(Picture from http://www.holywoodactingstudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/CutBanner_BusinessActing.jpg)

The stereotype way of thinking acting and business is that they are never going to be relevant. However, the astonishing fact is that acting and business are close connected in some ways, and sometimes, acting courses are required for CEOs.

The question is, how are acting and business connected? Not only both of them required to have clear objectives so that people can write their speeches aiming at the specific goal, but business people also need to learn their “script”—what they are going to talk about, and fully prepared for difficult questions—before getting on to the “stage” and present what they get.

In my opinion, business people need to learn some acting skills in order to make their presentations or ideas more convincing. In the world of business, not only disruptive innovation matters, the ability of convincing others is also a key element of achieving success. There are certain movements and facial expressions in acting that can help business people to emphasis their ideas and reinforce their opinions so that their ideas or speeches can be more affective. Those performance tactics can be used in business presentations, public speaking, campaigning or even our group discussion in Comm 101.

References:
http://www.profitguide.com/manage-grow/leadership/what-actors-can-teach-ceos-56132

http://debbieweil.com/blog/what-i-learned-about-business-in-acting-class

Re: “China is slowing. What if its housing bubble bursts?” by Taylor Tepper, The Economy

China, as the world’s second biggest economy, is showing a decreasing of its economy. Lots of economic experts are worried about the negative impact for the Global economy, however, Taylor made a worst assume about how the market would react if China’s home price decline. With the decline, there will be fewer jobs in urban China and a corresponding decrease in demand of good, which may leads global selling to decrease and causing a bear market. However, the decline would not cause another economic crisis because Chinese banks are holding most of Chinese mortgages so that they need to take most of the responsibility of the decline.

Although Taylor said the worst case is still within our control, I think there can be another outcome that is worse than what he analyzed. In my opinion, with the decreasing in GDP, the Chinese government would support more native businesses’ development by raising tariff or directly stop the import of some companies’ goods to decrease the rivalry of native companies. If that happened, the world’s sells would drop substantially, some companies may be even stop producing products because they have very low demand with lots of inventories leftover. Therefore, in my opinion, global sellers and investors need to be fully prepared for the decline in China.

References:
http://time.com/money/3394655/china-housing-bubble/

Re: “lowing Chinese GDP growth worries investors” by Angela Winny

Angela’s blog interests me because ghost cities in China are turning into a serious economics problem that needs to be dealt with. The “unnecessary infrastructure” as Angela mentioned in her blog, is turning to be the main reason for causing China’s decreasing economy growth. Not only those cities slow down the developing speed in China, but it also brings a huge negative impact on the world’s GDP because China acts as the leading contributor of global GDP growth.

(Picture from http://affairstoday.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/china-ghost-town-950×575.jpg)

“Should China stop building ghost cities” is the question. I think China should stop wasting money on building ghost cities the government should invest their money on developing high technology that could have payoff at least. Although speeding money on big project like building ghost cities do create numerous construction jobs and can achieve Chinese government’s goal of maintaining a high GDP growth for a short period of time, those building they made has no user and no market, thus those building would ultimately turn into wastes that cost a huge maintenance expenditure. Therefore, in the long run, building ghost cities will cause huge economic losses.

Reference:
Angela Winny’s blog
https://blogs.ubc.ca/WinnyAngelia/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2013/12/08/chinas-ghost-cities-have-nothing-on-the-ghost-country-that-is-the-u-s/

Google, as one of the world’s leading companies and the biggest company that have seen more data than any other company, has come out with an idea that top university students with high GPAs are not been considered priory in the interview section.

Max discussed in his article about the uselessness of the GPA for an interview. He listed some defects of high grade achievers commonly have, like lack of “intellectual humanity” and “unfortunate reaction” that could bring difficulties for employees in dealing with real world problem.

I believe that GPA in university is surely important, because it is the most accurate measurement of a person’s capability and attitude toward academic learning. However, a good grade is not the only measurement for a good employee. What might also matter is the ability to synthesizing what he or she has learned and apply them into real cases. Because what employers are looking from people is not a particular correct answer of a certain question, but they are looking for exceptional people that not only have textbook knowledge, but also critical thinking and high cognitive skill with them.

Reference:

http://qz.com/180247/why-google-doesnt-care-about-hiring-top-college-graduates/

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-google-hires-people-2013-6

Re: “In store VS Online shopping” by Sofia Bautista.

(Picture from https://www.vpnaccounts.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/online-shopping.jpg)

Just like Sofia said, the development of online shopping gives the retail store a huge threat. However, I think there are much more market competition going on in online market. There are many individual sellers at eBay in Canada or Taobao in China that sell goods in much cheaper prices. Those individual sellers may not have enough money to pay for the rent and servers’ wages for opening a retail shop, but they can operate their businesses online. This low entry barrier cause lots of people get in to the market and therefore cause a higher competition.

There are definite more choices and cheaper prices of commodities provided online, but there are also risks that customers must take. Customers cannot see or test the actual commodities that they are buying but only see photos of that good. Therefore, the quality of that commodity is always unknown. Consumers need to face a high risk of getting a low quality commodity by shopping online.

In my opinion, there is no definite winner or loser for online shops and retail stores, what customers should think about is how they value the quality and price. If they care more about price over quality, they should consider shopping online, but if quality values more, go to retail stores and see the actual commodity would be a safer choice.

Reference:

Sofia’s blog: https://blogs.ubc.ca/sofiabautista/2014/10/23/in-store-vs-online-shopping/

Website: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ebay-canada-report-suggests-removal-113000886.html

With the increase in demand of the clean hydroelectric in B.C, the BC Hydro’s is planning to construct a dam and a hydroelectric generating station that will cost 8 billion dollars to build. Although the money that Hydro’s must pay for running this megaproject need to go into the cost structure of their business model, there are non-cash environmental cost like “83 kilometres of the Peace River Valley” will be flooded and the significant damage in “farmland and wildlife habitat” that cannot be downplayed.

Those massive environmental costs strongly prove that this project is obviously not eco-friendly; it would also violate the right of the First Nations by occupying their lands.This serious environmental conflict brings the Site C project to the highest court.

In my opinion, the external environment problem that B.C Hydro is facing is so powerful that they may not get the right to use the land eventually, and that would force them to change their key resource and cost structure of their business model or even cancel their project. They may shift to develop another relatively eco-friendly resources like wind and solar which are supported by the First Nations, and that would spontaneously affect the management cost of that project as well.

Reference: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/First+Nation+chiefs+stage+Site+showdown/10215965/story.html

(Picture from http://www.ctvnews.ca/lifestyle/mcdonald-s-tim-hortons-emerge-as-favourite-restaurants-in-canada-study-1.2039062)

Tim Horton’s, as Denis Hancock of Brand Spark said, took the top spot in Best tasting coffee, best breakfast and best dessert was “not a surprise”. How can Tim win the top spot with no doubt? I deem the answer is because of their strategy.

Tim Horton’s has a clear and specific point of difference from other coffee shops, low cost. It runs in a focus strategy that provides low cost of products and focusing in a narrow market, making loyal Canadian coffee.  

Good company always thinks forward. Tim understands that the strength of their business is mainly rely on “out front-line team members” that they have, and they knows their potential “pain”, or to say potential weakness, is the increasing in the time of waiting in line with the growth in numbers of their customers. Therefore, they start the plan of adding 5,000 more employees into their team in Albert before the weakness goes worse which can also improves their strength, the fast speed service, at the same time.

Reference:

http://www.ctvnews.ca/lifestyle/mcdonald-s-tim-hortons-emerge-as-favourite-restaurants-in-canada-study-1.2039062

http://www.qsrweb.com/news/tim-hortons-adding-5000-employees-revises-tattoo-policy/

Five days ago was the National Day of People Republic of China, there were flags rising on the Tiananmen Square and citizens in China were all celebrating while the Hong Kong people, mainly students, were running the huge revolution for the pro-democracy election. Chinese government wants to solve the Hong Kong revolution safely because Hong Kong provides China unique and vital economy benefits that may cause a significant economy decrease if China loses it.

(Picture from http://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/news/world/2014/10/04/hong_kong_protests_and_the_echoes_of_tiananmen_burman/heart_hk.jpg.size.xxlarge.letterbox.jpg)

This Hong Kong revolution is much like the Tiananmen student revolution that happened in 1989 when the government used tank to killed millions of students in Tiananmen in order to crackdown the revolution. However, the most shocking part of the Hong Kong revolution and the Tiananmen revolution years ago is the government hid this event from the Mainland Chinese people. There are news and photos post on Chinese news website but those news are mainly talked about how some people in Hong Kong support the Chinese government and called the revolution as an illegal meeting.

I believe the reason why Chinese government hid the news from Mainland people is they do not want to cause chaos in Mainland, too. But, people have the right to know the truth instead of fake news.

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2014/10/04/hong_kong_protests_and_the_echoes_of_tiananmen_burman.html

Apple Company sold 10 million iPhone 6 and 6 plus in their first week of selling, which is twice more than the 5 million selling record of iPhone 5 two years ago. (Picture from http://images.chinatopix.com/data/images/full/14925/iphone-6-and-iphone-6-plus.jpg?w=600)

How can Apple sells its phone in such a fast and growing speed? Although the growth in the technology and average income makes iPhone 6 and 6 plus slowly turns from a luxury into a necessity that stimulate more people to purchase, I think the most significant strategy that Apple uses is direct selling. Apple does not find any middleman or retail store to help them sell Apple’s product; instead, it runs its own stores. Therefore, the selling statistics and feedbacks Apple directly gets from getting contact with customers in Genius, a certain place where Apple set workers to help consumers with technology support, would help them know the most common problem that Apple has. Once the inventory department gets this information, they would start to improve their products and cut the variability. Thus, the iPhone they invent always meet most of the expectation that customers have; iPhone 6 has lightweight, fast speed, glamorous structure etc. Customization helps Apple wins more customers even though iPhone costs a high price.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/apple-iphone-6-and-iphone-6-plus-break-sales-record-1.2773981

(Picture from http://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/wild-west-of-groundwater-billion-dollar-nestlé-extracting-b-c-s-drinking-water-for-free-1.587568)

According to the article “‘Wild West’ of groundwater: Billion-dollar Nestlé extracting B.C.’s drinking water for free”, Nestle has been criticized for using 265 million litres of fresh water every year from Fraser Valley for free without doing any report. Consumers were complaining about how much they had to pay for Nestle’s water even though they were only a few kilometres away from the Fraser Valley’s well. However, those costumers don’t know that what Nestle did was completely following one of the business ethic, to be FAIR to all the customers. It doesn’t matter how close the purchasers are, they are going to pay the same amount of money as other customers as long as they purchase the same Nestle’s brand of drink. Moreover, Nestle revealed a positive attitude towards creating fair regulations with the local government together. John Challinor, as the “Waters Canada’s director of corporate affairs”, said that Nestle is willing to pay for the amount of groundwater they use as long as the price is fair. This announcement shows to their customers and shareholders that Nestle is a supportive and pursuing fairness company which could be trusted and may also brings Nestle good reputations potentially.

Resource Website:
http://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/wild-west-of-groundwater-billion-dollar-nestlé-extracting-b-c-s-drinking-water-for-free-1.587568