Apple is losing what makes Apple, well Apple...

I have never been a Mac person.  I have always found them difficult to use the few times I have sat in front of them.  It just wasn't what I was use to.  I liked all of the buttons and tool bars that were on all of Microsoft products.  From spreadsheets to word processing they all sort of behaved alike which in turn is what we all expected.  There may have been better processors out there but I like many of us never bothered to look.  I had what I was use to and I liked and that was it.

My experience with cellphones has been different.  I got my first phone back in 1999.  It had a big battery and couldn't do much other than be expensive.  I "upgraded" to a smaller phone, to a flip-phone, camera phone, etc.  Problem was the phones never lasted long.  They were all different.  It would be weeks before I knew all the features.  That changed for me in 2009 when I bought an Apple iPhone 3G.  It took a little while to get a feel for touchscreen but after that I saw what all the rage was.  IT JUST WORKED.  It was easy to use.  You could transition from one task to another just like those Microsoft PC products I mentioned earlier.  Here was Apple's competitive advantage and it only got better.  I bought my iPhone 4 a year later which was even better!

Sadly the man who bought us all of this passed away in 2011.  Since then Apple has had some missteps.   Apple rolled out the iPhone 5 and a new OS earlier this month that has underwhelmed.  I has some new features that I am curious to try, but other programs that many of us use everyday don't give me the same feeling I had three years ago.  They don't JUST WORK anymore.  Did Apple's competitive advantage die with Steve Jobs?

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/29/opinion/patel-apple-maps/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

Dynamic Strategy - Current event - How can small companies benefit from LinkedIn

For many people LinkedIn is just another social network. For businesspeople it is the only social network. Although it had only 4,500 users when it started on 2003, today LinkedIn has grown to more than 175 million members in over 200 countries and territories. LinkedIn has become an absolute necessity for every professional. Professionals from all over the world are using it to find new job opportunities, connect with friends and coworkers, follow companies, and discuss with other members.  

That does not mean that LinkedIn is good only for professionals. Companies, especially small ones, have great benefits from using this social network. They can connect with their customers, build their brand image, share some news about their products or services, grow their network, and find new highly-skilled employees (Brett 2012).  

But, in order to be successful on LinkedIn, companies have to do more than just create a LinkedIn page and connect with their customers. They have to make sure that they are ’always on’ which means that they have to find ways to make their customers/audience to participate more often in the company’s group page. The series of steps that companies have to follow in order to achieve more engagement from their customers are:

• Build a presence and populate it with information 
• Attract followers 
• Engage followers 
• Amplify via the network 
• Analyze and review

(Brett 2012) 

By following all the above steps, small businesses can have more “followers” (customers). This will give them the opportunity to advertise and promote their products and services to more customers, quicker, and with very low cost. Also, since LinkedIn can be accessed by cell phones, companies can reach more customers to promote their product.

Thus, it becomes clear that managers should focus on building and maintaining a LinkedIn profile for their companies and try to use it as much as they can, because this social network can provide too many benefits to their company.

Sources

·         LinkedIn.com (2012), “About us”, [available at http://press.linkedin.com/about]

·         Brett, Lorna (2012), “Why you should be ‘always on’ on LinkedIn”, [available at http://www.dynamicbusiness.com.au/small-business-resources/hot-tips/why-you-should-be-always-on-on-linkedin-210912.html]

·         Brett, Lorna (2012), “Seven easy ways to leverage LinkedIn”, http://www.dynamicbusiness.com.au/small-business-resources/hot-tips/seven-easy-ways-to-leverage-linkedin-16012012.html

·         Dr. Woody (2011), “Why You Should Have a LinkedIn Profile”, [available at http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2011/10/31/why-should-have-linkedin-profile ]

Introductory Post

Hello everyone,

 This is my last semester of my MBA degree. Before the MBA, I was working in the banking industry. I have also worked as a T.A in mathematics courses and as a high school teacher for a couple of years.  

 By participating in this blog and reading the thoughts of my classmates I expect to acquire more management knowledge which I believe would be essential for a future job either in the management field or in the MIS field.

Jay Salvatierra's Introductory post

I am in what is hopefully my final semester in the MBA program.

I work in operations for a major petroleum pipeline company that transports refined products from the Gulf Coast to the Southeast and East Coast.

This is my first experience with blogging so this has already been a learning experience in that respect, but I would like to get an idea of how my ideas fit.