Month: November 2012

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Comm 101 Blog Entries

Different Perspective at Social Entrepreneurship

Original Post: Guardian Professional

In class we commonly talk about Social Enterprises, and their missions, their founders, and what makes a business a social enterprise. Yet we are not given the most thorough perspective, especially when talking about the challenges faced by a social entrepreneur.

This is where Dan Berelowitz comes in. I was surfing blogs looking for social entrepreneurship news and what not when I stumbled across a little blog entry on the Guardian by Dan. Dan being a social entrepreneur himself talks first hand, about the problems and issues that he faces.

Surprisingly, the problem he brings up is one little people think of at first. We all think of resources, money, accessibility and so on as barriers to innovative ideas to social entrepreneurship, however Dan points out the fact that it is actually a little bit of everything but mainly, stubbornness on their behalf. Social Entrepreneurs are ignorant to already found and established ideas, and always looking for ways to “create” their own. This is where Social Franchising takes on a role. Social Franchising is utilizing already founded ideas for social change, though not implemented on any large scale whatsoever, and replicated by many other franchises to speed up and expose the change to a much larger market. Rather than trying to reach a large market through one vendor, there are multiple vendors, and ultimately being able to reach to a much larger market. Much like McDonald’s (Dan’s example in his post) and their millions of franchises. Imagine there only being one McDonald’s or one starbucks in each province. No way would they be able to serve the millions customers they do now, and that’s the same idea behind Social Franchising.

Dan Berelowitz is a 2011 Clore Social fellow and chief executive and co-founder of ICSF.

Source: Guardian, Picture source: masoninnovation

 

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Comm 101 Blog Entries

RE: Microsoft dumps the Messenger for Skype after brought Skype for $8.5 billion

Original Post: Tony Liu’s Blog

Tony’s blog about Microsoft discontinuing their messenger application and merging it with Skype was definitely a good read and gave me a great insight on how much (not to mention how quickly) the technological world is changing and how companies have to cope with it almost immediately.

As stated in the blog, Skype was previously bought by Miscrosoft by $8.5b last summer, which was a huge investment considering the company already had their massively successful Windows Live Messenger application. However, Microsoft’s messenger has been on the decline ever since the likes of Facebook Chat, Skype and Google plus have come into the market. I agree with Tony that there is no doubt Microsoft has made a relatively good move in merging the two applications and ultimately discontinuing their original Messenger. Skype gives the company’s messenger market competitor a new image and by eliminating Windows Live Messenger, it will only reduce the relative competition.

Whether or not this decision by Microsoft turns out to be a good managerial move is yet to be seen, however, it is clear that this is one of the most dynamic markets out there and even behemoth companies like Microsoft faces adversities.

Categories
Comm 101 Blog Entries

Greenwashing is the New Trend

Little doubt that the new fad for companies seems to be the Eco-friendly marketing schemes across basically any market out there.

The term “Greenwashing” is a new term through combining the “green” approach to symbolize environmentally friendliness, along with “white-washing” which is to cover up wrongdoings. Hence, greenwashing is simply a gimmick used by companies to mask their non-ecofriendly ways with logos, marketing, and so forth to give the consumers a sense of contribution to the environment while boosting the company’s image.

It is an extremely smart marketing tactic for companies in many ways, as it takes advantage of the new trend within the society to do what we can to buy goods that are good for the earth, or so we think. The problem is that, with this new trend, people tend to think they are doing enough for the environment, that buying these products, driving hybrids, and so forth will be enough to “save” our planet. What most consumers are failing to see is that these are only reducing our footprints by a miniscule amount, while some companies just use this tactic to cover up their environmentally harmful ways and boost sales and company image.

Greenwashing is going to continue in the mainstream society until consumers are more aware of the truth behind the companies and more importantly, the truth behind their environmentally harmful ways.

Sources: Forbes | Picture Source: AllVoices

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Comm 101 Blog Entries

Big Data Emerging in Unforseen Ways

November 8th, 2012,

The only winner that day was not only re-elected US President Barrack Obama, but a man of another name, Nate Silver.

Seen above on the left is 538, Silver’s Blog’s, predictions, and on the right is the actual results of the 2012 Presidential election.

Little would dare to say it was an uncanny coincidence that Silver was able to predict every single state perfectly. This is what a High School math teacher would brag to his kids about Statistical analysis, probabilities, etc. However, at the same time, enterprises are keen on understanding the potential of using big data and algorithms in future opportunities.

There is little excuse now that companies do not implement these big data changes, be it data analysis, predictions, information systems, its crucial for companies looking for a step ahead of the competition to take hold of the opportunities at hand. Silver doesn’t hold his recipe to success as a secret though, he has posted his methodology on his NY Times blog seen here. He gives us all the steps, but not the numbers he used in calculation, that’s the secret ingredients necessary for a successful prediction.

Little doubt there is a lot of value in these big data analysis in the future, but how companies utilizes them in the future will be what’s important

Source: Fivethirtyeight (blog) | InformationWeek | Mashable

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Comm 101 Blog Entries

Apple Stock trading at 15% below all-time high

Apple inc. (AAPL) is trading at $584.62 as of closing November 5th which is a far cry from the $700 price it was trading at just over 50 days ago.

Many thought that Supply chain expert Tim Cook took the CEO spot after Steve Jobs’ passing, there should be a better managed system in place to match the demand. That has not been the case at all. Though many companies would love the problem that Apple has with having too great of a demand for their supply to match, it’s been a daunting problem for Apple. The success of the iPhone has not gone unnoticed by any means, but it seems as though Apple refuses to improve their supply to match the increasing popularity. Now with Android and Windows Phone all caught up to the iPhone in terms of quality, customers unable to get their hands on an iPhone will have alternatives to waiting for another 6 weeks for an iPhone. This may not be the only reason dragging down Apple’s stock price, but it certainly is a contributing factor, and one that Apple fails to address with their iPhone, iPads, and now the iPad Mini.

Source: Forbes

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