According to the business dictonary, consumerism is “Continual expansion of one’s wants and needs for goods and services.”
Is enough ever enough? The more we have, the more we want. Companies know this and take advantage of it as best as they can.

In Shelley McQuade’s article I Want It All, she mentions human’s excruciating need to buy as much as they can afford and even more. She continues stating, “If I have it all does that mean someone else has to go without? Will having it all really make me happy? What if I don’t care about the “things” that are part of having it all and/or it sucks the soul out of me to get those ‘things’? Hence the reason I have shifted my thinking from having it all to having “my” all.” I completely agree with her with the fact that if we continue with the mentality of wanting it all, we will never be satisfied and therefore never happy. We must understand that “having it all” represents completely different outcomes to each individual and we must create our own in order to be satisfied.

Companies will try to take advantage of all consumers and brain wash us into making us believe that we absolutely need their product and canot live without it. But is is ourselves and only ourselves who must know to differentiate between wanting and needing.

We decide when enough is enough.
Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/consumerism.html#ixzz2Q13QG3Mx

As consumers, we aim to search for the latest trends and best deals, and can’t help but try to believe we buy whithin our own personal style. However, not everyone seems to think this way. According to Damien Cave, the more we buy the less we stay true to ourselves and differentiate from the rest.

In this article, the author states how consumerism is destroying us as productive individuals, aiming for our authenticity and individualism. He claims “shopping has become a whole day event, a way to spend time (in line) rather than reading, having conversations or expanding culture.” He specifically refers to Old Navy and Ikea and how buying in such stores steals our identity from us by tricking us into buying bad quality yet “trendy” products.

However, I disagree with Cave, as most consumers are completely aware of Old Navy’s or Ikea’s low quality products, yet decide to shop there after all. Ikea, for example, is not just selling the product; it is also selling efficacy, convenience, and availability. As Cave states, brands are “selling you an idea or lifestyle” which I don’t believe is a negative thing. That is what many consumers are looking for, they don’t care about being authentic or outshining the rest of consumers. The fact that people are getting what they need in just ONE place saves them a lot of time and effort.

“On Sale at Old Navy: Cool Clothes for Identical Zombies” by Damien Cave

“Today’s universities and colleges abound with marketing efforts, logos, publicity, top-heavy management, and corporate sponsored buildings and professorships; thus, it is reasonable that some students might see the university as yet another entity vying for them as customers instead of as an academic institution recruiting them as scholars.”

Currently students feel like they deserve more than they worked for. But do they? Education is a right, but succeeding in it is a privilege that is up to no one but the students. Academic entitlement is developing as a huge problem as students really believe that by just paying tuition they are entitled to good marks that will later on help them succeed in life. Universities and colleges are amazing institutions that provide all tools and guidance for student, but it is up to each one of them to correctly use them for their own benefit and success.

As stated in the article, “entitlement defeats achievement by denying the significance of learning to the learner.” The whole purpose of learning has been devaluated and now the only goal is to get good marks no matter what the students learn or absorb from their education throughout the journey.  As much as education has progressed, will it ever be valuated accordingly to its importance?

“Students as Consumers of Knowledge: Are They Buying What We’re Selling? By Jill A. Single-Jackson, Dennis L. Jackson and Jeff Reinhardt

“Hi I am a Mac” is all Apple has to say in order to differentiate its product against hundreds of different PCs. Mac has grown to be so successfully differentiated that all laptop/computers are now divided into only 2 categories, Mac and PCs (which consists of hundreds of different brands).

The Apple “I’m a Mac” campaign is a Mac/PC debate between two actors in which the Mac is represented by a cool, well-dressed outgoing and young actor, while the PC is represented by an older, outdated and uptight actor. Through casual wording and the interaction of two stereotipical men, Mac portrays a differentiated strategy between its Mac products and PCs. It targets a younger, cooler audience which makes its audience want to be and identify themselves with the actor representing the Mac.

“I am a Mac” ended up being one of the most successful ad campaigns for Apple and as a result had a 42% market share growth in its first year according to Softpedia. Through this ad, Apple informes its target audience about the product in a witty, and entertaining way that manages to spread around the world within days as a result of amazing marketing strategies and induced word of mouth techinques. It caught a lot of people’s attention and soon everyone was talking about it. In a simple, yet smart way Mac was able lay out the benefits of its product and appeal to its audience’s interests and needs.

We tend to take things for granted in life, yet when managing a business we cannot allow our personal behaviors and attitudes to influence our managing decisions.

Firestone has had a ling history of misleading safety results and have not taken the time and effort to take this to an end.

If a company has a continuous error within its effectiveness, its internal or monetary value may be affected, but when talking about customers, human lives being affected. A complete different issue comes into effect: ethics.

“Because Firestone had previously been harmed by a high-visibility case involving safety issues with one of its products, you’d think that they’d have well-established risk management policies that would prepare them to be quick and upfront on something like this,” Dunfee says.

Anyone would think that after a major safety issue, a huge company like Firestone would never commit the same error again. But apparently they took their current policies at the time for granted and made the same mistake again, harming hundreds of civilians.

Until what point are companies responsible for the ethical outcomes that their products may inflict on customers? That line may be hard to define, but what there is no doubt about is that Firestone definitely crossed it.

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=232

November 23, 2011

“The personal savings rate rose to 3.5% last month, a slight tick up from 3.3% in September, according to data released Wednesday by the Commerce Department.”

This means that people are still spending much less than what they earn. IN October the personal income rose by o.4% and the spending rate only rose by 0.1%.

When there is an economic crisis people already feel that they have less money then what they have and they therefore spend less, just damaging the economy even more because there is less flow of money. The solution to every crisis is spending. The more money flows around, the more productive an economy can be and therefore improve. On the other hand if everyone saves, then there is a lot of money that is stuck and does not help productivity.

People need to realize that reasonably spending is the best solution.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/23/news/economy/savings_rate_income_spending/index.htm

November 22, 2011

For Black Friday shopping, two malls, “– Promenade Temecula in southern California and Short Pump Town Center in Richmond, Va. — will track guests’ movements by monitoring the signals from their cell phones.” They say to not be looking at singular shoppers but rather crowds of consumers to see where people are going to and therefore strategize their selling techniques. They claim to not be looking at private settings but however I question how ethical this is. Consumers are able to turn their cellphones in order to not be a part of this strategy, but shouldn’t they be asked first? It sounds a little freaky that someone can know where you’re going to through your own personal phone. I believe it is questionable weather this is crossing the ethical lines of privacy or not.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/22/technology/malls_track_cell_phones_black_friday/index.htm?iid=SF_BN_River

http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/21/news/international/saudi_arabia_solar/index.htm

November 21, 2011

Saudi Arabia poised to become solar powerhouse

It appears that Saudi Arabia will become the next solar power king nation.  They are not just the most powerful country when it comes to oil, but now when it comes to solar power too. This has to do with the fact that “The Saudis currently generate over 50% of their electricity by burning oil, which can consume up to an eighth of the country’s total oil output.” As a result to this, the electricity consumption is said to double within the next nine years.

This may seem off for the Saudis to be doing this as it will decrease their oil exports, but it is surprisingly a great business opportunity for them.

They realize the limitations of oil and that they will not last long and therefore are searching for alternative opportunities, in this case the extensive sunburning desserts they have. Saudis are becoming a very powerful country and an economic efficient too. Specially, at this times of economic crisis. They truly are rising up the bar.

Google is a relatively new and innovative company that two Stanford graduates have driven it to success. They have a specific organizational structure that has allowed their company to work to its maximum potential. They have a decentralized structure that allows flexibility within the employees and therefore easy and rapid approach to executives and managers.

I agree with Maricel Saenz in the sense that this is a very successful structure and is one of the reasons why Google has been so successful. This way of work keeps the employees happy and they are therefore happily working to their maximum potential< thus increasing productivity and profits.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/12/japan-opens-fukushima-plant-journalists

November 12, 2011

Japan’s Fukushima plant opened to journalists.

After the tsunami and earthquake in Japan, studies have been made about the conditions inside the Fukushima nuclear plant, and real damage has been detected. Just recently, reporters where let inside the plant since March, when the natural disaster happened. Martin Fackler, who works for NY Times said: “There’s debris all around where the reactors are – twisted metal, crumpled trucks, large water tanks that have been dented and bent. You can see that this stuff has been strewn around and it has not been picked up and it’s been there for eight months. So I think that more than anything is a testament to how difficult a time they’ve had in trying to get those reactors under control.”

It is very sad to see how a single situation can really affect a whole country and population. Things were so bad from the tsunami that they haven’t even had time or resources to control and deal with the nuclear power leak, thus making lethal harm around the area.