My vision to be the owner of undisputed auto service company... "We keep them running!!"

In life, I have my dreams to make true. Be rich, earn alot of respect, tour the whole world, have the most loving family, live a luxurious life, be the best street racer, play street basketball... it continues. On the back of my head, I also know that not every one of these visions are going to be true for me. You just can't lead all sorts of lives all at once. Since high school all of these visions seemed realistic but the first day I walked into college, I started to learn the harsh realities of life. I had to choose among all of these what I meant the most to me. Of all those visions I decided that I wanted to run an auto service company that provides the best auto service in the whole industry. That was that. Surely, making such a vision into reality required alot of effort and capabilities, as well as a wide variety of knowledge, not just in auto mobiles as well as business management.

Since, that day I have made this my life. I always had an opportunity to work with automobiles since my family was in auto business for last ten years. That was motivating and encouraging, now that I had some place to begin. I needed to know how to manage this business. I started visiting my dad's repair shop every other day. I learned alot about automobiles, even though I only managed the shop. At college, I have declared my major as management, so that I can learn about different ways of managing businesses. I hope to expand my dad's shop as i get my degree from college. Even though I still go to college, I try to visit the shop at least three to four times a week. Only thing I know now is that all that I have worked with since yet is automobiles. I never worked any place else in my previous life. If not best, I will it make it something, where people would love to bring there cars at.

That was my vision, whats yours...

Importance of vision in our lives!!

I really liked the video that we watched during our lecture today, regarding the importance and need of vision not just at corporate level but in our everyday activities. The point that video was trying to make was that having a vision in mind does play a role in how things work out in our lives. It is what makes our actions worth something. It also emphasized the relationship between actions and vision. Taken from the video, "vision without action is a dream; action with vision is passing time and vision with action is making a positive difference" by Joel Barker. Another thing I liked about the video was it gave us an allround perspective on the the idea of having a vision. It emphasized how having vision in mind relates to different things around us. Not just in corporate life, but also in schools, times of hardships and at the times when one lacks tools to make something come true.
I have to say, it did made a lasting impression on me. And made realize how vision has been playing a role in my life. Even though I didn't really thought about it in actual life, I'm having a feeling that it actually have some truth to it. I believe that if you really visualize something, you want to work towards it and make it true. It sets a sort of objective or goal that you can look forward towards. It allows you see whether what you actually visualize correlates with what you achieved.
Here are few quotes that I really found interesting about the idea of having a vision in mind:

"We are limited, not by our action, but by our vision"- author unknown.

"Everytime an artist dies, part of vision of manking passes with him" by Benjamin Franklin.

“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” by Helen Keller.

“Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision.” by Ayn Rands.

Hope your vision becomes better as you move on with your life not just in your career but also with other activities that are part of your day to day activities.. mine did..

What do I want to do with my first Exam Grade?? Drop... curve...drop the class....

The in-class activity on Monday about decision making was an interesting experience. It was the first time, any of my professors allowed us an opportunity to decide amongst ourselves to how to account for our grade on the exam 1. Even though he limited us to a point, at least we got the say to decide what we wanted to do.

Some limitation and rules that were set forth by professor:
-Decide how to account for your first exam grade and the format of the second exam.
-our time was limited to one hour
-our decision should have say of every student in the class, meaning 100%.
-After we have concluded, professor would make the final call, even though he gave his opinion along the way.
-Nothing we come up with has to do with final exam or other activities like blog or participation.

First reaction: I wanted to just get up from my seat and get my hands on the computer and drop the course, and find some other professor next semester. But then I thought it wasn't worth dropping it, because it better to learn things hard way than looking for easy gains. Tests are not the only thing that matter. It's what we learn, from that perspective this class is pretty good. Finally, I said lets do something about this grade, since he is giving us an opportunity to do so. At this point, I left the idea of avoidance and changed my strategy towards getting the most of this opportunit, in conceptual terms, I decided to compete and grab all that is possible off the table. At first, I thought it would be piece of cake, because I think no one would say no to free gifts. After few failures among the group, I start to have a feeling it was not going to be easy. One of us, attempted to get up and get everyone organized and steer the talk in a desireable direction. Unfortunately, his technique failed to get everyone on the same page. He suggested that we all divide into small group and come up with some idea and then by picking one representative from each group would make it easier to make the decision. As soon as he finished he idea was criticized and he had to step back. I have to say, I also supported that criticism, because the time constraint does not allow us with enough time to divide and regroup and then decide. It seemed to be good idea to remain in a group of one and do everythink collabrately.
After the first failure, two students try to be leader and lead the group. Both of them attempted to gain feedback from some students and create few options for the group to choose from. Even though not every student was part of the feedback, majority compromised the options. Many were also trying to stick to practice avoidance. By the time, we got to this point we were already half a way through our time. I started to get really mad at all the others, because this would keep us from getting any thing at all. I attempted to talk everyone through but was useless and criticized most of time. So I tried shut up, and letting the group go along themselves. After alot of argument between a very small minority and a large majority, we agreed on the option of curving the exam and dropping the lowest grade of both exams. After this issue resolved, I got some satisfaction. But we were almost nearing our deadline, and we had to decide about the format of the exam. And I was already hurt by the existing format, I suggested we drop the essay part because it was not fair to poor writer but people were so much amazed by their grade on their essays that they want to keep it. I decides to accomodate with the group. And decide to avoid rest of the conversation regarding the format, because it was already against my thoughts. I did get some peace when they added extra points to the exam.
It was hard sticking to one strategy because at times it feels like you are only one following that strategy. In the end, it was enough for me to remain competitive for a good grade in the class.

Management and NBA..

The recent trade of Shaquille O'Neal to Phoenix Suns has put Suns' team management team in a decision making position. The Suns' team coach and advisors are trying to figure out how to fit Shaq into the lineup. because by acquiring Shaq, Suns have two options for a center position. Whether to have Shaq or stoudmire run the center position. Another questions they are facing is that whether their decision of acquiring Shaq a valid one, especially while they are nearing the end of the season. Up to this point it does not seems great, but since last night game, it seems like the Shaq and Nash combination is starting to work. Suns are 4-6 since they have acquired Shaq. It is the season ending that will tell, whether it was worth azquiring Shaq at this time of the season. Good Luck Suns????

Gas prices continue to ruin sales in the Auto Industry

According to a recent report in New York Times, as gas prices rise to $100 a barrel, sales in auto industry fell by 10 percent last month. The data on the sales also indicates that Honda is the only manufacturer company that have experienced an increased in their sales as compare to Ferbruary of 2007. The increase accounted for only 0.7 percent. While Honda and other Japanese manufacturers like Toyota continue to sell automobiles at an increasing rate each month, American manufacturers like Chrysler and General Motors experienced a double digit decline in their sales.
Most of the vehicles that these American companies manufacture include sport utility and heavy SUVs that use alot of gas in its engine funcitons. And as the gas prices climb, it is becoming more unaffordable for people to continue to drive such vehicles. So majority of the car owners are switching their tastes towards small compact car or hybrid cars that use battery power to keep its engine functioning. These cars can be very good for our environment because they would result into less pollution and more hands towards fighting or reducing the effects of global warming.
The management decision that are facing these car companies are to whether to shut down or downsize their projects of manufacturing more SUVs, and invest more money into manufacture small compact cars to continue to compete with Japanese manufacturers. The main force driving their decision is that most of thr revenue earned by American manufacturers is through the sales of these large SUVs. They believe the sales of thousands of these small compact cars would only equal sales of several hundred SUVs. They should consider re-evaluating their strategy and broaden their perspective to continue to make more sales. They can consider manufacturing these compact until gas prices become more stable or some other effective method is imposed. This way they would continue to generate enough sales to remain competitive.
The question that also arises from this situation is that why Japanese manufacturers are not facing the similar dilemmas? The answer is good strategic thinking. They were able to visualize the demand of small compact and hybrid cars, way beyond time, so they started to design and manufacture vehicles with such qualities years before this problem became prominent. Today, the demand of these vehicles is rising constantly, and they are taking good advantage by fulfilling these demands, while others manufacturers like General Motors are looking for ways to remain in business.
Let look at the future of just New York City, people have started to rely more and more on subway and other means of public transportation. City is planning on impose on toll on entering thorugh bridges and tunnels. Another important step City is taking is restricting the future use of Ford Crown Victoria to be used as Taxi. The city has already decided that following September, only Hybrid vehicles would be used as Taxi. So what we can see from this is that with in few years, they are going to be more hybrid vehicles in city than any other car. I think City has taken excellent steps to fight with rising Gas prices in return not just helping the consumers but also the society at large. Hopefully, combined efforts by all would bring promising results.

Work Cited,
Bunkley, Nick, "Vehicles Sales Fell by 10% Last Month" New York Times, March 4, 2008.

Plan for keeping an egg from cracking!!!

Our objective was to invent a method for keeping an egg from breaking while it is dropped from a specified height. At first, we calculated the amount of time we were given to think about an idea, and resources we were to use. Specifically, 8 straws, a raw egg, and a 2 feet long paper tape. Also, our time to plan was limited to 25 minutes. Secondly, we all offered a viewpoint on how to approach this situation. Each one of us came up with his/her idea of creating something that would keep an egg from cracking. One of us offered to half wrap the egg with the straws, so that it can produce some air suspension effect and 50 percent is visible. Another one of our group members offered a similar technique but argued on whether the egg should be wrapped stand up or laid down. Our third group member offered to use straws in a way that egg never hits the floor while straws do. Our fourth group member offered to use a string that would lower the elevation the egg is dropped from. And finally our last group member presented a view of using straws to be cut into several pieces and cut in a way that they produce a flowering edges, and wrapped around the egg.We tried to put it all together into one unique design that would be the actual design of our product. What we did was used the flowering idea and placed them on the egg in a manner that it creates pointer at different location on the egg that would lead to create a air suspension effect and keep the egg floating all the time. And then we incorporated the idea of string from one of our group members and attached the string at one of the points on the egg, so we decrease the elevation from where egg is dropped. This ended our ideas planning session. This session took about 15 minutes of our time.
Then our focus moved upon to what and how would we need to use our resouces that this idea can be put into practical use. We decided upon using six of our straws that we would cut into several pieces with flowering edges. One edge would attached to the egg and the other would support as a method to reduce the pressure as it hits floor. Then we had to decide on how to make these small pieces with flowering tops because of our limited use of scissors. Then we came up with idea of using a lock key to cut the straws into pieces, and then using pencil pointer to make the flowering tops. And we planned to use the other two straws to create a string that the egg would be attached to. We planned on cutting each one of our straws in a way that it would provide us with several layers taht we could use as a string. And finally, we decided to use half of our paper tape to attach our flowering topped pieces of straws to the egg, and the other haof to lengthen our string.
And final step was to create our planned or designed egg proctector in ten minutes. We decided to put two of our members to create flowering topped pieces of straws,and one to cut the needed tape, fouth to attached the straws to the egg,and the last member to find access to scissor so that we can cut the remaining to straws into several layers so that it can be used as a long string. We used 9 minutes to implement our plan and the final minute to test our creation for success.
For record, we did went through majority of our planning process that one is to go through before implenting one's plan. Our failure was that were so sure that it would work without actually finding fatal flaws our plan before we implemented it. We incorporated all teh suggestions into one, but failed to figure out whether what we had planned would actually work.
We were very sure that our invention would be a success but our creation failed to meet our expection by allowing the egg to break. So much for a failure... We tried...

Business Plan and its importance

What is a business plan?
Simply defined, a business plan is a document that tells an individual or company where it is today, where it want to go tomorrow, and how you plan to get there.

In today's business world, a need of a business plan has increased dramatically. Even if it is not required, it expresses an important need. There are alot of benefits of a business plan. One, it allows one to look into one's idea and criticize it for fatal flaws that can ruin one's investment in future. Second, it forces one to think about one's beliefs and insight of a certain idea and look to see if it is worth investing one's time and efforts into it. It also helps to raise one's confidence by allowing him/her to clarify and eliminate errors in one's understanding. A business plan also shows one's ability to communicate effectively with other individuals in the industry, like investors, customers, and suppliers. Most importantly, investors want to see how capable an individual they are betting their savings on is? Thats why the first question one is asked, when they go to bank or an investor for money is "Where is your business plan?" Simply, it is a company gameplan.
On the other hand, a business plan also has some negatives. The most important of them is time, it is very time consuming. Companies today don't want to spend there precious time planning while they can be engaged in other important activities. This is so important for a business owner to decide how much time they want to spend planning. Because by spending too much time planning one can miss the window of opportunity that was open for them, while they were planning. If they plan too little, they can end up creating a mess for themselves very early moment of their operations. Secondly, a business plan can limit a company from expanding or moving away in a better direction because of the pressure from investors and industry environment.

So, the question remains, Is business plan relevant?
There just don't seem to be any correct answer to this. It all depends on the situation in the market. Even if you had the best plan of all, you may still fail to succeed.