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

My following entry is in response to Ben Lawson’s Blog Post in which he mentioned how competitors such as Apple and Samsung demean each other in certain ads or commercials.“The ad by Samsung: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf5-Prx19ZM” (Ben Lawson)

After watching the above ad posted by Ben, it made me realize that marketing such as this goes against Business Ethics, another topic discussed in our Comm 101 class. Coincidently the same night while watching TV, I came across a similar commercial in which Arby’s exposed the truth about where the so called “FRESH” meat in Subway sandwiches actually comes from. The ad claims that Subway meat is shipped from a factory rather than being sliced fresh at the restaurant location; it then reinforces that Arby’s meat is literally sliced fresh, “unlike Subway’s.” Does this negate Subway’s motto of” Subway Eat Fresh?” I am now excitedly awaiting a reply from Subway.

The ad from Arby’s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyh9hATGu2w

Approximately 4000 workers went on strike this Friday at the Foxconn iphone plant in China. As we all know this is a very crucial time financially for the American company as it recently released its profitable iphone 5 smartphone.

The strike has resulted in a lack of supply from Apple in some places across the world. Employees were offended when the company demanded them to work through National Days Holidays which began Monday.Tension has spread in other Foxconn manufacturing locations across all of China due to poor working conditions and wages. Foxconn plants have employed over a million in China producing majority of the worlds iphones and ipads. As of now this particular location remains paralyzed; no information has been released to when production will resume.

Take a look at the picture below. How could this be printed and shown to world? I find this completely immoral in so many ways. A pregnant lady holding a bee; now, I know this advertisement says non alcoholic, but still beer and all types of liquor were initially made for intoxication

.After seeing this picture the first question that came to my mind was, what message is this advertisement trying to send the public? Is it that pregnant women should drink non alcoholic beverages? Whatever the message may be, it comes down to how one interprets it. It’s really important that companies take all views in to consideration. Adults may be smart enough to understand that this picture is wrong in many ways and just brush it off their shoulders. On the other hand, if young female teens/adults were to see this, they could take this ad serious and truly believe that it is okay for pregnant women to drink alcohol. This has taught me that ethics play a great role in marketing.

In recent classes of Comm 101, we have focused much on the topic of Value Propositions. A value proposition is a promise of value which a company/producers guarantee the consumer to experience after purchasing their product. Value propositions are addition qualities of certain gadgets which make them unique giving the customer a clear reason to why that product should be chosen over others.

Apple’s Mac computers are great examples of products which offer a number of value propositions attracting the public in to purchasing their product over competitors. One key value proposition which Mac computers offer is the Sofos antivirus tool from Macintosh, which pretty much guarantees no viruses. Another value to buying a Mac computer is its easy to use multi-tasking ability. Overall the Apple’s Mac computer provides many unique attractions increasing its value in the eyes of the public. We can clearly see that Mac computers are getting very popular among students at UBC; this is due to its “Value Propostions.”

Vancity Credit Union is a  socially responsible organization. Their membership shares the same ethical values as the financial institution. Enbridge Inc. lost Vancity as an investor last Wednesday. Vancity chose to divest from enbridge due to a couple of factors. The first being that the company did not deal with an oil spill in a safe manner which resulted in one of the most devastatingly large land spills to date.

Vancity is very proud on their socially responsible investing and after the US safety survey came out with Enbridge in the dumps Vancity reevaluated their investment.  Many of the Vancity memberships prides itself with having the same values and ethics as the organization they partially own.

This is a great connection between how ethics and business coincide in today’s day and age.  Vancity’s appeal is their socially responsible ethics and people from the Vancouver area are drawn to the credit union because they see how aligned their personal values are with the financial institution they decide to bring their money to.

To read about it more, “click” the link below:

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Vancity+sells+Enbridge+shares+over+ethics+concerns/7132208/story.html