Innovative Product

The innovative product i found on youtube is shellac. It's a nail polish from a company called Creative Nail Design. Whats innovative about it is that it is chip proof and doesn't come off until it's professionally removed. It's also applied differently than regular nail polish because the polish is dried under a UV light between each coat. I think this is interesting because it's so annoying to spend money on your nails and then have them chip before you get home. Here's a video talking about the product:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/MCpXTHjYADQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

SAP Distribution Game

Unfortunately my team placed last during the game. On the first night we spent to much money on marketing which caused us to go into the negative. I think this is because we didn't have the best communication going on. The person looking at the sales report wasn't communicating to the marketing person how much money was available. On the second night it was hard to redeem ourselves since we were already last. We did much better and spent less on marketing but still ended up negative. Profit is certainly not the only thing to consider in any business. I think a sales strategy is important, if you have a good sales strategy you should have a higher profit and a return on equity. Playing this game I learned how important communication is between different departments of a company. I also learned that you should know everything you can about what you are doing before you get started. I say this because when we were playing, there were some things my team and I weren't clear on and the days were going by before we even started anything.

Apple Firing

After reading the article, I think I would have the same thought as both an employee and an employer. The employee who  made the remarks on Facebook was in the wrong and should have been let go because of it. Now that this has happened to them I can pretty much guarantee that employee won't say something negative about their next employer on Facebook. How is this any different than if the employee had been talking badly about Apple verbally? Someone could have over heard and the person could have been let go. Even though at the end of the article it states something about a decision being made that employees can't be fired over what they put on Facebook, I have  heard stories of  people getting fired for talking negatively about their job or co-workers on the site. I think it is very sad what Facebook is doing to people. Some people are becoming just down right addicted to it and letting it rule their entire life. If you're going to have one you need to be extremely careful of any content you  post on it. Employers are checking them even before they make hiring decisions. Also people who can't work an eight hour day without checking their Facebook, I think that's pretty ridiculous. You're getting paid to work not play around on Facebook.

Decision Making Software

Currently I don't use any software to make decisions. I don't make that many major decisions that require more than just thinking about them in my head or asking other's opinions. I also typically don't have time to sit down and use a software program to make a decision. Online I found something called MindDecider, this is their website: http://www.minddecider.com/
It looks as if they have one for personal decision making and one to use when making business decisions, including finances.

Plagiarism

Unfortunately I think technology has a large impact on plagiarism. With just a couple clicks anyone can steal someone else's work. This is a lot more convenient than going and hunting down a book and finding the topic and copying it into your assignment. I found this article describing technology's impact on the subject:
http://orange.eserver.org/issues/5-1/kennedy.html
Colleges are taking more steps to fight plagiarism. There are now programs professors can use to enter in  a student's assignment, and the professor will be automatically be taken to where the work was stolen from. A good article about what colleges are doing is this:
http://www.ehow.com/info_7994370_colleges-doing-fight-plagiarism.html

Ethics

I don't feel like I've had many experiences where my ethics have been called into question. I'm typically on the straight and narrow and don't cause much ruckus in any situation. However I remember once my freshmen year of high school the kid who sat next to me had his cell phone ring in the middle of science class. I don't know if cell phones are a huge deal in high school now as most kids over the age of ten have them, but when I was in high school you weren't even aloud to have one in the building, let alone ring in the middle of class. The teacher immediately freaked out and came over to the area where me and the guy whose phone rang were sitting. The teacher asked whose cell phone rang and at this time I actually didn't even have one yet. I, of course was not going to rat out the guy sitting next to me so all I said was, "it wasn't mine I don't even have one" but the guy also denied it being his. So the teacher said fine since you both won't tell me I'll write you both up and send you to the office. This made my blood boil as my number one annoyance is being blamed for something I didn't do. If I did something, I have no problem owning up to it, but I hate being blamed for something I didn't do. So at this point I politely told the teacher she shouldn't write me up as I didn't even have a cell phone and she was more than free to search my purse to verify that fact. All of my friends in the class even piped up and told the teacher I didn't have a cell phone because they knew I didn't. However she still insisted on writing me up. Basically she wanted to get me because I was not going to tell on the guy whose phone it actually was. By this point I was pretty mad so I proceeded to call this particular lady a crazy (insert explicit word here) then she said she would write me up a second time for calling her a name. At that point I didn't even care and just stormed down to the office with my two write up slips. Down at the office they told me to bring my parents to school with me in the morning so we could discuss the matter. The next day roles around and I come to school with my parents. We had a meeting with the vice principal who was very cool about the whole thing. My parents told the vice principal I didn't even have a cell phone and they didn't blame me for getting mad the way I did over the situation. The vice principal said she was sorry they had to come in for something I didn't even do and that this particular teacher had been a little write up crazy over cell phones in the past few weeks. She also stated that the teacher did have the right to search my purse and should have done so to confirm that I did not have a cell phone. The vice principal did say I should try to handle the situation better next time and not call the teacher a name. In the end nothing went on my record, the teacher was pretty much in the wrong. The only bad thing that came of it was my parents were inconvenienced by having to come to my school before going to work to discuss me getting in trouble for something I didn't do. Looking back eight years later I still think that teacher lady was crazy and she obviously didn't handle the situation properly but the way the vice principal handled it was the right thing in my opinion.

The American Educational System

I agree that the American Educational System is failing and our country is probably far behind others. I know from personal experience when I think back on my schooling I can't think of much that I actually learned by going to school. I did my assignments and got fairly decent grades but anything I learned I feel like I probably forgot by the time the next school year began. Math and Science are two subjects I do not understand very well at all and they pretty much go right over my head. I wish that somehow I could've learned more in those subject areas in high school. I found a great article from Time Magazine, I used Google to search the topic, it is dated from 2007 but I think what it states is still current. It talks a lot about how much America spends on educating the mentally retarded but doesn't spend much on students who are gifted and uber smart. It also mentions how back in the 80's a child with a high IQ was permitted to move up prematurely in grade level, however today there is more of a focus on keeping all of the children with their age group in a certain grade even if they are on a different level. This is the link to the article http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1653653-1,00.html

Technology in the Classroom

I have used wikipedia and youtube to assist me in my learning for school. I think technology in the classroom is a good thing, but because a lot of it is new, it takes a while to get used to learning that way. However when using technology it does seem we are able to get information faster.

Youtube Video

I found this video on Youtube and it's a man from the U.K., Dr. Steve Bone who is a professor at the school of electronics and computer science at Bangor University. It's about a five minute video and he's basically discussing how important it is for people in high powered positions these days to know about technology and how it can benefit the work they do. I am a management major so he is discussing how technology will most likely affect me in my future work. Here's the video:

Favorite Blog/Website

One of my favorite blogs is http://thepioneerwoman.com/ it's written by a woman named Ree Drummond. She basically blogs her favorite recipes and about her life and in my opinion she is a very comical writer. Since I like to cook and bake I enjoy reading her recipes and I like reading about her life because she lives on a cattle ranch in Oklahoma which I feel is so different from my life. Basically I just like the point of her story. When she was younger she lived in Los Angeles and planned to move to Chicago to become a lawyer. However she met a cowboy and the rest is history. I like that her story basically teaches us that we can plan our lives as much as we want but what is meant to happen will happen.

All About Allyson

I am a twenty-one year old junior at Salisbury University majoring in management. I have lived in Salisbury my entire life. I went to Wor-Wic Community College for my associates degree and this is my first semester at SU. I work part-time for a retina specialist as an ophthalmic tech. I enjoy spending my free time with friends and family. With this class I hope to learn more about internet and computers than the basic knowledge I currently have and how they fit into the business world.