【Native Speaker每日综合训练—41系列】【41-18】经管

AceJ

内容: AceJ 编辑: AceJ

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哈喽，周三的经管作业又与大家见面啦，由于最近工作变得异常繁忙，AceJ君暂时无法抽出时间来准备每周的精华帖，所以周三暂定经管贴，那个也没啥啦，反正都做要做6次作业了，也不在乎多这一次的嘛，对吧，加油同学们

Part I: Speaker

Marketing to Avatars

Source: HBR Blog Network
http://blogs.hbr.org/2006/05/harvard-business-ideacast-3-pa/  

[Rephrase 1, 21:59]

AceJ

Part II: Speed

Faith, trust and teamwork
BY Wayne Turmel| 16 Sep, 2014

[Time 2]
Many people will be familiar with the feeling that their manager doesn't really believe they're working if they're not in the office. The reason isn't based on anything provable (after all, the majority of managers think that when it comes to them, they are much more productive when not chained to the office). It's not that they don't have faith in you, they just don't trust you. There's a difference.

The best definition of faith comes , appropriately I suppose, from the Bible. Hebrews 11:1 to be specific: "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen". You hope for the best, and then the evidence (hopefully) supports that faith. Trust is different.

Sadly, there's no equally eloquent description of trust. Many models describe trust as built over time, based on the observable in three areas: shared goals, proof of motives and proof of competence.

Basically, faith starts with belief and is supported by what comes later. Trust is built over time based on the evidence.

Faith is important, because it starts with positive intent. We would love our bosses to have faith in us just because, well, we're us. It just doesn't always work that way. Why won't she trust us?

In a perfect world, our bosses would have faith in us, and that faith is supported over time. It looks and smells just like trust. If we aren't trusted though, it can be depressing and we often think very unkindly of those who mistrust us, even when there's no evidence to support that lack of trust. It's easy to be insulted and take offense.
[271 words]

[Time 3]
What we don't know is how our boss reached that suspicious stage. Maybe she's always been the suspicious micro-managing type. Maybe she's been disappointed in the results of remote workers and team members in the past. Whatever the reason, it's more important to build her trust in you than to hope for her faith in your brilliance.

Remember, trust is evidence based. We need to consciously demonstrate our capabilities:

Shared goals are critical. Explicitly state how what you're doing ties to the overall team goals. Don't assume that people can make the connections. If you're not sure how what you're asked to do fits those goals, ask. Just the discussion alone will demonstrate your commitment and check that box off in your boss' mind.

Proof of competence is very objective. You meet your deadlines or you don't. The quality of your work is at or above expected levels or it's not. At best, it reaffirms her faith in you. At worst, it slowly builds "trust equity". You can help by making sure that you and your boss have clear metrics on deliverables. State them and meet them. Over time trust evolves.

Proof of motives is much more subjective and is the least-discussed component of building trust. It's largely internal - why do you do (or don't do) what you do? Did you miss that deadline because you just ran out of time, or did you fritter your time away on some other project you cared more about?

As a manger, find out what is going on with your team members. As a team member, confirm your commitment to the team and give honest answers about barriers to your success. Otherwise, she is going to draw her own conclusions and they may not be to your benefit.

Faith is a wonderful thing. Today's project and functional teams, though, are better off running on trust. It's subjective, it's built on measurable results and can be restored through hard work on both parts. Over time, it might even turn back into faith.
[339 words]

Source: Management Issues
http://www.management-issues.com/connected/6451/faith-trust-and-teamwork/  

With $28 Million in New Funding, Porch Is the 1-Year-Old Startup Looking to Remodel the Home Improvement Market
BY Geoff Weiss | Sep 15, 2014

[Time 4]
Porch, an online network that links homeowners with reputable service professionals in surrounding neighborhoods, has just unwrapped a $27.6 million birthday present.

After going live exactly one year ago today, the Seattle-headquartered site said its Series A round, which closed earlier this year, brings total funding to $33 million. The round is bigger than Series A investments in startup luminaries such as Pinterest ($10 million), Uber ($11 million), Facebook ($12.7 million) and Snapchat ($12.5 million).

At the same time, the company announced exponential employee growth from 25 to more than 200 in just one year’s time.

Another high point has been an ongoing partnership with home improvement retailer Lowe’s, which also led Porch’s latest funding round, said CEO Matt Ehrlichman. Within each of Lowe’s 1,717 stores across the country, Porch bolsters sales by enabling associates to suggest contractors who can eventually install items that are purchased in-store. That deal was inked in May.

But now, Porch is ready for its next chapter, says Ehrlichman, who founded the company as he struggled to find contractors during his family’s own home construction process.
[181 words]

[Time 5]
Beyond merely acting as a go-between for service jobs of every stripe -- from cleaning to landscaping to roof replacement to plumbing -- Porch’s other primary asset is an enormous database of renovation information called the Porch Home & Neighborhood Report, which includes details on 120 million projects that have been completed by a total of 1.5 million professionals across the country. (Depending on one’s definition of a ‘home,’ Ehrlichman says, there are anywhere between 90 to 120 million total homes in the United States.)

All of this information -- compiled by Porch for the very first time, says Ehrlichman -- is free to homeowners, allowing them to view cost information and photos of past projects, as well as other vital neighborhood stats in the case that they’re eyeing a purchase or sale.

“With almost every other industry in the world at this point, as a buyer, you can go and do research online, become informed and get the answers that you need,” Ehrlichman says. “The home is really the one space out there where that’s just not true.”

To this end, Porch is launching several new services today to deepen its trove of project data and empower homeowners across the country. For the first time, consumers can now add their own projects to the existing database -- whereas previously this information had only been managed by Porch.
[229 words]

[Time 6]
The company is also rolling out more finely-honed search features, so that users can browse by project cost as well as among a broader array of homes nationwide.

Porch is also ramping up the reputability of its contractor network. Effective immediately, the site will indicate which professionals have been licensed to practice in their respective states, so that consumers can immediately weigh factors like training and accreditation, Ehrlichman says.

By this same token -- given its extensive data on what projects have been completed and when -- Porch will also begin to verify reviews in order to prevent “gaming,” the company said.

While Ehrlichman declined to comment on Porch’s revenues, he said that the company makes money by charging contractors for premium status. Starting at a monthly rate of $50, this buys exposure across the site as well as click data -- though search results, Ehrlichman ensures, will remain pure. Only four premium status slots are available for each service category per zip code, he added, in order to maximize the value Porch can provide to each premium contractor.

But at the end of the day, Ehrlichman says, beyond project facilitation, the company’s ultimate goal is to help consumers forge more meaningful connections with their homes.

“I have such fond memories of my childhood home,” he says. “And when you’re not dealing with all the pain and the maintenance and the headaches, it’s an amazing emotional connection. We’re trying to make home improvement and home ownership and that whole home story delightful.”
[253 words]

Source: Entrepreneur
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/237475

AceJ

Part III: Obstacle

The China wave

Chinese management ideas are beginning to get the attention they deserve
Print edition | Sep 13th, 2014

[Paraphrase 7]
MANAGEMENT thinkers have paid surprisingly little attention to how Chinese firms are run. They routinely ascribe those firms’ rapid growth in recent years to their copious supply of cheap labour, or to generous financial backing from the state, rather than inventiveness. They have much more time for India, particularly its knack for frugal innovation, with all those colourful stories of banks putting cash machines on bikes and taking them into the countryside, and companies building water purifiers out of coconut husks.

However, it seems unlikely that China’s companies have come as far as they have just by applying lots of labour and capital. It is also hard to imagine that the huge expansion of China’s education system and its technology industries is not producing fresh management thinking. Western companies knew little about Japan’s system of lean production until its carmakers gobbled up their markets. The danger is that the same will happen with Chinese management ideas.

There are, however, signs that these are now getting the attention they deserve. The MIT Sloan Management Review devotes much of its current issue to examining innovation and management lessons from China. Peter Williamson and Eden Yin of Cambridge University’s Judge Business School contribute a fascinating essay on “Accelerated Innovation: the New Challenge from China”. The latest issue of the Harvard Business Review has a piece on “A Chinese Approach to Management” by Thomas Hout of the Monterey Institute of International Studies and David Michael of the Boston Consulting Group.

The first article suggests that the Chinese, like the post-war Japanese, have been doing a great deal of innovation under the radar. The second demonstrates that they are becoming more creative as they seek to solve the problems of a rapidly advancing consumer economy.

Messrs Williamson and Yin focus on the way that many Chinese companies are using mass-production techniques to speed up not just the manufacture but also the development of products. They break up the innovation process into a large number of small steps and then assign (often sizeable) teams to work on each step. For example, WuXiAppTec, a drug company, divided the search for a new treatment for chronic hepatitis C into eight steps, assigning dozens of people to each. The firm also adapted German software that was designed for managing assembly lines to co-ordinate the innovation process. Whereas a Western software firm typically releases an early “beta” version of a product only to a select group of guinea-pigs, Chinese firms are more likely to launch theirs straight into the market: they use consumers as co-creators, seeking their feedback and then rapidly adjusting their products.

This sort of accelerated innovation may not generate stunning breakthroughs. But that is not what it is for. China’s success has depended on its ability to be a “fast follower”, copying foreign ideas and turning them into mass-market products. Messrs Williamson and Yin argue that the Chinese can now apply accelerated innovation in lots of areas; and that the technique helps them make better use of one of the country’s most important resources—a pool of competent but unexceptional technicians.

Messrs Hout and Michael are also struck by Chinese companies’ emphasis on speed, and their willingness to throw things at the market. Goodbaby, which makes prams and car seats, introduces about 100 new products each quarter. Broad Group, a construction firm, puts up buildings rapidly by breaking them up into modules, fabricating those modules in factories, pre-loaded with utilities, and then plugging them together: an idea long talked about in the rich world but not much implemented.

However, their paper’s focus is broader—on how Chinese entrepreneurs are coping with the speed at which technology-related industries are changing. They note that even big companies delegate lots of authority to preserve flexibility: Haier, a home-appliances giant, consists of thousands of mini-companies, each of which reports directly to the chairman. That is an interesting contrast with Japanese firms’ obsession with seniority and consensus-building.

Messrs Hout and Michael also highlight the creativity of some Chinese companies when faced with the need to build entire ecosystems out of thin air, from supply chains to labour pools. Hai Di Lao, a hotpot restaurant chain, deals with one of its biggest problems—recruiting and retaining young people to train as branch managers—by offering them housing, schooling for their children and trips abroad. This sort of imaginative thinking on how to attract good workers will increasingly be needed now that China has used up most of its surplus rural labour.

Quick as well as cheap

In two technology-based industries that China is especially keen to develop—making cars and civil aircraft—there is little sign as yet that domestic firms are closing the gap with the best foreign ones. However, in a range of other industries they are succeeding in doing so. Therefore, Western companies must react to, and learn from, Chinese firms’ ability to accelerate product development. There are signs that this is starting to happen. The innovation centre that PepsiCo established in Shanghai in 2012—its largest outside North America—was given a mandate to speed consumer testing and get products to market faster, rather than to cut costs.

In all, what these studies show is that there is more to the rise of Chinese companies than simply an ability to do things on the cheap. They are developing management techniques that help them create things faster, and they are proving adept at reacting quickly in rapidly changing markets. These are skills that will help them cater to the middle classes, not just serve the poor; and to conquer new markets far beyond their home turf.
[936 words]

Source: The Economists
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21616974-chinese-management-ideas-are-beginning-get-attention-they-deserve-china-wave

小蘑菇开始打怪

THX Ace... one more homework this week...
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speaker:

personal capital-invest better

making marketing to broadcast

time7:

mass-production->manufacture other than development of  products

success=fast follower

innovation other than make cheap thing

crazyflower

1‘55
3’11
1‘33
1’41

obstacle 7‘40

slave918

T2 2:14
the author explains that in fact the managers just don't trust you.
The difference between the faith and trust.
It is difficult for people to distinguish the faith and trust.
The employees who are not trusted are depressing.
T3 2:23
How to built the trust?
1.make sure your job is related to the big goal.
2.show your competence by finish works in time.
3.proof of motives are difficult to measure.
Companies are better running by trust which is subjective and objective.
T4
Porch get vast amounts of funding.
In the first round, it's funding beyond the funding of many companies.
The contract inked with ? also get lots of funding.
However, one of the funder said that Porch is going to the next step.
T5 1:18
The porch launched a database which can inform the consumers a lot of information.
Porch is now hiring expert.
Consumers can add their thoughts into this database now.
T6 2:10
Border homes and information of expert are added into this net.
However, the revenues are not declassified deriving from the data click and contraction.
The manager hope to improve the condition of many home owner.
Obstacle: 6:32
Chinese companies are thought to rely heavily on labor and capital by state. However, these factors cannot contribute the fast development.
This phenomenon get attention from some people.
The articles describe the fast speed of creating new products in Chinese companies.
China now are not just follow others but innovate something.
They also notice that some big companies becomes more flexible like Haier and build the ecosystem that employees need.
Foreign companies should study the method Chinese companies using.

cyndichiang

Time2 1'35''
Time3 1'33''
faith is different from trust. faith is more subjective while trust is objective and based on visible evidence .
How to win boss's trust: sharing your goal/prood of competentce and motive/to be honest

Time4 1'43''
Time5 1'19''
Time6 1'38''
Porch,a website linking homeowners with professionals funded $28 billion at its one-year old birthday
Porch will lanuch more services.

Obstacle: 5'56''
Westerns recently pay much attention to management ideas of Chinese companies
MIT professors wrote articles about researches on Chinese companies.
Chinese companies are more likely to lanuch strategy into market.
They can quickly follow changing technologies and quickly adapt their products to the need of customers and of ecosystem,at the same time, the cost is low.

TINGYI-2014

早！谢谢~~
1‘51
1’42
1‘52
1’52
1‘59
8’09

psychoarya

time2+time3 4:10
lack of trust the reason why managers think those people who are not at office are not working.
the difference between faith and trust.
several things to built trust between you and your boss.
shared goals, say what you do for the team’s profit.
show you are competent.
give her proof of you motives.

time4+time5+tine6 4:43
Porch is investing a huge amount of money in remodeling the home improvement market.
since it’s funding, it start a series of services different from any of its competitor.
some introductions to its services.

obstacle 6:40
China is developing fast. Western world senses the rapid development of China. two articles about Chinese innovation published.
one example of how Chinese companies speed their production.
how the companies can react so fast to the changing market.
Chinese companies are actually developing management techniques that help them create things faster, and Western companies should learn something from it.

cherry6891

41-18 not only practice reading but also learn the concisely and clear expression
Time2 what is faith and trust ?
Faith : hope the best and then evidence supports that faith
Trust:build on the evidences over time
Time3
Give the reason why manage don't believe remote worker and tell us how to build trust in detail.
Share ur goal ,proof of ur competent, proof of ur motivation
Then trust will become faith
Time4
Brief introduce the company porch--a online network links the homeowners and reputation service
The company got a lot of money in series A round ,which is bigger than series A round of many luminaries companies
Exponential employee growth  
Partnership with home improvement retailer
Time5
Service jobs porch provides
Land new service to deepen the data and empower the customer to better data
Time6
Porch provides factors like training and accreditation and helps the customer forge the meaningful connection with their homes
Manager declined to comment on porch's revenue

Obstacle:
Chinese can achieve more than provide the cheap quality products.
The situation in china now likes that of japan after World War Two, maybe western countries would not know that until they lose the market share.
Then the article lists the quality of Chinese development-- quicker learner,pay attention to employee retain and training,improve the management level