While reading Mingchi Choo’s Blog ” The French Croissant Craze”, which looks at how more and more vendors in Paris are using frozen, factory-made croissants to cut costs, I started to think about what situations “homemade” is more favourable for a company.

One company that came to mind is American Apparel which prides themselves for making all their clothing in the USA. “Great for them”, is the first thing I thought, but then I remembered that there had been some bad press about AA screening prospective employees by thier hotness hotness by  approving nameless photo of applicants before even taking a look at a persons resume. So they are trying to have a point of difference by being eco friendly by reducing shipping cost, yet they will only hire people based on there looks?  Hmmm now ethics are starting to tie into this example .

Point of difference is definitely  a reason to keep your produce homemade like Mingchi says in her her blog, but  when you scewed up as bad as American Apparel it becomes completly pointless.

My advise to American Apparel: Go get your clothes made in China or rethink your morals so people see your company differently. The second one might be the wiser of the two.

Two years ago during spring break at my high school, a team of 10 students and 2 teachers travelled around 48 hours by plane and car and arrived in a small village in ban Natoe, Thailand.  5 of my closest friend and I were on this team helping build a home for a teacher at a small school that taught the till tribe people how to farm and raise animals. Near the end of the mouth long trip, we headed north to the Golden Triangle which was one of Asia’s two main illicit opium-producing areas. This side trip was really just so we could see and experience the different areas of the country, but as I look back on it now I realize the amount amazing social entreprenuership happening in the area.

The opium trade was becoming a hug issue; however,  the poppy cultivation in the country decreased more than 80 percent from 1998 to 2006. This was not just happening own its own. People had gone up into areas in the norther triangle and was teaching farmers  how to grow different kinds of crops like coffee and flowers, and then created a tourist destination with a flower garden which also sold coffee beens grown in the area. Along with coffee they sold jewellery and clothing made by the woman in that lived in the golden triangle area and created jobs for the Thai people.

Thinking back to the difference between how my volunteer work helped the Thai people and how this business helps, I came to the realization of how much more effective social entrepreneurship can be. Yes, I did create a home for someone who could not afford shelter, but I did not teach them anything or give them something that can grow. One day that home I build will slowly crumble and become of no use, but the business that saved Thailand from potentially becoming one of the biggest countries in the Opium market will still be helping people and will continue to help.

Confusing? Yes I know. Let me explain….

So now that I have started my own blog about business, I want to see what else was out there in the cyber world. What did I do? What most of the population would do. I looked up “business blogs” in Google. I quickly realized this was way to broad of a search, so I looked up “business blogs for entrepreneur”. Up came a blog on the Business Insider  (a businesses blogging site ) called ” 24 Must read blog for Entrepreneurs” which had a list of blogging sites that gave great advise to up-incoming entrepreneurs. There I found Quora.

Got it? ok so…

What is Quora?

A blog site where you can follow any entrepreneur , from Fred Wilson (is a New York-based venture capitalist )  to Mark Cuban ( an American business magnate). Why is this s awesome for Entrepreneurs? Well it’s because you can post questions and get answers from people who are pretty big in the business world. People have information from “how to connect with high profile people”, to “the 10 ten things you have to do to become an entrepreneur”.  All these question then get voted on, so you can pull apart the useless responses from the ones that can really help you out there in the world of business.

So what did I learn…. Blogging is one of the most effective ways of find information for up and coming entrepreneurs. Need some some help starting a business? Read blogs!!

https://www.quora.com

http://www.businessinsider.com/24-must-read-blogs-for-entrepreneurs-2012-6?op=1

I could barley speak after watching a presentation on the new “Urthecast”. What is it? Well the best explanation I heard was “google earth on serious steroids”.  The ability of having live footage of the world from space available for the world to see is true amazing. But thats not it all! You can also mix in social networking, so you can see tweets being posted from a current location, along with Facebook post, youtube video, etc. I was so blown away by this presentation and idea that all I could do was sit there thinking about how much I wanted to work for a company like this. Then, it only took of of my classmates questions to suddenly realize tht this company isnt completely flawless. ” How are you going to separate the good tweets from the useless ones like ‘ Im really tired’?”. Hmm that really got me thinking, so of course I did some research. I was unable to look

up the average tweets per hour for a given city  but I did find a site called ubercheckout.com that allows you to see tweets in a given location. Within 4 minutes there had been 15 tweets In Vancouver. Now imagine looking at a live map with all those tweets popping up for the last hour. You would be able to see Vancouver! It would just be tweets! Vancouver would just be a bunch of little blue birds. The worst part is that some of those tweets would be completely useless information like ” today I had a sandwich”. I do think Urthcast could be an amazing tool for the world but the social networking side of it is going to be insanely hard to control. I could end up just being completely overwhelming rather than useful and enlightening.

Inspiration from my Comm class a couple days ago about social entrepreneurship really got me thinking about a company I found a connection with from the show Dragon’s Den.  The popular show involves starting up entrepreneurs showcasing their product or business to a panel of judges that are willing to invest. After watching people dreams and aspirations get torn apart by the judges, finally a promising group came out with the clothing company, 10 Tree Apparel. What made them different was that for every item the sold, the promised to plant 10 trees. At the time I had no idea what a “ social entrepreneurship” meant but I idea behind the company I found to be incredible simple yet a great idea. The judges were fighting with each other while trying to persuade the guys that created One Tree Apparel to do business with them. It was obvious that they thought it was a great idea. What shook me was the fact that the founders of the company were having a hard time choosing either, Jim, who was offering to take production to china or Arlene who wanted to keep it in the country and using it to help promote the eco-friendliness of the company. Wouldn’t it be an obvious choice to keep production in the country?! You might save more money in china but you are also shipping your product around the world causing pollution. I can’t believe they would even consider it an option because off the sole reason they started the company, to help the plant.  Also, as I think in the mind of a social entrepreneur, why don’t you employ troubled teens or people with disability that prevents them from getting work, to help plant your trees. Hmmm giving jobs and also teaching about being environmentally friendly. That sound like pretty good idea to me.

There has been a noticable push over the years for America to make it harder and harder for imigrants to come into the country to work. I fell like hearing, ” Oh I’m still waiting for my green card. Its been about 5 years” is a totally normal thing one would hear in the states, but if someone say that about 30 years ago they would gasp at how rediculas and insane that statement sounds. A great exaple would be when Vivek Wadhwa, an Indian computer scientist, came to america it only took him 18 months to recive a green card. Now he writes in his book “The Immigrant Exodus”, that the average time it takes to obtain a green card nowadays is 10 years.  Hmm maybe its time to look for other options! Some countries like Canada, Australia and Singapore wellcome foreigners with open arms by making the prosesse to obtain visas relatively  quick and painless. One country in piticular  that has been adopting america cast ways and rejects is Chile. ” Start- Up Chile” is a local programme for entrepreneurs has begun to cause some buzz in Santiago.  Apparently someone with a good idea, can get a visa in just a couple of weeks. Since the program started up it has attracted 500 companies that are being run by  people around the world in 37 different countries. America you should watch out. People got choices now and you might be loosing some of the most intelligent people of our time!

America’s second-largest discount retailer, Target ,has open stores in Canada and the response they are getting is huge. They plan to have 125 stores open in Canada by 2015 and 165 by 2017. This company current has 1,763 stores in the U.S. and US$68 billion in sales last year. One of the first stores to open was last February, on King Street West, Ontario and the lines waiting for opening day were insane. Queues for change rooms were so long that people were striping right in the middle of the store to try things on. Talk about great marketing, target has had a high-profile sponsorship of Montreal Fashion Week and a  presence at the Toronto International Film Festival, where the company took over an entire hotel to host parties and media event. Target has also has been throwing “Bullseye Beach” parties in, not only big city like Toronto, but also smaller ones like Red Deer, AB. The target is becoming more and more common in the life of Canadians. Target is aways trying to sell the idea that they are  different, more vital, more fun than its rivals. They looks to sell more to the middle class by having higher quality goods than Walmart yet , cheeper prises than most department stores. Starting up stores in Canada can be extremly promising for taget becuase up in Canada, familys are slightly richer, slightly better educated and definitely less damaged from the recession than American families. Hmmm maybe targets “target” consumers are more commonly found in canada that the states! Watch out  Hudson’s Bay company and Sears for the new kid on the block!

Toyota Motor Corp. is recalling 7.43 million vehicles world wide, around 240,000 in canada, for a small default in window switch. The whole issue seems to be over exaggerated in news headlines considering there has yet to be a single health related problem or serious issue with the switch. CBC says that the window switch on the drivers side was not greased properly in production thus creating friction, which can lead to smoke in the car . Unlike the Bauer Hockey issue brought up in class, where 100,000 sticks worldwide were recalled and had to be replaced, the switch can be easily fixed within 40 mins. However, this is still going to be costly for the company especially because they were just getting back on there feet from issues back in 2009 were they didn’t reacted quickly enough for a recall then later had to for very serious and harmful issues in curtain vehicles. Just to add to Toyota’s luck, sales have drop and significant amount( 50% compared to last year )  due to the county’s issues with Japan about unpopulated islands. It going to be interesting to watch and see  how serious these issue are going to affect the company in future sales.

So it turns out that pair of 70 dollar yoga pants from Lululemon you bought a couple of weeks ago isn’t quite your style? well have fun trying to return those because lulu has one of the strictest return policies of any major chain.  Anything you want to return has come back perfect with all tags attached within 14 days. This along with bad communication with staff has caused some very unhappy customers giving the company bad review on sites like Yelp.

“Lululemon- when you wrong a customer and misinform them, it’s your job to make it right. Shame on you. You have lost a customer and many future purchases for failing to simply take back the pant so I can purchase the one I originally wanted but was told, incorrectly by your salesperson, doesn’t exist. I will be sure to give Lululemon top prize whenever the topic of horrendous customer service comes up.”

This has also forces lululemon wearers to find another way to buy the extremely expensive products…ebay! A black market is being formed on the online where anyone can find brand new and used lulu apparel a little less than full prise. Considering lululemon is already having to fight off competitors, like Calvin Klein’s new yoga pants, this could potentially be extremely bad for the company.  Both extremely expensive clothes and harsh return policy are not helping lulu keep their costumers happy and  is dangerous for a company that is growing at a very fast rate.

In North America, people seem to still get a good laugh at the fact that there is a Starbucks on every street corner.  It seems that McDonalds is trying to go for the same affect at India’s most religious temples, yet for some reason people arn’t laughing.  McDonalds is now trying to open at 2 new location, one being at the bottom of trail to the Golden Temple in India, which is ten mile hike 3000 feet up on difficult terrian. Not only do you have pilgrims making this huge climb, but they also wait up to 20 hours for the viewing of the “Mother Goddess”. This is definitly a recipe for hunger if you ask me, but McDonalds is not getting the response they wanted. There are currently protests agais the golden arches new locations in India’s most religious areas. “It’s an attempt not only to make money but also to deliberately humiliate Hindus. It is an organisation associated with cow slaughter. If we make an announcement that they’re slaughtering cows, people won’t eat there. We are definitely going to fight it” said  national co-convener S. Gurumurthy. As India’s people are known to be quite religious,  McDonalds might have to rethink there business ethics to continue to succeed in the country.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/9520451/McDonalds-facing-Hindu-protests-over-restaurants-near-holy-sites.html