Internships

Hey guys,

at the end of april a few of my classmates are going to Dublin for participating in a project called Erasmus. Basically it's about working abroad for an foreign company. I want to tell you some of my thoughts, the advantages and disadvantages and why I chose to work for an austrian company instead.

One of the big advantages of working for an foreign company is, that you can really improve your language skills and general business skills. Another advantage would be, that you can meet new people and experience their lifestyles and culture.
But I personally chose to work for an austrian company because I am a bit afraid of working completely alone in an unfamiliar environment aswall as I get homesick very easily. I think for lots of other people these points might be disadvantages too.

Working for an austrian company has also advantages for example you can also gain a lot of experience and maybe you can handle more tasks and for some it might be easier to communicate with other employees.

What do you think about internships in foreign countries? Tell me down in the comments!

Corporate Social Responsibility

Hey guys,

last lesson we were talking about corporate social responsibility short CSR. We have been listening to various people and their personal opinion on this topic. I would like to shortly summarize them for you and tell you my thoughts afterwards.

Basically it talks about how CSR can have many positive impacts on a company and how business owners must take care of their activities.
It is also mentioned that CSR can help reduce costs or improve profits. What surprised me was that costumers find CSR products more attractive than others.
The persons also mentioned that CSR is essential in getting new talented employees and for motivating the personnel.

In my opinion CSR is getting more important all over the world. That's why I think there is also a change in european countries for example in Austria. I believe that in the future many companies will discover the positive things of CSR.

At last I want to give you 3 of my ideas on CSR:

• Companies should collaborate with NGOs
• Providing education for developing countries
• Just donating money

Business Etiquette

Hey guys,

Recently we have been discussing about business etiquette lately.

There are some important rules you should keep an eye on concerning business meetings and other things in business life. I want to share with you my Top 3 most important points:

1) Say "Please" and "Thank you"
Always say these two words, even in a very casual professional atmosphere, this basic form of courtesy is still imperative.

2) Be punctual!
Being on time schows others that you value their time.

3) Watch your language!
Be careful and choose your words wisely. Rude or offensive language is unacceptable aswell as slang.

In my opinion these three points are the most important in business, so I wanted to give you a quick insight on these. I hope I could help you master your working day with those impressions.

Yours,
Kevin

NGO's for Human Rights

International Federation for Human Rights:

(FIDH : Fédération internationale des ligues des droits de l’Homme)

Is a non-governmental federation for human rights organisations. It was founded in 1922 and it is the second oldest international human rights organisation worldwide.

It brings together 184 members organisations in over 100 countries.

For FIHD, transforming societies relies on the work of local actors. Therefore, FIDH’s activities aim to reinforce their capacities and their influence.

Its core mission is to defend all human rights – civil, political, economic, social and cultural – as contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Its actions are founded on three strategic pillars: securing the freedom and capacity to act for human rights defenders, the universality of rights and their effectiveness.

Survival International:

Is a non-governmental human rights organisation formed in 1969 that campaigns for the rights of indigenous tribal peoples and uncontacted peoples. Survival International calls these peoples “some of the most vulnerable on earth”.

Survival International is in association with the Department of Public Information (DPI) at the United Nations.

Survival has supporters in 82 countries. It is a registered charity in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the USA.

It works on three complementary levels for these people: education, advocacy and campaigns.

It also offers tribal people a platform to address the world, while connecting with local indigenous organisations.

Survival’s vision is a world where tribal peoples are respected as contemporary societies and their human rights protected.

Amnesty International:

Amnesty International is a non-governmental organization from London, which focuses on human rights. The organization claims to have over 7 million members and supporters around the world.

The stated objective of the organization is to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end abuses of human rights, and to demand fairness for those whose rights have been violated.

Amnesty International was founded in London in 1961. This organization draws attention to human rights abuses and campaigns for compliance with international laws. The organization was awarded the 1977 Nobel Peace Prize for its "campaign against torture".

In the field of international human rights organizations, it has the third longest history, after the International Federation for Human Rights. It is also known by many people all over the world.

Fair Trade - Good or Bad?

Hi guys,

today, at school, we were talking about Fair Trade. We had to research some basic information about this topic. Afterwards we had a discussion in class where we should present the up- and downsides of Fair Trade.

I also found an interesting statistics which I wanted to show to you.
In this chart you can see the worldwide revenue of Fair Trade International products from 2004 to 2015.

H&M faces up to challenge of online competitors

Hi guys,

a few days ago, I was reading an article titled “H&M faces up to challenge of online competitors” in The Financial Times and it talks about the problems of H&M in online selling.

I thought you might be interested because almost everyone of you bought something at H&M or ordered clothes on the internet.

Basically, what the text is about is that the company H&M has to accept that more and more competitors such as Zalando, Zara or Asos are growing in their online presence while H&M gets stuck and has to face a lot of selling problems on the internet.

It is also said that H&M has to change some things in their general concept. What the author mentions here is that the company needs to offer for example free delivery and returns such as the competitors, but without a big hit to margin.

The author also mentions that analysts at Société Générale say that H&M’s operating profit margin has fallen enormously in the last ten years and will drop further in the next years. As mentioned could implementing free delivery and return help the company to rise their profit margin.

What personally surprised me the most was that the Leader of the company Mr. Persson thinks that the online business is as profitable as the physical stores.

In my opinion the online business is more profitable than stores you can go to. The reason for this is that more and more people simply just don’t want to go shopping any more or don’t have the time for this. For these people the online store is very important. I also think that H&M has to change some things to make their online store more attractive to costumers otherwise there won’t be many people any more who are going to buy things at H&M.

What do you think about this issue?

Let me know.

Fat-Free and Happy

Hey guys,

recently I've been reading an article called Fat-Free and Happy from "Time Magazine". The article talks about the clichés of America and what the country is like in reality.
I thought you might be interested to hear some facts because maybe you want to go to America one day in your life and would like to know what to expect.

Basically, the text talks about, that we Europeans think, America has a complete different culture compared to ours. The author writes about his trip to America, where he was a bit surprised that there are a lot of clichés which are simply not true. For example he talks about that the city Boston is a very elegant and educated place to live.

But the author also mentions, that some of these clichés are true aswell. In addition, the author writes about, that in America, everything is bigger starting at the shopping malls all the way to the glasses of Coca-Cola. The author also points out that Americans are very tolerant according to gays and lesbians, which in my opinion is very important.

In my mind everybody should make their own image of a country and not believe in all the clichés that are out there, even though some of them might be true.

What do you guys think about this issue?
Let me know in the comment section.

Yours,

Kevin

Ice Breakers

The other day in school, we were talking about things how to know each other a bit better.

To start a good conversation with someone it can be very important to have an effective way to break the ice.

Here are some good examples for Icebreakers:

• If you could visit any place in the world, where would you choose to go and why?
• What is the craziest thing you have ever done?
• What are your favourite hobbies?
• What is your goal to accomplish during your lifetime?
• What is your favourite meal?
• Who would you like to talk to (celebrity, ...) and which question do you want to ask him/her?

The 8 Companies that love Valentine's Day

Hi guys,

recently we were talking about Valentine's Day in school. We were reading an articel about companies that make the most profit around the time of Valentine's Day.
So I'd like to share some of my thoughts with you.

Companies that make the most profit are ones which are selling flowers or other presents for example 1-800-Flowers.com Inc. or Tiffany & Co.
But also Limited Brands Inc. makes a lot of profit with their lingerie products from Victoria's Secret. There are also a few other companies that are doing very well during this time.

I think that it could be a bit of a problem, that these companies are almost only making profit during this time and during the other time of the year almost none, except very few companies. But you have to say that these companies are making so much profit that days, the profit is almost even with other bigger companies.

So that's what I wanted to share with you, I hope there are some things you can agree with and feel free to comment your thougts.

See you!

My christmas holiday

Hi Raj,

I hope you are fine. We haven't had some contact for a few weeks now, that's why I want to tell you a bit of my christmas holidays. So on christmas eve my parents and I were going to the church, with a few friends. After church we went home again and ate some Racellete. It was a very nice meal and we really enjoyed it. About one hour later we then opened our christmas presents. I got some clothes, a videogame and a lot of money, because of that my parents and I were shopping on the 27th of decembre.

But first we had a visit from my uncle and my cousins on the 25th. It was a lot of fun being together with the family. Everyone was very happy.

The next big event was new year. I was invited to a christmas party near my place on new years' eve. We all celebrated and also shot a few rockets and we were partying during the whole night.

The following days were a little bit more relaxed, I just met some friends and I went to the cinema. Together with a good friend of mine I watched the movie "Assassins's Creed". Although the movie was ok I was a bit disappointed, but nevermind.
There was also a small birthday-party for a friend going on and I had a lot of fun. After that there were only a few days left until school started again.

So I think that is pretty much everything I did in my holidays. I am also interested to know what you did during that time, so feel free to contact me.

See you, Kevin

My business idea

Hey guys,

so recently we had to present our very own business idea in school. We had to make up an idea for a product/service, what we need, to reach our goals and how we want to become a successful company.
Now I want to present you a little bit about my ideas and thoughts.

So, my idea was to provide a fast and simple transport system for people in all cities and villages all over austria. So might you might asking yourself "Isn't here in austria a very good transport system?" And you are right, there are a lot of transport systems in austria for example the ÖBB, but the biggest problem of these systems is that they are often not on time. So in the worst chase your going by train which is late and you miss your bus which is going to bring you home and you have to wait for 1 hour or longer.
So beeing on time anywhere and at any time is our most important thing. That's why we need to create an exact transport plan and we need the latest technology. That's why we need to have a lot of colaborators all over the EU.

But our biggest problem hast to be to get the money we need. We have to search a location for our headquarter and build it. So we really have to find a investor who will provide us with the money we need.

Maybe in the future we want to expand all over the EU and provide every country with such a great transport system, but most important is austria.

So that's my business idea, tell me what do you think about it.

See you!

Excursion to Prague!

Hey guys,

about a week ago me and my class came back from our trip to Prague. It was a pretty interesting expercience and also included some surprises, but I will tell you more about that in the text below!

So, we were going by bus and were staying for 3 days in the beautiful city called Prague. It took us about 4 houres to get to our hotel which was called "Hotel City Club". It was alright for a school class, but I wouldn't come back at this hotel again. The rooms were ok and clean but nothing more. After our check-in we were immediately going out to explore the city with our guide. He was showing us around to see all the old and beautiful buildings, he also told us a lot about the history of the city and their monuments.
It was a pretty long day, so everyone was very tired in the evening. We fell asleep very early.

On the second day we were going on a boat trip to see a lot more of the city for example the "Karlsbrücke", and we saw the castle of Prague. In the evening we were visting a shadow theater which was quite interesting, and afterwards we had dinner in a fine restaurant, later on we were also allowed to go in a small pub and drink a beer.

On the last day we saw the "Budweiser" brewery on our way home. We saw the entire area where the beer produce was and were allowed to try the beer.

All in all it was a really nice trip, but I would not go there again in winter because it was really cold and not even a jacket was keeping my body warm. We had a lot of fun and I hope you liked my text.

See you!

Austrian stereotypes!

A few weeks ago, we, in our school welcomed an exchange student from the UK. As you can guess, he had some serious stereotypes about the austrian people and I wanted to clarify some of those.

So let's start with the first stereotype:

He said he was really suprised that we didn't wear the traditional "Lederhose" or "Dirndl" at his arrival. So this is one thing that needs to be clear! Like all the other people on the world we like to dress traditionally, but not all the time. In austria we also have the normal stores like H&M or Zara where you can buy trendy clothes just like in the UK. We're only wearing traditional things, most of the time at festivals like the "Oktoberfest" and so on.

That brings us to the next stereotype, which is that austrian people really like to drink a lot of beer at these festivals. Well, that's not completely right because we austrians really like our beloved beer but as much as we love beer we also like vine or "Most", aswell as Non-alcoholic drinks.

The last stereotype was that austrians are always on time. This is mostly correct as we take an appointment very serious, but I think for the younger generation it's not the biggest priority anymore 'cause sometimes it happens that you sleep a lot longer than you wanted to, so it's not completely correct.

So these were pretty much the most important stereotypes according to austria, I hope you liked it!

Advertisement!

The last two lessons at school we were talking about all the different kindes of advertisements and especially we were hearing about some funny advertisements. So our teacher asked us to make a posting where we should show one funny advertisement of our choice.

So this is a advertisement for a mobile phone called "EPhone 900". On this ad it says that the phone has fast internet access everywhere on the world, even when a snake is trying to bite you, the internet is faster and can show you how to dodge it.

In my opinion this is a very funny and still very good advertisement, because almost every time stupid and funny ads are going to stick in people's heads.

Personal opinion about advertising:
But my personal opinion on advertisements is very different from what I was saying before. Nowadays ads are a part of our lives but that doesn't mean they are good for us. Some of them give us unrealistic expectations of what we should look like or how to act.
So I am saying that we should take a stand and don't let advertising change our live.

My favourite shop

Hi guys,
last lessons at school we were talking about shopping experience and about our favourtie shops.
So now I want to give you some information about mine.

My favourite shop is H&M. H&M is a brand aswell as a store which are located all over the world.
They offer a big range of products but mostly trendy clothes and accessoires.
It was founded 1946 by Erling Persson in Sweden.
The first store was opened one year later in Sweden.

H&M also has an online shop where they are selling a lot of their products.
Also they are advertising with a lot of popular people all over the world. The latest one is of course David Beckham.

So I hope you all liked my posting.
See you!

Election in the USA: Donald Trump

Last lesson at school we were talking about the elections in the USA and about the politician Donald Trump. He wants to be the president and was a guest at a talk show. Our teacher was showing us this video where he was talking about building a wall between Mexico and the US to stop the Immigration and drug transport. He also said that he hasn't to apologize for anything.

I think he is not very serious about what he does and makes fun of almost anything or anyone, also my opinion about building a wall is that it will cost a lot and I don't think it will stop the drugs and immigrants to come in the country.

I don't think he would be a good president, not even a good politician.

My shopping habits

The last lessons at school we were talking about shopping. So now let me introduce you to my shopping habits!

I really like buying clothes, electronic things such as computers or TVs and of course videogames. Most of the time I buy my clothes at H&M or New Yorker, but also sometimes at Zara or Hollister,
Electronic things and videogames most of the time at Media Market.

What I really don't like buying are shoes. I hate buying them for myself or going to buy with my parents or friends. I do also look out for all type of bargains, most of the time for clothes.
My favourite shopping days are on the weekend, the only problem is that on these days there many people in the shopping centres.
Another problem is that in my home town there is only a supermarket, so I need to go to Perg or Amstetten to do some shopping. It takes about half an hour to go to these shopping centres at these places.

Sometimes I really don't like to go shopping somewhere, so I also do a lot of online shopping, it's mor comfortable and sometimes it's cheaper than in stores.

So that are my shopping habits, I hope I could give some interesting information.

See you!

Christmas traditions

As you all know christmas is just around the corner, so I thougt it would be a good idea to compare a few christmas traditions in austria to a english speaking country like canada.

First of all you need to know that canadian christmas traditions are largely similar to those in the USA, but with some influences from the UK.

One of the biggest differences in christmas traditions is that austrian children believe in the "Christkind", which brings the presents and not in Santa Clause.
Another difference is that in Austria there are lots of Christmas markets, almost every small town has their own one.
But in Canada there are a lot of big light shows and light events were buildings are decorated with lights.
Another traditional canadian thing is the Royal Chistmas Message from the canadian monarch to all the other commonwealth countries on the world. In Austria the christmas tree which also stands in almost every small town, is a big tradition.

So I hope I could give you some interesting informations about these christmas traditions.

That's all for this posting, Bye!

My work-life balance

Hey guys!

Last english lesson we were talking about healthy living, eating and also how we are reduceing our personal stress in school and so on.
A good jumping-off point for a healthy life is to sleep enough. Everday I see students who haven't enough sleep and me too. I can't sleep more than 6 houres on normal school days because then I need to go to school and that's bad because I feel really tired the whole day and I can't concentrate on school.
The next things are eating healthy and doing some sports in your free time. I often go for a run with a few friends and it's great fun. I also really like to play football with my friends and also in school with my colleagues.
When I'm not doing any sports and having free time I'm meeting some friends, we are going out and making party and maybe drink one or two glases.

I really can relax when I am doing this things.

My favourite musician

Hi,
the last days at school, we were talking about famous bands and musicians so I'm going to tell you some things about my favourite musician.
I listen to a lot of different music genres and musicians, that's why I have no favourite, but if I have to choose I would take AVICII!

Avicii's real name is Tim Bergling and he is a swedish DJ, remixer and record producer who was born 1989.
2010 Avicii released the hit song "Seek Bromance", wich reached the top 20 in a few countries.
In 2011, he released the "Levels", which launched him into the mainstream.
In 2012, "Sunshine" in collaboration with David Guetta was nominated for a Grammy, then the international breakthroug began.

In 2013, Avicii released a lot of new tracks together with his new album "True".
One of the most popular is "Wake Me Up", which was 14 weeks number 1 on Billboards Dance/Electronic Songs list.

Latest and favourite song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHHLHGNpCSA