Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Blog 18 Answer 2







1.  What is your EQ?

  • What is the primary reason so many businesses fail? 
2.  What is your first answer? (In complete thesis statement format)

  • Businesses fail due todue not adapting to changing times.
3.  What is your second answer? (In complete thesis statement format)

  • Competition can be deadly for businesses, constantly there is someone else trying to put you out of business. Business is all about competing for customers, this can be done through superior products, customer service, marketing, ect.  
4.  List three reasons your answer is true with a real-world application for each.

  • You must adapt to beat the competition. Hummer went out of business because it could not adapt to meet consumer needs. in a time where other competitors were averaging 20 mpg Hummer was averaging 10. 
  • When you are trying to get a loan to launch your company almost all banks want to see your business plan, so this is the first thing anyone should do when starting a new business endeavor.
  • Lack of planning can hurt in many other ways as well, another example is not having enough products to meet the possible demand you may encounter. Thinking everything through beforehand is a must, as well as knowing what you need to start off successfully. 


5.  What printed source best supports your answer?

  • http://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/
6.  What other source supports your answer?

  • http://www.businessknowhow.com/startup/business-failure.htm
7.  Tie this together with a concluding thought.

  • Without an organized plan in place to conduct a business one such function cannot survive. With so many factors and complications being presented to bring down a business one must learn to adapt and rival its competition. 

Thursday, February 18, 2016

Blog 17 - Interview 3 Reflection






1. What is the most important thing I learned from the interview?  

  • I learned that I need to explore the aspect of marketing more in depth than I have done so in the past when looking to answer my EQ. While originally I did think it as a primary factor of my EQ, I did not hold the belief that it was the primary reason that so many businesses fail. Justin gave me insight through his own experience as to how marketing was essential for his business to survive, then went off on the tangent of how major corporations today are suffering because of inferior marketing i.e. McDonalds. 
2.  How has your approach to interviewing changed over the course of your senior project?

  • My questions became more narrowed down to my EQ rather thna my actual topic. Quite frankly, I don't need to interview anyone to get adequate knowledge of what business is and how it works, so instead I vitalized the resource to focus on something that the internet could not compensate to a manner, my EQ. I asked questions about my EQ and aimed to gain my interviewee's thoughts on the matter, asking for suggestions and reasons to improve my own knowledge of the topic while in tandem gaining insight on my own EQ.  
Link to audio:
https://soundcloud.com/dawson-khoury/interview-3

Thursday, February 11, 2016

Blog 16: Independent Component 2 Approval




1.  Describe in detail what you plan to do for your 30 hours.

  • I plan to work with Toyota of Glendora on advertising and marketing. I was recently offered the opportunity to actually work for a few days part time to advertise their sales on new cars and actually receive a salary for it. Currently that is the only specific detail I know about what I will be doing, outside of the sign advertising I will continue to work and help out with their adverting campaigns.
2.  Discuss how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing 30 hours of evidence.

  • Essentially I will work alongside my brother at the dealership and perform at least 30 hours of volunteer work. I will log these hours on my working bibliography and have my brother confirm them. To provide proof there will be picture evidence of me working.
3.  Explain how this component will help you explore your topic in more depth.

  • Marketing is a big part of my senior project, business. The failure to market is a failure to adapt and keep up with competition. The component gives me hands on experience with actual marketing and will expand my knowledge as to how and why it is such an important imperative in the business world. I got a taste of it in my first independent component and hope to capitalize on it with my second.

4.  Post a log in your Senior Project Hours link and label it "Independent Component 2" log.

Thursday, February 4, 2016

Independent Component 1

  • LITERAL
    (a) Write: “I,  Dawson Khoury,  affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 32  hours of work.”
    (b) 
    My brother, Justin Khoury, was my source in my independent component. He worked for the avenue magazine and Toyota of Glendora and essentially gave me the connection and utilities to do and complete my independent component. Since he is the social media director for Toyota of Glendora he is the ultimate authority on their marketing. 
  • (c) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xuJ7C4uc5NE8aspcKTXR7KL8NmlYp4pj_9k9n9k8480/edit#gid=0
  • (d) Explain what you completed.    
    • I worked with my brother to conduct marketing campaigns for Toyota of Glendora and the avenue magazine. Through these campaigns I have helped put together parties for advertising the avenue magazine and Toyota, participated in the Glendora Christmas Parade showcasing the brand new Toyota Tundra while taking pictures and videos for social media, and did photography for all these events including a car show in downtown Glendora. 
  • INTERPRETIVE 
    Defend your work and explain its significance to your project and how it demonstrates 30 hours of work.   Provide evidence (photos, transcript, art work, videos, etc) of the 30 hours of work.  
    • Marketing is a big part of my Senior Project. It is one of the essentials of business and staying ahead of the competition which is actually one of my answers for my EQ. I wanted to get hands on experience with it and did so by participating in public advertising campaigns for Toyota and the avenue magazine. For Toyota it involved me doing photography for social media and setting up/conducting the events. In regard to the Avenue magazine I simply helped set up launch parties in which hundreds of people would come, the purpose was to advertise the magazine which had a partnership with Toyota by bringing people in and taking pictures next to the Toyota. As an add on new vehicles from Scion and Toyota were featured at all these events. For months I worked on these campaigns and gained actual hands on experience with marketing
    • This picture was taken by me when going through the Glendora Christmas Parade, my brother was on the back of a Tundra talking on the megaphone about Toyota's Christmas deals. 
    • This was the Tundra that I decorated for the parade
    • This is a picture that was taken by someone who was watching the parade who knew my brother, what a coincidence. That's me in the Christmas hat.
    • These are the two owners of the avenue magazine standing with my brother as we get ready to start the launch party, I took this picture. 
    • For public events, we would have people walk up and take pictures either with their family or with my brother by the logo sheet so they could put it up on their social media. the reason why my brother is the one always in these pictures is because he is the social media director for Toyota, he makes the commercials and essentially is the face of the dealership's advertising. 
  • APPLIED
    How did the component help you understand the foundation of your topic better?  Please include specific examples to illustrate this. 
  • I understood the effects of marketing and what benefits community outreach actually has for a business. Toyota of Glendora is located right next to Ford and Hyundai, thus it needs to compete to bring in customers. Through these marketing campaigns Toyota established familiarity with the community which would provide incentive them to buy a Toyota if they were ever to look for a car. The foundation is that reputations take time to build, and smart marketing is the method of which to build that reputation and have a business prosper. 
  • My brother explained to me the importance of community outreach. Throughout the campaign we received positive responses from Glendora citizens, we would actually set up booths and tell bystanders that if they took a picture next to a Toyota or by a logo boards and post it on social media then they would get a prize. It's the little things that built the reputation and put Toyota of Glendora on the map. 

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Blog 15: Lesson 2 Reflection









1.What are you most proud of in your Lesson 2 Presentation and why?

  • I improvised my presentation to a degree I found suitable. Certainly not the best presentation I ever gave but it did give me experience as to how to conduct myself better in the future. 

2. a.     What assessment would you give yourself on your Lesson 2 Presentation (self-assessment)?

       AE       P  *        AP       CR       NC

     b.     Explain why you deserve that grade using evidence from the Lesson 2 component contract.

  • I filled all the minimum requirements on the contract. My time was adequate, presentation carried varied details, and effectively answered the EQ.

3. What worked for you in your Lesson 2?

  • My activity, I thought it would of failed spectacularly but instead it went smoothly and from what I was seeing everyone was having a good time doing it.  

4. What didn't work? If you had a time machine, what would you have done differently to improve your Lesson 2?

  • Defiantly structure my pacing better; I wanted to put more time into actually making the presentation to make it more aesthetically pleasing to the audience. I think what didn't work was just how I presented myself. I had too much to say and not enough time to say all of it. 

5. What do you think your answer #2 is going to be?

  • My answer #2 would be the reason so many businesses fail is because they fail to adapt to changing times. This means they don't keep up with the changing competition and lose touch of the direction its consumers are going.