Category: COMM 486G

Being on “the other side” of the interview table, it was obvious after only 5 minutes if the person being interviewed would “fit in” to the organization or not. There were a few people who came in for an interview who were so far off from the general culture that, despite great qualifications, they were not selected to be on the executive team. Just the fact that they didn’t “fit in” to the culture stopped them from getting the position.

Anyways the point of this final blog of this school year (expect more next year!) is to show APPLIED knowledge and the power/significance of it. When going through my organizational behavior textbook last semester, “organizational culture” was merely a term that I had to memorize and regurgitate…but now, after applying it in these interviews, it has a whole new meaning–it was a key factor for hiring individuals since it represented executive team cohesiveness.

The thousands of terms and concepts we learn throughout our BComm here at Sauder only get their true value when applied (hence why I feel this 486G class is so important). Learning the material is only half of our BComm degree…using the material is part of the other half.

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Source:

So, I just did the carbon footprint calculation and i was shocked by my score–especially the “long distance travel” aspect:

4 tonnes of CO2 just because of long distance travel! All of that travel is to go back home to Houston, Texas to see my family and friends, so I was very curious to see the solution to lowering this number. In the “personal green plan“, one of the solutions was to video conference instead of traveling. For some reason, I just don’t think my mom would really understand it if I told her that instead of coming home this Christmas, I am just going to skype with her.

So, I looked on to other solutions. The only other one that seemed a bit applicable would be to drive/carpool/take buses. So I looked into the drive…roughly 40 hours of driving would get me from Vancouver to Houston. Lets see…my Christmas break is 14 days long…and driving would take 4 days (roughly 10 hours each day) each way. So my Christmas break would be down to 6 days at home and 8 days of driving–not exactly a good trade-off!

….It looks like I’m going to have to choose between mother nature and… my mother!

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For those of you who know me, you may know that philanthropic work is what I Love and what I want to do in life. I entered Sauder knowing this and also knowing that a BComm degree can be used towards a humanitarian career.  Today, in class, we talked about the difference between a social enterprise and a company with CSR (specifically, a triple bottom line). In class, I brought up the one point that is the most important to me in my future life/career: a social enterprise measures their success based on how many people they have helped and the difference they made where as a company with CSR measures their success with financial figures.

CDI is a social enterprise and their mission is to, “is to transform lives and strengthen low-income communities by empowering people with information and communication technology…” The following is a screenshot of their “results page”:

Personally, I know that this is exactly how I want the “results page” of my life to look like; I don’t want the “result page” of my life’s work to be measured in “gross profit” because my true passion lies in philanthropy, not business!

In class today we covered “value propositions” and even looked at a few specific value propositions–like that of WestJet.   In my own time, I took a closer look at WestJet.com and realized that it is quite hard to derive a value proposition purely from the home page; one has to go to the “Why WestJet” page to derive the value proposition. I realized that WestJet may be able to “get away” with this due to their established and familiar services.

So, I was thinking…what about a service that isn’t familiar to so many people…wouldn’t it be extremely beneficial for them to have a clear value proposition directly on their home page? To examine this, I took a look at a service that many are still unfamiliar with: Expedia.com. The first picture below highlights, in red, how Expedia.com presents their value proposition via large and effective titles on their home page–WestJet doesn’t have anything like this on their home page. The second picture below shows a checklist that was on the expedia.com homepage; this checklist also effectively contributes to  their value proposition.

Expedia.com effectively shows the true benefit of their services (the purpose of a value proposition!) –I actually regret not using Expedia.com now!

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Sources:

1. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/expedia-profit-up-as-travellers-flock-to-discounts/article1343854/?cmpid=rss1
2. http://www.marketingexperiments.com/improving-website-conversion/powerful-value-propositions.html

The drunk people storming down Robson during the olympics may not have realized that there were some …more serious….benefits that came with the olympics than just the “massive two week party.” I want to just touch on a few of these benefits in a quick and concise manner:

1. The olympics served as a great catalyst for some much needed (and/or highly beneficial) improvements (like the transit improvements).  
2. The creation of new jobs. And no, I am not just referring to the temporary jobs that were created during the actual two weeks, but rather the hundreds of annual and steady jobs that were created 3-4 years before the actual olympics (…VANOC).
3. To simplify this benefit: visitors = “extra” money; “extra” money = good for the economy. And I am not only talking about the huge influx of visitors that came during the past two weeks, but also the thousands of visitors coming into vancouver due to the very likely growth of vancouver’s overall tourism.

Anyways…yes, there are many anti-olympic arguments, but, hey, looking on the bright side of things is much better…and it makes us feel like there was something “bigger” that came out of the massive “two-week party”!

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When many hear the phrase “phone apps”, many will immediately think of the iPhone. Well, entrepreneurs such as Ilja Laurs think differently. Laurs realized that Apple only controls 17 percent of the smartphone market; Laurs wanted to capture 100 percent of the market…so he did! Laurs founded GetJar, a mobile app store that provides services across most of the smartphone brands. Laurs provides thousands and thousands of mobile applications across major mobile platforms such as Windows Mobile and Blackberry. GetJar even has applications for normal “non-smart” phones! Basically Laurs has provided an extremely versatile mobile app store, such a simple, yet effective business. That’s the thing with entrepreneurs…when you hear of somebody becoming a millionaire from such a simple concept, you always think in the back of your mind: why didn’t I think of that?!? The funny thing is that it’s not just the idea that makes an entrepreneur successful. There is so much more to it…entrepreneurs have to have certain characteristics such as being a risk-taker, understand all aspects of business, and much more. Also they also have to have money— too bad I’m broke from paying for my tuition and housing!

Source:

http://www.entrepreneur.com/magazine/entrepreneur/2010/february/204586.html

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Many reviewers, such as J.D. Power, consistently rank Toyota’s products among the best in terms quality and reliability due to their superior engineering in the past. This essence of fine engineering (Toyota Production System, The Toyota Way, etc.) has resulted in a remarkable branding. However, Toyota has been having numerous recalls over the past little while, and for a company that thrives off of having that essence of fine Japanese quality, these recalls can be extremely harmful to their branding.

Everybody knows American car companies are trying to get back into the game, and they are using Toyota’s failure to do so. As soon as the Toyota recalls started spreading, so did the buying incentives for American auto purchases. Toyota is getting hit pretty hard…according to Wall Street Journal, “The immediate impact of Toyota Motor Corp.’s recalls and sales stoppages is estimated to cost the company around $1 billion.” But the executives at Toyota are much more concerned about the effects of these recalls to their branding in the long run. This just shows how important branding really is in the business world. Branding is power. Power is money. That’s just how business works.

Sources: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107204575038750582835286.html?mod=WSJ_Real+Estate_sections_HomeAndGarden

http://blogs.consumerreports.org/cars/2010/02/toyota-recall-news-highlights.html

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Yesterday I attended the UBCMA’s Gateways: The Evening Conference which we, the executive team of the UBCMA, spent hours and hours organizing. The conference consisted of two workshops, open networking, and a keynote speaker. I was surprised at how much the workshops ended up being focused on the social media networks of today (with an emphasis on linkedIn). I always thought of these social media networks were just “optional additions” to an individual or business. But I learned I was wrong.

The keynote speaker shocked many of us with amazing facts such as: if Facebook were a country it would be the fourth largest in the world. This was when I started to realize the true significance of social media.

This realization was only enforced today in class as we watched the following video. It was astonishing to see the true facts behind social media. Just a few of the facts alone, such as Dell attributing 3 million dollars in revenue to twitter activity, are enough to completely change my opinion on social media. Using social media in the business world shouldn’t just be considered “an optional addition”…social media is where the world is going and businessmen must follow.

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We all know that gasoline powered vehicles are on their slow way out of our world. And rightfully so, but the real question is…what’s next?!

All major car manufacturers ponder this very question, and it seems to come down to two options: electric cars or hydrogen fuel cell cars. I want to present my argument for hydrogen cars. Honda already has a fuel cell car, the FCX Clarity, in production in Los Angles (where hydrogen filling stations are available). Fuel cell cars are the future of this world (as compared to electric cars). The reason for this is simple: our way of life has been shaped around the gasoline car—you get in and drive as long as you can go and then you fill up and keep going. Electric cars would change our way of life as we know it because they have to be charged for several hours before you can keep going.

Why spend millions of dollars on market research when the answer is so simple? A rational consumer will only desire a product that has a marginal benefit; waiting several hours for my car to charge up is not exactly what I call a marginal benefit.

Source:

http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/

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