Money Negotiation Pays Off

We were all taught about salary negotiation. We were taught to negotiate high and try to work the process to our advantage. The other way around works too. I walked by a pawn ship in Silver Spring just to look around and see what was there. I was meaning to get an acoustic guitar for some time and figured they may have something. They had a Yamaha acoustic (which isn't the best quality) but I figured it would be something fun to fool around on. The price was $120, however there was a crack in the neck which would ordinarily lower a guitar's value if I sold it elsewhere. I spoke with the clerk and pointed out the damage. He asked me what I would be willing to pay for it. Now I know one would offer to pay significantly less than the asking price (watching Pawn Stars was a good crash course in bargaining). For fun I offered to pay $75. The clerk said that amount was a bit low and suggested $100. I haggled and asked if I could pay $90. Amazingly he agreed, if I paid a down payment. I thought about his offer for a little bit and said I would sleep on it. I may end up buying a better one after graduation but I felt applying what we learned in class was a great experience.

How One Person Made a Difference

This might not seem like much but I thought this was a very interesting story about empathy in entrepreneurship.

I was scrolling on some online forums and came across this screenshot of a discussion between a game developer and a disabled gamer. A videogame development team was making an old-school dungeon exploration game for PC. The following was an exchange between the team lead and the gamer:

The change was so simple and unobtrusive yet significant. Prior to the change the gamer stated he was willing to learn how to play the game as-is. The team lead could have simply left the matter alone right there and them. Instead he thought otherwise and changed the interface of the game to accommodate the individual's disability. Besides having a competitive advantage over other developers, this particular developer went out of his way to adjust something that was more user-friendly for the disabled. 

And that's pretty cool.   

"Like" This Blog!

If I went back in time fifty years ago and told people that in 2014 we would be electronically sharing pictures of their breakfast with others, I would get a lot of funny looks. Needless to say, that is probably happening as we speak somewhere in the world.

And as ashamed as I am to admit, I have done it as well.

Social media has become such an integral part of our lives. YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, take your pick; they have served as launching pads for political movements, fame, and connecting others around the world. To me, at least in my experience, social media can be a form of story-telling. Sites like Facebook can serve as a virtual scrapbook for our lives. I use it to tell my story to my friends and make some along the way to be in contact with them. I use Instagram to express myself artistically. I can discuss and share ideas about anything with anyone around the world on forums and imageboards (even on this blog). I have been more aware of who I am as a person as a result. All I have to do is make a few mouse clicks. Once in a while I look at Facebook posts from years past and see how much I have changed. Social media is a powerful tool, and in my opinion a type of extension of ourselves as people.  

After all, that is precisely why our class is told to take our LinkedIn and Facebook profiles seriously. 

A Tale of Two [Controversial] Brands

The politicization of companies has become a new phenomenon in recent years. CEOs would be probed by websites and blogs about who they donated to, what their political affiliations are, things they said that were considered controversial, controversial brands, etc. In my experience, people became divided over this matter. Almost every industry experienced this phenomenon, and still does today. If you are reading this right now, more likely than not the Washington Redskins comes to mind. Earlier in the year the football organization came under intense scrutiny around the time of the Donald Sterling racism scandal (the Redskins name was criticized for a number of years prior). Many felt the name was racist and derogatory toward Native Americans. Politicians spoke out against the name. Religious leaders vowed to boycott Redskins games. But what about the fans, more importantly the consumers who have the choice to buy Redskins tickets and merchandise? What are they to do? To provide context for my solution that I will propose later on, we need to go back in time to 2012 when Chick-Fil-A was under fire by equal rights groups due to their CEO, Dan Cathy, donating to anti-gay marriage groups.

In the summer of 2012, some public city officials expressed their displeasure of Dan Cathy looking to open restaurants in their cities. While many people protested outside Chick-Fil-A establishments, Mayor Menino of Boston and Rahm Emanuel of Chicago both threatened to block any Chick-Fil-A restaurant from being built. To the protesters’ credit, they decided to vote with their wallets and boycott Chick-Fil-A in light of what they felt were transgressions against equality for homosexuals. No city or state government action was taken and no federal laws were passed; just the consumer, their wallet, and an establishment that would not see any of their money. In my opinion, this is what consumers ought to do (if they choose so) if they have an issue with the Redskins name. I would argue that the wrong course of action is for a gaggle of politicians pontificating on the matter and for federal courts to take away the trademark rights of the Redskins. The core of this problem from a business standpoint is an issue of branding. Without a brand that is respected by the consumer, it suffers unto itself. Whether or not the Redskins brand will meet its demise in the future, I am not sure. 

Regardless, I say let the free-market “fix” whatever problems there are by allowing consumers to not spend their money at an establishment they feel does not resonate with their beliefs. If this is what happens with the Washington Redskins, the owners may either change the name or close up shop. As Eddie Murphy so candidly stated in the film Trading Places, “You know, it occurs to me that the best way you hurt rich people is by turning them into poor people.” 

Videogames have been a hobby of mine for many years. I first started playing on a Gameboy when I was 5 years old. From then on, I've bought multiple games and gaming consoles. Over the years I began paying closer attention to how these games were made as the technology to play them and create them became more advanced. Today, the videogame industry is a hollow shell of what it once was.

In 2009, the sequel to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was released. It boasted a more action-packed plot and gameplay features that seemed to take away from the realism of “modern warfare.” Regardless, it is currently the second-best selling videogame of all time in America and the UK. Since then, I have noticed every other game trying to emulate what this particular sequel brought to the table, and these games generally lack the quality that’s expected from consumers. Gaming publishers and developers seemed to be more interested in making money than they did trying to make a good game. One day I was reading an article in a gaming magazine about Dead Space, one of my favorite games. Its developers were making a sequel and talking about how the first game was “too scary” to play. They were even quoted as saying they wanted to match the level of action that Modern Warfare 2 offered to attract fans of that franchise. To me, the quality of the game was going to suffer because these companies were more interested in making a quick buck and catering to others that they lost touch with their core fans. All of this led up to a conversation I had with a programmer who was working on Dead Space 2. I pressed him on why the developers toned down the horror aspects of the game. He replied, in short, that in the West, game developers were more concerned about the money aspect of the business. Developers in countries like Japan, meanwhile, were more concerned about the artistic aspect of their product. The latter did not perform as well as Western videogames did in the marketplace. Now I understand that this is a money-making business in the end, but some, not all, but some games have companies that truly care about their product and really take their time working on developing a good game. 

One of the things about the MSBA program that I like is the diversity of some of the faculty on campus. To be tongue-in-cheek, they are not simply lecturers and experts in their field hired right out of college. Many of these professors have real-world experience under their belts. They have worked in the private sector and public sector. Some have worked for oil companies, others for consultant firms, electronics companies, even the United States military. They are managers, consultants, writers, Army Rangers, even employees working for this program; all different occupations from all kinds of different industries. The type of industry these occupations derive from does not matter because all these individuals have one thing in common: they have a wide array of experiences and skills that they can impart to students in the MSBA program.  We can be exposed to what they learned working in their respective fields and get a handle on what kind of industry we may be working in after graduation. In addition we may have the opportunity to learn about leadership and managerial skills from our professors. I hope to have the opportunity to speak with them outside of class and compare these skills between military and private sector experiences. As I said, these are different industries but with similar qualities.