Assignment 1: Unconventional Self Portrait (Presentation)

As usual, we pasted our self portraits all around the glass wall of the classroom. Due to my self portrait being a sculpture, I held it during my presentation. For those who drew on paper or anything else that was flat, was pasted onto the glass wall.

This is the outcome of my structure:

I used an egg to symbolise myself because an egg is fragile and it breaks easily. It does not break when it is held carefully, but when it drops, it cracks and breaks apart. It represents my outer wall, my comfort zone, a barrier that I put myself in. However, along the way of growing up, I met people of different backgrounds and mindsets. I thought everything was rainbows and unicorns and I let my 'wall' down. Everything was fine until they show their true nature, their real personalities that they have been hiding all these time. I felt like I was being lied to, been betrayed and I had all these mixed emotions that I could not comprehend. Then I truly realised that there are always people out there that are not or will never be comfortable and friendly towards you. As I would always say, we can't please everyone. Therefore, incidents happen and friendships were lost and there was no turning back. I do not even want to go back to how it was because those people that I met was not true friends. Therefore, I made a cracked egg as it shows that my barrier was broken, and can never be fixed. However, after all that I have been through, it has also made me stronger. My mind is able to accept all these that has happened and made it into life lessons for myself so that I would not be faced with the same situation ever again. That is why I put a ping pong ball in the egg and you can see it when you open up the egg. A ping pong ball is not as fragile and as easily broken as an egg. It shows that although you were hurt and broken, but you still learnt something from it and moved on to be someone stronger. 

I splattered some shades of brown on top of the egg as part of the detail. An egg is not entirely one colour, therefore I made some little dot-looking designs on it. 

These are some of the artworks that my classmates have produced for this assignment:

Final Assignment - Charity Sale

For our Business class' finals, we need to do a charity sale in campus for a week.

We made our own poster for the charity sale:

All of the 5 Ps that we have learnt in class were decided by ourselves. My group consist of Shukie, Wei Yi, Seen Ying, Kuai Bing and myself. My group was selling notebooks, laptop sticker, anime stickers, phone covers and popsicles. All of our products can be requested, meaning they can have any design the customer desires except for the popsicles, of course. Moreover, all of the profits that we earned throughout this charity sale goes to charity. We chose to donate the money to the SPCA. These are some pictures of out products that we were selling throughout the week of the charity sale and a video about our product and packaging: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MqW6H_V3p8&feature=youtu.be

Handmade phone cover templates.

Requested laptop sticker.

Bunch of anime stickers.

Notebooks of 2 sizes, A4 and A5.

Popsicles.

Totoro laptop sticker.

Dreamcatcher laptop sticker.

Ribcage laptop sticker.

We chose a location where there is more air ventilation because our requested phone covers includes spray painting it, if the customers want it. The smell of the spray paint is very strong that some people dislikes it. We put out some examples of our products on the table to attract by-passers. 

These are some pictures of us preparing our products:

We promoted our products by having 2 members of my group to wear Rilakkuma onesies and walk around the first and second floor of the campus. Other than that, the 2 of them also bring along the donation box. However, there are more people who wanted to take pictures of them rather than donating. These are some pictures of the 2 Rilakkuma walking around and promoting and a video about our promotions that we have done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_V09JW-jNo&feature=youtu.be

Some of the customers does not want the packaging because they wanted to either stick the laptop stickers onto their laptop or put on their new phone covers straight away. These are some of the packagings for our products:

Last but not least, we have made a total profit of RM1813.20 by the end of the charity sale. After donating the money to them, the people in charge gave us a tour around the SPCA and we also played with the animals there. Here are some pictures of when we went to the SPCA and donated it to the organisation ourselves and a video about our journey to the SPCA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBmHZoRW5Bs&feature=youtu.be

This is a link to our video about our self-reflection on the charity sale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcismef3OpM&feature=youtu.be

REFLECTION

I have to admit that it is really fun and we did enjoy ourselves throughout the charity sale. Although it was very tiring but we have learned a lot and gained lots of experience that some of us may never have the chance to experience. However, if I was given another chance to do this, I would not want to. Besides that, my most favourite part of the whole charity sale is the part when I am needed to decorate and design requested items.

Introduction to Business - Accounting

This picture shows the control process in a simple chart.

Accounting:

- Records all the transactions such as buying or selling of a business.

- Summarising the records into a report so that people can read them easily to make relevant decisions.

Accounting is also useful for evaluating business performance. It is also used for discharging accountability. The picture below shows the purpose of accounting:

The Income Statement is a summarised results of a business, also known as the Profit and Loss Statement. This is how profit and loss are counted:

However, that was just a very simple one. A proper income statement would contain more information compared to the one above:

Introduction to Business - Marketing

Marketing involves:
- Creating or designing a product that the customers desire.
- Communicating the product to the customers, such as through advertisements and promotions.
- Distributing the product.

5 Ps of Marketing
- Place
The place is important because making it easy for customers to get the products would affect their profits. There are 2 types of distribution which is, from producer to customer and non-direct distribution.
- Price
Setting the right price for a product is really important because if a product is too expensive, customers would not buy it and if the price is too low, the company will not make enough profit.

Price skimming is a price that was set for a product that will be reduced gradually over time. Penetration pricing is a price that was set for a new product but the cost is low due to the new product that is not well known in the market.
- Promotion
This ensures their customers to be more aware of their product's existence as well as to attract them to buy it. The picture below shows the commonly-used methods for promotion:

- Packaging
The physical package or container that covers and holds the products to protect it from damage or breakage. A packaging should be simple but eye-catching or memorable so that once a customer sees it, it will be in their mind without themselves knowing about it.
- Product
Every product must have a purpose. For example, arcades are made for entertainments. A product also have features that brings other benefits to the customer. A feature is a function that is built into the product, meaning it comes along with the item we bought and not an add-on. A benefit is an advantage that is obtained from using the feature. For example, chilli sauce makes the food tastier and more delicious for those who enjoys spicy food.

Consumer Buying Process

This explains a customer's process of purchasing a product.

Introduction to Business - Leading Your People

Employee's behaviours affects the progress of a company a lot and it is very important to have employees with good behaviours.

There are different types of behaviours that we can see from employees around the place. This includes:

- Performance Behaviours

This is a desirable behaviour just like Corporate Citizenship Behaviours. This contributes directly to the productivity of their work. An employee's work would be done more and the firm's goals will be achieved faster if the employees have this behaviour in them. A clear explanation in table-based, taken from the lecturer's presentation slides that he showed us during his lessons. 

- Corporate Citizenship behaviours

This enhances a worker's performance behaviour. Employees with this behaviour would behave in a friendly manner which could also affect the employees around him or her to work harder.

- Counter - Productive Behaviours

This behaviour reduces his or her work productivity, which is not good towards the company he or she is working under. 

The Big 5 (OCEAN) :

Openness

Conscientiousness

Extroversion

Agreeableness

Neuroticism

Work attitude is very important in a workplace, especially job satisfaction and organisational commitment. Job satisfaction shows whether a worker is happy or unhappy about their job whereas organisational commitment refers to whether the worker is committed and loyal to her company that she is working under. The picture below shows a simple chart about how a good work attitude would affect the productivity of a company:

Motivations and Needs

The bottom 2 are basic needs whereas the top 3 are advanced needs. "A person usually will satisfy his basic needs first before he attends to the more advance needs." - Maslow Therefore, a person's needs starts from the bottom and slowly move onto the top.

The picture above shows the motivation and needs of a person if someone were to apply this theory to the workplace. 

Class Activity:

We did a class activity in class and Mr Joe chose our theme for us. We acted out as if we were in a classroom where only one or two students actually pay attention to the lecturer in class. After that, the  lecturer thought of other ways to teach her students and it finally made the class more interesting and the amount of student's participation has also increased. I played the role of a narrator and therefore, I started off the play with a few sentences regarding our sketch. 

Introduction to Business - Managing a Business

The management process of a business is very important because if it is not handled properly, a business may fail. In order to prevent that from happening and to ensure a smooth-running business, management process should be done very well.

There are 4 main components in the Management Process:

- Plan

- Organize

- Lead

- Control

We did a small activity in the class. We were told to do an organisational chart for a business of our choice and we chose "Theme Park".

There was also a group assignment to prepare a presentation about a business of our choice. Our business is a hotel called Óneiro Kósmo Hotel. It is a theme hotel located in the heart of Kuala Lumpur and only minutes away from Pavilion. We have themed-rooms such as, aquarium room, igloo room, haunted room and many more. This is a link of our video for our presentation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SbMCEKV1Y0&feature=youtu.be

Our lecturer, Mr Joe wrote this in his presentation slides for this lesson. It says, "If you fail to plan, then you are planning to fail." In my point of view, it is very true. Planning is to create a goal, a motive, develop a strategy and to also determine your tactics and without this, nothing would come out of the business because it all starts from planning. 

Next, organising a business is based on the job specialisation of everyone in the company. For example, we break the business into subgroups with a specific purpose for each group such as, marketing, finance and production.

Leading involves guiding as well as inspiring the employees to achieve the company's goal. There are a few types of leadership style, such as the autocratic style which is a leader that keeps a strict and close control over his followers via enforcement of rules and regulation whereas democratic style shares the decision-making power with his followers.

Lastly, control is the process of monitoring a company's performance, especially the employees to make sure that they are doing their job in meeting the company's goal. This is a chart from our lecturer's slides for this lesson regarding the component of control:

Managers are people that were hired by the owners of companies to help and run the business efficiently. There are 3 management levels which are:

- First Line Managers

Example: Sales manager, Office manager, Supervisor.

- Middle Managers

Example: Operation manager, Human Resource manager, Regional Sales manager.

- Top Managers

Example: CEO, CFO, Presidents.

Managers works in different subgroups in the business such as:

- Human Resource

- Public Relations

- Marketing

- Information Technology

- Accounting and Finance

- Production

- Research and Development

Skills of a manager are very important and these skills below are very much needed to be an excellent manager:

Moreover, while setting the goals of a company, these needed to have a better and more accurate planning of a goal:

REFLECTION

One of the component in the management process appeals a lot to me. This component is very important as the person who carries this component is the key to the success of a company or group.

"Good leadership consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people." - John D. Rockefeller

The third component, which is 'lead' makes me think a lot about the people around me, especially those that I have been in a group with. Our goals are only possible when we have a leader with efficient leadership experience who can inspire and motivate the people to do a better job.