Gray Marketing

            What is a gray market? According to Merriam-Webster online dictionary, “gray market is a market employing irregular but not illegal methods; especially a market that legally circumvents authorized channels of distribution to sell goods at prices lower than those intended by the manufacturer (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gray+market).”  Which means goods will be distributed by unauthorized channels to meet the market needs.  In such a market, customers may not get the same warranties and product liabilities as those from the official distribution channels.  Manufacturers may cost more because they lost the adequate profit share to the gray market. In addition, goods that distributed by the unauthorized channels might actually damaging the manufacturers’ reputations. 

            In the new gray market environment today, lower price still is the main factor that allures retailers and some customers. However, it is not always the case. In the article “‘Gray Market’ iPad Mini Prices Triple in Russia”, because of the delay of releasing the iPad mini in Russia made the gray market price much higher than the official price.  I think the same phenomenon happens in Apple’s Asian market as well.  For Apple, they should have the same releasing day for their new products worldwide and manufacture enough to satisfy their global market.

            In my opinion, governments should get involved in managing the gray marketing.   By implementing the laws, eliminating smuggling, and adjust their tarries to make goods distributed smoothly though their official distribution channels. 

The Impact of Cultural Difference on Doing Global Business

            When thinking about the impact of cultural difference on doing global business, I automatically think about the different experience of American fast- food joints in China and in the U.S. The most popular American fast-food joints in China are McDonald, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut.    

American fast-food joints in China are differing than those in American in different aspects.  First of all, they all have different menu to satisfy the Chinese’s taste buds. They also fix their recipes of the same product to make it more acceptable by Chinese. Personally, I think McDonald in China taste better than in the U.S.A. My former Manager is an American born Chinese; he told me that he thought Pizza Hun in China taste better too.  Second of all, American fast-food joints set themselves to higher scale restaurants. Pizza Hut restaurants in China are like those upscale French fine dining restaurants.  McDonald and Kentucky Fly Chicken in China are known as fast-food joints, yet only high income or middle-class family can afford to have them every day.

In general, the cultural difference study helps international businesses to target their markets and make strategies in different countries other than their home countries.  Most Chinese go to those American fast-food joints are more for special event celebrations and the exotic experience then to enjoy a good meal.  So, it makes sense to set them up more upscale.  The cultural difference study also helps companies to prevent lost in investment in different countries.

Social Entrepreneurship

            I attended one of the Business Ethics Week events - Social Entrepreneurship Unplugged on Friday, November 9^th, 2012 at San Francisco State University downtown campus. The Social Entrepreneurship Unplugged event lasted for two hours and three non-profit organizations presented themselves to us.  By telling us about their history, their mission, and their products and services; and how they work to help people.   

            So, what is a Social Entrepreneur?  According to the ashoka.org, “Social entrepreneurs are individuals with innovative solutions to society’s most pressing social problems. They are ambitious and persistent, tackling major social issues and offering new ideas for wide – scale change.”

            Let’s have a look of the three non-profit organizations on the Social Entrepreneurship Unplugged event and see what their mission is, and how they help the society to solve some of the social problems. They are listed as follow:

One Laptop per Child (OLPC)

            The founder and chief organizer of OLPC San Francisco volunteer community, Sameer Verma presented their product to us. OLPC’s mission is to empower the world’s poorest children through education by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low – power, connected laptop (One Laptop Per Child).  For more information, check out their website at One Laptop Per Child or their blog at blog.laptop.org. For volunteering and internship, contact Sameer Verma at sverma@sfsu.edu.

Kiva

            Kiva is a non-profit organization with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. According to their speaker  Betsy McCormick - the portfolio manager of Kiva’s north and central America, Kiva connects entrepreneurs around the world and leveraging the internet and a worldwide network of microfinance institutions, it  lets individuals lend as little as $25 to help create opportunity around the world. For more information on how to provide loan to people who need help, check out their website at Kiva.

Whirlwind Wheelchairs

            According to Marc Krizack - the executive director at Whirlwind Wheelchairs, their mission is to make it possible to help people in the developing country to have mobility.  They accomplish their mission by supplying to charitable organizations who distribute around the world. For more information about how Whirlwind Wheelchairs please check out their website at (Whirlwind).   Their San Francisco office offers internship for business major students and design major students. For more information about the internship program at Whirlwind Wheelchairs please contact Marc Krizack at marc@whirlwindwheelchair.org.

            I am glad that I have spent some time to attend this event. It really broadened my mind. I have learned a lot from this event. It was the first time that I heard the concept - “Social Entrepreneurship” and the concept of non-profit doesn’t mean they don’t make money. As the speaker of Whirlwind Wheelchairs said, “we make money to help more people in need than put it into our own pocket!”  If you are an entrepreneur, would you consider becoming one of those social entrepreneurs to help people in need in your communities?

         

Doing Business in Myanmar

When I was doing my market research for launching a product in Myanmar (also known as Burma), I found that information about Myanmar is very limited.   The U.S. government used to have restrictions of doing business in Myanmar for about 15 years.  However, On July 11^th, 2012 President Obama announced to ease sanctions to allow U.S companies to do business in Myanmar (Whitehouse.gov).  

In his statement, President Obama explains why the US decided to ease restrictions on doing business in Myanmar – to help Myanmar “to make important economic and political reforms.” And this will provide “significant benefits to the people of Myanmar (Whitehouse.gov).”  President Obama indicates that the US Government would remains concerned about the lack of transparency in Myanmar’s investment environment and the military’s role in the economy due to Myanmar’s political and economic reforms remain uncompleted. He emphasized that US companies need to do business in Myanmar responsibly and follow the US Government’s guidelines. Lastly, President Obama states that his Administration will continue to support Myanmar “in its efforts to work toward international standards for economic growth, responsible governance, and human rights (Whitehouse.gov).

Myanmar is a resource-rich country that has a big market potential. Since the U.S government is allowing U.S companies to do business in Myanmar, let’s check out some political and economic information of doing business over there.

According to globalEDGE, Myanmar, also known as Burma, is a country in Southeast Asia bordered by the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. Neighboring countries include Bangladesh, China, India, Laos, and Thailand. Myanmar has a strategic location near major Indian Ocean shipping lanes. The government system is a Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council and the head of government is the Prime Minister.

Opium in Myanmar

Myanmar has a complex economic system combing both traditional and command economic systems. Many citizens engage in subsistence agriculture; however, the central government has a strong influence. Myanmar is a member of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multisectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC). Myanmar is an agricultural base country. It has vast hardwood timber, natural gas, and fishery reserves and is a leading source of gems and jade. Myanmar is also the world’s second largest producer of opium, and a major source of illegal drugs, including amphetamines. Opium bans implemented since 2002.

According to Central Intelligence Agency, the business climate in Myanmar is known as opaque, corrupt, and highly inefficient. However, since 2011, the Myanmar government opens up the economy by lowering export taxes, easing restrictions on its financial sector, and reaching out to international organizations for assistance.

Doing business in Myanmar is still not easy by it does have a lot of opportunities for U.S companies to expand their markets.  As the Myanmar government has “initiated a series of political and economic reforms landing to a substantial opening of the long-isolated country (Central Intelligence Agency).” Furthermore, the U.S. government also has guidelines and laws to guide and protect U.S. companies that want to do business in Myanmar.  There is no harm to take the risk and be the first to take over the market in Myanmar.

For more information, please check out these links that listed below:

http://export.gov/thailand/doingbusinessinthailand/doingbusinessinburma/index.asp

http://burma.usembassy.gov/doing-business-local.html

http://www.myanmar.ca/business/index.htm

http://www.myanmars.net/myanmar-business/

Career in International Business

The U.S. market is a saturated market, more and more companies are seeking to expand their market in other countries to get bigger share of the global market.  On the other hand, because of the fierce competition in the U.S., a lot of companies are outsourcing to developing countries in order to lower their cost and have a better chance to compete with their competitors.  The need of specialized abilities and experience employees in International Business is growing.

Students with a degree in International Business major will be hired by companies doing business internationally. They could be working for US companies doing business worldwide, or having jobs in companies that from other countries doing business in the US.  

  Positions in International Business are familiar to general business. Most of them are in marketing, finance, sales, trade, management and consulting area.  A lot of international traveling included in international business career when working for multinational corporations, joint ventures, financial institutions.  Employees in multinational corporations may be sent to other countries as management of foreign subsidiaries or overseas operations.

            Having a career in International Business requires knowledge in a very broad area. It is not just about speaking a second language.  Knowledge of area culture studies, accounting, finance, statistics, economy, marketing, foreign trade policy and other business skills are required. Besides these knowledge requirements, work experiences are also very important when seeking for a job in the international business area. Networking is a popular word that recommended from most business professors. Internship with an international business is a very good way to start and build your own network.  A lot of times, students will be hired at the end of their internship at the entry-level of their career.

            Where else we can find openings for positions in International Business career? On those companies websites which are doing business internationally.  Here are some links for people who want to look for jobs in International Business.

http://www.americanexpress.com

http://www.aig.com                                   

www.wellsfargo.com

www.gillette.com

www.hitachi.com

www.dole.com

www.jnj.com

www.mattel.com

www.otis.com

www.pg.com

www.reebok.com

www.pepsico.com

Useful Class for International Business

I had a job in Global Banking when I was still taking my general education classes and prerequisite classes for business majors at City College of San Francisco.  There were not many classes that were major related back then.  When I transferred to San Francisco State University, most of my classes are business related.  The core classes for business major are giving a basic coverage of skills needed in the business world for students; while the concentration classes are focus on giving students professional knowledge on doing business internationally.  One class that I think it is really prepares students for doing international business is the International Business Environment Analysis.

            According to the syllabus for the International Business Environment Analysis class, “this course is designed to expose students to a variety of issues in the international business environments that impact country policies as well as industrial and firm strategies (Professor Yikuan Lee at SFSU).”   This course has a lot of presentation opportunities to let students to apply the knowledge of international business environments they learn from lectures by presenting case studies, term projects professionally.

             Students in the IBUS590 class have as many as nine group presentations throughout the semester. Students are working in groups, so that they can learn how to cooperate in a teamwork environment; such as how to share the work load of researching and how to share the role when presenting.  By doing case studies and term projects, students are able to reinforce their international business concepts they have learned in other international business courses; to expand upon their existing knowledge of international business operations and introduce new materials pertinent to business operations in the global market; to develop their ability to apply international business concepts to practical business situation; to develop their analytical skills and research abilities for assessing international business environments and recognizing international market opportunities; to broaden their understanding of regional characteristics and international business operations in the various industries and markets; to provide them with a practical understanding of how to conduct business in a global economy; to develop their problem solving and decision making ability; to enhance their written and oral communication skills and to improve their ability to work in a group environment.

            I do learn a lot from this class myself. I didn’t like this class at the beginning because I hate presentation. I could not sleep on the nights before my presentation and when I was presenting, I could not make my speech smooth because I was too nerves; my legs would be shaking like crazy too.  However, after few presentations, I am doing better and better, especially after getting good feedbacks from the professor.  This is my most favorite class now. I enjoy learning useful practical business skills from this class so much! I will recommend this class to any business major students because it is very useful and almost like working and presenting in the real world. A lot of research and preparations for the presentation are exactly what I did when I was working for the Global Banking Department in a bank.  The only difference is that, I was not the presenter for information and data that I collected, my managers were the one that presenting my stuff because they do not have time to do the data and information gathering.

Cannot think of any class that is not helping, the classes for business major in San Francisco State University is well tailored for business students. Other class might not feel like helping directly but still good to have in a long run for business major students.

Writing and Reading in Business

          From people that I interviewed, I know that the requirement of writing and reading in certain areas and certain positions of business are different.  Brad, the Compliance Consultant of a bank, requires a lot of reading and writing besides emails; while Debby the production manager just needs to check and respond to emails.

          According to Brad, eighty-five to ninety percent of his job involves reading and writing. Let’s see what kind of reading is required for Brad’s job. He reads US and foreign banking laws, US and foreign Anti-Money Laundering and Combating Terrorist Financing regulations. He is required to read and understand the US Bank Secrecy Act, the USA PATRIOT Act and related laws and regulations. Brad also needs to read internal Relationship Memos, Compliance Calls and other data from an internal data warehouse, emails from colleagues, internal processes and procedures, and various reports created by colleagues and the Line of Business that he supports.  Brad indicated that those readings are very important to his job since he needs to answer his colleagues’ inquiries from the Line of Business about the laws and regulations. Besides the laws and regulations, Brad reads Wall Street Journal,  New York Times and other periodicals in order to have news updates about how people are doing in the business world. “Negative financial news from those newspapers gets our attention and allows us to inform our colleagues in the line of business how to avoid the same negative event or events from happening to them,” Brad said.  Wow, I didn’t know that reading news is so important in the business world.

            Besides reading, writing is a very important part of Brad’s job too. Brad told me, “Besides emails, I write internal reports, reports to Senior Management, procedures, comments on line of business procedures and other various documentation, reports to external customers, regulators and colleagues.”  Brad points out that reports to senior management need to be brief because senior managers don’t always have time to read long reports. 

A Day in the Fashion Industry

      I always want to have a job in the Fashion Industry but have never really had any this kind of work experience.  In order to have an idea about how a job in the fashion industry looks like, I interviewed Debby George from Japanese Weekend Maternity.  She is the production manager of Japanese Weekend Maternity and has been working in the fashion industry for about 22 years.  I thought she must love her job very much because she has been in this area for so long.  Surprisingly, she got into this industry has nothing to do about fashion.  “Actually, I got my first job in a fashion company as a merchandiser back to Hong Kong many years ago, was not because I love that area. It was because that company needs somebody speaks Japanese and I was just come back from Japan and looking for jobs.  I was happy to have a job that can use the language that I learn from Japan,” Debby said. What a nice coincidence! That sounds like your college councilor will tell you, “go get into a major that still can get you back to something that you like, if you cannot get into a program that is impacted.” Right?   

            Anyway, let’s back to our business.  I was curious about how Debby’s work day would look like. Debby starts her day by checking with her boss to see if there is anything special that her boss wants her to take care of first, if there is nothing special; she will then check emails, and her assistant will check with her and report to her with things that need her attention.  And then she will start to work with everything that is production related; such as answer phone calls from their vendors, problem solving, follow up things that are production related, analyze what style should keep in the catalog for the season and what style needs to get rid of; prepare materials needed for production; budgeting, decision planning, decision making, and operating management.  “Basically, my job is to keep the company operate smoothly,” Debby said. That’s not easy because that involves a lot of details.  According to Debby, Japanese Weekend Maternity is one of those San Francisco based companies that committed to keeping their production in the U.S. as much as they can. But keeping every single material that is needed for production domestic makes the production cost very high, Debby is trying very hard to keep everything that is made in U.S.A. and the cost as low as she can. That gives her a lot of stress. Also, because Japanese Weekend Maternity wants to keep their products’ quality, Debby needs to make sure all materials fit their standards before sending materials out to their contractors for final mass productions.

Debby said, “If I can lower the cost of goods sold and can shorter the production time, I think I’m doing a pretty decent job as a production manager.”  She pointed out that teamwork is very important. As a team leader, she always treats her team members and other members in the company as a big family.  I asked Debby what quality was required for her position. She concluded that candidates don’t need to have a degree but needs to have work experience in garments manufacturing and that’s a very crucial qualification.  And that’s because if a candidate lack of work experience, it will cause the company lost a lot of money.  “Other required quality of being a production manager includes details orientated, supper flexible, work well with others, can work under pressure and have a sense of humor. For me, having a sense of humor with others will make the working environment in harmony,” Debby states.

            When I think about Debby’s responsibility of being a production manager, there are a lot of budgeting, decision planning, decision making, and operating management involved.  Those business terms sounds very familiar to me because I learn those in school with my business program. I think going to school to have a business degree is really very helpful for having a job as a production manager.  Even though Debby states that no degree is needed for gaining her position in the fashion industry, I think with those business skills that we learn from school may help smoothing the process of the job.

            I think I need to rethink about having a job as a production manager in a fashion company since I don’t have any work experience related to the industry.  If I really going to start my own business in the fashion industry, I might just hire a production manager or subcontract the whole production process to contractors and I just deal with marketing and sales.

            Thanks to Debby for providing so much insightful information about a production manager in the garments manufacturing area. If you want more information about their products, please check out their website at (http://www.japaneseweekend.com/) or Nordstrom’s website on maternity section at http://shop.nordstrom.com/c/womens-maternity-clothing?origin=leftnav .  

A day in the life of a Compliance Consultant

            I used to work for a bank. When people think about banking, they automatically think of teller’s jobs and other retail services jobs available in a bank’s branch.  So, when people knew I work for a bank, they always asked me questions about home mortgages and refinancing. It took me sometime to tell them I could not answer their questions and could not help them to refinance their home mortgages. Bankers are not just work for a bank’s branches in the banking industry. There are a lot of other back office jobs in a bank; such as, compliance consultants. Anyway, when I was working for a bank, I always curious about what the compliance consultants do in the bank.  Luckily, I got a chance to interview one recently.

            Brad* is a compliance consultant at a bank’s International Compliance Group. So, what do compliance consultants do? According to Brad, compliance consultant in different area has different responsibilities. Basically, it helps to keep people in the line of business get on the right track.  Brad said his job is a little complicated when it comes to define how his job works with the line of business.  He said he could be a lot of people’s boss and a lot of people can be his bosses too. That’s interesting, isn’t? He said when he gives guidelines to people in the line of business, he is the boss; because people need to follow exactly what he tell them to do, otherwise, the company will get in trouble.  And while people asking him to check out the laws and government regulation rules, people are his bosses; since his job is to help people to find out the answers about the law and regulations about doing business the right way.   He concluded that his job is like police officer of a bank, to make sure people in the line of business follow the laws and government regulations to do business.

             What degree is needed for a compliance consultant?  He indicated that a law degree will be very helpful but not necessarily.  He does not have a degree himself. He had attended some college and special trainings. He has more than 28 years working experience in the banking industry and that equivalent to a BA degree. The bank that Brad works for has a lot of training programs to let its qualified employees to enhance their knowledge and skills to better serve their jobs. 

            So, how’s a regular working day of a compliance consultant look like?  “Very busy,” Brad said.  Brad starts his day by checking emails and schedules of meetings. Meeting time is about 20% out of an eight to ten hours work day and it is roughly from two to six hours a day. Sometimes Brad will have back to back meetings the whole work day.  Depending on what time is left out, it’s Brad’s actual work time for answering people’s questions about customers, laws, and government regulations; customers’ questions about their programs; and for tasks that come from his bosses, work with auditors and respond to law and regulation inquiries from the line of business. Brad’s job needs to talk to people on the phone all the time. Sometimes is on conference calls, sometimes is on trainings for people. Brad also needs to travel around the world about 25% of his work.

            Brad said his job is very stressful because there are so many laws and regulations out there to follow. Laws and regulations become more and more strict every day,   and that makes their job very stressful.  Brad deals with his stress by cooking and playing music after work. Even though Brad’s job is so stressful, he loves his job. “I love to deal with people all over the world. My job allows me to communicate with people in London, Frankfurt, Istanbul, Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney, Mumbai, Chennai, etc…etc… I have learned all those languages in greetings and that’s a lot of fun. I also have fun meeting those good people around the world,” Brad said.  

            So, that’s that much about Brad’s job in a day.  He enjoys it very much. How about you? Would you like to have a job as compliance consultant?

*       Per my interviewee’s request, Brad is a makeup name!

Review of Business Blogs

            There are so many Business Blogs on the internet nowadays.  The business bloggers are blogging about their own business experiences, tips for doing business and opinions about current business events.

            The business Blog for Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners at Entrepreneurs Magazine’s website (Entrepreneur.com) is a business blog that about business ideas and trends. It has multiple bloggers providing their readers business ideas and tips from start-ups  run and grow, money management, marketing, technology, franchising, and more. The blog has pictures on most of its posting. It archives the blog by most popular, and underneath that tab, has categories of shared, viewed, and video. It is a very nice blog for getting ideas, tips on doing business. I will recommend it to friends whom want to start-up a small business and don’t know how. I definitely will check it back more often for some tips. 

            The Business Blog (The Business Blog) from Ohio University‘s library’s website is interesting. It offers tips, tricks, and tools for Ohio University Business and economics researchers (Chad Boeninger). It was created and maintained by Business and Economics Subject Specialist, Chad Boeninger, at Ohio University Libraries. According to Chad Boeninger, he uses this blog to point business researchers to the best databases, sites, books, and other reference tools in order to help them with their research. Chad Boeninger indicates that, the primary audience for the blog is students and faculty of Ohio University; others not affiliated with the University may also find some of the content useful. The blog is archives by topic alphabetically. It has videos, charts, and it is easy to follow. I will recommend this blog to my fellow business major students and will check it out when I need some tips for my research projects for my business classes.

The Genre of a Blog

Blogging is so popular today. It makes everybody wants to become a blogger. Especially in business, some people even say that, “if a business does not have a blog that business is too out!”  I didn't know about how to blog before I started blogging.  I got to know more about it after I did some research about blogging.  There are a lot of blogging websites and software out there to let you learn about blogging. For example, at Blogger.com people can take a quick tour at blogger.com; or watch a video for a video tutorial; or just read the Blogger Buzz at (buzz.blogger).  Anyway, I would like to share some of my findings about a blog from my research.

 On my online research about the genre of a blog, nobody discussed about the genre of a blog, but a lot of people discuss blogging as a writing genre.  So, what exactly is the genre of a blog?  As Charlie Jane Anders discussed in the article “Genres Aren’t Boxes, They‘re Reading Instructions”, genres are something that the readers are expecting in their readings.  So, what do you think your blog readers will expect to see/read in your blog?

According to my research, they are the following: the blog content, comments, archive of older articles, links to other related sites, and some kind of feeds (Wordpress.org).  Blogs can also have YouTube video, pictures, comic, and group blog posts.

The blog content is what you want to share on your blog.  It should be updated often in order to gain more readers and comments.  The blog content generally could be anything.  For retailers, they put catalogs of their products (wordpress.org). Such as H&M’s blog post, it has a brief intro and a picture of their new arrivals products (H & M).  And for a personal blog, “you might have a bunch of observations, or reviews (wordpress.org).” The blog content for a business major student  should be articles that are more business related topics.

Comments in a blog are also very important. According to the article “Introduction to Blogging” on the Wordpress.org’s website, “Posting comments is one of the most exciting features of blogs.” If you want to have an interactive website, you better have some comments on your blog.  When a writer of a blog posts something, the writer may expecting people to leave comments, suggestions, advises, tips, concerns, etc…  Jeff Bullas points out in his blog posting about “18 key observations about the state of Blogging in 2011” that people “love” sharing (jeffbullas.com).  So, as the bloggers share their posts on their blogs, viewers love to share their opinion or their point of view with the bloggers too. Make sure to complete your comments and answer questions from your readers.

The archive feature of a blog lets bloggers keep track of their blog postings.  An archive can be based on dates, categories, and authors for group blog post, or alphabetically.   The archive feature is one of the million reasons that make blogging so popular (wordpress.org).

Your readers might also expect to see some links on your blog. It lets your readers to find other topic-related sources from your blog. Links to other related sites are very important. First of all, if the links to other sites are where your recourse from, you need to give credit to whoever that you quoted your information from.  Second of all, it also shows people where to find more details about what your blog posts are talking about. Links to other related sites also makes your blog posts more informational as well as convincing; moreover, it can gain more blog posting viewers.

 Besides links, readers might also look for feed function in your blog.  According to the wordpress.org’s website, “A feed is a function of special software that allows ‘Feed readers’ to access a site automatically looking for new content and then post updates about that new content to another site.” It lets readers to keep up with the newest update from different bloggers that they followed.  On blogspot.com that we use to post our blog posting for our English class, it is Atom.  You can find the Atom icon at the bottom of a blog. If you want to add somebody’s blog to your feeds, simply click on the Atom icon and it will add the updates of that blog to your newsfeeds.

As we discussed earlier, we can also put YouTube video, Pictures and comic in our blog post too.  Jeff Bullas points out in his blog post “18 key observations about the state of blogging in 2011” that “the continuing evolution of an increasingly ‘visual web’ that communicates quickly and efficiently with images (jeffbullas.com).” By putting YouTube videos, pictures and comics in your blog posting makes the blog more vivid and interesting.  It also has the same function like putting links in your blog posting to make it more convincing.

 In short, a personal blog is more like a diary, and it is more conversational than a formal essay.  A professional blog is more about a particular topic that relates to a person’s interest or professional expertise. Personally, I think writing a blog is like the free writes we do in English class. It can be any subject, and form, and have some elements we discuss above but not necessarily have all of them in it. People should use those elements according to what they have and what they want to put on their blogs.  For example, I just put a picture of my handmade jewelry for my other blog posting, (shopaholic) and just have one sentence telling people what gemstone that I had used to make it. I think it is totally fine, as long as I am enjoying doing it.  Blogging can be any way you want to do it. The most important thing that matters is if you have fun doing it. Have fun blogging, my friends!