How to Manage Conflict in Virtual Teams is the title of the business blog post by Keith Ferrazzi in the Harvard Business Review.The blog post talks about the conflicts that arise among teams mainly in workplace or any organization and how virtual teams are good and bad in handling these conflicts.

Conflict can be in the form of communication, structure and personal variables and it is almost a norm in any organization and it occurs through all levels of an organization. A conflict can either be functional, and help members improve its performance or it can be dysfunctional and hinder performance.

In this case, selecting a right type of team can help to avoid unnecessary conflict. Virtual team, a team using computer technology to tie together physically dispersed members to achieve a common goal and this type of team is becoming more common in organizations nowadays.

The good thing in virtual teams is that less conflict occurs within the team as members do not interact face-to-face and thus members are more focused with their work and there is less interpersonal issues involved. The conflicts are mainly task related which is absolutely healthy for structural and organizational reasons, like competition. Having said that, virtual teams can also face challenges like suffering from less social rapport and less direct interaction among members which leads to weak bonding between co-workers or members.

In this case, the organization should be mindful in choosing the right channel of communication to clearly communicate the organizational goals.The organization must create a virtual site as the team’s primary focal point and protect the privacy of the team.A “point person” should be assigned in the team to handle any conflict arising in the team. Besides that, when conflicts in virtual teams occur, the teams should diverge and converge – meaning that they work individually and brainstorm any problems and refer to the point person, and then get together as a team and solve the issues encountered.

As a reply to Vinotha Sanmugam’s post,

I find this article very interesting. It is indeed such a shame that a reputable company, widely known for its well-established brand name would indulge itself in child labor issue that could tarnish its company’s image. In this case, I would say the fault is both on the company and the consumers, and they can fix this problem.

Hershey’s should invest more on its production line is West Africa and increase the wage paid to the factory labors  The higher wage would mean that the under-educated adults would earn sufficient enough to support their families and educate their children. This would reduce the problem of child labor  increase the standard of living of people in West Africa and develop the economy there. However, this comes with an adequately high cost whereby Hershey’s should be socially responsible and not just maximize its profit, and implement this higher investment.

Consumers, on the other hand, should be aware of such unethical behaviors by companies and boycott their products. In this case, consumers should stop buying Hershey’s chocolates.  Only by doing so, companies will be urged to act fast to resolve any problems and refrain themselves from doing any unethical act.

As a reply to Kimia Hamidi’s post,

I would say that I totally agree with Kimia’s opinion and the issue being talked about here. With many other companies merging with latest technologies, mainly Samsung and Apple products, BlackBerry is seem to be facing a cliff. Blackberry phones are absolutely fine in terms of their battery life span, size of the screen, thickness, data storage etc – though the keypads are a little too small, some prefer it that way! But the one big problem BlackBerry is facing is the BlackBerry Messenger, more commonly known as the BBM.

One cannot contact any individual unless they get access to his/her BBM pin code that consists of a unique 8 digits alphanumerical code assigned to each individual BlackBerry device. BBM also faces compatibility issues with some instant messaging applications because BBM works differently. With BBM, the RIM server stays involved same as when sending or receiving emails. All interaction on BBM goes through the RIM’s servers as messages are exchange messages. Due to all this, one needs to have either an internet plan or a data plan to use it more proactively.

Thus, to stay more competitive in the market of ever revolving mobile devices, RIM should take immediate action and focus on fixing its problems and providing a more free and easier instant messaging apps similar to Whatsapp or Viber to keep its user connected not only among themselves but also to the rest of the world.

So, last week we had an interesting lecture from two entrepreneurs from Amielle Lake from Tagga and Eric Carlson from Anthem Properties. I personally found it very interesting on how both their stories were so similar to each other.

Amielle is one of the youngest entrepreneur in the list of Forty under 40 and her story was inspiring. Aim high, dream big, it is okay if you are not employable and it is okay if you do not have a clue on what what you are doing but as long as you have an idea of what you want to do is some of her words of wisdom. Her story reflected strong determination and consistent effort even though her ideas had been turn down, she had been fired but she never gave up on what she believed in. She wanted to create something different, and BIG. Tagga, a software that integrates social, web and mobile technologies to connect brands to customers. Her high level of commitment was clearly seen when she was working hard on improving her company even though she had undergone an operation. All these values shows the characteristics of entrepreneurs.

Eric Carlson is a very interesting person I thought. He looked so serious with his deep voice, but he is full of humor and shared great stories with the entire class. He went through man hardship growing up and the one thing I learnt from his story is that never trust anyone blindly and always think before you act. This happened with his initial company where his partner bought him over and he was kicked out of his own company. But being an entrepreneur, he came back and started a new company, Anthem Properties. I find his determination, great personality and aspiration had led him to be who he is now, and I believe those are the characterics of a successful entrepreneur.

I have learnt that if I have strong determination to make a difference along with good knowledge and skills, I too can become an entrepreneur. Oh but I should get a degree first! ” Do not start tomorrow! Get a degree, it is valuable. People can take anything from you but not your degree (knowledge). And then start building your dream” -Amielle-

This TED Talk  by Rory Sutherland – Life lessons from an ad man was really interesting and it was about advertising. Advertising adds value to a product by changing our perception, rather than the product itself. Rory Sutherland makes the daring assertion that a change in perceived value can be just as satisfying as what we consider “real” value — and his conclusion has interesting consequences for how we look at life.

Advertisement creates an intangible/perceived/badge value for a product. For example, in the video,Rory talk about potatoes back then where people dread consuming potatoes or even grow them but potatoes could be the cheapest and high source of energy. So, the rulers of the country decided to make the potatoes as royal potatoes with highly guarded security (not really!). In the end, everyone wants to consume the “royal potatoes.” What the rulers did here was to re-brand the image of potatoes and create a market value.

Marketing creates an impulse for buying and fundamental opportunities are important to change human behavior. In the video, Rory gave the example of Shreddies creating intangible value to the product WITHOUT even changing the product. They came up with  Diamond Shreddies and combo pack of both Shreddies, which had a higher market value. This shows a clear fundamental opportunity taken by Shreddies through market research.

Definitely worth watching!:)

Today’s lecture was indeed interesting. Most people would confuse themselves between what is entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship. In fact, they are very distinct from each other.  The way I look at it is by separating them into four different categories:

1. Social entrepreneurship

• Characteristics: opportunity sensing, out-of-the-box thinking, and determination
• identifying an unfortunate but stable equilibrium that causes the exclusion, marginalization, or suffering of a segment of humanity that lacks the financial means or political clout.
• identifying an opportunity in this unjust equilibrium, developing a social value proposition, and bringing to bear inspiration, creativity, direct action, courage, and fortitude.
• Create a new, stable equilibrium that releases trapped potential or alleviates the suffering of the targeted group, and through imitation and the creation of a stable ecosystem around the new equilibrium ensuring a better future.
• Example: Muhammad Yunus – Microfinancing ( Grameen Bank),       Robert Redford – Sundance Film Festival 

1. Entrepreneurship (social enterprises)

• More business-like approach commercialised and has financial support, mostly ventures into new businesses or organizations.
• Though the products create a better service for the community and gives social benefits, it is still profit-oriented.
• Examples: Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniack – centralised computing system; Fred Smith – FedEx; Omidyar and Skoll – eBay; Ann and Mike Moore – Snugli

 

1. Social activism

• Motivator: unfortunate and stable equilibrium.
• Characteristics: inspiration, creativity, courage, fortitude BUT not direct action, it is indirect action.
• Social activists create change by influencing others like governments, NGOs, consumers, workers. May or may not create new ventures or organizations but outcome is the same as social entrepreneurs, that is improve existing system and create a new equilibrium.
• Example: Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King

1. Social service provision

• Smaller scales – do not break out of their frame and give that big impact to the overall society. More towards local community.
• Sometimes same mission-driven that is to create common goodness to the community, but outcomes vary as social service provisions cannot create a new equilibrium to the problem altogether.

Brand Quiz Here’s a brand quiz that you can try to test yourself.

It is important for any business entity to separate and distinct itself from many other products out there in the market. This can be done in two ways:

1. PoP – Point of Parity: the similarities the products share, eg.type of goods/ service being offered
2. PoD – Point of Difference: the differenciation of the product to other similar products, eg. size,colour, packaging, logo, promotion

PoD and PoP are what determines value proposition. Strategy is based on a differentiated customer value proposition. Satisfying customers is the source of sustainable value creation.

Why A Brand Matters. The article in Forbes about why brand is important is simple and clear text that conveys branding is important because:

• Carries message that a firm is trying to tell the consumers
• To attract consumer (logos, colours, size, images, fonts)
• Create brand positioning in consumers mind and thus capture the consumers loyalty
• To sell their product (the more appealing it seems, the more consumer will buy)

Positioning: A Battle of the Mind This link is one of the reading materials in our lecture, Positioning: The Battle of Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout. I found this extremely interesting. It talked about how different brand names were positioned in human mind and how we tend to relate or remember these names.

• Companies should capture the consumers mind by positioning their brand and be a brand leader. This is easier to sell more of the product and create a brand loyalty.
• Companies that enter a market with competition and dominant leaders should be a follower but differentiate the product from that of the leaders.
• Descriptive brand names tend to do better than coined ones. Example: Head n Shoulders for shampoo, People for gossip magazine, Close Up for toothpaste, Diehard for batteries rather than general names like Kodak or Xerox.
• The no-name trap. Using general names like IBM instead of International Business Machines or GM for General Electric could be confusing and is not encouraged unless the brand is already well established like GM for General Motors.
• The free-ride trap. Many companies are tempted to use the existing brand for a new product line being introduced which ends up being unpopular as the first already captured and being positioned in different part of the consumer minds. For example, Alka-Seltzer and Alka-Seltzer Plus are two different product lines but are looked at as the same but just a better version.

This YouTube video, taken from a TED Talk of Daniel Pink is definitely worth watching because it talks about different ways people are motivated and how we as human respond to incentives. We are all driven by intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. We respond to different types of reinforcement wither at work or daily life namely positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, punishment and extinction. The video further looks into interesting researches and surveys on motivation.The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us