Second Business Written Grade

For our second written grade, Mr.Sen sent us the link of a video called "Blind Spot" and asked us to write an essay on it. Here's mine!

BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT ESSAY

2^ND WRITTEN EXAM

Topic: What responsibilities, if any, do businesses have in building a sustainable and convivial future?

Word Count: 1116

We, as humans tend to believe that we can “kill our planet and live on it too”. However, that is not the case. After the discovery of fossil fuel, a new era began where muscle power was replaced by fuel fed machinery. People have used their intelligence to extract more and more energy from the Earth and the 20^th century was all about increasing the oil production until the peak oil was reached. For the first time in the 21^st century, the oil reserves have started decreasing, which created a major and crucial problem for humanity. Since the oil reserves will eventually come to an end, companies should be prepared to leave their habits of consuming non-renewable energy sources and start searching for new renewable sources to use. However, it is almost impossible to abandon all the significant technological progresses the human kind has made since the 20^th century. Even if that is done, the oil reserves might disappear before other sources are found. In addition, some ethical concerns surround countries that are responsible for the investment in research and development of a new solution. No matter what, it is certain that in order to be able to create a convivial future, companies should remodify their technologies that consume fossil fuel and find new ways to extract energy before its too late.

In order to create a environment-friendly and convivial future, governments should establish laws that give permits to the usage of fossil fuels. Companies should only be allowed to use a specific amount of fossil fuel and be able to trade these usage permits amongst themselves. For instance, companies that need the fossil fuel less should be able to sell their fossil fuel usage rights to other companies that need it more. This way, there will be a balance and the usage of fossil fuels can be diminished and eventually minimized.

Moreover, companies that might have ethical concerns about this issue should be determined. Since the third world countries cannot be held responsible for the shortage in oil reserves due to their minimal usage, industrialized nations that are major users of fossil fuel should take the lead and make major investments in Research and Development Departments to find new renewable energy sources and go green. Companies should minimize their fossil fuel needs by remodifying all their technologies that require fossil fuels and transform them into technologies that can function with renewable energy forms. These companies should act in accordance with the fossil fuel permits that the government has specified. Additionally, all the companies should gather and select a control committee, which will supervise whether the companies are obeying the permits of fossil fuels, whether they really are investing money in the R&D and going green. This commission should also encourage the companies by telling them that they will increase their sales and gain customer confidence when they become environment-friendly.

Admitting the validity of the argument and solutions to save the future, it could also be argued whether abandoning all the technologies that have made significant developments in the world is a good idea. Even if continuing the consumption of fossil fuel reveals what awaits humanity in the future, no one can guarantee that finding new energy sources will rescue people from such a disaster. First of all, there is a problem of time constraint. Fossil fuel has reached the peak and began decreasing. The time spent in finding new renewable energy sources, inventing technologies that work with those sources and adapting the whole humanity to such a system will most likely exceed the time fossil fuels are expected to disappear from Earth. So this solution might not succeed. However, despite the obstacles, this disaster is most likely to be avoided if certain guidelines are followed. In addition to all the suggestions stated, companies must also be committed to their Corporate Social Responsibilities and not use “going green” to manipulate the public but to really contribute to the environment. Also, each company should realize that their STEEPLE is going to change tremendously if they keep on consuming non-renewable energy. For instance, the external social and economical factors are going to change since turning back to muscle power will diminish the available amount of food. Also, since agriculture depends on machines that use up fossil fuel, when the amount of fossil fuel decreases, the prices of both the oil and the food will go up and cause starvation and deaths.

We, as humans are used to living with the “fossil fuel” shock that occurred in the 20^th century, when people encountered with an enormous “unlimited” energy source. It has just hit us that it actually has limits that can lead to terrible disasters in the future. If companies do not change their internal functions, policies and gather under one roof to produce solutions such as finding new energy sources, the future does not seem so bright for humanity whose life depends on machines that work with fossil fuels. Still, there are limitations and further questions to be asked in order to really understand what the future is going to look like: We do not know whether there are other energy sources that can replace fossil fuels or whether it is possible to make fossil fuel renewable. We cannot cognize how much time it will take to find a new energy source and conduct it to the present technologies. We cannot foresee whether people will embrace these technological changes or whether there will be chaos because people would want to stick with their former way of life.

In Class...

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/nov/22/health/la-he-shopping-psychology-20101122/7

For our friday business classes, we decided for each student to make a presentation of a business article they read. The first turn was mine, so I chose the article "Buyers Beware-of how you-re being coaxed into spending", published in LA Times.

Buyer beware — of how you're bei

ng coaxed into spending

Stores' music, lighting, 'deals' and pricing ranges can all influence what you buy. And if you want to spend less, pay in cash so you can see what you're losing.

November 22, 2010|By Karen Ravn, Special to the Los Angeles Times

Chances are, given the time of year and all, you're about to go shopping (and shopping and shopping and shopping and shopping).

But beware. It won't be just a walk in the mall. Shopping is a far more complex undertaking than you probably realize, according to researchers who delve into the intricacies of consumers' buying habits.

"We have a difficult time controlling our shopping behavior," says Alexander Chernev, associate professor of marketing at t

he Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. "It's influenced by lots of forces we usually don't take into account."

We take account of some of them below.

The five senses

"Everyone in the world of retail is trying to get you to spend in their location," says Paco Underhill, author of "Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping" and "What Women Want." "They try to engage you with all five senses."

What you see: Retailers work to present their merchandise in the best light — literally. "They use lighting to make something that looks good look even better," Underhill says. "Everything tends to look better in the store than it does when you get it home."

What you hear: If

you like the music a store plays, chances are you'll like the products it sells — and vice versa. That, at least, is the message many stores hope to send with their soundtracks. For example, the strains of Justin Bieber crooning "Someday at Christmas" are pretty much a shout-out to young girls that this is the store for them. Middle-aged nerds? Not so much. "The music can tell you either you belong or you don't belong," Underhill says.

Just as music can attract people into a store, it can help to keep them there, or

hurry them out the door. That's because customers respond to the tempo of a store's music, says Deborah MacInnis, professor of business administration and marketing at the USC Marshall School of Business. "Studies show that the slower the tempo, the slower people walk through the store, so the more they put in their baskets and the more they end up buying. If the tempo is faster, people walk faster too. They don't stop to look so much, and they don't buy as much."

What you smell and taste: The sweet aroma of roasting chestnuts. Free samples of Christmas cookies. Like music, those are effective ways of inviting customers into a store and making them feel welcome.

Well duh, you may say. But smell and taste can serve another subtle function too, Underhill notes. "They get your saliva glands going, and that makes you hungry. And when you're hungry, you're more apt to buy anything, not just food."

What you touch: Signs encouraging customers to touch the merchandise are far less common in stores than signs imploring them not to. But research shows that retailers may be missing a rather lucrative boat. "There are three ways that touching an object can make you willing to pay more for it," says Joann Peck, an associate professor of marketing at the

Wisconsin School of Business in Madison who has conducted a number of studies analyzing the role of touch in shopping behaviors.

One way — the most obvious — is by giving shoppers information they can't get otherwise, such as how much the object weighs, how soft

or hard it is, how rough or smooth it feels. A second way is also quite intuitive. You may be willing to pay more for a cashmere sweater or a small, sleek smart phone just because you like how it feels.

More surprisingly, Peck says, apart from any information or pleasure it gives you, simply touching an object can make you feel a certain sense of ownership. "And you'll pay more for anything you feel like you own."

(Sometimes a lot more. In an experiment at Duke University, researchers asked students who had won tickets for the Final Four basketball tournament how much they'd b

e willing to sell them for — the answer, on average, was $2,400. They also asked students who had entered the lottery but not won how much they'd be willing to pay for tickets — in that case, the average was a measly $170.)

There are big individual differences in how much people like to touch things, Peck says. But the rule of thumb should probably be, "If you don't want it, don't touch it."

Impulse buying

Suppose you go to a store to buy a new USB cable for your camera. That's all you need. That's all you want. But it may not be all you buy. For while you're standing in line at the cash register, all set to pay and go home, what to your wondering eyes should appear but "The Hair Traffic Controller — the world's greatest pet hair remover"? Now, it just so happens that you own the world's shedding-est sheepdog, and, well …

It's not merely random good fortune that you should find this fantabulous product — on

sale, no less! — where you do. Retailers often identify potential "impulse buys" and stock them at the ends of aisles and close to the checkout stand. Shoppers may not plan to make these sorts of purchases, but stores do plan to make these sorts of sales.

"If shoppers suddenly ceased to buy on impulse," Underhill wrote in "Why We Buy," "believe me, our entire economy would collapse."

Buying on impulse is often seen as a personal budget-breaker. A survey of adult women conducted for ShopSmart Magazine last year found that the average price of the women's most recent impulse buy was more than $100. And 35% reported regretting at least one impulse buy they'd made in the previous year.

If shoppers want to cut down on impulse buys, most experts advise that they make a list before they go shopping, and then stick to it. A 2009 article in the Journal of Marketing Research offers a less obvious approach. The study found that by eating a typical Thanksgiving dinner, with plenty of turkey and mashed potatoes — and thus plenty of tryptophan and carbohydrates — shoppers could cut down on impulsive buying lat

er. The posited explanation: The neurotransmitter serotonin is known to reduce impulsive behavior, and it's synthesized from tryptophan.

At first glance this result seems to have very fortuitous implications for shoppers on the day after Thanksgiving. But unfortunately, the effects of a Thanksgiving meal will wear off by then, says the study's co-author Arul Mishra, assistant professor of marketing at the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. "But it does have implications for online shopping."

Money, money, money

The best price in life is free. Or not. Customers are more likely to buy something if they think they're getting a good deal on it. And simply including something free with a sale often does the trick: Buy this $1,500 refrigerator and get a free six-pack of Coke. (Wee!) Buy three pairs of shoes, and get a fourth pair free. (Who cares if you don't need any new shoes at all?)

"The power of 'free' is really quite incredible," says Dan Ariely, professor of psychol

ogy and behavioral economics at Duke University in Durham, N.C., and author of "Predictably Irrational." In a series of experiments described in his book, Ariely found that people consistently preferred to get something free over paying a little for something, even though they'd actually come out ahead in the latter case.

For instance, he offered mall-goers in Boston the following choice: a $10 Amazon gift certificate free or a $20 certificate for $7. Most opted for the freebie, even though they would have netted more money from the $20 certificate ($13 versus $10). In a second experiment, he offered a slightly different choice: People could buy a $10 gift certificate for $1 or a $20 certificate for $8. Again, the $20 certificate was $3 more profitable, but this time — with "free" off the table — people went for it.

Knowing that the free option isn't always best may make shoppers consider free offers more carefully. On the other hand, Ariely admits that he once bought an expensive new car at least partly because it came with three years of free oil changes.

The theory of relativity. (Not Einstein's.) Like everything else in the world, prices are relative. And shoppers rely on that relativity to judge value. In an experiment with 100 graduate business students that Ariely also reported in "Predictably Irrational," he listed three choices for subscriptions to the Economist (which he had found in an actual ad). For an Internet-only subscription, the price was $59; for print only, it was $125; and for both print and Internet it was also $125.

Happily for the reputation of the business school, none of the students chose the print-only option — obviously a bad deal because the print-and-Internet option was available for the same price. In fact, 16 students chose Internet only, and 84 chose print and Internet. But then Ariely downsized the options to two, eliminating the print-only option that everybody had wisely rejected before anyway. So the choices were Internet only for $59 and both print and Internet for $125. This time, 68 students chose Internet only, and 32 chose the print-and-Internet package.

The upshot in the experiment? Though the choices were essentially the same both times, just having the print-only option there the first time around seemed to confuse the issue. To most students, apparently, it made the print-and-Internet option look irresistibly good by comparison. Free of that distraction in the second experiment, many more of them opted to spend less money.

The upshot in real life? The value judgments shoppers make for any particular item can change depending on what they have to compare it with. So, for example, a computer store can probably sell more $100 printers if it also has a $300 printer for sale than it could if the $100 printer were the most expensive one they carried.

Although shoppers do make price comparisons, they're not always very good at it, as shown in a paper published last year in the Journal of Consumer Research. In that study, people were given a choice between two pens on which the authors had manipulated the prices. When the lower-priced pen cost $2 and the higher-priced pen cost $3.99, 44% chose the higher-priced one. But fewer than half as many — only 18% — chose the higher-priced pen when the prices were changed by just a penny — to $1.99 and $4.

Comparing only the first digits of prices may seem foolish. But it may be just one example of decision-making shortcuts that humans often take out of necessity. "We focus on what is easy to process," MacInnis says, "because we can't consider everything."

And sometimes it helps to compare apples to oranges, Ariely says. "If you're trying to decide whether to buy a coffee maker for $50, ask yourself what else you could do with $50. If there's something else you'd rather do, then don't get the coffee maker."

Giving cash some credit.

Paying with a credit or debit card can almost seem like not paying at all. No actual money changes hands. There's no real evidence that you're any poorer than you were before. But when you pay with cash, money does change hands, and not in a pleasant direction. You end up with less than you had before. You're demonstrably poorer. It hurts.

A number of studies have shown that shoppers are less prone to impulse buying if they leave the plastic at home and force themselves to endure the pain of paying with cash. Ideally, they should use bills of large denominations, according to a 2006 paper in the Journal of Consumer Research. "People are less likely to spend if they are carrying a $50 bill compared to when they have 10 $5 bills," says Mishra, a co-author of that article.

Let's say you've been shopping for what seems like forever, and you're running out of ideas for gifts — but not out of friends to give them to. It may be time to join a herd — buy some books just because they're on the bestseller list, buy some wine just because it's on the "best wines under $20" list (these aren't really close friends!), wander around the mall and — trying your best not to look like a stalker — observe what other shoppers are buying, and buy it too.

As Ariely says, "Herding happens when we assume other people know something we don't." You may not end up with super-personalized gifts this way, but you'll save yourself some effort at a time when you're starting to flag.

The Big Mo

So. You've been really, really good — staying mindful of your budget, considering every option (if you get this for person A, then you'll get that for person B), not rushing into anything. In other words, your holiday shopping has yet to progress from looking to buying.

And then finally one day, you decide it's time. You'll buy this one surefire thing, a box of Aunt Erma's favorite chocolate truffles. So you do. And — poof! — your careful, cautious prudence evaporates, and you start buying left and right, smart and dumb.

So-called shopping momentum can be triggered, researchers reported in a 2007 article in the Journal of Marketing Research, when a shopper buys a single item, and in doing so shifts her mind-set from mulling things over to taking action now.

Hunters and gatherers

"There's a shopping center in Germany with a play area for men," says Daniel Kruger, a professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. "A woman can drop off her partner there, and while she shops he can drink, work with power tools or watch sports on TV."

The point being, both of them are happier that way. "Men just want to get what they want and get out," says Kruger, the lead author of a 2009 study published in the Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology that documented fundamental differences in the shopping behaviors of men and women. "Women have a much greater appreciation of detail, a much greater desire to actually experience what they're getting. They want to see several items and compare them."

The researchers linked these differences all the way back to when the man of the cave went out hunting while his mate stayed home gathering nuts and berries — "which is very similar," Kruger observes, "to going to a flea market today and sorting through everything to see what's good."

For the man, a hunting expedition, which might take him far afield, would only count as successful if he brought home the bacon, er, woolly mammoth meat. For the woman, food gathering was more of a social event, something she did with friends, enjoying their company. And if she didn't find much one day, it was no big deal since she could easily go again the next.

These days, the lesson for women may be: If your partner hates going shopping with you, maybe it's not because he's a jerk. Maybe it's just because he's a guy.

_______________________________________________________________________

I chose this article since it was about the marketing strategies of the companies and how theyre able to pull our attention without us knowing it.

I explained some important points:

nThe five senses

n"Everything tends to look better in the store than it does when you get it home."

n"They get your saliva glands going, and that makes you hungry. And when you're hungry, you're more apt to buy anything, not just food."

n"If you don't want it, don't touch it."

n"We have a difficult time controlling our shopping behavior,"

n"If shoppers suddenly ceased to buy on impulse, believe me, our entire economy would collapse."

nCustomers are more likely to buy something if they think they're getting a good deal on it.

n"The power of 'free' is really quite incredible,”

nThe theory of relativity.

n$1.99 and $4

nThere's no real evidence

n That you're any poorer than you were before.

n"Herding happens when we assume other people know something we don't."

n"A woman can drop off her partner there, and while she shops he can drink, work with power tools or watch sports on TV."

nThe difference between the shopping behaviors between men and women?

nHunters and Gatherers

Article Focus

This article is taken from Chris Borgan's blog: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/

THE INEVITABLE NONPROFIT AND MONEY CONVERSATION

With the launch of 501 Mission Place comes the same conversation about whether it’s right to charge a nonprofit for education. My thoughts on this have always been the same: nonprofits are businesses with a cause in mind. They consume services and products just like other businesses. They deserve some consideration in such matters, but free isn’t the only price point with a nonprofit.

NONPROFITS NEED MONEY TO RUN

The same people who complain that someone charges a nonprofit for a product or a service are the same people who hit me up multiple times a month for donations or support for their cause. Yep, at the very heart of every nonprofit is a need to sustain itself through donations and grants. I donate plenty of my own money every month to various causes (mostly homeless, children, autism, and cancer). One goal of 501 Mission Place is to help people improve their ability to raise more funds in a sustainable way. After another conversation with a CFO for nonprofits, we’re even going to look into conversations of budget and money management.

NONPROFITS BUY FROM FOR-PROFITS ALL THE TIME

Having talked to people who run charities and nonprofits, there are all kinds of operation and infrastructure expenses built into such organizations. The goal is to minimize overhead so that more of the donated money goes to the target cause, but there’s always some overhead. Education is a decent kind of overhead because it’s the kind that hopes to provide a yield for the expense. As I run into nonprofits at events all the time, I know that they buy conference tickets and airfare and hotels and pay for meals. 501 Mission Place is a for-profit platform that offers a reduced rate from most online education community platforms (most of the other HBW platforms will cost $47 a month, so we took almost 50% off the rate to be sensitive to a nonprofit’s budget).

MONEY ISN’T EVIL

Every nonprofit and charity I know needs money to exist. They shut down all the time from lack of money. Seems to me that money is the lifeblood of every nonprofit I know, because just sitting around wearing ribbons and wanting to change the world isn’t really helping many people, is it? Systems need resources to survive. I charge a small amount of money per month with the goal that you’ll figure out ways to make much more than that for your organization based on the information the group gives you.

DECIDE FOR YOURSELF

I invite you to join 501 Mission Place, where we help nonprofits figure out how to grow, help with your specific challenges, and give you a network of engaged people seeking to take on the world’s issues and bring them to a new level. With our leader and facilitator, Estrella Rosenberg, and a bunch of smart minds like John Haydon, Marc Pitman, Rob Hatch, and you, we’ll do what we can to improve your cause’s effectiveness.

It’ll cost you $27 to figure out whether it’s for you. That’s the cost of a hardcover book. Sometimes, books are great but don’t apply to us. Not everyone got what they needed from Trust Agents, and that’s okay. So, you decide. Swing by 501 Mission Place and see what’s taking shape. We’re already hard at work trying to give people their money’s worth.

_______________________________________________Chris Brogan_________________

My comment:

I would like to enlighten you about this article. First of all, I want to introduce Chris Brogan. He is the president of New Marketing Labs(a new media marketing agency for medium-to-large businesses), and of Human Business Works(an education and media company for small and solo businesses), the co-founder of Third Tribe Marketing(an online community for marketing education) and a professional speaker. He's a New York Times / Wall Street Journal bestselling author, and a publisher at chrisbrogan.com. He has also writing gigs with American Express OPEN Forum, with Entrepreneur Magazine, and with Success Magazine. His blog was chosen as one of the best business blogs in the world, therefore I decided to give you an article he wrote about business.

While I was surfing around his blog, this article pulled my attention since I saw familiar terms that we learned during the business class: non-profit organizations' and money's relation.

In case you don't know, 501 Mission Place is "a community of the best and brightest leaders in the nonprofit world". For about the cost of attending a one-day conference, one can spend an entire year connecting to, learning from, and thinking with non-profit consultants and Executive Directors from a variety of organizations. ($27/month) (http://501missionplace.com/)

I'm agreeing with Chris Brogan at the point that non-profit organizations need money to run. That was exactly what we learned in class; "Systems need resources to survive, whether profit or non profit." However, it is essential to know the actual intensions of the administration and to make sure their mission doesn't shift from providing good to raising funds. Also, I think the content he is providing on 501 Mission Place is very important and valuable, since plenty of non-profit organizations ask for support whereas their management board is making a proper salary. The lines, "The same people who complain that someone charges a nonprofit for a product or a service are the same people who hit me up multiple times a month for donations or support for their cause." effectively explain this point. Even though it may seem like a paradox; being benevolent and also being in need of acquiring money, the comment "sitting around wearing ribbons and wanting to change the world isn’t really helping many people, is it?" says it all. I think $27 dollars is a reasonable amount of money, since it provides a much wider content than other companies offer for more prices.

In Class...

For the past 2 lessons, we have been talking about the “7-S Matrix” which is a part of the Strengths and Weaknesses(internal factors) of a business. And this lesson, we learned

what it is and deeply analyzed it with many examples. I now

know how to generate strengths and weaknesses by looking at 7 –s and how they’re related to each other and whether the relation is powerful.

The dictionary meaning of “matrix” is the material in which something develops; a surrounding medium or structure.

In terms of business, the 7-S Matrix represents represent actually the same thing.

First of all, we started with the core of the matrix: shared values. To make it more clear, Mr.Sen asked us what values do we share? We replied: Friendship, respect, ho

nesty as positive values and prejudice, hate, intolerance, selfishness etc. for the negative values. And then Mr.Sen said do we steal? Do we claim that we can win

by pushing someone on the ground? The only way to succeed is to kick the next guy down? Do we all agree that that is a good/bad thing? Yes. That’s why it is called “shared” values. And we saw that the reason why shared values are so central was that it illuminates and shapes up everything else, all the other elements of the matrix.

Mr.Sen gave the example of a human body; organs, cells, skeleton, location of the organs, digestive system, respiratory system formed a 7-s matrix of the body.

We discussed and figured out why 3-s were on the top and why the other 3 were on the bottom. Strategy, structure and systems are the top 3; they are more powerful, less changeable, and related to the organization itself. Style, staff and skills are the bottom 3; they are related to the human beings of an organization who create the top 3 and use that framework, it is more changeable. The top 3 are created because the people in the bottom 3 decided that they need them. Looking at it that way, it made sense to me because I saw that you cannot have an organization without people in it, once there are people, then th

e top 3 can be created.

We started by giving examples from our school to the top 3.

STRUCTURE; it is the departments and sub departments. For the school’s hierarchy, we can say that there are employes, stud

ents, teachers and deans.

SYSTEM; in school, there are service bus, purchasing, academic, grading,

exam, food, extracurricular activities, data management (ara karne, e-okul) systems. Also, we stated that filling up a CAS form, keeping track of students what they’re doing where are procedures that belonged to a system. Additionally, our school had a system of reporting parents ab

out the students; conferences.

STRATEGY; we already know that it is the answer

to the 3^rd question of planning (How do we get there?) It is to improve the performances of the students.

The bottom 3: This part is in more detail since we were divided in groups during class and our group was responsible from the bottom 3.

STAFF; it means all the employes, teachers, deans working in the school and the students, their genders etc. The employees, teachers’ and students’ genders are approximately at equal rates. The Koc School provides face-to-face and close interactions between students and teachers. Every student can take appointment from his/her teachers any time. Teacher/student ratio is high, which provides a better education.

SKILLS; Teachers, deans and the management board are at least university graduates. The school is well known for its IB Program. There is a high average of sending students to good universities.

STYLE; Teacher-Student relationship is more informal compared to other schools. Disrespectful behavior is not tolerated, however, there is a friendly environment in classes. Even though teachers are centralized by their department heads, they are also decentralized with the way they send students to detention, or the way they teach. Teachers’ actions are restricted by ministry of education. This sometimes prevents teachers from going their way.

EXTRA NOTES FROM THE CLASS

While discussing the 7-S Matrix, some topics got deeper and shifted to other important points, so I decided to write them apart from the matrix explanation.

Shared values are like a light in a drawing room : light is the way the drawing room looks : everything looks gentle and bright because of the lighting it has.

While analyzing the systems, Mr.Sen said that in some countries, there is nothing calle

d “grades”(!!!). We were all surprised to this fact. However, he said that the teachers were writing reports to the parents whenever is needed saying this is what we did in class, this is where your kid could improve, this is where she/he’s going, which is a method that is very efficient to the parents.

Then Mr.Sen started a good TOK discussion .

He said that structure is looking at students, and system captures one tiny aspect.

You enjoy writing, instead of capturing your ability, you are given an exam, given a passage from 1895 and are expected to comment on it in 40 minutes.

OR

You have the ability to think mathematically, but are given a problem “evaluate this expression: 10u3901p39743974 infinite, is that supposed to be good?

Social skills are the quality of your mind. The education system does not work, nobody’s bothering to change it! Shared value is “It’s good to keep things the way they are.” They silently collaborate with each other and teach the things the way they are. We are used to a system which is predictable, ordinary, and we became just like machines. Every question has an a

nswer; if a question is a bit out of the ordinary, we say it is a problem. What is a rubric? Why do you do what you do? We have no clue!

In Harvard University, at a conference of educators, they are complaining; “You don’t know how bad our education system is.” The education system is terrible!

The weaknesses outnumber the strengths except a few exceptions; Singapore, Finland; their strength is that they are considered with what the students are going to be able to do for the future? They are much more future-based, they don’t worry about sitting and solving long set of problems, they teach useful stuff, they teach students to be able to be comfortable with

new situations. Any system that is not teaching students for the unknown is failing. Their goal is wrong; it should be the future life, not the karne gpa. Whatever is known now is going to be obsolete for the students. Also, students have to see that it is GOOD to be confused. Confusing subjects with facts are like confusing piles of bricks. And what makes the piles construct a building? The 7 – S Matrix. Just like a building is more than just a pile of bricks, every single organization is more than just a collection of people.

Even the nature of the work system is changed, learning how to learn, think and analyze are the keys to a successful life. While hiring someone to a job, almost everyone tries to see how you can solve a problem, how do you approach to certain things, are you socially interactive. Your GPA comes after that.

Another subject we talked about was that the 7-S’ were all interconnected. We cannot say this definitely belongs to this element or that; it’s difficult to differentiate between the

elements of the matrix.

If there is an engineer in an organization, it means that there are specialists, therefore departments which form the structure part of the matrix and this is called departmentalization.

We also talked about how external factors can influence internal factors; economic crisis can cause change in systems, structure and so on.

Then we talked about the terms centralized and decentralized.

I looked up the meaning and saw that centralized meant that there was a single authority, whereas there were more authorities in decentralization. To be honest, I couldn’t understand these terms clearly until Mr.Sen enlightened us with various examples.

Example 1) You go to a bank for a loan, you ask for $100 000 to buy a house, they say “I’ll go to the headquarters”. It is obvious that getting a decision will take you a while. So you say “I don’t like it”. You go to another bank, they say “You want this loan? Okay, sign this, here it is!” Then we saw that the first bank was centralized; the employee could not make the decision him/herself, whereas the second bank was decentralized; the employee made the decision and provided the loan quickly. We thought that the second bank was better. For customers; decentralization is better. But for the bank, centralization is better.

PAR = power, authority, responsibility all together. If they’re located in few places in the business, the business is centralized; people low down have no discretion to “do”, they can only propose.

Example 2) Suppose I want to teach the IB program in my school, I need to take approval from The Ministry of Education, who sit and decide on what should be thought etc.

The 7-S Matrix, centralization and decentralization terms are now very clear to me and more and more, I’m beginning to understand the business concepts and how they work.