The United Nations could improve the wold immensely if it were fully funded. I firmly believe in their slogan “Strong UN. Better World.” because they would greatly improve our planet with the necessary funds.

On the other hand, the United Nations is not enough to help resolve all of the worlds problems. Other organizations help with problems that the UN does not cover. The Arc is an organization at UBC that helps educate people from underprivileged countries around the world by teaching them business skills. These skills are taught from highly educated business students that will help these people strive in their communities. This club provide vital knowledge and skills that the UN does not. Additionally, in the case of Muhammad Yunus he saw an issue that others did not that created a concept called “microfinance”. He’s idea generated success and happiness to tons of people in Bangladesh.

The reason we need other organizations like the Arc and social enterprises is because these people provide help where others cannot see it. These people are able to apply their own skills and knowledge in a special way that will aid their community. The United Nations help the world, but there are certain needs they cannot provide or are unaware of. Other organizations provide more helping hands that are able to have a significant impact on their community.

Through research and work Adam Kingl has shown evidence that virtual work provides more innovative thinking from business’ employees. Workers working at home tend to feel more confident and creative, therefore providing better recommendations and ideas. The problem with face to face meeting is that “team members are likely to agree with the dominant person’s ideas to keep the peace”. Comparatively, through chat people agree with “the best idea and the ability to reflect and comment on the idea, rather than the person or personality”. This revolutionary discover could change the way business meetings are conducted.

Changing the traditional face to face business meetings to online chats would be a paradigm shift in the business world. The idea of working at home and not going to work at an office everyday seems like an odd visual of a typical businessman. However, this article seems to encourage the idea. Some businesses would have trouble trusting their workers to preform task at home, but if this is the key to a more successful firm, then managers will have to have faith in their workers. This idea will not be implemented straight away in the business world, although we might not see men in suits gathering around a table as frequently in the future.

The supermarkets Whole Foods have been having some problems recently due to increased competition in the Organic Food sector. In Shannon Bell’s Blog she discussed how Whole Foods have been severely suffering from rivals and that its being forced to “improve its business model canvas” in order to compete.

Whole Foods point of difference to appeal to the public was selling purely organic food. It quickly gain the reputation of being the “healthy” supermarket as it was the only store selling organic food. However, competitors have started to adapt to this organic trend demanded by customers and responded by offering organic food at a less expensive price than Whole Foods. The impact has pushed Whole Foods to react by expanding its stores throughout the United States. Even though expansion and renovations of stores have increases sales for the company, the main issue still stands. Whole Foods will need to find another point of difference to attract customers. Organic food is becoming a point of parity for supermarkets, therefore a new idea is required for Whole Foods to ensure its survival.

I agree with Shannon that Whole Foods improvements will aid the business to survive, but they will need a new point of difference to strive in the food retail industry.

Reading Larry Elliott Blog made me realize how accounting mistakes in banking seems to be go unpunished or not severely punished for the actions they have committed. He discussed how banks in the UK continue to pull tricks such as “rigging the foreign exchange market”. This is a huge issue as it impacts a countries economy. All of this is usually causes by bankers who got greedy and thought they could get away with it. The sad truth of this situation is that  “there is no longer anything remotely shocking in the unearthing of financial malfeasance”. It is saddening to think that this does not seem to come as a surprise to people in the UK anymore. Larry Elliott explains these problems occur because “the banks thought they could get away with it”. The issue is that people are sick of having to cover for the banks miscalculation.

Wanting to be an accountant in the future, it sickens me to see these events harm a large amount of people and go unpunished. The banks should be punished for these problems not just the bankers! A solution to the problem is that tougher regulations need to be enforce to “restore faith in the financial system”.

Scientist believe they have found an answer to solve the problem of feeding our growing global population. They want to create salt-tolerant crops to sustain our planet’s appetite. The goal is to create crops that have a gene “to develop salt bladders without a major impact on their growth and yield”. This would mean that we would be able to grow crops such as wheat or rice on high salinity soil.

High Salinity Soil.

The invention seems ingenues as it would solve the problem of famine, especially in regions with high salinity soil. However, the issue is that they will be genetically modified organisms, therefore they might have some side effects that we are unaware of as we eat them. Although, we have been consuming genetically modified organisms for awhile now. Thus, if we have not had any severe side effects yet, then maybe that means they are good for us to eat. Furthermore, scientist have a few years to make sure the salt-tolerant crops consumption do not pose a problem to use until we will need them in 2050.

The Nak’azdli are standing firm saying that they do not want the Northern  Gate pipelines going through their “precious” land. The aboriginals of BC have very strong values especially when it concerns their beautiful land. They do not want oil pipelines to go through their land as it could have damaging effects on the environments ecosystem.

The First Nations protection over nature makes it extremely hard for businesses to build on their land. It isn’t simply a question of companies using up their space but more of a concern of the environmental impact they with have on the land. The First Nations lands are filled with diverse wildlife. They contain populations of endangered species such as Nechako white sturgeon.

The First Nations stakeholders will protect their land and will not want the Northern Gate to construct their pipelines on their land due to a possible oil spill that would greater endanger the ecosystem. It seems as if the Northern Gate pipeline will have to wait as they are restricted by The Nak’azdli people and other First Nations. The Nak’azdli claim “that [they] were put here to look after this part of the earth. And [they] take that seriously”.

Maxine‘s blog concerning the article discussing the issue with part-time jobs in Canada has interested me as I was truly unaware that this country faced just a devastating problem.

I agree with Maxine that the biggest issue is that this problem affects the working class of Canadian’s between 25-54 years old, the people that need a full time job the most. These people are at the age of their woking period were they should have “regular hours that let [them] plan [their] life and save a little for retirement”. The income they are gaining won’t be good enough to be able to support a family or form one. The Canadian economy cannot be efficient if their workforce is unable to work to their maximum potential. This problem needs to be dealt somehow as workers are willing to work full-time. Another concern with involuntary part-time jobs are that they not only effect the low-class but the issue is starting to rise in the middle income class too. The problem needs to be dealt with fast before it becomes catastrophic.

Facebook employee’s bus driver’s are asking help from the Teamsters Union. The driver’s have been complaining about the lack of pay they obtain and the split shift schedule. The angry employees have written to  Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive in order to resolve this issue. However, Facebook do not believe it is their problem to resolve. The bus driver’s are part of the external company run by Jeff Leonoudakis. Mr. Leonoudakis is in charge of setting the wages and hours of his driver therefore it is up to them to solve this problem.

This situation is causing threats to Facebook as they are starting to have issues with the Teamster Union and the shuttle buses that bring the company’s labour to work. If the problem is not resolved Facebook might start to suffer direct consequences such as its labour force being unable to come to work or Labour Unions reducing Facebook’s good image. These factors can potential impact the companies sales as a poor image would make repel customers from Facebook. Customer’s would not want to support or be associated with a company that mistreats workers, in this case bus drivers.

Recently in southeastern Saskatchewan, a carbon capture and storage project has been reveled. The facility was divulged today in front of hundreds of people from different countries. This plant will serve to greatly reduce emmisions by one million tonnes annual, which is 90% of the emissions released by the coal plant near this facility.

This could serve as a breakthrough to reducing the emissions in the world as other countries could learn and take example of Saskatchewan’s innovative idea. This is exactly the type of projects our world needs today as it allows for a cleaner environment and creates jobs for citizens.

The storage of the emissions into the ground by this new commercial plant permits the carbon dioxide to be liquified and sold as oil (renewed oil). Cenovus Energy Inc. (Calgary-based Oil company) is in a 10 year contract with this facility to purchase all of its renewed oil. This makes the oil company demonstrates to customers that it is environmentally award of the consciences of oil drilling and that by purchasing this renewed oil it encourages a greener environment.

This project will aid to the future of a more eco-friendly world and is a solution to making oil a renewable resource.

My article is about the famous airplane manufacturing company Boeing. This article interested me because I always saw Boeing as a very honest, punctual and famous company. However that hasn’t always been the case according to this article. The article informs us that Boeing had ‘faked’ a new plane rollout for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. They were able to fool the public of a model that had not yet been completed. This later on cause an infamous image of the company towards the public as Boeing had lied to all the medias and people who had traveled to come see this new model.

In my opinion, this event must have caused a huge weakness in the company as they no longer obtain the trust of the people as an honest company. It also weakened their reputation of being a punctual company, since that had been the first and only time (that we know of) that the company had been unable to complete their new model on the deadline day. This dishonest act must have had a crucial impact on their sales, as airline companies would not want to purchase form a deceitful company who construct ‘fake’ planes to meet deadlines.

http://www.aljazeera.com/investigations/boeing787/2014/09/fake-boeing-787-rollout-201491151725717514.html