In response to Robby Gill`s Strive blog on social enterprise.  I agree with his view of social enterprises making a difference in the world.  Another example of businesses making a difference is Vancity Credit Union.  Vancity puts a lot of effort and power into their community impact stories.  Yes, they are a financial institution, however, the biggest differentiator between Canada`s biggest credit union and the Big five financial institutions is their focus on community impact.

Vancity prides itself on helping out people with a vision. Such stories of Vancity impacting the community positively is the Save on Meats company in downtown Vancouver.  Vancity helped Save on Meats reinvent themself and owner, Mark Brand, has come out stronger than ever.  No other institution would give Brand the time of day for financing.  Vancity opened their doors to this wonderful resteraunteur and the Downtown Eastside is prospering because of it now.  Vancity is definitely an example of a social enterprise, helping the community and the people in it.

Refer to : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ51KNRDexk for a very inspiring video of how Vancity positively impacted the community.

Activision Blizzard found themselves yet again at a revenue high this past week after the launch of the new Call of DUTY: Black Ops 2 release.  Activision stocks rose tremendously after the release.  In the first 24 hours, they saw an extreme amount of 500M dollars.  Every November, Call of Duty of releases a new game, and they have found themselves yet again at the top of the IT Gaming Industry.  It is amazing to see how much the COD release surpassed their Microsoft competitor game (Halo) which was released just a couple of days before.

The Information Technology world is rapidly increasing and the graphics coming out nowadays is amazing.  Nothing like, the orginal ninetndo’s we grew up with.  The graphics and the industry are so fast paced where Activision is definitely ruling.  In such a rapid moving industry, it takes creativity and extreme recruitment for the best of the best in the Information Technology Systems pool of talent.

Refer to : http://www.businessweek.com/videos/2012-11-16/call-of-duty-game-rings-up-500m-in-sales#r=nav-f-video

The importance of a mobile phone seems more than ever today. From providing us with direct communication with friends and family to keeping us connected with worldly events at the click of a button. Researchers in Africa have provided us with partial answer to how important mobile phones are. The research says that people in Africa today will decide to skip a meal or choose to walk instead of paying for a bus fare just so that they can keep their phone in credit.

The weekly value of sacrifices average just over 72 Kenyan shillings (84 American cents), which is a huge amount considering that a daily wage of Kenyan could be a dollar. However, the popularity of the mobile phone is not the attractive features such as internet browsing, rather it is the ability to transfer money through M-pesa (a mobile based money-transfer system). It seems today that the world would have difficulty operating without today`s technology.

Specialty Incubators, what are they?  This new emergence in the business world is explained as a support group for entrepreneurs.  “This notion of an ad hoc advisory board of your peers can be extremely helpful,”   It is very helpful to have a peer group of people who can help you get through the hardest part of a new business, the startup.  This article speaks of the many incubators in which newly immigrated business people have to face in order to get their vision off the ground.  Specifically, there is a program in San Francisco called La Cocina, where they help new immigrated women start up their own culinary business.  They do everything, from finding the right space, to aiding them in the legalities of the new country.

This program as mentioned is in San Francisco, which ironically enough happens to be Silicon Valley.  Technology is at the highest in this area of the country.  Specialty incubators focus on the time length for start-ups according to the industry they are working with.  For example, the internet start-ups can have quick success after an app production.  Then there is the opposite side, “In the electronics industry, it takes seven to 10 years to get a product out. It’s more a marathon than a sprint.”  These specialty incubators are wonderful assistance to the new entrepreneurs trying to make their name in the market.  Refer to : http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-06/theres-an-incubator-for-almost-every-business#r=nav-r-story

Apigee  has launched Apigee Mobile which is a tool built for all upcoming and new businesses & enterprises. This new technology help detect, diagnose and fix problem with apps running on mobile devices. This solution enables users to monitor and search moble application logs, detect crashes and determine performance bottlenecks.

This new invention provides users with 4 services; Gateway Services, App Services, a Developer Channel, and Analytics Services. Gateways services help transform existing services in to beautifully designed API`s. App services enable developers to build innovative and engaging apps. The Developer channel helps drive developer adoption and community and lastly the Analytics service helps extract business value from the API ecosystem. A person who is very intrigued by new technology; this seems like a million dollar service invention.

http://www.information-management.com/infodirect/2011_268/new-product-news-november-1-10023475-1.html