participated in my school band, learning the basics of how to play the saxophone and flute. However, I learnt these two instruments because I really did not know what I enjoyed. I was also a student growing up that joined all the school sports teams: basketball, floor hockey, track and field, cross country, and volleyball. Unfortunately this was the same situation, where I never really excelled in one of them or enjoyed one in particular. I guess you could say I enjoyed the social aspect of being on these teams. Even though these activities never translated into things that I excelled at, it was important to get involved, and this taught me to try other new things. Therefore, there was one activity that I look back on now and realize has influenced the way I am today. I was a dancer in the Howe Sound Dance Academy and had been performing there for over 8 years. I had had many instructors there throughout the years, but one instructor in particular has really influenced me and helped me develop as a dancer, as well as a stronger person.

Shalimar Blanchard is not a teacher for the faint hearted. She takes her job very seriously and always is extremely firm, but amidst this, you can see she has a deep passion for what she does. She is not scared to tell you what she thinks, and even though you may be hurt at the time, she means well for you in the long-run. I had been taking classes with her for over 6 years. I have to admit I did not take it very seriously throughout my younger years, but as I started getting older and took more classes with her, I really got to know her style of teaching. She really tries to work with you and focus on what you can improve on, and there is AWAYS something you need to improve on. Many of her qualities have rubbed off onto me. Seeing the ways in which I commit to dance and my classes, over the years we have really gotten to know each other very well. I can honestly say she has, unknowingly, helped with my confidence and provided me with skills of reasoning and conscientiousness that I use today. She has portrayed how she has noticed my efforts by giving me opportunities such as competing in competitions within groups, as well as a solo, used me to go in the place of older students in dance recitals, and the most significant opportunity she gave me was being Snow White in our dance academy’s year end recital of ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.’ Many things frighten me, but I realize I really never was unnaturally scared to perform on stage.

I really appreciate the time she has spent on me and my dancing. She has taught me a lot of things and I can honestly say that the lesson I have learnt from her is to work hard, perservere , and this will create the confidence for you to pursue other things in the future. She provided that push I needed to learn how to commit to working with teams, as well as working hard for myself.

As energy consumption and demand are going up, people need to find new means of becoming economically friendly. The Global demand for energy is said to increase by almost 36% between 2008-2035. As developing countries such as China and India are rising, these emerging economies are the reason for this increase. This is a drastic difference, as our resources are already depleting as it is. As we try to become more efficient, I really wonder if we are moving fast enough. As we can see from an Economist chart, it is just a progression of the same means of energy that we already use. Time and money needs to be spent on ways of finding new energy sources that aren’t damaging and detrimental as the ones we have used the last century. As we have seen from previous century’s, humans can live without all these extra powers, while I am not saying lets go back to the stone age, just that each one of us needs to be extremely mindful of what we use, so that we can use the least amount as possible.

“To bring something to the market to shed a little joy.” – David Fenn

The Howe Sound Brewery, located in Squamish British Columbia, brought out the ‘bailout bitter’ to the market during the economic downturn in 2008. Playing on worlds, saying things such as ‘recession fighting properties,’ the Bailout Bitter became an unique product that soon attracted media attention across the world. They have been written up in many news papers and were reviewed on t.v. on stations such as Global B.C. (See bellow for video). Customers ate up the slogans, and enjoyed the unique tastes of many of the Howe Sound Brewery products.

The Howe Sound Brewery is a small business with entrepreneurship qualities.They used such innovation to create a unique product by “finding a little niche” – Leslie Fenn, and used catchy slogans to expand their market and increase their demand . They had earned more awards than any other Canadian brewing company from the North American Brewers’ Association, and only five American Breweries out of 150 that competed in this competition in Idaho had walked away with more medals. They are a good example of a company that excelled in a short period of time, getting attention and demand for their products, and undertaking many risks of producing a product out of a family run business.

http://www.squamishchief.com/article/20100611/SQUAMISH0604/306119974/howe-sound-brewing-company-nabs-six-medals

I will forever be intrigued by this!

Having customers be able to watch the candy be actually made is an intriguing way to attract peoples attention and potential buyers. This is an excellent marketing strategy. It is a fun and creative way to showcase your product. The process of making the candy is nothing like I’ve seen before. It is interesting substitute for your traditional candies and lollypops. We need to have this in Canada, and if we already do.. please let me know where I can get this!

After our discussion on what motivates us, I wanted to take an opportunity to reflect on what motivates me to succeed.

The question asked was: What is a bigger motivator for you, power or money? I would have to say money, for reasons as followed.

Becoming financially stable is extremely important to me. I am looking forward to the stage of my life where I am financially comfortable, and and able to enjoy life independently.

Having that sense of achievement.

Being able to travel around the world with friends, and see the places I’ve always dreamt of.

Not having stability in your life will effect your well being and contributes to your overall health

I am not searching or seeking high profile power and will love the to have referent power that comes with experience. I do not have the personality for coercive power and therefore money is the more important tender in my life.

With and successful job comes experience… and with experience comes money… with money comes stability…. and with stability comes the real motivation for many in life and myself… true happiness.

After reading an article on how bike lanes are becoming the rage in America, I would like to address the comment made that was ” But I am concerned about safety.” -John Shields, Minneapolis MN. Bike lanes are a developing work in progress in many cities at the moment, but bike lanes are a huge opportunity for individuals and communities as a whole. Bike lanes are a more sustainable means of travel with future benefits in the long run.This is also the direction that is taking place in Canada. Addressing this comment, I have come up with and found some signs of how biking is working and why he should consider it.

Bike lanes are good for individuals because:

Real estate values increase with the proximity of bike lanes ( quoted from the League of American Bicyclists )

Decreases obesity

Reduces pollution, and creates cleaner air that we breath

Bike lanes are making communities:

More noticable as ‘environmentally friendly cities’

Remove traffic and shorten budgets

Causing city management to cities create new infrastructure to comply to this growing travel alternative as well as enticing more citizens to travel by bike

Set up bike routes and bike maps which can attract tourists to their community

Bike Lanes and Paths Are the Rage Across America

After our class on ‘Seeking Eco-Advantage,” I thought it would be interesting to do some more research on what kinds of steps companies are taking towards being more sustainable. After re-reading my blog posting on ‘What will it be.. Tree-hugger and Tree-cutter,’ it made me think back and re-ask, how are companies showing concern for the environment? I looked into the company Patagonia, that has high exposure, and am seeing how they are trying to get support from their clientele for some of the latest environmental issues. Patagonia donates money and responds to some of the top environmental emergencies. They have recently been funding and raising awareness about the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Crisis. I recognize how Patagonia caters to a clientele that are: willing to spend more for Patagonia’s environmentally friendly products, and relate to their naturalist values. They connect the use the web (and social media) for product marketing as well as services showing concern for the environment. While customers can go online and purchase their products, the company uses this as an opportunity to educate and get communities involved in projects company is working on. They post additional information and links about the crisis’, have links to influential people they want you to write letters to, as well as volunteer sign-ups, which makes them differentiable from others companies.

http://www.patagonia.com/us/contribution/patagonia.go?assetid=54730

After reading the required material for class 6, a piece of information in one of the articles definitely caught my eye. It was in the article about Product Positioning. In the article, a study was done which showed on average that school teachers graded essays with more common names a full grade higher than uncommon names like Hubert and Elmer. They also exclaim that “Even a person’s name impacts his or her success in life.” I found this interesting, and a little worry some.It mad me think about my past. I sure hope that my teacher was not give me lower grades because of my name! A name like Lianne McRadu is not very common. In fact, I am pretty sure I am the only person in the world with this name… well at least on Facebook! This article on product positioning uses this example of student names to portray how important and powerful a name can be!

I thoroughly enjoyed class 6, where we talked about team skills that we will be applying to our group projects throughout the rest of this coarse. The team skills we will be developing throughout our next four years at Sauder are going to be extremely important to practice. We are being given the chance to start practicing them now in a fun, learning, and cooperative environment. In this class, we discuss how effective teams work together, how team engagement is important, how we need to brainstorm content together, and how to clean, edit, and bring the group project together. So far, I found our project team to be pretty efficient. We organized a dinner to get to know each other and figure out everyone’s role in the project. Everyone was cooperative and allowed each member to voice their opinions to the group. We set goals to have things done by a certain date, learned about everyone’s skills, and chose an editor that would pull everything together.

This class also made me think about the connections to the content we learn in OB. It has also made me think about my past experiences in my job, and how team skills could be better applied.