Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Just ten more days to the biggest shopping day within the year - Black Friday. Are you all ready for it? When I first came here, I heard my friends say something about it but actually, I had no idea what Black Friday was. On Black Friday last year, I had breakfast at 1 o'clock in the morning and got in line in front of Kolh's since 3 a.m. to get in the store. It was a very long line of people even though it was frozen outside. I was also impressed with many people stayed in tents in front of Best Buy from the night before Black Friday. I also went to Toys "R" Us and Old Navy at Greenwood Mall. Everywhere was full of people grabbing stuff and waiting in very long line to check out. In general, I understand that Black Friday is the Friday right after Thanksgiving Day and it is the biggest shopping day during the year with everything on big sale.
I always wondered why people called this Friday "Black" until I read about this term on Wikipedia. The term Black Friday means different things in different contexts. Back to the nineteenth century, it was associated with the financial crisis in 1869. In 1966, the Philadelphia Police Department has given the name "Black Friday" to the Friday following Thanksgiving Day to describe Christmas shopping season in center city where massive traffic jams and over-crowded sidewalks took place as the downtown stores opened. More recently, merchants and the media have used "Black Friday" refer to the beginning of the period in which retailers go from being in the red (loss) to being in the black (turning a profit).
Cyber Monday is a marketing term for the Monday immediately following Black Friday in the United States. The term was used since 2005. Just as Black Friday, Cyber Monday is the biggest online shopping day of the year. In general, the spending incurs on Black Friday and Cyber Monday has considerably jumped.
This year, instead of waiting in the cold to get in stores, I would prefer staying at home and shopping online. So excited about it!

You can read more about these days here:
Black Friday
Cyber Monday

Japanese Business Culture

In Dr. Hatfield's class today, we talked about culture, how important it was and how to use it to change the organization. This reminded me about the Japanese Speech Contest which I joined in about 2 years ago. My speech in the contest was mainly about Japanese Business Culture which was very unique. Even though Japan and Vietnam are all located in Asia, there are many differences in business culture between these countries.
I think most of us have, at least once, heard about Japan Miracle which was famous all over the world. It was the story about extremely damaged Japan after World War II strive to recover the economy in a short period of time and keep developing with an amazing speed. I believed that the business culture was one of the most important factors that contributed to the success of Japan.
I would like to introduce some special features that make Japanese business culture become unique. The first one is that Japanese people usually using "slogan" in their work and even in their private lives. Slogans are somehow a tool to encourage and remind themselves about the optimum goals that they seriously need to obtain. Another feature that really impresses me is "meishi" (名刺) and meishi kokan - the business card culture. Receiving the cards from the business partners by two hands and put them in a respectful place such as business card holders are the ways to express how much that person respects the partner as well as the business itself. Putting the cards in wallets or pockets is considered disrespectful. Japanese people respect the other ones who are older. The older the partners are, the lower the other has to bow to greet them. Besides, relationship is considered very important in conducting business success. Japanese people normally really serious in working and often prefer to work for one company for the whole of their lives.

Use Body Language to Build Rapport

In the world of business, many factors would affect the success of one business. One of the most important elements that an enterprise cannot lack is relationship and building many relations. They would bring many substantial benefits to the business. The word "rapport" in the article Using Body Language to Build Rapport has the same meaning as relationship. The relations could be the one between the business and its customers, suppliers, local government, managing staff and many others. If using the power of words, body language, and message successfully, a person could create a foundation for honesty, integrity, and fair so that the person who deal with him would be impressed and business relationship could start smoothly. Keld Jensen, Chairman of Center of Negotiation at Copenhagen Business School has mentioned about the three most important body language tips to help build relationship. Those are natural eye contact, hand gestures and utilizing distance. Using body language consistently with saying could create more trust in the business partner.
More information about these tips are provided in the original article which can be read more at the link below:

http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/tips/archives/2010/11/use_body_language_to_build_rapport.html