Saturday, October 30, 2010

Poo at the Zoo

Last night my girlfriend and I went to Boo at the Zoo.  I thought that it would be fun, there would be people hiding around corners to scare you and whatnot.  Turns out that my memories of boo at the zoo from when I was a kid were very off.
 Nobody even tried to scare you.  And there were kids EVERYWHERE.  I felt suffocated.  When there was a bunch of them in front of us it made us walk so slow.  Thank god I resisted the urge of tossing the little pukes out of our way. There was an Alice in Wonderland themed section;  no magic mushrooms there, but we did see a large mushroom big enough to sit on.. We didn't.  There was a guy juggling torches and playing with fire which was entertaining for a few minutes.. Probably the best site in the whole place.  They charged us 10 bux per person, rather than the normal like 4. What a rip off.  Anyways, I guess the moral of the story is to not go to Boo at the Zoo unless you have a little kid(s) or you are one,  or you buy your mushrooms from the same place Alice does..

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

A Social Experiment

I watched the movie The Social Network the other night.  It’s about the co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and how he turned his Internet Social networking site Facebook into a multibillion dollar company.  Near the beginning of the movie, Zuckerberg was portrayed in a negative light after he posted a drunken blog online about his every thought.  In it he mentioned things about his ex-girlfriend such as how she wears a size C braw when she only has B’s; he called that false advertising and I agree.  This led to a fight between the two, and Zuckerberg does come off as a bit of an asshole in that scene, and it seems to continue through the movie.  Having said that, I found that the scene in the legal office/room, where they were having the talks with the lawyers, the one lady lawyer tells him that he's not an asshole; he just tries so hard to be one.  That made me connect with the character and feel like Zuckerburg was more like a real person who has struggles like the rest of us.
I think Facebooks popularity rose from the release of this movie, it got lots of media coverage, and after two or so weeks of being in the theatres, the show I went to was near full.  This probably did much more for Zuckerberg’s popularity more than that of Facebook’s though, since you had to of been living under a rock to not of heard of Facebook before, I don't think most poeple knew who Mark Zuckerberg was: and now we do.
The day the movie came out; Zuckerberg appeared on Oprah and announced the establishment of his foundation and his first gift of $100 million to the Newark school system.  I don’t think that it was necessary, and his claim: that the timing of the donation and its correlation to the movie release was just a coincidence, I thought was laughable.  However, when you have over 500 million on the most popular social networking site on the web, it’s going to take a lot to change people’s perception on the site.  I think he just should have made his appearance on Oprah and whatever other shows he appeared on, and saved his $100 million donation until the DVD release.


Sources Used:
http://prpost.wordpress.com/2010/10/10/zuckerberg-hearst-and-hollywood-pr-lessons-learned-from-the-past/

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Reader Beware

My personal reflection of the advertising project Buyer Beware

So here I am and the buyer beware project is over, finally.   Up until the last week and a half, this project had really taken a backstage to the controlled chaos that is CreComm.  When the project was first given to us, we discussed what consumer report would the public benefit from the most, if they were to learn about a company/service.  Everyone in the group was aware of pay day loans, and the new government regulations that were coming into affect to protect customers.  So we thought it would be a really good project, if the public knew more about pay day loans, and how financially unfeasible they are, they may avoid them.  So one of our first steps was to find a well known company who provided that service.  We landed upon Money Mart, one of the biggest players in that market.  We delegated responsibilities to each member of the team.  Shaun went to a Money Mart, and learned more about the customer experience in the store.  Tom and Brian looked at government regulations on pay day loans.  Jon went to an RBC and talked to someone there to talk about other options other than pay day loans, such as credit cards, line of credit, overdrafts and other options.  It was my job to talk to Money Mart customers, and get their thoughts on the services they provided.  So I talked to my girlfriend, and asked her if she knew anyone that had used Money Mart before.  After a few days, she talked to some friends and it turned out that Ashton Beaton had used Money Mart before; she was a girl I used to work with at Wal-Mart in Selkirk, so I thought that would be a good source for a customer perspective.  I met up with her at work on her break, and asked her all the relevant questions I could think of and she told me her story. At this point in the project, everyone had their piece typed up and we were ready to put the pieces together.  My piece was the interview with Ashton, which I couldn’t see as a very large part of the main report, so I quickly felt like I needed to add more to the project.  We realized that we needed to do a class presentation, so I took it upon myself to put the Power Point together.  I thought it was important to say why customers choose Money Mart, and look at other options for them.  The last few days we sent lots of e-mails to each other and exchanged our pieces.  By the time the deadline came around, I think the rest of the team felt fairly confident, I was at least.  I think the presentation went well, everyone explained his part of the project clearly, and I think it was easy to understand.  I saw this as a good group effort, and everyone did a good job.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Hey Sam, Where's My Hug?

The Winnipeg civic election heated up Wednesday morning, when incumbent Sam Katz and Judy Wasylycia-Leis participated in a debate hosted by CJOB's Richard Cloutier.  Sam and Judy were civil towards each other, at the beginning anyway.  The biggest issues of the debate included crime and infrastructure.  Katz said if re-elected he plans to add 58 new police officers, and 20 for the gang unit.  Wasylycia-Leis responded saying that she doesn’t oppose more police, but thinks more funds should be put towards community centers, recreational activities for youth.  Personally, I see cops on the street all the time and about a dozen police cruisers everyday.  But they can't be everywhere all the time.  Crime will only increase if we don't address the root of the problem, so in that aspect I agreed with Wasylycia-Leis. Katz added that we need ex –gang members that have turned their life around, who’ve walked the walk so to speak, to help current gang members get out of crime and turn their lives around.  Impoverished youth need role models like that to look up to, because it’s hard for them to listen to someone telling them how to live their life, when that person doesn’t understand what they’ve went through.

Another issue raised was property taxes.  Wasylycia-Leis wants to raise them by two percent for the next four years, and put the money towards infrastructure, parks, and recreational activities and centers.  Katz responded to this by saying if we raised the provincial tax by only one percent, we will gain a substantial amount more, while not affecting low income families as drastically. 

One thing that caught my eye was when Wasylycia-Leis stated that she would stop un-necessary spending in city hall, by cutting costly survey and study programs. It caught my eye because her response to the question about whether or not she agreed with Winnipeg’s newly purchased helicopter, she said she wouldn’t cancel it, but she would put together a study to see whether it was effective or not.  Wait a minute.  I thought she said she would cut un-necessary studies, wasting tax payer dollars. Huh?

Both candidates were asked if they agreed with the idea of enacting a youth curfew, like other cities have done experiencing crime issues, and both said they did not.

Katz’s main points of focus are to rejuvenate downtown, safety, and infrastructure

Judy stressed that city savings be put into a blind trust.

The debate was heated at some points, but in the end they are still friends, which they showed when Sam got out of his chair and hugged Judy. 

To sum up, Katz is a better showman, he seemed more prepared.   Wasylycia-Leis did her best to answer some good questions, but it all seemed to get lost in her one liners and campaign rhetoric.  Politicians are masters of dancing around the issues, and this morning was no different.  At the end, it left me thinking.. geez, where's my hug Mr. Mayor?

Friday, October 1, 2010

Alright guys and gals. I still can't get the mess that was last Fridays Bomber vs Alouettes cfl game, out of my head. The refs made the wrong call on the bomber fumble recovery in the last minutes of the game. It was a great game, It was exciting and both teams were in it to the end. Great cfl game. Minus the bad calls. There was a couple questionable forward pass interference calls. So, okay, There was a few bad calls in the game, so what?Referees are human and as humans we all make mistake. They are the best at what they do. They are the most qualified. Well it wouldn't be so bad if these wrong calls didn't decide the outcome of games. Maybe letting referees who are American to call some games. After they are properly trained of course. It's just an idea by one person. But something has to be done about the amount of blown calls in the cfl.