This is a response to Chelsea Choi’s blog post : Say Ello to the New Kid on the Block.

Chelsea’s post describes a new social media platform which interests me greatly. As an avid user of social media, I find myself spending hours on Tumblr and Facebook. Ello seems to be invite only, which reminds me of popular fiction platform Archive of our Own, or AO3 for short.

Personally, I believe Ello is a potential threat to Facebook and other social media platforms. Like Chelsea said, Ello has positioned themselves as the first social media platform that doesn’t collect user data. I believe when you mention the words “social media” the first thing that still pops into mind would be Facebook. This is not a bad thing however. Ello has positioned themselves very well. They have targeted a niche market, like Chelsea said, while also still associating themselves with their number 1 competitor.

Looking at their Points of Parity and Points of Difference, Ello has a unique point of difference. This is of course that it does not collect any data on consumers while almost every other social media platform does. If they use this to their advantage, they could effectively market themselves to the public.

While many people believe Facebook isn’t gong anywhere anytime soon, I think it would be wise for Facebook to at least monitor Ello. If you remember correctly, before Facebook, we had something called “Myspace” or even “Friendster”. They were THE social media platforms slightly over a decade back. No one suspected Facebook to take off like it did, and Ello could be following in the footsteps of Facebook.

Personally, I think Ello is a great idea! It seems to be a mix of Facebook and Tumblr, social media platforms that i use heavily. A social media platform that doesn’t collect data on consumers seems very tempting and consumers wouldn’t have to worry about pictures or status updates being used by other third parties.

https://archiveofourown.org/

https://ello.co/beta-public-profiles

What is Human Resource Management? More importantly, what is its importance to business? Well to put it simply, HRM is the process of attracting, developing and maintaining a talented work force. If done correctly, HRM can benefit a company in many ways, including increased productivity, higher employee morale etc.

In this blog posts, I looked at why Google was hailed as an expert at HRM and in turn why people wanted to work for Google. In the article that I read, Google was facing a major problem of female employees leaving. It then explains how it came to solve that problem and how it then tackled future HR issues.

Basically, Google invests a lot in HR. They provide an extremely good maternity plan, 5 months of full paid leave with full benefits! They hire social scientists to perform test on how they can improve employee morale and wellness, and many other activities.

This  is why people want to work for Google. They care for their employees as they know the effectiveness of good HRM. Employees want to work for Google because of all the benefits they can get including futuristic toilets, a company bowling alley, a wellness center, and even allows employees to take 20% of their work time to work on projects of their own interests.

We can relate this back to our HR class on creating an organisational culture and motivation. Google has created this organisational culture inspiring innovation and creativity. It is not your average office. The structure of their headquarters is unorthodox and creates an atmosphere that is very different from traditional businesses. We can also relate this back to how Zappos was motivating their employees. Google and Zappos both made their employees feel that they were part of a family, rather than some organisation that was only working together because it had to.

We can see the importance of good HR by just looking at how successful Google is. Many companies are also realizing the importance of good HR and are adapting to these changes.

Image source:  https://d3gyq8wptu1by3.cloudfront.net/media/6d956fd406c193c9b673d267a45ba30d684337d0.jpeg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nHUtildkbAE/UVRQa3pcjUI/AAAAAAAAAAw/4rIFkftVQes/s1600/Announcement_67.jpg

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/01/google_people_operations_the_secrets_of_the_world_s_most_scientific_human.html

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stanphelps/2014/08/05/cracking-into-google-the-15-reasons-why-over-2-million-people-apply-each-year/

This is a response to an external blog post on the relationship of body art and business.

What is professionalism? Is it the way we look? Is it the way we act? Is it the way we use language to communicate ideas? Or is it all of the above? To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure. Professionalism, like every other concept in this world, seems to be subjective to each and every person. It means something different for each individual you ask.

In my opinion, I believe that to show professionalism, an individual needs to be able to control their emotions and handle situations that impose a huge amount of stress while maintaining rational thought. I do not believe that professionalism is shown by how you dress. Unfortunately, in the business world, many companies do not agree with my opinion. They would argue that it is a mixture of both. That somehow the way you look plays a part in being professional. In other words, body art and piercings equate to rowdy, rebellious, unprofessional and are conventionally looked down upon in the business world.

This blog post is a challenge to this mentality. Personally I do not have any tattoos or body piercings, but I do believe that these superficial things should not matter in the hiring process or when giving out rightly earned rewards. The blog post I am responding to discusses the changing era of tattoos being accepted but promotions being given to employees without tattoos. The blog post states that nowadays, traditional companies in America have no choice but to be lenient towards tattoos due to the fact that 49% of Americans have some sort of body art on them.

First and foremost I would like to say, BRAVO! It is nice to see that companies are changing their policies to accomadate change (even though there were most likely forced to). Body art and piercings should not be a factor when promotions are being rewarded as long as they are not offensive. Think back to a few decades ago, when the whites and blacks were separated and the blacks were discriminated against. Now think back to just a few years ago when homosexuals, bisexuals,transsexuals, etc… were discriminated against for being what they were. See how far we have come? Now, discrimination based on skin colour, ethnicity, sexuality, and background is frowned upon. I do not see a difference when it comes to body art. Body art is a way for individuals to express themselves. It does not mean an individual is less competent in doing their job than a non-inked coworker.

We can link all of this back to our class on people,culture and teams. We talked about Human Resource Management being an important part to a business. Well, HRM talks about the importance of having a diverse workplace. Instead of denying employees with body art, we should embrace them as part of our organisation and offer them the same benefits as any other employee. We should be focusing on human capital rather than how a person looks like.

In summary, I believe this image portrays my thoughts accurately.

Image Source: http://igotatattooonce.tumblr.com/post/94614208489

Yes you heard right folks! Disney has officially announced that Toy Story 4 will be coming to theaters in 2017! If you aren’t excited then what are you doing with your lives?

According to this video, Disney announced yesterday that the Toy Story Trilogy (more of a saga now) will be continued featuring our favourite cowboy and intergalactic space policeman (that’s basically what Buzz is, a space policeman).

When I heard the news, I was so excited but then when the hype came down, I asked myself  “What if it doesn’t hold up to the last movie?” and “What if it just gets boring and repetitive”? That’s when I wondered why Disney was still going on ahead with creating a new Toy Story movie and risk the success they created over the years. Well, according to this article, it’s really quite simple. Toy Story is one of the only movies that became more profitable over time! It would make sense for Disney to continue making Toy Story movies instead of other disney sequels (Personally, I wished they never made The Little Mermaid 2, or Pocahontas 2.)

However, while I am all for a new Toy Story movie, you would have to wonder if it really is worth it to be investing these resources here rather than in a whole new franchise. Financially, the budget for a Toy Story movie isn’t cheap. The first Toy Story movie had a budget of $30 Million while the second and third movie had a budget of $90 Million and $200 Million respectively. The accountant of the firm would say that the resources might be better spent on new ventures, such as the new movie “Into the Woods” or “Big Hero 6”.

However, marketing wise, Disney and Pixar has a good understanding of not only their current target segments but future target segments as well. I am eluding to the clever marketing strategy that Pixar played when they released Toy Story 3 when they did. The first toy Story movie was released in 1995 and their main target segments were kids between the ages of 4-9 but mostly the younger ages. Toy Story 3 was released in 2010, a 15 year gap between the first and third movie. Their target segments were still same ages between 3-9, however, they had a two other target segments. The children that watched the first Toy story when they were little and the parents who watched it with them.

The movie as we all know, was about toys that didn’t get along and got separated from their owner and had to work to get back home . In the movie, we see Andy, the owner, as a young child loving and playing with his toys. In contrast, Toy Story 3 tells a similar story but with one major difference, Andy is all grown up and heading to college. As a child, we would have related to Toy Story very well. It was about loving your toys and treating them right. In Toy Story 3, we relate to the fact that we’re all grown up and we will be moving on college and university, much like Andy. We’re invested in the fact that Andy represents us! On the flip side, parents also relate to Toy Story but not in the sense of growing up. Instead they relate to the fact that one day, their child will be grow up and leave home to pursue their dreams. They actually relate to Andy’s mother. Disney and Pixar understood their customer segments so well that they created a movie that would relate to them so deeply.

Image Source :http://cdnvideo.dolimg.com/cdn_assets/70058290f09e10d7c7fd3c9a11414fbbf5e1242e.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Story

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Story_2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Story_3

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-11-07/toy-story-4-why-disney-cant-quit-turning-out-toy-stories#r=nav-fst

Last week, Twitter, Instagram and any other social media platform you could possibly think of had a flurry of posts all about a handsome high school boy working a target. This all started when a pair of teenage girls saw Alex working at Target, took a picture of him, and posted it on Twitter. The post went viral after a famous London-based twitter handle retweeted the image and  Alex went from 144 Twitter followers to over 600k.

What was astonishing wasn’t how fast Alex became popular (we’ve seen plenty of people going viral on the internet), but what 1 particular company tried to do when all of this hype was taking place.

Allow me to introduce Breakr, a company that describes what they do as “connects fans to their fandoms”, as vague as that sounds. When I first read this, so many questions plagued my mind like ‘how do you connect the fans?’ and ‘who exactly are you connecting them to?’ (fandom is a huge collection of individuals that may include the celebrity/group the fandom is based on) but these questions are for a different story.

What Breakr did was incredibly gutsy in my opinion. During the onslaught of posts and #alexfromtarget Breakr decided it would be a good idea to claim credit for helping make #alexfromtarget go viral, without any real proof! They first claimed that Alex had given permission to a Breakr ”representative” (the London-based twitter handle) to take a photo of hims but Alex, the ”representative” and Target announced they had no affiliation with Breakr.

In my opinion, Breakr really made a bad play in trying to get their name out there. Breakr was trying to get its name out there by jumping onto the bandwagon which was greatly populated by its major customer segment, “fandoms”. Looking at the business model canvas, it would have actually made sense for Breakr to claim credit but only if they had a better argument and actual proof of actually helping #alexfromtarget go viral.

Look at it this way, Breakr’s main customer segment are teenagers who are invested in celebrities and major public icons. By claiming they were the ones to make #alexfromtarget go viral, they were not only further cementing their value proposition of connecting fans to their fandoms but also showing potential celebrities that they were indeed successful at marketing an individual/group. This would be their key partners, potential celebrities who wanted to be in the eye of public and potentially pull a ‘Beyoncé’ (Beyonce dropped a surprise album without any marketing whatsoever and managed to sell 617,213 copies within 3 days). Looking at the business model canvas it would make perfect sense for Breakr to try going down this particular path.

However this brings up the issue of Ethics in the Industry. Relating this back to Friedman’s article, it would seem that Breakr is following his concept. The only Corporate Social Responsibility that Breakr needs to adhere by is to create and sustain profits, as long as they are not breaking the law. Breakr first claimed they were the cause of #alexfromtarget going viral and if they  had continued this claim, I believe they would have been potentially sued. Instead, they claimed they believed that they were behind everything but was mistaken and issued an apology on their Twitter account “Apologies for any confusion tonight, @iauscalum was not working for us but we did help promote the picture with the #alexfromtarget”. They didn’t break the law in any way as they corrected their ”mistake” while still getting their name out to the public. This would make Breakr seem that they are still adhering to CSR and are still technically ethical.

All in all, it’s interesting to see what some companies will do to push their product onto the market. What I’m interested to see is if Target will use this opportunity that came their way and how they will build this free marketing they received.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/11/05/the-alex-from-target-marketing-hoax-was-itself-a-marketing-hoax-because-everything-on-the-internet-is-a-lie/

http://www.kare11.com/story/life/2014/11/05/alex-from-target-becomes-an-internet-superstar/18554459/

http://breakrnation.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyonc%C3%A9_(album)

http://site.ebrary.com/lib/ubc/reader.action?docID=10187339&ppg=171