Thursday, February 24, 2011

Business Opportunities Abroad

Hello all!

This evening we had Jesse Brown from Koch Industries come and talk to us about international opportunities with various companies at Koch. He was a finance major here at K-State and went on 2 trips with Swinder. He has already had the opportunity to go abroad while working at Koch Industries. They do business in hundreds of countries across the world and seem to have great opportunities abroad! Here's some more information about Koch: http://www.kochind.com/

We also talked about some of the articles we read for this week and discussed developing countries. It's important for businesses to not view the poor as charity but instead look at them as a business partner. There are many business opportunities and businesses can really take off if they adapt themselves to the needs of the poor. The poorest of the poor can be innovators and leaders in the business world. By giving them access to credit and other markets, they could turn their country around.

We also discussed small businesses trying to go abroad. One of the biggest things to do is find a niche that large businesses won't enter into. Otherwise large businesses will move in and steal away your business. Companies really need to look at the needs in other countries and what they're asking for. One example we talked about was cell phones in India. Nokia decided to move into India and provide them with low cost cell phones. Everywhere you go you could see that type of phone so it was a really smart move by Nokia.

The trip is only 3 weeks away and I am so excited! I am going to go home to get my financed figured out for the trip and get luggage for our trip. The adventure is about to begin!

Til next time,

Jackie

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Telefund

Today I had the opportunity to help with K-State telefund! It was great talking with all of the alumn and hearing about their stories--and of course I loved their donations back to the College of Business Administration. I actually had the opportunity to call an alumn who had given money for a study abroad scholarship that I received for this trip! What a small world.

Feel like participating in telefund? Go to www.ksu.edu to find out more information!

Til next time,

Jackie

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Night Out

Hi all,

So tonight our marketing group decided to meet at Pat's Blue Ribbon to just sit around, chat about our trip, and meet past students who have gone on the trip. I had such a blast getting to hear about everyone's adventures! From going to the Tower of London in England to getting lost on trains in Munich, this trip is just starting to get better and better. It's starting to make me want to study abroad again.

Swinder just put up information about a winter break trip to South America and I am already dying to go on it! The plan is hopefully to go to Chile, Brazil and Argentina. I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to have the opportunity to go on another teacher led study abroad trip. Hopefully I am able to!

Here's some pictures from our great night out at Pat's!


Good ol' Pat's!


Meet and Greet!


Swinder with his students!


Til next time,

Jackie Spahn

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Study Abroad Fair

Hi everyone!

I just wanted you to know that you should check out the study abroad fairs that are going on around campus! Today was a great success but if you want more information about all of the study abroad programs, go to http://www.k-state.edu/studyabroad/ for more information!

I remember the hardest part about studying abroad was just getting started. The Office of International Programs is VERY helpful and will help you get everything planned out.

Til next time,

Jackie

Friday, February 11, 2011

Munich*

Dumb moment. I just realized I've been accidentally typing Munnich instead of Munich. Pardon me!

Pop Bottle

So today I was in Calvin Hall, getting my daily Diet Dr. Pepper, and I was about to throw it away when I started to think about what we talked about in class yesterday.

Apparently in European countries, you can get fined if you throw something away that can be recycled. Wind energy is really popular in Europe, and they have many recycling centers where you divide up your goods into a ton of categories before throwing away your actual trash. It's weird to see how different countries are. Germany doesn't want to have landfills in their back yards, and from what I hear, it is an incredibly clean place. I wonder what would happen if something like that was going on in the U.S. I feel like most people recycle from time to time, but few people really go crazy about it. It'd be neat to see a system like that here!

Recycle please =) http://www.makingthishome.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/glass-recycling.jpg


This was a neat picture I found online of some of the recycling units that they use in Germany.

Til next time,

Jackie

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Potential Adventures in Europe

Now this is my favorite part....our schedule!

When Swinder was discussing this during class I was literally shaking in my seat from excitement.

The adventure begins on Friday March 18, 2011. We are going to be leaving from Kansas City and will arrive in London around 10:15 am on Saturday. We will have a few hours to ourselves and then probably eat something together as a group. We have Sunday free to ourselves to tour London. We'll probably visit all of the main sites (maybe I'll see William and Kate!). We will have Monday morning free to ourselves until noon but then we are going to be visiting a brewery in the afternoon. Later that day we'll get some good ol' fashioned fish and chips (British style!)

On Tuesday, we are going to Birmingham. We'll have Wednesday morning free but leave for Munnich during the afternoon. Thursday we're going to visit the BMW Factory. Friday we will have the afternoon to ourselves and may attend the opera later on in the evening.

Saturday--free to ourselves! Swinder and Allison (one of my classmates) suggested some great sites to go see while in Germany. There are many castles which are beautiful (I'll post pictures later), a concentration camp which is life altering, or we can go visit the Olympic stadium. We are free Sunday as well and we may go see the Alps. Who knows where we'll end up!

Sadly Monday we have to come back to the good ol' USA. Home sweet home. It's going to be quite an adventure and I cannot wait!!

We've also been going through a checklist of items that we need for the trip. It costs around $1.60 to get 1 euro. Since the weather can be rainy in London, we all need to bring a rain coat or umbrella or something we can carry around with us. I also found out that sometimes other countries can be quite loud so I'll be bringing my ear plugs with me at night so I can get some sleep!

The main thing I need to worry about is getting a converter for my hairdryer, camera, phone, etc. It's really easy to figure out if items will be able to work in another country and Swinder is a pro! I'm also going to have to condense my packing so I don't break the scale at the airport and get a huge additional charge. I also found out that medicine needs to be in the original bottle so that TSA won't throw a fit.

It's also very important to be aware of your surroundings. There are many people who can find your wallet better than you can. I'm planning on bringing a bag with me that goes across my body so that no one can snatch it and also one that has a zipper on the top so I'd notice if someone was trying to get in somewhere they shouldn't be.

My brother went to Europe this past summer and he used a prepaid travel card so that he didn't have to worry about money, so I will probably try to get that set up with the same provider that he had. I'll also probably have some cash on me in case something goes wrong with the card.

TIP: Call your bank and credit card company before going abroad so they know where these charges are coming from! Many times banks will start to see these charges and may deny them because they don't know you're out of town. Also, figure out your withdrawal limit because each time you take out your money while abroad, you usually get charged so you want to minimize the number of times you take money out!

Well now you're caught up on my life. Hope my adventures don't put you to sleep!

Til next time,

Jackie

Re-Re-Rewind!

Okay so I am going to go back in time to talk about some of the things that our class has been discussing.

Our group meets every Thursday at 5:30 and discusses different articles about world issues. Our first topic that we discussed was globalization and whether or not it is a good or bad thing. On one hand, you can't really survive in the world without working with other countries now a days but at the same time you need to be able to help your own nation. It was interesting to hear everyone's opinions.

Personally, I think that if you don't accept globalization then you'll become its victim. I think it's a necessary evil. I would hope that countries wouldn't just resort to it because of their own nationalistic interests but I'm afraid it's true.

We've also been talking a lot about how China and India are emerging. They're going to be responsible for pulling the economy out of this mess--hope they're up for the challenge!

Today during class we talked about incorporating your business into a different culture or environment. There was the story of Tata, an Indian man who did his homework on the Korean culture and has had a successful business there. He understood their collectivist culture and didn't try to force his culture in that area. I honestly think this is a really smart move because I think a business is doomed to fail if you don't do your homework on the culture where you're trying to do business.

It's important to think about these different cultures because the United States needs to expand its horizons (everyone else is...). In the past US was buying foreign companies but now the tables have turned. Swinder told us today that the NYSE was just sold to a foreign country. We need to be aware of what's going on in the world!

Well that's enough class discussion.

Til next time,

Jackie

Introduction

Hi everyone,

This is my first time ever blogging so I apologize if I'm not doing it properly!

I created this blog to document my journey throughout Swinder Janda's MKTG 547 class. Each week after class I will be updating my blog with information about our trip abroad and what I learned in class that week.

This Spring Break (2011) I am traveling abroad with my class to London, Birmingham, and Munnich. I have never been abroad (except to Cancun, Mexico....but let's face it that's pretty much Americanized) so I am really excited to learn about the different cultures and experience life outside of America. I am also really excited to have the experienced Dr. Swinder Janda as my leader and my awesome classmates.

Til next time!

Jackie