Dexway English Magazine: B2 – Edition 8
Business Ideas
To come up with good business ideas, we should first figure out what exactly a business is. From the article how the economy works, we can see that a business is just an extension of two people benefiting from each other by trading. Instead of just two people, it can be any number of people benefiting from each other by trading. Therefore, your job is a business, because you are trading your services for your employer’s money. When you give someone a hug and they feel better, that is also a business, because you’re trading a hug for their continued goodwill (or to make yourself feel better by making them feel better). We’ll assume here that we’re in the business of making money, although other things of value tend to be exchangeable for money, so this is equally as applicable to hugs as to jobs.
Since the point of a business is to trade things, we should start by thinking about what other people need. This is easily done by just thinking about the things you think “sucks”. Do you wish you can get from point A to point B without having to drive? Go down your list of things. Is there anything in there that you are particularly interested in? For example, let’s say one of the things on your list if that you think people need to be hugged more and you happen to like hugging people. This would be a perfect business opportunity to consider because you understand why people want to be hugged and you already know how to solve that problem (by hugging them).
Who are your potential clients? Well, if we go back to the hugging example, it’s potentially everyone. Of course, people are probably not going to buy hugs for themselves, but someone can definitely buy it for someone else, kind of like a birthday card or a singing telegram. “Buy a Hug For a Friend”. “Buy a Hug For Your Sweetie on Valentine’s Day
How hard is it to get into the business? This is important to know because it determines how hard it is to get started, and more importantly, how hard it would be for other people to copy you should you become successful. The hugging business seems relatively low barrier of entry to me, since anyone can just make a website or list an internet ad (pretty easy to do). However, if you eventually establish a brand, like “Mom’s Hugs” or something, then that would become a barrier to overcome for your competitors. So, that’s pretty much all there is to it. Find something a lot of people need done where the people doing it right now suck at it, and do it right.
Quality of life
The idea of quality of life being used to indicate the health of a country was recognised in 2007 at that point it was discovered that actually Gross Domestic Product, the amount of money made per head, was no the best way to classify a healthy country as we already know money does not necessarily mean happiness. In the last round of surveys Ireland came 1st, with the highest quality of life globally, Spain came 10th, the United States 13th, Canada 14th and the UK 29th.
One of the main reasons why Ireland did so well is because it manages to combine the old and new. Ireland had benefited from joining the Euro, increasing the GDP and making it a seriously rich country but at the time maintain traditional family values as well as making time for leisure. People in Ireland devote 15.2 hours a day eating, sleeping and socialising which including taking part in hobbies and watching TV. In Ireland people work 190 hours less than most of countries. The Irish education system is strong and people in Ireland are living longer. When the statistics are laid out it is easy to se
Community Gardens
Guerrilla gardening is illegal and is often done at night. But why?, if the aim is to make something that is ugly, pretty again should it be against the law? The reason is: this is seen as trespassing. Using land that is owned by somebody else is illegal, if you walk through it you are breaking the law, if you graffiti on it you are breaking the law and if you plant a garden on it, you are breaking the law.
Guerrilla gardening has now taken on several different names, possibly to separate it from the term Guerrilla; these include ‘square meter gardening’, ‘parking space gardening’ and ‘micro-gardening’. All are related to space, proving that any small space can be made into a pretty garden to be enjoyed by everyone.
A second, interesting area of discussion is what Guerrilla Gardens are called “random acts of beauty”. This is even easier and maybe we should all do this. One day go and buy a packet of seeds from your local garden centre, as your walking along you might see an area that you feel needs brightening up, maybe by the side of the road, sprinkle some seeds onto the grass and sit back and watch your mini-garden grow.
The media
In 1920 in the United States the first advertising commercial was broadcast. After many versions and different variations, Scottish inventor John Logie Baird was widely recognized as being the inventor of the world’s first demonstration of a working television system in 1926. Although because of WWII, most people got their news when they went to a movie theatre and they broadcast news reports.
The influence the media had on our lives as the 20th century continued is staggering. It has become a massive part of our lives. Not only did we hear on the radio and read in newspapers about wars, and events happening in the world but we could now SEE it right from our living rooms. Watching the first man on the moon, the Vietnam War, and other milestone moments could be witnessed by millions. It exposed us to untold images, marketing, violence, and celebrity.
Media has changed how we think we should live our lives based on TV shows, advertising and the information provided by 24 hour news networks. The media has had both negative and positive effects on society.
World Markets: Coffee
Let me develop a theory maybe the more active you are in your work the less coffee you drink and maybe the more stress you have in your work the more coffee you drink. We can test this theory by ranking the biggest coffee drinks against the most stressful job.
Chef is the 4th most stressful job and is 7th biggest consumer. Doctor is the 5th most stressful and is 6th biggest coffee drinker. Nurse is the 12th most stressful job and ranks the same in the coffee drinking scale. Teacher comes in at 13th in terms of stress but ranks 8th in the scale of the most coffee drunken. Marketing and PR is the 22nd most stressful job but rates number two in the most coffee drunk. Well there goes my theory!
MANAGEMENT
Eisenhower said that “Leadership is the art of getting some else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” That is as true today as it was when the quote was first coined. One of my favourite leadership models is that of Blake and Mouton, according to their model a leader or manager is either concerned with people or concerned with production. To be concerned with people means that the leader is concerned with professional development and concerned about sharpening the soft skills acquisition as well as the hard skills.
On the other hand if the manager is concerned with production then the leader’s goal is to concentrate on production, concentrated on achieving goals at any cost. Blake and Mouton have shown that there are five manager types; impoverished, authoritarian, country club, team leader and middle of the road. We fall into one category of the other depending on how high we rate on the scales of concern for production or concern for people.
For example somebody who scores low on both is an impoverished leader, often lacking passion for the job and they always tend to shy away from responsibilities. Scoring a 9 on concern for production and 1 on concern for people rewards you with the title of Authoritarian leader you need to increase production not tomorrow but today! And what your team think is not important. Scoring 1 on production and 9 on people you can call yourself a country club manager you feel that pleasing your team will lead to increased motivation and you never use discipline. Scoring a 5.5, you’re sitting on the fence as a middle of the road manager you tend to adopt tasks to the workers current skills which lead to average production and if you are lucky enough to reach 9.9 on people and production you are a team leader, you let your people talk, ideas and communication are the lifeblood, you set goals designed to motivate employees and you deal with conflict in a practical way.
