JASA company program trade show – calgary, 2013

It was announced last week that Canada Western Bank is investing $375,000 in the Junior Achievement program for western provinces over the next three years. Junior Achievement, a non-for-profit, is a group that provides financial, leadership, and business education to high school students in the form of in the classroom, and extra-curricular programs. As a part of this, employees of the firm will continue to provide their volunteer services in and around the classroom to supplement this type of learning.

As a product of the Junior Achievement Company Program myself, I have first hand experience as to the opportunities that such as organization can open young students up to. When I was in twelfth grade, the Junior Achievement of Southern Alberta (JASA) was able to provide me with the means to open up, and encounter the first hand knowledge that comes with running one’s own business. Though the company itself was not that successful (in fact it was embarrassingly not so), JASA’s program was able to open me up to opportunities and frontiers that no ordinary student would ever have been able to access before.

Though it looks good for companies to engage with NGOs and make partnerships with groups that do charitable work, I believe that CWB has found the perfect balance between engaging in the community, and keeping their activism relevant to what they stand for and believe in. CWB is investing in a group that helps youth, but it is also investing in a message and in education that they believe in, which makes the efforts that much more noble.

source: article

link to image: https://southern-alberta41285.thankyou4caring.org/image/trade.jpg

(see: saviour of the internet)

It would seem that those in favour of net-neutrality can let a sigh of relief out after yesterday. On November 10th, President Barack Obama made comments in support of the concept of “net-neutrality”, the idea that internet service providers (ISPs) must treat all traffic on the internet equally, rather than selling priority traffic to larger sites that can pay for it (your Googles, your Netflixes, etc.). His comments would come in the wake of a push by the Federal Communications Committee (FCC) to commercialize and profit upon internet space, and although it is rare that a President makes explicit comments condemning the actions of a federal bureau, indicating that this is a severe issue of contention within government, this ultimately will not deter the FCC.

What net-neutrality means, in the grand scheme of things, is that smaller internet start-ups would be given equivalent internet traffic capacity as larger companies. On the flip-side, however, if the FCC is able to monetize internet traffic, larger internet companies could take advantage of, and monopolize the ability to support internet traffic, essentially making smaller companies obsolete.

Though some greedy, entrepreneurial side of me (I call it “Sauder Mitch”) is telling me that there is an unbelievable amount of money to be made in monetizing internet traffic, the rest of me is still certain that ISPs need to keep the internet neutral. Though monopolies in general can be very dangerous, they can potentially be even more so in such a medium that is inherently free, like the internet.

source: Economist Article

link to image: http://www.economist.com/news/business-and-finance/21632020

not your average production company

In a blog post by Comm 101 classmate Michelle Liao, she detailed the rise to fame and success of a YouTube “vlogger” Shaycarl and his family, which reminded me of another business that I’ve taken an interest in over the past few years.

Rooster Teeth is a company that produces online comedy web-series and holds the current record for longest running online web show as it moves into it’s 11th season. But what started as a group of four guys in a spare bedroom has quickly blossomed into the multi-million fan-based internet mogul that it is today. However, for the longest time, skeptics were critical of the business, and wondered how well, if at all, an internet fan base could translate into a viable business.

However, earlier this year, Rooster Teeth was able to silence the critics when the Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign for their first feature-length film earned an astounding $2.5 million, making it the highest funded film project in the history of the site, from 37,000 funders.

It would turn out, that internet fame can scale, which provides a very interesting future for alternative media. With sites and services like Hulu and Netflix on the rise, as well as the emergence of real tangible financial success and security for internet companies and personalities like Rooster Teeth and Shaycarl, could this foreshadow the death of conventional media? It would certainly seem like a possibility as it stands.

source: article

link to photograph: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/10/us-media-roosterteeth-idUSKCN0IU1OI20141110

big brother is watching you

I recently (as a mandate for this Comm 101 Blog Assignment) stumbled across an interesting blog that is solely dedicated to marketing. The “Jackie Huba blog” provides fascinating commentary on marketing strategies and techniques employed by businesses around the world, as they pertain to the average consumer. For instance, in a recent post, Huba outlines very briefly, in very simple words the foundations of the marketing campaign of Starbucks, and provides a relevant example of this strategy in action.

What makes this blog so enticing (at least in my eyes) is the universality of it. Though marketing is a field that can be discussed in extreme detail, this blog seems to refrain from doing just that. The fact that the majority of the commentary that is found in this blog uses basic every-man language certainly opens up the world of marketing strategy to just about everyone. Rather than getting caught up in difficult terminology and concepts, Huba’s blog simply provides basic commentary that can be enjoyed by both the casual reader, and those who have a more in-depth interest in pursuing the field of marketing. I, myself, am not particularly interested in marketing above other fields in the business world, but I find that posts in this blog are readable, interesting, and most importantly relevant to me, which is what helps to make this blog so uniquely relatable.

source: Jackie Huba’s Blog

photo credit: a registered trademark of Starbucks

a MUCH younger version of me on the right; incumbent mayor of Calgary, Naheed Nenshi pictured on the left.

Talking in class about entrepreneurship, as well as the readings about micro-financing reminded me about a program that is very dear to my own heart. There’s a foundation in my hometown (Calgary, Alberta) that goes by the name “Awesome Calgary”, and each month it distributes a $1000 no-strings-attached micro-grant to the business idea that they deem to be the most awesome.

Each month, entrepreneurs and businesses in development submit a generic outline of their pitch online, and the top three ideas of the month are selected to pitch their business plans in front of a board of trustees live in Awesome Calgary’s downtown office.

The goals of the organization are to support local business, and help to strengthen ties between the entrepreneurs of Calgary’s growing business world and the community around it.

For the month of April, 2012, a couple of friends and I were the grant winners with a social enterprise idea to help develop a stronger sense of community between young Calgarians, which did in fact include Cookie Monster (pictured above), the details of which certainly won’t fit within 200 words.

It is efforts like those of the Awesome Calgary foundation, and other organizations who promote the development of shared value between other businesses and the local area that really make a difference in shaping the business world. Any number of groups of people making money can be businesses, but programs like this really help to develop a business community, which is what makes what Awesome Calgary does all the more special.

source: Awesome Calgary Foundation Website

photo credit: Awesome Calgary Foundation