Seminar Seven: Podcasting

In this seminar , we learnt podcasting and its potential applications. The reason why I use "potential application" is that, usually podcasting means a tool to entertain viewers or publicize certain ideas and products, however, it can also deliver messages(an alternative of meeting). This idea is new to me and I think if we think more creatively, there will be tons of functions that podcasting will contain. For example, psdcasting can work for scientists when they have new discoveries or contributions, they can easily make a podcasting to elaborate more with papers. If readers want to learn more about the new idea, they can simply search for the scientist's name and the title of the paper to gain more comprehensive and visual explanations.

The other thing I think is really useful in this seminar is that the prof provide us quite a lot of websites and e-products. I like the audacity and now use it for building our elevator pitch sound background.

The results for the OCBC case study competition is still now released yet. Gabriel, Dawen and I worked quite hard for that. Hope we can get passed.

Seminar 6 Disruptive Potential of Web 2.0

In this seminar, we mainly talked about the case studies. For a given case study, we need to choose from different approaches and give out suggestions for that specific situation. Case study is a more powerful tool in terms of reality than business theory.
The following is relevant information from Wikipedia about case study:
A case study is a research strategy, sometimes likened to an experiment, a history, or a simulation, though not linked to any particular type of evidence or method of data collection (Yin 2003). It is qualitative research, as isn't often confused by laymen.
Rather than using large samples and following a rigid protocol to examine a limited number of variables, case study methods involve an in-depth, longitudinal examination of a single instance or event: a case. They provide a systematic way of looking at events, collecting data, analyzing information, and reporting the results. As a result the researcher may gain a sharpened understanding of why the instance happened as it did, and what might become important to look at more extensively in future research. Case studies lend themselves to both generating and testing hypotheses (Flyvbjerg, 2006).
Yin, on the other hand, suggests that case study should be defined as a research strategy, an empirical inquiry that investigates a phenomenon within its real-life context. Case study research means single- and multiple case studies, can include quantitative evidence, relies on multiple sources of evidence and benefits from the prior development of theoretical propositions. He notes that case studies should not be confused with qualitative research and points out that they can be based on any mix of quantitative and qualitative evidence (Yin, 2002). This is also supported and well-formulated in (Lamnek, 2005): "The case study is a research approach, situated between concrete data taking technique and methodological paradigm".

The points that I need further understanding are:
Value Chain Analysis
Financial Analysis

Value Chain Analysis
The value chain is a concept from business management that was first described and popularized by Michael Porter in his 1985 best-seller, Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance.
The value chain categorizes the generic value-adding activities of an organization. The "primary activities" include: inbound logistics, operations (production), outbound logistics, marketing and sales, and services (maintenance). The "support activities" include: administrative infrastructure management, human resource management, R&D, and procurement. The costs and value drivers are identified for each value activity. The value chain framework quickly made its way to the forefront of management thought as a powerful analysis tool for strategic planning. Its ultimate goal is to maximize value creation while minimizing costs.

Financial analysis
It refers to an assessment of the viability, stability and profitability of a business, sub-business or project.
It is performed by professionals who prepare reports using ratios that make use of information taken from financial statements and other reports. These reports are usually presented to top management as one of their basis in making business decisions. Based on these reports, management may:
Continue or discontinue its main operation or part of its business;
Make or purchase certain materials in the manufacture of its product;
Acquire or rent/lease certain machinery and equipments in the production of its goods;
Issue stocks or negotiate for a bank loan to increase its working capital.
other decisions that allow management to make an informed selection on various alternatives in the conduct of its business.

Financial analysts often assess the firm's:
1. Profitability- its ability to earn income and sustain growth in both short-term and long-term. A company's degree of profitability is usually based on the income statement, which reports on the company's results of operations;
2. Solvency- its ability to pay its obligation to debtors and other third parties in the long-term;3. Liquidity- its ability to maintain positive cash flow, while satisfying immediate obligations;
Both 2 and 3 are based on the company's balance sheet, which indicates the financial condition of a business as of a given point in time.
4. Stability- the firm's ability to remain in business in the long run, without having to sustain significant losses in the conduct of its business. Assessing a company's stability requires the use of both the income statement and the balance sheet, as well as other financial and non-financial indicators.

I will learn more about the case study and hope we can do well in the competition!

No Assignment For 7 Days

We were told that there would be no presentation in Seminar 6. Everyone seemed quite happy.
Another shocking news was that the out and in seminar time ratio is 2:1, which meant for 3 hours seminar, by right we should spend 6 hours at home. Wow, quite a lot! I need to work harder to catch up.
My plan in the recess week is to learn flash. Hope I will have a good result. Cheers!

Seminar Five Governing The Freedom Economy

As usual, the first half seminar was for the assignment presentation. We showed our own elevator pitches and most of them were quite interesting. Some useful points that Prof Gilbert elaborated along our presentation:

1. Revenue model should be included and can be simple.
2. Words appearing on the screen should be brief and short.
3. Animation could be added to show business idea better.

4. As an elevator pitch, we could think about an impressive end and reinforce that your good idea can work excellently(the last group, a "movie"- like end).

These points made me think and they were really useful. Combined with the sample elevator pitches we watched that day, I derived the following elements in addition to contribute to the successful pitch making:

5. Attractive and differentiable background music. For music, I think it is better to choose the right one for targeted audience. If we want to sell idea to young people, rap and pop music may work well. But what if the target buyers are senior people? The most suitable music will certainly change.

6. Good and original idea. It is the soul of whole elevator pitch. Without a good idea, there is no selling point for the elevator pitch.

7. Clear logic flow and easy to understand. This make audience feel comfortable to follow up our idea and less easier to get bored.

After a better understanding of the elevator pitch, we were required to improve our pitch and post them on YouTube. For our group(A+ Group), we would cut some details in order to not be wordy. We would also include the revenue model part and our competitive advantages for completeness.

In the other half seminar, we learnt about the governing the freedom economy.

This is quite useful for our final business plan. We need to consider the norms, rules, laws. And for new product, we'd better to follow the social norms, because it is easier to extend norm than to create a new norm.

Fourth Seminar: The Business Model

We changed to another seminar room for this session.

In the first part of the seminar, each of the groups presented their model to make a new infomating Jurong Bird Park. Besides blue tooth and mobile radio, I think our model, the bar code reading method is a also a quite good one. Because not all the mobile phone has the feature of blue tooth, the bar code seems more convenient for most of the visitors. For the problem of queuing up at the registration site, my idea is that to apply the same principle of buying a movie ticket via sms, we can enable the mms users to use the mms of the bar code as the physical ticket they may otherwise buy. And visitors can scan the bar code from the screen of their phone. I think this will be convenient enough.

In the second half session, we learnt about the business model. Some quite revolutionary and novel models like E-Bay, Amazon.com are introduced.

At the end, Prof Gilbert discussed the term project with us. One thing I want to mention is when we asked for the guidelines of the elevator pitch after class, Prof talked about his idea of walk-tour. I think I have some thoughts for that. We can introduce the electronic paper(this may not be available now, but in a few years, this kind of paper will be quite popular). There will be map of the place of interest, in this case, should be Singapore, and also different icons standing for major buildings on that paper. When walking in a place, you can actually touch the place on the map and a detailed map for that region will appear on the paper. You can find cafes, restaurants, hotels, shopping malls on the map. For the famous sites, like Singapore River, Raffles' Building, there will be a sound icon beside the site on the map. By clicking that, you will receive a call from the Singapore Tourism Board Information Center. The working principle is the same as we applied in JBP. So, the tourist will feel quite satisfied for this kind of walking journey.