final blog post

Steven Copeland

12/17/11

Business & Society

                                                                      Final Blog Post

                     I personally believe that I learned a significant amount of information about Business and the other aspects that come with it. I learned the most about entrepreneurship and what it takes to start and run a business. Out of all of my classes, I can safely say that I obtained the most information from this course. This course has benefited me for the near future. I have learned a lot about the business world such as sole proprietorship. It takes a lot of time, dedication, a hard work ethic, motivation, and also knowledge. Running your own business can be very difficult, but you can become wealthy and prosperous in the future and all the hard work you put in to your business will be worth it.

                     I found the projects to all be helpful and was also an easy way to learn and obtain new information. I learned about famous entrepreneurs and also how to work well with others to complete a project and complete it well. Another aspect of this class that really stuck was S.W.O.T. which is strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and also threats. I believe this is the basics for a company and can make or break a business. The business world is always changing especially now a days. It is important to make sure that you are always focused on the task at hand. I took this class because I someday would like to have a job in the near future dealing with Business management. This class without a doubt was a great start to learning the different aspects of the field and learning what it takes to be successful in the business world. You really need to love what you do in order to start a business. If you do not love what you do, you will get nowhere with your idea yet alone in life. It is important to find a need and fill it and also stick with your idea or your gut instinct. Business and Society was a great class. I benefited from it a significant amount.

Business and Society

Gabrielle Sartell
Business & Society
Homework 10
12/14/11

Taking Business and Society was an experience I will take with me for years to come. I have learned a lot of interesting and valuable material that will come in handy in my future. Topics that we discussed in class this semester are the five key components to having a successful business, entrepreneurship, management, and SWOT. One topic that caught my interest in Business and Society was Entrepreneurship. By reviewing the chapters and listening to young entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerburg, entrepreneurship was a topic that made me have faith in myself. We covered a lot that had to do with entrepreneurship and I learned a lot along the way. I learned that in order to be successful you have to take risks. Mark took a risk and succeeded. He was devoted to this website called Facebook, and worked very hard to develop this online social website. I also learned the basic traits which is having an idea then developing that idea into a billion dollar corporation. I learned that it doesn't matter the age, if you have an idea take that idea and go with it. You are never to young or old to follow your dreams. If you love what you do, you will never have to work a day in your life. When you follow your idea, you will succeed in many ways. There are many talented people in the world, but those who don’t follow their dreams ever succeed. Entrepreneurs have a lot of good characteristics. They all are devoted, energetic, action- orientated and self- nurturing. As stated in the book “You must believe in your idea even when no one else does, and be able to replenish your own enthusiasm" (pg 148). When you are your own boss you have to be confident in your company and your employees. You have to believe in yourself and staff if you want to be successful. Entrepreneurs develop their idea to reality. Another important characteristic to have in order to be a successful entrepreneur is energetic. If you have a positive attitude at work, your employers will be positive which equals success for your business. Your employees look up to the boss. By being positive and energetic your consumers will be coming back for more. "You must be emotionally, mentally, and physically, able to work long and hard” (pg. 148). The knowledge that I have learned through being an successful entrepreneur will defiantly help me in my professional life. Success is in the palm of my hands. By staying determined and following my dream, I will never give up on my goals and ideas. Since I’m at Nichols College, I learned that this is the perfect opportunity to take risks and develop a future for myself. I learned a lot in this class and will continue to follow my dream no matter how many risks I have to face in order to accomplish my dream.

Links relating to Entrepreneurship:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b-IoiFksgk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTBbxKkYTRw

Course Evaluation

In Business and Society I learned a lot about Enturpership by listening to all the people that made it by starting with so little. Even though these people started with little they could do it because they had the drive and made people believe in them. The most interesting Enturper has to be the Mark Zuckerberg we didn't go over him in the book but someone did a presentation on him. Mark was just a college student but he wanted to make it big and came up with facebook and now its on of the most popular sites on the web. All of the presentations really helped me see that if you have a dream to do something than you can do it and that was the most interesting part. The group project helped me learn how to work with other people and how to spilt the work evenly. All these things will help me in the real word because if I need to work with someone I will be able to know how to. I don't want to start my own business but if one of my friends is trying to I could give them pointers.

Another thing I learned was the four functions of management. Planning, organizing, leading and controlling they help with learning about a business and how to take care of it. This shows how managers plan out what they want their employees to be working on during their time at work. Organizion shows how the managers organize their company and what they should do to keep everything from fall apart. The leading part of being a manager is very big because it shows that you have the leadership skills to take control of the situation and give everyone else direction. Controlling is important people not too controlling because in a good business the managers let their employees make some choices its all about controlling what should be going on. These functions will help me because I plan on being a band manager and these points are what I need to be able to manage the right way.

I liked this course because I do want to be in the managing part of business and it gives me great idea's to work up to what I want to do.

There are some news worthy articles:

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/business/index.html

There are about 4 or 5 different articles on this page ^

A Semester In Review

During this semester in Business and Society I have learned many things about the subject and myself. Such things I have learned about my self is that to become an entrepenuer takes a lot of thought and skill. I assumed that one could just enter a field, and take it on full force just because they wanted to, and become succesful but this was not the case. To become an entrepenuer one must have a set plan and be able to execute it within their guidelines. Without this its as if the individual is setting themselves up for failure, this is one of the things I remember when enrolling in this course. I also learned about S.W.O.T. SWOT is Strength Weakness Oppurtunities and Threats. The reasoning for me remembering this is it can be applied for most things in life whether its sports or or jobs. For the most part, I also beleive that this class helped my public speaking just with the two presentations. I'm a very talkative person, but at the same time presentations are one of my weak points. When getting the rubric handed back to me I understood what I had to do to fix myself and to better my self. Lastly, I understand what it now takes to pursue a career in business, although this is not where i see my self going in life, i do understand what it takes and maybe later down in life if the oppurtunity presents its self i might make a move to run and own a business. Thanks to this semester i also got to learn more about Nike and the two entrepenuers i did my presentation on. I know that with out this class i wouldnt of found any of this information on my own. Tyler Perry and Steven Spielberg were the two entrepenuers i did my presentation on and the information gathered suprised me. I found out so much that i never knew. All in all I thouroughly enjoyed this first semester at Nichols College and Business and Society. I strongly recommend this class to anyone who is interested in learning the basic priniciples of Business.

Final

In Business and Society I have learned a lot about myself and a lot about how businesses are ran. What I have learned about myself is that I had no idea about businesses when I thought I knew enough to run one. The only thing that I knew a descent about businesses is sports bars and I also knew the best way to keep employees happy and work harder. The sports bar that I worked at worked us hard but they would give us rewards and the environment in the kitchen was always positive. But the things I learned in the class were endless. One thing that sticks out in my head is S.W.O.T. It stands for strengths, weakness, Opportunities and Threats. With this now stored in my knowledge, I know what to do if I wanted to start my own business. I would know the right things to run a successful business. Another thing that I have learned which as also thought I knew a lot was just general ethics. I thought working hard and doing the right thing you would get treated right. But I was wrong; there are a lot of things behind the scenes about managers or business owners taking advantage of their workers. I guess there are very few people that are a good businessman and that are good to there employees. Another is from the entrepreneur project that we had to do for a class project with a friend. We had Tyler Perry and Steven Spielberg and we learned the type of personalities that they have. But the whole class also had the same personality. They were all self-motivators and if they did not reach their goal the first time, they would keep on trying until they succeeded. They also started out small and did the little jobs before they went big. This year in Business and Society has been an adventure and I have learned a lot to say the least. All the projects that we have done have been a huge help to my business knowledge and in taking the right steps to start one.

Course Reflection

Sean Coates

Professor Fleury-Lawson

Business and Society

12/13/11

Course Reflection

This semester in business and society I was enlightened by the ways of many entrepreneurs before me.   I learned the basic traits that took some people from just having an idea to starting multi-billion dollar corporations.  Hard work and determination can take you very far in life as shown by Nick Graham, Steve Ells, and Jake Burton.  You have to follow your dreams and focus on what you love.

I learned that the business world is constantly evolving and you have to stay extremely focused if you want your company to remain relevant.  Though everything we know is changing through technology, core business principals will always remain relevant.  Taking risks, understanding where to invest your time and money, or just general supply and demand will always be cornerstones of business.

Franchising really sparked an interest in me.  I know if takes a lot of money to get a franchise started but I feel like the rewards are tenfold.  You already have an established brand and a time tested product.  Those may be the two hardest things to come by when starting a new business by yourself. Through franchising businesses can expand greatly without having to directly oversee every branch.  They can franchise out some stores and still make revenue without having to do all the work.

I never realized how many parts there was to running a successful business.  You have to deal with so many different setbacks and the numerous people that you can encounter along the way.  You really have to love what you do if you are going to start your own business.  Just because you can make your own hours does not mean that you would be working all hours of the day.  Many people become consumed by their will to become successful.  Those are the people that really make a statement in the business world.

What I learned

Mike Bane

Business and Society

HW 10

12/13/11

Business and Society was a class that was put on my schedule as a required. But after a few weeks I started to really like it. I become a lot more interested in business after I saw how easy it is to be successful when you have a good plan and a good idea of your field. I learned so much about entrepreneurship and how to start your own business. After learning about this I realized this is what I want to do for my career. I want to start my own lacrosse club organization. After learning some key factors about starting a business I think one day this could become a reality.

The next thing I learned was franchising. I learned that franchising is a great way for someone to run their own business without coming up with their own idea. Franchising is mostly used in big business chains but maybe if my lacrosse organization is very successful then I could expand and have a few regions.

The last important thing I learned in this class was, Human Resources. Human Resources are a very important part of business because it helps run your business from the inside. It helps hire, train, and even fire people. More importantly Human Resources help your business run smoothly. It helps people in the business work out problems and issues that arise inside the business.

These three factors are things that are very helpful in the business world and things that I'm so glad I learned about in this class. I will take all of the lessons I have learned in this class and hope I can use them in my career. One day maybe I can look back at Business and Society and think it was my first and maybe most important business class I took at Nichols College.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTBbxKkYTRw

What I learned- Carter Rouleau

To be honest, I did not learn too much different information than I already knew.  In high school I took business management courses and this course was pretty much just repeating what we did in high school.  But if I had to choose something that I learned about this year it would probably be that CEO's of all sorts of different companies have a lot of the same traits and personalities as each other.  I learned that if you want to be a successful leader, you should have some of the same qualities that the CEO's we researched have.  My favorite assignment that we did in this class was the group entrepreneur project.  This project helped me learn about people that I did not know about, as well as help me get more comfortable presenting in front of a class.

Samantha MacMillan

Taking the Business and Society Management Course is certainly not a regret of mine. I have learned a lot of valuable material that I will be able to use in my life and future career as well as had the opportunity to realize what sparks my interest. Such topics include characteristics of what an entrepreneur should have, the five key components to having a successful business, and I have become interested in the aspect of becoming a manager of some sort.

Entrepreneurs are certainly one of a kind. They can come from all different kinds of backgrounds and can make a business out of all different types of ideas or needs. The things they each have in common though, if they are considered good entrepreneurs, are their characteristics. These include being self-directed, self-nurturing, action-oriented, highly energetic, and be tolerant of uncertainty. As stated in the book, they “should be self-disciplined and thoroughly comfortable being [their] own boss” (pg. 148). To be the “head honcho”, one needs to be able to have confidence in making their own decisions as the primary leader and to have the quality of being organized and good mannered. I feel as though I would be a good boss who could deal with problems in a relaxed fashion and also have the quality of staying on the ball with things. The second quality an entrepreneur should have is to be self-nurturing. “You must believe in your idea even when no one else does, and be able to replenish your own enthusiasm” (pg. 148). Being your own boss also includes sticking to what you believe in and being able to confidently promote your idea. I feel as though I would definitely be able to replenish my enthusiasm for my passion but I also believe that I would need at least one other person’s support. Having another who believes in the same thing as I do would make less of a vulnerable of giving up my idea. With the third characteristic being action-oriented, one has to build their dream into a reality. I would have no problem with taking this extra step to making what is a thought into a reality. I consider myself very much a “doer” instead of a “watcher”. The fourth quality of being highly energetic about your business is very important. If customers see that you love what you are doing, they are more likely to give your business a shot due to your love for it. “You must be emotionally, mentally, and physically, able to work long and hard” (pg. 148). I know I could work long and hard for my business but I don’t know if that is how I want to live. I do not want to always have work on my mind and I love being able to enjoy my life. This aspect turns me off to owning my own business, especially with how I got to interview grandfather about his small business and heard all the hours and family time that he had to sacrifice. Lastly, one has to be tolerant of uncertainty. I hate not knowing things and I think I would struggle with the thought of not knowing if my risk to start a business would fail or not. An entrepreneur has to have the ability to tolerate such unknowns.

The second piece of knowledge that I will walk away with is how an entrepreneur can never really stop learning or attaining new knowledge if they want to be top dog. In order to be successful in this fast paced world, one has to be able to keep up with the changes in society, and especially the technological ones. Nowadays, lots of companies do business online or use technological advances in order to communicate better. Being open and willing to learn new things will definitely set your business apart from those who choose to be lazy and not take on the world’s newest ideas and creations.

What interested me about aspects of my future career was being a manager. I believe that I have the ability to deal with all sorts of people and also have the ability to use different forms of motivation to get people to complete tasks. Being a mentor, “a corporate manager who supervises, coaches, and guides selected lower-level employees by introducing them to the right people and generally acting as their organizational sponsor” (pg. 300) would be a great thing for me to do. I love helping people understand how something works or answering any questions. Problem solving is my hobby. I also know that I could take the affirmative action that is necessary from the experiences that I have had in my previous jobs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ukp_CzGaZI0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUKn1XoB7oA

J

John Cullen
Professor Fleury-Lawson
Business & Society
October
25, 2011
Sleepwalker
Coca-Cola is known to be one of the best advertised
companies out there. Everywhere you look
there is a Coca-Cola ad. This Coca-Cola
ad is about man who goes the ultimate distance for his Coca-Cola. There are many pros and cons to this unique
ad.
One of the many pro’s for this ad is that it keeps the
viewer interested with animals. When the
man sits up from his tent and heads out into the forest, the first animal he
sees is a leopard. I think this leopard
plays a big part in catching the viewer’s interest because a leopard is a
“cool” animal. As the man is going to
the destination of the coke he runs into elephants, a snake, and ends it off
with a hyena. All of these animals show
that the man is fearless when it comes to getting a Coca-Cola. Another pro to this ad is that they use an
unusual setting. The man ends up finding
the coke in a fridge, in a random village.
On top of this fridge is a snake and the man completely ignores it. He is dedicated to get his Coca-Cola. The Coca-Cola Company took a real risk by
making this ad in a unique setting. Risk
means “The chance an entrepreneur takes of losing time and money on a business
that may not prove profitable” (Understanding Business 5). Lucky enough for Coca-Cola, they were very
profitable.
One of the con’s to this ad is where the man is actually
walking. The man is walking on a ledge
that if he fell he would die. I know it
is a commercial, but kids might want to re-an act this scene. They might think it is really cool that the
guy was walking along a ledge. Another
con to this ad is that they didn’t concentrate on Coca-Cola enough. In the Coca-Cola video we watched in class,
a man said “What you are trying to do with the consumer’s, is trying to create
a memory bank that has positive attributions.”(CNBC). This whole guy sleeping walking through the
wild is not the best positive attitude.
They could have changed the setting to a more natural place for
Coke.
With all of these pros and cons, this ad shows how far
someone will go in the middle of a night for Coca-Cola, even if they are
sleeping walking. The Coca-Cola Company
has been success for many years because of their advertising. This is not one of their best, but good or
not, this ad will not hurt them in the long run. Coca-Cola is too big of a company to be hurt
by one ad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkHA2pf1gvc&feature=relmfu

Course Evaluation

Rich Smith
Business & Society
12/12/11

During the past semester this class was my only class that brought me true interest and had my full attention. I am extremely determined to become at prominent business man in the future, accounting is my intended major. Even though am in some accounting classes, I am ahead of the course I was taking, so it was quite boring for me. So this being my only other class in relation to my major it became the class I endeared the most effort into.

I would have to say doing both of the presentations was one of my favorite parts of the class. Hoping of being a business man as a career I know at one point I will most likely have to give some form of presentation of information type meeting. So the real experience of explaining something in front of an audience was great experience. My first presentation was the one about electronic cigarettes was quite interesting to learn about. Even though I do not smoke it’s still interesting to learn how an electronic cigarette works. Next was the group presentation that we just did recently and I did mine on Jake Burton and Ken Block learning about those two entrepreneurs was very interesting. The thing that caught my eye the most was how Jake Burton created the whole idea of snowboarding; introducing the boots and bindings rather than the original base model of "grip pads and a rope".

Through me passing this class and having a good feeling of understanding the course I know it will only further me more with my learning and attaining a great career. I have taken a course similar to this but it was only half year course and of course it’s at a high school level which to me was a much slower pace. Learning at a much faster pace I was able to learn much more knowledge of business in this course than the one in high school. To end it all I found the class very interesting and has only helped me more with what I plan to do in my future; to come.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/13/business/economy/recession-crimped-incomes-of-the-richest-americans.html?ref=economy

Course Overview

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/08/business/smallbusiness/a-business-tries-to-decide-whether-its-location-is-perfect-or-a-disaster.html?_r=1&ref=entrepreneurship

During this course I expanded my knowledge of the business
world in many ways. In high school I didn’t take any classes on the world of
business so I had no clue what it entailed or where to begin. I learned all
about entrepreneurship and what it meant. I learned that entrepreneurship is “A
person that risks time and money to start and own a business”. To expand a business you have to provide even
more goods and services to keep your customers happy. I learned that it’s not
easy to start up your own business because you are either going to fail or
launch your company. You have to deal with revenue and make sure your make
enough profit out of your product so you don’t experience a loss. You must take
risks in order to succeed.

The other thing I learned was that you are going to have
hardships no matter how big of a star you are. When I did my project on Ellen DeGeneres
and Oprah with Alley and Hillary, I learned that even they had their problems. They
had hardships as young teenagers with physical and verbal abuse because of
their appearance and preferences. Both entrepreneurs had to come up with an
idea that everyone was interested and launch their business with the few people
that helped them.

The last thing I learned was the basics of business. I
learned about the business environment and how you have to be in the right
geographical place in order for your business to have so many customers. You
have to keep in mind the legal, technological, competitive, social, and global environment
in mind when launching your start up business. When I interviewed my dad he
said the thing he was most shocked about when starting up a business it the
time and effort you have to put into it. It takes long hours and you have to
love what you do in order to be successful. Going through this course I learned
that I am not interested in starting my own business because that stuff does
not get me exited and I am not interested.

Hillary White
Professor Fleury-Lawson
Business and Society
12/12/11
Reflection
In this course, Business and Society I learned many things
that I was not knowledgeable with before. I learned a lot about entrepreneurship.
This is “A person that risks time and money to start and manage a business.” I
learned that being an entrepreneur is not an easy task; it takes one hundred
percent commitment to your business, because you have your own money invested
in it, and usually all of it. I did a
group project on Ellen DeGeneres and Oprah Winfrey and I learned a lot about
what they do and there business. I learned about their success, obstacles and
personal life. I thought that project was not only interesting, but fun to do. This
has helped me understand more clearly the true work an entrepreneur. They first
have to create a great idea and then market the product to their customers.
Such as Ellen came up with The Ellen DeGeneres Show and Oprah came up with the
Oprah Winfrey show. They were both very popular talk show host. That is just where it starts because they then
need to then manage their company which is where most people fail because they
are unable to manage the economic aspect of their business. Overall I now feel
more comfortable on knowing what exactly what an entrepreneur does in the business
world.
In this course I also learned just overall general business.
I learned how to start, run, and manage a business and all the other aspects of
running your own business. I learned about the requirements and the facts. I
learned about how to get started and what’s the right business for you. I also
learned about small business owners and how they got started and most of them
started out just as a college student like I am today. They all had to work their
way up to reach their goal and where they wanted to be. And I plan to do the same.
Although this course has not given me
enough information to pursue the work force yet, it is a great step towards my
future in the working world.
http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/todays-chicago-woman/2010/01/the-dawn-of-the-new.html

What I Learned

One of the most basic concepts that I learned a great deal about this semester was entrepreneurs. When the semester started I knew that a semester was a businessman who started their own business. I learned that the official definition is “a person who risks time and money to start and manage a business.” This has helped me understand more clearly the true work an entrepreneur must perform for their business to be successful. They first have to create a great idea and then market that product to their customers. That is just where it starts because they then need to then manage their company which is where most people fail because they are unable to manage the economic aspect of their business. This has given me some firsthand views of the do’s and don’ts  when starting and managing a business.  One of the best entrepreneurs is Bill Gates and he has made a fast rise to the top because he had a brilliant idea and mind, and was able to manage his money to where he is now one of the richest people in the world.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/197526

The second and probably the most important thing I learned from the class was a general understanding of business. This may seem so simple but it should prove very effective in my pursuit of a degree from a business school. I knew a majority of the information that we covered in this class from my high school economics class. As for the new information I was able to combine it with my information my economics class and I believe now I have a strong background in business and we are only getting started.  Many of these basic topics are things such as the types of trades and how to trade. As I said earlier this may seem so basic but I have acquired some more knowledge such as different types of trades and there are certain cultural differences that may seem friendly to Americans, but are offensive to another group of people. I have plans to work within the NFL and if you follow them, they are working on expanding the market into other countries so it will be very important in the future to have employees that have a good understanding to the culture of the people so he can effectively communicate with them. Although this course has not given me enough information to pursue the work force yet, it is a great stepping stone and starting place that I can work my way up from.

http://westsidetoastmasters.com/resources/book_of_body_language/chap5.html

Billy Manzi

Sociology

12/11/2011

Reflection

The topics that we covered in MGMT 100, include how to succeed in the world as an entrepreneur, the people that have succeeded in this world and why, and more. While working on projects this year, I learned a lot about being an entrepreneur. While researching the founder of Under-Armour, I leaned that he was just a college kid like me that wanted to make clothing that would not get wet while working out or playing for his team. With this simple idea the man became a millionaire!

I learned a lot about myself while working on my projects this semester, I leaned that while working by myself I sometimes become a bit distracted, as compared to, working with a partner, like Brett, I tend to stay on task more by cooperating and collaborating with him. I learned that I would love to be an entrepreneur, and the great thing is I always have dreams and ideas about different, even somewhat odd things that haven’t been invented yet. I am also very interested in anything that has to do with sports, I know that if I worked in sports, I would be the type of person that would wake up every morning and look forward to going to work.

I believe I learned the most about being an entrepreneur in this class. As defined in the book on page 4 as, “A person that risks time and money to start and manage a business.” I learned that being an entrepreneur is not an easy task; it takes one hundred percent commitment to your business, because you have your own money invested in it, and usually all of it. I am used to never giving up, so I believe that being an entrepreneur would be just like living my life on the football field. Overcoming adversity and never giving up to it. In the article I read relating to being an entrepreneur, there are pro’s and con’s to being an entrepreneur. You have the time to start your own business, but you probably won’t have the amount of money that you really want to start your business or at least keep it afloat.

WORK CITED

· http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/220673