1. Microsoft’ Imagine Cup: ”Help Us Change the World!”

Microsoft ImagineCup 2009

Cited from Imagine Cup’s website: “Now in its seventh year, the Imagine Cup is a global student technology competition focused on finding solutions to real-world issues”

Imagine Cup encourages IT students and even photography and filmmaking students to:

• Contribute their talents to tackling some of the problems the world is facing today
• Learn new technology skills and test themself against other talented students around the world
• Make friends around the world

2. Google’s Project 10 to the 100: “May Those Who Help The Most Win”

According to Project 10¹⁰⁰ website, this is “a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible”.

Well, more info on these two competitions can be found in their websites. What I want to discuss here is about the way Google and Microsoft run these competitions.

In my opinion, these are PR campaigns, definitely. 

In case you’re not familiar with what PR is, here’s my short definition: PR (Public Relations) is the practice of building a brand image via social activities that serve the public.

PR and advertising have the same purpose: building brands. However, PR and advertising work in totally different ways. Advertising works just like a broadcast radio that continuously send company’s messages to people hoping some of them will like the messages. On the other hand, PR focuses on interaction between the company and the public. By doing something useful for the public, PR builds a better image of the company.

Let’s get back to the 2 rivals’ campaigns.

Putting aside the flashy slogan, does Micro$oft really want to help the world solving our toughest issues such as poverty and spreading diseases? Then why do they ask candidates “to create real world software and services applications that use Microsoft tools and technology” ? (http://imaginecup.com/Competition/Overview.aspx ).

Stop being so evil!

On the other hand, Google is way better than that. With no stupid “Google technology requirements” or anything like that, Google is really building its image of a “good guy”. Spending 10 million dollars funding 5 winning ideas and doesn’t require anything in return, sounds like Google doesn’t get anything. But that’s the way PR works! Google gets a lot more positive feedbacks and reviews (including this one). What a wise move.

These 2 cases are good PR examples that we should learn. They prove the Google’s philosophy of “You can make money without doing evil” to be an excellent PR concept.

Well done, Google!

HSBC's International Management

A special point in this program is that HSBC’s IM is available for new graduates. You don’t need 10 years experience to apply, and candidates from any field / background are welcome.

The toughest issue: The candidate must be influent in at least 1 language other than English.

I’ve been dreaming for a career like this for all my life

Gonna apply for this someday. Well, it’s gonna be extremely tough, so wish me luck

What special about this subject must be the Business Strategy Game, an online business strategy online game accompanying with Thompson, Strictland & Gamble’s “Crafting & Executing Strategy” book. This is a turn-based game in which 1 turn represents 1 year. Each team of players must make decisions for each year and the result each year will be calculated based on how competitive each decision is (price, quality, advertising budget,…)

I still don’t understand every aspect of this complicated game, so I’m playing 2 other games to learn more about the complicated business world. These 2 games are Monopoly Tycoon and Capitalism II.

Of those two, I highly recommend the Monopoly Tycoon for beginners since it’s easy and quite fun to play.

Capitalism II is much more complicated with full of business stuffs.

Hope that someone out there is playing these games, online playing against human must be much more exciting