6/8

School is almost over! I am so flipping excited! I can't wait for summer to start. I'm more excited to go to six flags on Friday right after finals. I'm finally going to conquer my fear of the raging bull. I don't understand why I freak out so much but I do. There's also a new ride called goliath. Its a wooden coaster and it has an 85 degree drop with a bunch of loops and stuff. I'm pretty scared to try it out but I just might. Wish me luck.

6/1

This week was really really slow. I hated how slow it was. The only day out of this entire week that actually went by speedy quick was Friday. I was supposed to take a test for world that day but as luck would have it, he moved the test to Monday. I was super duper excited and very happy. I wasn’t ready for the test. Now I have the chance to study a little bit more. On Friday I also went over to my friends’ house, I have not seen her in awhile and I was so happy to be able to spend time with her. I even got to spend the night. Pretty good week I may say.

5/25

This week has been crazy. Monday was a normal day. Tuesday, there was testing. I did not go to school the following day because on Tuesday night my dad woke me up to say something was wrong with my mom. She's pregnant so any little thing can turn into something bigger. Thursday was another normal day. Then came Friday. We all went to a baseball game and on my way home my dad told me my mom had her baby. My little sister was born 2 months premature. I'm scared. I want her to be okay. So my whole weekend I'm here, worrying about my mother and sister.

ASPCA Humane Award Speech

Darivette Cruz

ASPCA HUMANE AWARD

            It is a great honor and privilege to be receiving the ASPCA Humane Award. I did

have a whole speech planned out in case I did receive this glorious recognition. I was

originally going to thank and list off all the things that made it possible for me to win this

award. There are other pressing matters to be discussed though.

First off, to even be able to be a recipient of this grand award, you have to be able to

significantly change the lives of animals. I believe everyone should be awarded this because

animals are something we should all treasure and love. It is not that hard to help other living

creatures.  

Right now, I am going to talk about animal cruelty. Everyone should know what this

is. It is such a disgusting thing that happens across the nation whether people realize it or not.

Animals have rights. Animals have feelings. Animals deserve to be free and to be happy.

Animal cruelty can be seen as real physical abuse but there is also emotional abuse involved.

Animals want to feel love. They want your attention. Ignoring or not showing any sort of

care or love towards an animal can be just as bad as physically it.

I found two quotes that really hit home and I feel like you people should hear them.

 Listen carefully because I think it will have the same affect on you as it did on me when I

first read them. The first one is “A greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged

by the way its animals are treated.” So tell me. Are we a great nation? How are we so great

when we decide to hurt another living creature? How are we progressing when we leave an

animal locked in a car on a hot summer day? Do you all not want our nation to be viewed a

positive way?

The second quote I came across was “There is only one dangerous breed: Humans.”

That quote was the saddest quote of all. The face of a sad pitbull was just above that

quote. Let me tell you, we are dangerous. We claim that the animals are the dangerous ones

and they are just as scared of us as we are of them.

I want animal cruelty to end. I hope you all do too. Thank you for giving me this

award and thank you for sitting here quietly and listening to what I had to say. Have a great

day.  

5/18

School is almost over. If only the days would go by even faster. I'm pretty excited for summer to start. The more reviews I do, the less interesting they become. I have nothing left to write about except what I did on the weekends. I didn't really do much this weekend. I did go to china town. The food was really good and it was cute little place. I also went to practice for a friends quince. But that's basically all I did.

Final Draft: The Effectiveness of Crwodsourcing

Darivette Cruz

Nicole Koleczek

Mr. Rehak

6th per. Honors English II

12 May 2014

The Effectiveness of Crowdsourcing in Business

‘Crowdsourcing’, first defined by Jeff Howe and Mark Robinson in the June 2006 issue of Wired Magazine (Howe), is a new, web-based business model that solves problems through a distributed network of people. Jeff Howe, a contributing editor and publisher at Wired Magazine, states: "Simply defined, crowdsourcing represents the act of a company or institution taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open call. This can take the form of peer-production (when the job is performed collaboratively), but is also often undertaken by sole individuals. The crucial prerequisite is the use of the open call format and the large network of potential laborers" (Jefferey). Crowdsourcing is accomplished by a number of people in putting their opinions or knowledge to help build up a business. It can also be achieved by having a single person with enough background to help out the business/company. Examples of crowdsourcing include applications such as Airbnb, Airtasker, and goCatch (Fung).

Crowdsourcing is effective in business because of the access to resources, scale, and transparency (Fung). Crowdsourcing can be like a business partner as well. These reasons will be the main topics discussed in the next few paragraphs and will highlight the key points as to why crowdsourcing is effective.

Crowdsourcing can be thought of as an innovative business partner (Boudreau). For example, the company Apple has used the world to build up their business. They used apps to enhance their technology and collect data from people all over the world. After the collection of this data, Apple is able to figure out what the customers want. Due to this newfound information, Apple applies it to the new items being brought into the world and this is what has made them a success.  

Therefore, proper resources, or skills and items, allow a business to increase profit. Tim Fung, the CEO and founder of AirTasker, states that menial tasks are completed more skillfully through services such as photography, promotional staffing, office work or design. Profiles, reviews, and reputation credentials advertise these skills and items. A large, universally shared set of these resources is accessible.

Scale, or size and location, also allows a business to increase profit. An example would be specific events or promotions are completed more skillfully through a large workforce rather than individual employment. Having more than one individual will increase the speed at which information will be received and will also increase the amount of work getting done. Also, lowering costs is more flexible. Sources are redirected toward achieving business objectives.

Transparency, or real world data, allows a business to increase profit. For example, data transactions are completed more skillfully through a large volume rather than a small one. As the saying goes, two heads are better than one, which applies to crowdsourcing. Valid data will be rewarded whereas invalid data not. As “user-generated reputation” becomes more prevalent, other methods of building trust such as advertising become irrelevant.

Although effective because of the access to resources, scale and transparency, crowdsourcing may be ineffective in business because of certain obligations to support management, marketplace, and control (Fung). Yes there are upsides to crowdsourcing, but that definitely does not mean there are not some downsides that will go along with it. These are just a few of the downsides to crowdsourcing for business, also known as crowdfunding. These key points will be discussed in the next few paragraphs and will bring out the main reasons as to why crowdsourcing will not be effective for funding purposes.

Management should be efficient in cost when accessing resources, or skills and items. As Rohit Arora stated, “This method of raising money may prove inadequate for larger ventures requiring millions of dollars worth of financing.” He is basically saying that in order for crowdsourcing to benefit a project or business, it has to be a small amount of money required to be raised. For example, a big business like Pebble Watches promised the participants some products. Pebble Watches ends up losing because it cost more money for them to ship the product and no money is really gained from the people participating. It is basically a free giveaway. A company may promise participants a product in exchange for information about it but profit may decrease because of invalid information (Arora).

Tom Murphy, a partner at the law firm of McDermott and Emery, states “Crowdfunded companies will have large numbers of shareholders – likely upwards of 1,000 – to whom they and their directors and officers are accountable and owe fiduciary duties (Murphy).” Many people can take and own a part of a business funding project. That company is responsible and owes money to all those people who have taken part. If the company fails, or does not meet their target, this can anger the investors. Angry investors’ leads to the act of suing the company/business for what little money they may have earned. The investors can claim the company is a fraud or the company has breached the contract (Arora). This can be false but most likely the court will vote in favor of the investors because they can falsify evidence or take things out of context.

That scenario will usually only happen if a company fails and if the investors are enraged they are not receiving the money they thought they would have gotten by that point in time. How exactly can a company fail though? By accepting false information, that is how. To save more money, a company or business will pay the cheapest price to get valuable information. Low payment in exchange for information is often accepted by those who are not as knowledgeable about a company's work (Paul). A company or business has to be willing to pay top dollar if they want to receive top notch data. The second a person puts out false information, the reputation and the business itself will go up in flames.

Marketplace should be fair when accessing scale, or size and location. For example, a product or company may be tarnished by unsatisfied customers or investors through negative reviews (Floren). Also, websites such as Kickstarter do not guarantee the success of that certain product or company as only 10% actually succeed (“Blunder”). Websites such as Indiegogo, Fundables, and CircleUp may also profit from a business’s earnings and apply fees (MarketingMoxie). There are always hidden ways a site will be able to take part in the money flowing in for a company’s product. Whether they tell that company outright or just take the money without notification, that site will always have a percentage of the money.

Control should be qualitative when accessing transparency, or real world data. For example, Marcia Yudkin, owner of a marketing solutions website and a marketing mentor, states that participants would more or less state invalid information about a product or company (Yudkin). There is a higher chance of invalid information being passed along than valid data being received. Also, participants do not necessarily have to know anything about the product or company. Whatever comes to mind is what they will put down. Participants usually ignore the criteria given to them by the company. A participant will not take the time to learn about a product or business the way a professional consultant would (Yudkin). Invalid information about the product or company may also hurt the product or company (“Pitfalls”). Crowdsourcing is basically trusting and using a source of unknown people in order to complete the task at hand (Bradley).

Crowdsourcing, a new web-based business model that solves problems through a

distributed network of people, is used in business to increase profit. Crowdsourcing is

effective in business because of its access to resources (skills and items), scale (size and

location), and transparency (real world data). With enough skills, a person can build up

their business and make a reasonable amount of profit out of it. If they can find the right

location to collect their information from, then they are set. They have to take the time to sort

out all the real information from the false information. This part will be crucial to their

business/company because if they make a mistake, things will fall apart. A business will

collapse. Although crowdsourcing may be ineffective in business because of certain

obligations to support the cost of management, a fair marketplace, and quality control, it is

overall effective in increasing profit.

 Works Cited

Arora, Rohit. “7 Reasons to Avoid Crowdfunding.” Fox Business, Small Business Center.

Rohit Arora, October 23, 2012. Web. 27 April. 2014 <http://smallbusiness.foxbusiness.com/finance-accounting/2012/10/23/7-reasons-to-avoid-crowdfunding/>

Boudreau, J. Kevin. Lakhani, R. Karim. “Using the Crowd as an Innovative Partner.” Harvard

            Business Review. Apr. 2013. Web. 5 May 2014.

<http://socialmediatoday.com/entrepreneurfail/1748926/crowdfunding-pros-cons-tips> 

Bradley, Kristen. “The Business Benefits of Crowdsourcing.” Business2Community. Kristen

Bradley. Sept. 5 2012. Web. 5 May 2014. <http://www.business2community.com/strategy/the-business-benefits-of-crowdsourcing-0271630#!Nf1f2>

“Crowdfunder Blunder: Leverage Crowdfunding or Waste of Time?” Social Media Today.

Kriti Vichare, September 18, 2013. Web. 27 April, 2014. <http://socialmediatoday.com/entrepreneurfail/1748926/crowdfunding-pros-cons-tips>

Floren, Cindy. “The Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Crowdsourcing to Improve Your

Ecommerce Business.” My ECommerce. Cindy Floren, July 23, 2012.Web. 27 April. 2014. <http://www.myecommerce.biz/blog/2012/07/the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-using-crowdsourcing-to-improve-your-ecommerce-business/>

Fung, Tim. "The pros and cons of crowdsourcing." Business Spectator. October 7, 2013. Web.

28 Apr. 2014. <http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/7/10/technology/pros-and-cons-crowdsourcing>

Howe, Jeff. “The Rise of CrowdSourcing.” Wired. Jeff Howe. June 2006. Web. 27, Apr. 2014.

<http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/crowds.html>

Jeffery, Matthew. “Recruitment 4.0: Crowdsourcing, Gamification, Recruitment as a Profit Center

and the Death of Recruitment Agencies!” ERE. Matthew Jeffrey. Aug. 10 2011. Web. 5 May 2014. <http://www.ere.net/2011/08/10/recruitment-4-0-crowdsourcing-gamification-recruitment-as-a-profit-center-and-the-death-of-recruitment-agencies/>

Murphy, Tom. “Taking the ‘fun’ out of Crowdfunding.” Forbes. Tom Murphy. December 10,

2013. Web. 5 May. 2014 <http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml>

Paul, Frederick. “Small Businesses Save Big with Crowd Sourcing.” AllBusiness. Frederick Paul,

N.D. Web. 27 April. 2014. <http://www.allbusiness.com/small-business-crowdsourcing/16746983-1.html>

“Pledge Based Crowdfunding.” MarketingMoxie. No publisher, N.D

              Web. 27 April, 2014. <http://marketingmoxie.biz/the-big-list-of-crowdfunding-sites/>

Yudkin, Marcia. “Crowdsourcing: 9 Hidden Pitfalls of This New Method of Generating Your

New Business Name.”   Creative Marketing Solutions. Marcia Yudkin, N.D.

           Web. 27 April. 2014 <http://www.yudkin.com/crowdsourcing.htm>

5/11

My week was pretty awesome! I really didn't do much and my homework amount was minimal. It was pretty darn fantastic. It was mothers day weekend obviously so I had to make my mom a gift. I made her a collage of all the pictures of us when we were little and I put a small poem in the middle. I went out to buy her a rose and she was so happy with her gift. It ended up raining though so we didn't get to enjoy the park. Maybe next year!