If the United Nations were fully funded, social enterprise and the Arc would still be extremely relevant to the world.

The UN is an organization created to promote international co-operation between countries. As of now, the UN has 193 members. The main goal of the United Nations is to establish peace, promote human rights, and in addition, economic and social development. Social enterprise is an organization that is focused on maximizing human well-being instead of focusing explicitly on profits. Both the Arc and social enterprise target smaller areas and are thus able to be more effective than the UN. Furthermore, it can be noticed that the United Nations leans more towards macromanagement, whereas social enterprise is more related to micromanagement.

Social enterprises and the Arc still add a lot of value to the world because of the way these organizations are structured. Social enterprises tend to favor consumer’s wants and ultimately fills their needs. It is ultimately up to organizations like the Arc to resolve the smaller details in larger scenarios in which the UN cannot fully grasp. Thus it is notorious that these organizations are extremely important to the overall society and local communities.

References:

http://www.connectingcapacity.co.uk/dev/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/SE_Business_Identifier_RGB.jpg

If the United Nations was fully funded why would we need the Arc or social enterprise?

Much has been said about LeBron James’ return to the Cleveland Cavaliers. The media has been filled with news regarding the superstar’s return to his home club ever since the pre-season. His homecoming game against the New York Knicks was played in front of a sell-out crowd in downtown Cleveland on October 30th. The fans who were lucky enough to buy a ticket had to face absurd prices of over $10,000 on the secondary market.

It is evident that the impact of the NBA’s best player is tremendous. According to the Cavaliers’s ticketing website, the average ticket for a Cleveland home game is $386, which translates into a 222% increase from last year. In addition, the Cavaliers’ merchandise is up 700%, as the Cavs are the top-selling NBA team. LeBron James’ jersey is also a top-seller in the market. Due to that, restaurants and cafes have come up with marketing strategies in order to exploit LeBron’s image to its full capacity. On game days, it is impossible to dine in the Arena’s surroundings without prior reservation. Finally, economists predict that LeBron’s presence will add hundreds of millions of dollars to the local economy on an annual basis.

The scene has been setup. Now, it is up to LeBron James and his team to live up to the expectations and repay their passionate fans.

References:

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000326166

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/11792855/lebron-james-makes-cleveland-cavaliers-homecoming-official-season-opener

http://localtvkdvr.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/lebron.jpg?w=400&h=225&crop=1

http://dy.snimg.com/story-image/6/74/276233/276233-330-0.jpg

Zippy Courses is essentially a WordPress plugin online that was invented by blogger Derek Halpern. The idea was to launch a new, innovative product that would facilitate the creation of courses online. However, Derek was unsure on how to go about debuting this product.

Derek actually used one of Porter’s Generic strategies in order to differentiate his product from other competitors’. By implementing a focus strategy on his product, Derek was able to create a competitive advantage over other similar products on the market. Through a video demonstration of how Zippy Courses actually works, Derek was able to demonstrate why his product is perhaps the easiest and fastest way of creating modules for online courses. In addition, he also focused on keeping his product availability small. That way, there would be a large demand for a limited supply of licenses. By doing so, he could keep consumers constantly intrigued. His idea was to prioritize consumer happiness over revenue and profit.

After analyzing Derek’s software, I can conclude that in order for a new product to be recognized in the market, it needs to be slightly different than others in at least one way. A product’s uniqueness is what ultimately makes it appealing for customers, and that is exactly what blogger Derek Halpern was able to implement in his software.

References:

http://socialtriggers.com/zippy-courses/

https://zippycourses.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/zcourse.png

When discussing the idea of maximizing “happiness”, I often think of my Econ 101 class with professor Robert Gateman. According to him, maximizing happiness is fulfilling a person’s level of satisfaction to the most. Essentially, it means that a person can only be completely content when achieving the maximum amount of satisfaction there is for an output.

In the business world, this idea can be applied to companies when dealing with employees. Victoria George’s post suggests that the happier the employee is, the more output he or she will produce. Thus, the level of efficiency would increase as employees would be able to produce a higher amount of output given the same amount of time. I highly agree with this approach, because I believe that when employees have to endure less stress and working hours, they are undeniably more productive. By treating employees with respect and genuine care, a company is bound to make larger profits. Employees ultimately create a connection with the company in which they make it a personal motive to see the company succeed. Unhappy and stressed employees definitely have a much lower chance of actually wanting to make a difference. Maximizing employees’ happiness is actually an effective strategy that should be implemented by companies in order to amplify total profit.

Alejandra’s blog post discusses the creation of a newly developed social network that incorporates Facebook-like features. Ello, invented by Paul Budnitz, is perhaps a better version of Facebook. Two of the most unique characteristics of Ello include allowing users to pick whatever name they want to go by (doesn’t necessarily need to be your birth name), and permitting users to generate unique personal profiles.

As it is mentioned in the post, Ello was not created to directly compete with Facebook. It simply modified some factors that have notoriously failed in social medias. Given that idea, I agree with Alejandra’s point of view in which she claims that there is a bright future for Ello.

In my opinion, customer satisfaction is one of the most important aspects to consider when running a business. Zappos for instance, is a shoe and clothing shop that implements customer satisfaction as one of its most important value proposition. Zappos’ CEO Tony Hsieh believes in satisfying both employees and customers, thus creating a healthy organizational culture within the company. This strategy can be compared to Budnitz’s, in the sense that they are both targeting to obtain consumer approval in order to increase demand and efficiency.

In conclusion, it is obvious that Ello has potential to succeed but in order to do so, it will need to overcome the errors that Facebook made.