Week 2

First, I wanted to apologize for the delayed response. I expected there to be a prompt, but I know “no excuses”. I realize that this will not be the case and in fact I am beginning to appreciate the ability to be creative with the whole concept. Also in response to professor’s post about his responses, the interesting part for entrepreneurship is learning the managing process and its dynamics.

                As I attempted to reflect on the past weeks classes I realized that besides my memory being not quite where I wished it was, is that my lack of reading really will provide me no benefit. In honesty, I wasn’t sure what was supposed to be read and to make an informative thoughtful blog post I needed to prepare much better. Oh well, it’s a growing process.

                Just off of memory, the thing that stuck out to me was what we discussed about horizontal and vertical integration. I think that if I were to make an educated guess the answer to what people are looking for is horizontal organization. After all we want to be known, our ideas to make a difference. Yet with all of this, we settle for the farm system approach. College and our grades determine what firm will be placed in and how high up we are placed. To tell you the truth, I am not sure which one is better for the success of a business or organization or where do we draw the line.  That might be a question that we discuss that I am sure I would find interesting. Personally just sitting here I know there will be a true answer as seems to be the case for many economic, political and abstract policies. It is always about context.

                The part I feel is what I am most interested out of the four frames that we discussed would be the human resource area. I believe that life is really about people and while structure, politics and symbolism have a place. The point of organization is motivating and getting people to do something they are legitimately passionate about and that that idea will drive them even when they might not appreciate the short term task. So my belief that the focus of any organization I run is building a passion and a belief in people. It is probably a bit romantic of a view but why should I strive for anything less? As we discussed in class, professor is an intellectual and so he pursues places and ways to develop what he cares about.  So I guess my idea here is that human resources should be prioritized as the number 1 starting framework.  I also feel like symbolism contributes pretty heavily. What are you conveying? Is it a friendly atmosphere where creativity and innovation are embraced. I probably lay on the opposite spectrum of a good mathematical, theoretical driven economist. I understand the importance of the politics and structure because without some sort of regulation people’s natural tendencies may not be towards the maximum productivity.

I do not feel as though I have much to add to the idea of transaction costs and our Hudson Bay activity.

Initial thoughts

Actually my story is quite similar to Paul’s, from class, in that I have always been fascinated with entrepreneurship. This originated at an early age (say about 9 or 10) messing with producing different kinds of goods in gardens and gathering bait to sell for fishing ( a business which never quite got off the ground).  I even attempted to write contracts for my brother and sister. Though I left that realm for quite some time, Professor Paul Magelli instilled that same fire what feel like infinitely more when I took his class junior year. Since then though I am leaning towards a non for profit because it seems to fit my direction much better, I am considering what running my own organization might entail. Therefore the economics of organizations seem to make complete sense.

As for my own personal experience I have not been able to dabble in the private industry but have been fortunate enough to work for the University in both the parking department and the athletic department. Each department has its own quirks. To be quite blunt they don’t seem to like each other. They operate much differently, athletics being more lax, wasteful, yet quite creative, while parking is a bit more uptight and stingy. Not to say that one is better but the people in these organizations look and carry themselves differently. I have also worked for a forest preserve garage which also has slightly different dynamics than the two previously mentioned jobs. Unfortunately I have very little experience with clubs and registered student organizations at the collegiate level.

My original expectations for the course would simply be that I come out with a few tips and pointers on how to make people work together within an organization. Maximizing decisions and putting together a slightly dynamic model on how an organization is built, specifically more along the lines of the human resource department. Now I am beginning to think that we may include a bit more involving partners and how outside groups like independent contractors effect the way organizations are run. From the first two classes, I have yet to be able to determine what we are really going to talk about. The first stuff was quite basic, there are independent contractors like test administers which have advantages like being standardized and one can hire employees like Illinois which help promote a brand yet are differentiated.

The other stuff has been a bit more confusing as to the direction we are taking as a class. I have a hard time seeing how diploma bills, teacher ratings within departments, and students grade point average is going to play a part with organizations. The music piece while quite fascinating, will be remembered simply as a piece on the evolution of music. Maybe we will dive further into that in our next class discussion. I am not worried as to where the class is headed/ At least I have been intrigued initially and that is really all one can ask for during syllabus week. One thing I am really quite excited about is our class size, which is the smallest I have been a part of during my time at University of Illinois.

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