Sweet Jesus! Who would have thought?

Arguably the first big corporation was… no, not Microsoft… no, not Ford… The Church!

A short history lesson: The Church was the most powerful entity in medieval times. It had the vast majority of land in powerful nations, and didn’t have to pay tax on this land. It would offer peasants the ability to work on Church land for free… sort of. They had to give 10% of their goods to the Church. If they didn’t, the Church had a pretty good punishment…

See, the church’s business plan was a unique one. Most company’s entice people using economic incentive – my product is worth the price. But the Church said “if you don’t like what i’m offering… well you’ll only burn in hell for all eternity”.

Hell, and a bit of a rip off – or don’t pay my 10% and get poked by a devil with a pitchfork for the rest of eternity…

Choice seems obvious enough for me. Just like it did for them.

According to this article, The church claimed you had to have them perform your marriage, (otherwise you would burn in hell) baptism (hell) and when you finally died, you had to be buried on holly land or else… well I think you get the picture.

In the end, a person would be baptized at a young age, then would work their life on a church farm, be married by the church, and be buried by the church (no, those last two are not synonymous).

Someone needs to “Occupy Religion“…

A Blogger posted about Ryanair… I had to respond!

His post was all about a recent scandal with Ryanair, and their use of Nicolas Sarkozy and his girlfriend in an ad campaign. As the article expresses, they were kiiiiiinda upset…

So they sued. And it made the news. Everywhere.

The best part for Ryanair is they only ended up paying $60,001 ($60,000 to Sarkozy’s girlfriend, and $1 to Sarkozy). In exchange for this, they got on the news world wide, and in newspapers across the globe.

The question that needs answering: Is this a good marketing strategy? Is any publicity good publicity?

My answer: It depends

If, for instance, this was a charity advertising and there was this scandal, it would probably be bad for their image. But it’s not a charity – It’s Ryanair.

And Lets be honest… Ryanair has a pretty bad reputation to begin with. So did this negatively affect their image? No. Instead, it was just cheap advertising.

Competitive Gaming. It is real, and it is getting huge!

People love it!

Especially in Korea, the hot spot for professional gaming. But just like with everything else, something made in Asia is being shipped to North America… And it’s happening fast!

Game Commentators like HuskyStarcraft are getting millions of views on Youtube, and turning commentating into their profession… And making damn good money…

The Gamers themselves aren’t doing too badly either. With prize money like $50,000 for the winner of a tournament, and tournaments happening all the time, becoming a professional gamer is looking better. 6 figure salaries?! Why go to Sauder…

And if you still don’t think people take it serious enough, listen to these Korean commentators, and (faintly) the crowd watching these two pro’s compete!

Crazy… but kinda cool! I think I have a backup plan for if I fail out of UBC!

J.K. Rowling is at the least a master writer, and in my opinion a master entrepreneur. How can a writer be an entrepreneur you might ask? Read on and find out!

Visit her new website and be amazed! The level of interaction available is unprecedented. one trick is to type in “Magic” on the phone (numbers: 62442) and hit dial… pretty cool eh?

All of it started with an idea: Harry Potter. Her first book was published in 1997, and just over 10 years since it has become a world phenomenon. Now, springing from this one book, there are 6 other books

About 8 video game series:

And various other paraphernalia:

And because none of this was enough, how about the 8 movies! Combined, they made over 8 billion dollars in gross profit…

Very impressive for a writer… not too bad for an entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurial? While at first glance, you prooooobably just think these are some immature “adults” doing stupid things and filming them…

Johnny Knoxville is the star, and creative mind behind the Jackass movie series. He is by any means an Entrepreneur. Using the given definition of an entrepreneur, one can see this:

New Product: Never before has there been movies like Jackass before Knoxville made it happen

New Market: Though the teenage market had been exploited before him, Knoxville opened up a whole new way to exploit teens

Amount of Wealth Creation: first movie: gross over 11,000,000. Third movie: gross over 113,000,000

Speed of Wealth Creation: Jackass 1 came out in 2002, and Jackass 3D in 2010. In between they had the Jackass 2, and Jackass 2.5

Risk:… Watch the movies… or watch this:

Innovative: like I said, no one had done this before they had

Knoxville is immature, and borderline insane. But at least he is an entrepreneur.