Burger and the Ground

First word: BURGER

Juicy Tasty Burger

I remember how amazing burgers taste. The juicy tasting meat complemented with the taste of onions and the flavor of ketchup and mayonnaise. And perfect with the fresh crispness of lettuce. You can tell I’m quite hungry while writing this! I absolutely love burgers. All burgers however are not created equal. Each one has a unique flavor and taste to it forged and created by garnering all the different ingredients. The big mac from McDonalds has this interesting combination of flavor. It is a bit sweet yet a bit sour creating the perfect opposing taste added with the ketchup and cheese. Simply splendid! The roast beef sandwich from Arby’s has a much different taste to it. It has no toppings or vegetables. But what makes this burger unique is the way the beef is sliced so thinly. It gives a whole different level of exquisite dining. Oh and we can forget about the whopper from burger king. The whopper is a simple burger that relies on the taste of mayonnaise and lettuce to enhance the flavor. It’s filling and incredibly amazing at the same time.  

Second word: GROUND

Peaceful Pasture

The ground reminds me of the earth and nature. The essence of the earth and nature has this cooling effect. It grounds the energy of the world. And the trees provide oxygen and life energy to the world. Earth gives birth to metal, metal gives birth to water, water gives birth to wood, wood gives birth to fire, and fire gives birth to earth. This is the cycle of the five elements of nature. The ground has powerful symbols to it. In many cultures, there are myths and stories of origins of mother earth and nature. Because it is such an important part of our existence and world. We cannot exist without the power of nature. And that is what the word ground reminds me of, that we are all a part of something all powerful.

At first it was a bit difficult to combine the two words which seem incompatible together. But I thought of a few ways to that they can be used:

Dirt Burger: I was thinking that a dirt burger could be made. Similar to how mud pies are made from dirt and flour but a burger made out of grass as lettuce and dried mud as the buns and maybe twigs as the meat. Perhaps this could be a sculpture or a depiction of art of some kind.

Ground Cinnamon Burger: I don’t know if this would actually taste good or not. But when I think of spices I think of ground cinnamon a nice spice to add to many dishes. I was thinking of combining the two elements together making a burger based around ground cinnamon, it would have a subtle hint of sweetness but not too much.

Ground Cinnamon Spice

 Ground beef burger: I’m sure this exists already but ground beef definitely is the way to go for a burger. It would be full of flavor.

Burger used as compost: A burger that has dropped on the ground and used as compost for fertilizer. All things must return back to nature and again be a part of the great cycle. Why not help it along a bit faster!

Underground burger restaurant: A burger restaurant built to enjoy the wonders of being underground perhaps in deep caves or something. It would definitely be an interesting tourist attraction as well as rest stop.

Animal food burger: Burgers used to feed wild animals throwing them on the ground. They would be smaller for the animals to be able to eat it bit by bit. Everyone should have the joy of enjoying the beauty of burgers. We can’t leave animals out it would be animal cruelty. Minus cows.

Giant Burger Sculpture: A giant burger sculpture made from the clay on the ground. A wonder of the world as big as the pyramids of Egypt! Perhaps this can be used to generate and create buzz for a restaurant.

Underground burger headquarters: Having the headquarters of McDonalds or burger king be underground and shaped like a burger. This would protect it from nuclear strikes and natural disasters.

Burger shaped lightning rod: A lightning rod used to ground lightning to the ground with the tip shaped like a burger. This would promote McDonalds or burger king as a company that wants to protect its customers from lightning. Good PR.

Ketchup fertilizer: A fertilizer developed from ketchup to improve the appearance of crops. You see normal crops look boring they should have different colors. On top of that, the fertilizer lets the grow and adds nutrition.

I think out of all these ideas the only viable one would be the ground cinnamon burger. I don’t know how it would actually taste but it feels like an intriguing idea seeming as I haven’t actually had the luxury of eating one yet. I think it would definitely create a product differentiation.  

Water Filters

It has always been a great concern to me what type of water to drink. It’s something so small and detailed but it’s very important. 75 percent of our body is made from fluids and we need to drink an average of 1.9 liters of water a day to stay in good hydration. And if I don’t invest in a good water filter then a lot of problems can happen. I think we can all agree that drinking tap water is out of the option. There are a lot of scientific articles out there that try to convince us that it’s “great for us” and all that because it has fluoride and helps our teeth or whatever. These articles sadly don’t mention the chlorine and chloramines level in the water used to cleanse the water from diseases. Not to mention the random minerals in the water. I want to design or research a water filter that will create an optimal experience for the consumer. Because so many companies out there are just trying to get our money. They don’t really care about what is truly better for the consumer or not. I have no idea why these companies are so short sighted. I believe that companies should add value to society. Currently, there is no really good water filtration system in the market that can be cost effective. So I really want to focus my research on creating and researching an optimal way to filter water yet do it at a reasonable cost. And I also want to make it easy for the consumer because water is such an important part of our health and lives.

I have done some research on which type of filter would be optimal. There are several kinds. The reverse osmosis system purifies the water by forcing it through a tiny membrane and drawing out bacteria, salt, minerals. It is very expensive and it also takes all the healthy minerals out of the water too! The water distiller system boils the water and condenses the water again so all the bacteria minerals would also be gone. It’s also very expensive and takes out all the healthy minerals. Another type of water filter is the charcoal filter. The benefits of this type of filtration is that it filters out bacteria and bad elements like lead mercury. The carbon charcoal will bond with all the heavy metals and filter them out of the water. It also retains the good minerals. The filter has to be changed every 6 months or so. This is the type of filtration Brita filters are based from. However, even though Brita filters make tap water significantly healthier, the filters on them are so small. It is built for more of convenience rather than being a good filter. The ceramic filter filters our bacteria and mineral because they have microscopic fossilized one celled algae that are so tiny they only let through few particles. Out of all these options, I think that ceramic and charcoal filters would be the best option for the general consumer. They are easy to use and not expensive. I would not recommend the other ones because they are far too expensive and a lot of users have listed a lot of problems on them.

Bamboo Charcoal

Another type of filtration system uses the bamboo charcoal, a substance used in Asia for thousands of years starting with 1400 AD in the Ming dynasty of China. It has been listed as having miraculous properties of releasing negative ions the air – which creates a healthier environment. And it also filters water. But here’s the amazing part. It filters water and adds vital minerals the body needs. I found an article here Bamboo Charcoal. I really want to do more research into how these various ways of filtration can be combined to create and generate a good experience for the consumer. I am thinking that if we combine the ceramic, charcoal, and bamboo charcoal filter. It will succeed in producing a cost effective solution to filtration and improving the general health because the bamboo charcoal adds minerals back into the water. 

Experience at IKEA

I remember the first time I walked into Ikea. It was the most amazing experience I had ever had. I really hadn’t done any furniture shopping until I needed to move to my apartment in college. As we discussed in class, I was one of the many people who believed furniture shopping would be a big drag and painful excruciating experience. So I wasn’t really looking forward to furnishing my apartment at all.

Big sign is very inviting!

But even before I walked in the store, they had 5 furniture pieces that were extremely good deals for college students – I still remember of them was a table for 7.99. When I saw that I knew I was at the right place to shop for furniture. I remember going to Roomstore when I was little. This was the only other furniture shopping experience I had prior to IKEA. When I saw the prices at Roomstore, I almost fainted. But even before I walked into the store the point of sales display they set up was already giving me a good impression of IKEA. And after that, when I saw the interior designed rooms with IKEA furniture, I was honestly shocked at how amazing such affordable simple furniture can look when they put everything together. This was all in the first few moments of getting out of the car and walking inside and IKEA had already created this impressive image about their brand and store.

Arrows leading the experience through the interior designed rooms

 What I liked a lot was that the store was laid out in a way so that it was an experience for the consumer. So like from the beginning you start at the interior designed rooms and arrows lead you to the chairs, kitchens, beds and so on. Designing and really walking through everything with the people your with is really what made the experience special. I mean no one goes shopping for furniture alone, there are always opinions to be discussed and really it’s an experience to decorate one’s own house. The experience was really fun. I remember they also had like demonstrations where they had a hammer running into a chair continuously and a sign that said they thoroughly tested the quality of their product. I was really impressed at the amount of effort they put to actually demonstrating something like this. Most other furniture stores are just like “yeah it won’t break” but IKEA really actually shows you a hammer running into a chair as proof. I think I felt a whole lot safer buying their products knowing that it was quality after that.  And halfway through this experiential journey, there is a food court! This was what really surprised me when I was there. I mean who expects a food court at a furniture store? I really felt like I was walking a journey going through the store. We had a rest and respite in the middle of the day and ate Swedish meatballs and got to try out exotic dishes from Sweden and Europe. I remember how we talked about how IKEA targets the experience to families because they want to make the furniture adventure fun and wants to make the families come back. I can totally see that now that I look back on my first trip. The interior designed rooms where family members can discuss how furniture could be arranged in accordance with their own house. And the food court in the middle. Not only that, but the end of the journey, where you actually have to pick up the furniture by yourself and you have to work with your family members to arrange it so that it’s not too heavy and all. You work as a team and that team effort builds some kind of connection and experience.

I think what IKEA was trying to do with their strategy in terms of consumer experience was that they were trying to capitalize a place where families can bond and select furniture for their house. Hence the food court in the middle of the stores. They also spent small parts proving to their costumers broad and general brand ideas like they create simple yet durable furniture. Hence the hammer running into the chair. And also the point of sales display they had out before I even walked in meant they were trying to convey that they were selling affordable priced product because no one really wants to go into a store and have them tell you it’s going to cost a fortune to decorate. So all these little tiny details combine and create a great experience for the customers. 

David Persona

David is 20 year old college student attending the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin.  

David comes from a middle class family that moved here from Taiwan. As he was growing up, his family influenced him with the Asian traditions and culture. While growing up in America, he also absorbed into the American culture. The result is a unique blend of American-Asian culture. He moved to Austin two years ago to attend college and plans to graduate soon as classes are becoming tiresome. Although some of the classes are extremely knowledgeable and interesting. He is a marketing major in the Business school. He chose marketing as a major because out of all the business majors, he believes that marketing is the most widespread and can be applied anywhere. And he considers it far more interesting than the other majors. He plans to start his own business when he graduates because to him the passion involved in creating something and crafting it into existence is amazing and thrilling. He believes it to be much more rewarding than any other job available. Because when someone considers their job a passion then that is when enjoyment of life can truly be fulfilled.  

David lives in s single bedroom apartment near the business school at the UT. The location is slightly more expensive but he is willing to pay the premium because of the location. The location is surrounded by several restaurants and CVS. This is extremely convenient especially traveling back from class to class. Being a college student, David struggles to find grocery needs and often finds himself asking friends to take him to the grocery store so he doesn’t end up on the verge of starving. He doesn’t like having a car in Austin because the parking is expensive for his apartment and the traffic in downtown area is very hard to navigate because of all the one-ways. He instead uses the Austin bus system, which is extremely effective both on campus and to the other areas of Austin. Another reason to use the bus is because it is extremely hot during the summer months. And walking back and forth from campus and the apartment could tire a person out or give them sunburn. Because of all this walking he purchased performance based sunglasses designed to block out sunlight to prevent eye degradation. He believes sunglasses to be quite a value due to all the walking around campus. He has been considering renting cars from the Car2go company based in Austin. It’s a company that allows for students to rent cars on the go anywhere around Austin. This way it would not cost much to rent a car seeming as he his uses for cars would be very limited.

On his free time, David enjoys reading believes that knowledge is accumulates. And that gaining knowledge of various aspects tremendously helps with experiences, situations, and life. He also devotes much of his time to cooking. Because he does not want to eat unhealthy foods, which is prevalent in college life. And sometimes hosts dinner parties so he can learn various styles of cooking. People always enjoy dinner parties because it’s a time for bonding and there is food. For the meals he doesn’t cook, he usually finds restaurants around his apartment which are convenient.  

David devotes much of his time to keeping his apartment clean and also implementing new ways to decorate his apartment. He searches for various items on Amazon and eBay that fit his style of decoration. He finds it difficult to match and coordinate all the elements of interior design together but believes that he will master it with time. It takes much effort to make sure everything is coordinated and looks cool and has still function. He believes that a good environment produces positive feelings, which in turn promotes productivity and that interior design is important. 

Design Philosophy and Insights

I was very surprised by several of the elements of design philosophy. In class, we talked about Dieter Ram’s principle of how “good design is as little design as possible.”  I have always thought that incorporating more features was better, but now I after the lecture, I see how a simple design that accomplishes its purpose is far superior to feature packed item.  I did some research into this and it seems this principle of simplicity originates from a scientific principle called Ockham’s Razor, which basically means that the simplest solution is the best. Because the more features or factors, the more complicated it becomes. Then the less likely the design will accomplish its original purpose. I think a good example was pointed out in the previous class – the iPhone. The iPhone’s interactive interface is a screen and one button! The design is simple it is beyond conceivable before it came out. I remember the pre-iphone era, smart phones had the most ridiculous amount of buttons, they did all sorts of things glide, slide, flip,  pop up features. Yet despite all these features, the iPhone beat them all with one simple yet profoundly elegant design.

Another concept, I found intriguing was “Design the System.” I have really never thought of crafting a system from a business standpoint. The information was quite enlightening. Design philosophy encompassing a whole system could mean that it would better fit the users because the entire system was designed specifically for that use. Whereas most companies, just design a product or one single element and let the rest of system be defined. I thought about how designing the system related with our discussion in class on Friday about the music industry and its flaws. We touched on that the music industry did not see the customer’s needs and continued a business model that was outdated – selling albums. Consumers wanted individual songs that could be delivered instantaneously. But despite knowing this the industry continued to sell albums. And the result was consumers turned to pirating the music because it was free and faster than the service and product provided. However, when we talked about “design the system,” I thought of Pandora.com. This online radio station allows users to search for artists and songs and actual plays similar style music by other artists that was selected. I was amazed when I first found out about it because the musical styles were exactly the same. They designed the system. What they call – “the music genome project.” This system of music distribution allows the user to listen to the entire song and if it really intrigues them they can immediately purchase it for a small price. And it also serves to introduce to the user new artists and songs that are similar. They really did watch how the customers use the products and services and designed a whole system around it. A system that is wildly successful!

This connection I made in class when listening to our discussion really made me think would it not be amazing if companies really focused on innovations that helped everyone s needs. After all, in the class, it was mentioned that most products and services were made for only 10 percent of the population. I found this to be surprising because I thought that most of the products and services out there were useable at some point or another were used by everyone but then I realized when he showed us the water barrel and water stick used in countries with no indoor plumbing that it wasn’t necessarily the case. I really like the idea we talked about in class that “business success=social benefit.” Because after all I believe in the concept of corporate social responsibility where the goal of the business is to create and give benefit and value to the world and people. Not solely to make profit. I mean yes businesses exist to make profit that’s why they are there. But that’s like saying people exist to breathe. Profit is only a function of a business existence. The goal of companies is something else. It is an idea and a dream that is manifested with the company and brand. Like Wholefoods, which started right here in Austin. No one before Wholefoods has even conceived of delivering high quality organic grocery before! Because it was so far outside the realms of thought at the time. But John Mackey, the founder and CEO of wholefoods, brought forth this dream because he wanted to give the people healthier food. Food that wasn’t contaminated with pesticides and chemicals. Food that was healthy and nutritious. And this dream and mission became the iconic brand that we now know today. This dream became a reality that manifested itself through the company by means of corporate social responsibility. And Wholefood’s success was certainly social benefit.

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