U of H

30,Aug, Tuesday

Today we went to the U of H.We didn't know what "U of H" means. It is short for "UNIVERSITY of HOUSTON", and used in many situation.U of H was so much bigger than Fukushima University, and has won many medals or trophy, amazing!I hope F.Uni won more prize (in the field and track events, etc...).

KAORI

Orientation at University of Houston

Today we visited the University of Houston. We had a tour of the campus and we saw the Event Management offices we will be working in and met our bosses! The event management department is very busy this week preparing for the biggest football game of the season, Houston versus UCLA on Saturday. We will help with the preparations this week, such as preparing VIP passes, checking inventory lists, and general office tasks.

On Saturday we will have a free pass to the game, we will work in the hospitality section and we will have a chance to see the 'tailgate' parties that US students have on game day!

Visit to Farouk Systems

I didn't know about CHI products until attend this tour today. I had an image that a factory is big place, but the factory was a very small site. I can't believe that all products are made there. They export their products to over 100 countries. Sarah said that notices in the factory are written in Spanish, then I think all most all people who work there are not an American by birth, may be some of them are from Mexico. This is just like Texas. In Japan, there is the same situation. A factory in Japan, the workers are 80~90% not Japanese, they are Chinese or Thai or Philippine. I think they want a job on the other hand companies want to save labor costs. Peoples desire and interest to work has caused this situation.

By Eri

Farouk Systems USA

Here are some photos from Day One on the job! After our orientation, we had a factory tour of Farouk Systems. It is a hair products company that supplies products to over 250 countries around the world. They make shampoos, colours and electrical tools like dryers and straighteners. The pictures show the factory, the chemicals used to make the shampoo and the mixing vats. We'll post our reflections on the factory tour in another post, so stay tuned!!

Pool Party

Yesterday we went to a Welcome Pool Party! Yusuke's host family very generously prepared a wonderful BBQ feast for us! We had kebabs, cheesecake, salad, pickles, bread, lots of delicious fresh fruit and even Japanese noodles that were made by Dotty! It was all fantastic.

We also went swimming in Richard and Sharon's pool. It was a great way to cool off in the Texas heat. It was over 108 degrees again yesterday! The pool had a water slide and we played catch ball and did weights in the water! We chatted to lots of people and introduced ourselves! It was a great way to relax and get over jet lag!! We were exhausted when we went to bed!

Thank you to everyone who prepared the BBQ party!

True Texan hospitality!

American Business Hotels

We are staying in an American business hotel. It is very comfortable. We have large suits with big beds and a TV, kitchen and bathroom. There is also a swimming pool and gym. It's much bigger and more spacious than a Japanese business hotel. There is a buffet breakfast. There are many things to eat!!! We had French toast, corned beef hash, fruit, eggs, cereal, many more!

We've arrived!

After a very long flight via Atlanta, we arrived in Houston! We were very tired so went straight to bed on the first night! Yesterday we went to the Galleria Shopping Center. It's impossible to be outside now as the temperature is more than 106 degrees during the day, so it's safer to stay inside with air conditioning!

We found the best way to cool down! We went Ice Skating at the Galleria Shopping Center! It was great fun but quite difficult!

TGIF

Hi there!

I had a successfull test order today on the website which I have been working on.

Next week I will be uploading more products which are based on Apple products.

This is what I have been doing so far.

Bye

Yusuke

Thirsty Thursday

Howdy!

It's still been very hot in Houston!
How about in Japan?


I made another business model board this morning with brainstorming.
One of them is for our internship program. The other one is for the company's business.

Here's serious news about Houston as well as Texas.
There's no rain in Texas so the state is drying up. I've seen dead trees because of no water supply, and I've also seen fire department many times, sometimes twice or three times a day! Hope it will be rainy soon!

http://www.businessinsider.com/texas-drought-2011-08

Yusuke

Happy Wednesday from Yusuke!

Hi there,

Today I worked on the business model and did brainstorming based on our internship program.( I'm going to put on the photo soon.)
Today's photo is me, Tyeisha and Beth. They work at the reception area in the office.


By the way, did you know that the governor of Texas, Rick Perry announced his candidature for the president of the United States?

Here's the link of an article about him today.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/08/16/news/economy/perry_bernanke/index.htm?hpt=hp_t2

Yusuke

Cheesecake Factory!!

Hi,

I am sorry that I have been away from this blog for a while.


Today I learned about customer segments which is one of the 9 building blocks for the business model.
The answer is quite simple.

" who are our customer?"

The customer segments section defines the different group of people or organisations to serve.  
 


 The photo is what I had for today's lunch at the cheesecake factory.
http://www.thecheesecakefactory.com/

Yusuke

It's Friday!

We are having a cool day today.  
It's under 100-degrees; 99℉ :)

This morning I learned about a business model that can be applied for everything.
There are 9 building blocks for the business model.

1, Customer Segments 
2, Value Proposition
3, Channels 
4, Customer Relationships
5, Revenue Streams
6, Key Resources 
7, Key Activities
8, Key Partnership
9, Cost Structure

Next week I will explain about the business model more with pictures!

Have a nice weekend!

Yusuke

Yusuke's visit to University of Houston

Hi people in Japan,

How are you doing?  We are having another hot day in Houston today!


I visited The University of Houston yesterday.  
I toured the Alumni Athletic Department building.

I posted some photos that I took at the department.
They are a part of the university, not a city gym or something.
Can you believe how big university of Houston is!? HUGE!

I met the University people who the other students will be working with.
Doesn't it sound exciting!?

Before I get too excited, I should go back to work!

See ya!
Yusuke

As of August 6th, Houston had five 100-degree days in row!
Surprisingly, according to a news paper, that equals what city usually gets in one year!!

Today it's going to be 104°F( = 40℃!!!). Wow.
Don't worry. I've got a place to stay cool, and it's just in front of our building!
Moreover, we have the greatest invention for Huston -- air conditioning.

Oh, I've got to back to work!


Yusuke

Do you want money?

Today, in the 3rd Intensive class, had many conversations and actions, active one.

We learned how to aboid the panhandler. I practiced with Saori, and her rolling was very nice, like a real panhandler, WOW!

And we learned that we mustn't give them money, because they usually tells us many lies, and my surprising, earn about 300$(30$?) / a day. Then, they often use the money for some bad things, drag, alchol, etc. If they think it is a good way for earning, they never stop it. So we mustn't.

In the end, we finished today's class talking about Houston's nice foods. Especially I was interested in the all chocolate flavor ice cream shop.(because today was so hot, wet day.)

Kaori Okudera

Intensive Oral Communication (3)

Hello, everybody.
How are you today?
The real summer has came back to Fukushima today.
The highest temperature for today was 37 ℃.
It was too hot.

Well, back to talk about our intensive class.
Today is the third day of the intensive class.

We continued our discussion about "HSBC Family Business".
We wrote a short story line of each scenes and tried to describe how the actor is feeling.
Then from that video, we tried to see the motivation/initiative aspect ( not the marketing aspect).
I think everyone who has watched that video can understand what the motivation/initiative aspect i mean.

Initiative can not be taught in class because someone's initiative is coming from his/her own heart. Teacher just can give some encouragement to us. But in the end, deciding to or not to take initiative backs to ourselves.

Initiative is a decision to step first before others made by yourself.
You need COURAGE when taking an initiative and you also need courage to accept all of the consequences of that initiative. Sometimes, the process to get something you want from that initiative is not going well but you should not give up. You should keep your spirit high until you get what you hope from that initiative. That is we call RESPONSIBILITY. Then, you also need CONFIDENCE when taking an initiative so other person can support you and believe that you can do your initiative like you and they are expecting. So, I think when taking initiative, these three elements (courage, responsibility and confidence) should be important.

From the Commercial TV, HSBC Family Business, you can see clearly those elements of initiative.

Selvia

second day

Today, the second day of the Intensive class,
was very pleasant one.
In the middle of today's class, Saori and Pushuca joined the class. They speaks English very well, especially, I was surprised at Saori's fluent English.

On my way home with her and Selvia, I asked Saori , why she can speak so well. She said she is very interested in using English, and tried to talk with so called ALT(native English speaker) in her junior high school life. Once she talked, she thought it very very exiting, then her English life started!

In the end of this talk, she encouraged me indirectly. I had worried about my skill so much until that, but I feel it calms down.

Second day was fresh and interesting. I enjoyed it so much.

Kaori Okuera

Yusuke's New Building

Howdy!!

Here's my internship office building in Houston. I love the height and the fast elevators. I can't wait for the rest of the group to arrive.

Yusuke

Intensive Oral Communication (2)

Hello, I am back again.
Today, at the second day of the preparation class, we watched a very interesting commercial TV, titled HSBC Family Business.
This is short commercial TV, just about 1 minutes and 45 seconds, but if you watch it deeply you can learn so many things from that, such as how to be independence, how important to have an initiative, and some other things.
So, why don't you take your time a little to watch it too.
Here is the video, check it out!





Selvia

ALPS

Students on the internship from Toyo Gakuen University take the ALPS Course. ALPS doesn't mean the mountains, ALPS stands for Academic Language Learning and Professional Skills.

In the 3rd and 4th year, students study about Professional Skills - this helps them to prepare for their jobs in the future! International companies are becoming more concerned with their employees soft skills, specifically critical and analytical thinking, teamwork and interpersonal skills.

Do you know what soft-skills are? Research shows that despite this trend, these skills are not the most predominant skills developed at universities in Asia! The Professional Skills strand of the ALPS course, teaches about the essential skills required for professional workplace success.

In class we cover themes like knowing yourself, communicating your vision, business etiquette, professional behavior, intercultural communication, individual performance, business strategy, critical thinking and problem solving skills! Now we have the chance to use these skills in America!

Real English and business skills in the REAL world!

Intensive Oral Communication (1)

Intensive Oral Communication is a preparation class designed to us, students from Fukushima University, who are going to join Texas Business Internship 2011.
This class is started by today and will be held until Thursday, August 11th.

This class is focus on discussing about the difference between Americans and Japanese in their ways of being polite.
We use this below text book as our guidance.


Besides that, this class is also focus on teaching us how to make our own
"Personal Branding".
Personal Branding is important for us to market ourselves to others.
Today we did the first process of that.
We are asked to think about how to describe ourselves in 160 characters
like twitter. It should be short but powerful enough to describe ourselves.

Then, another activity of today's class is analyzing our English skill.


That's all for today.

I will be back tomorrow to share what we learn.

Be blessed,
Selvia

Kaori's profile

I"m Kaori Okudera, from Fukushima, studying Economics(analysis) , like japanese green tea very much.

My part time job is cram school teacher for junior high school students , teaching Math, English, Japanese, and Science.
I started using Twitter in July this year, so have just posted six tweets so far, but I think that is going to change soon--even today! Follow me at @siromon65!!

Houston in 2.5 weeks.

Excited
Kaori

Selvia's Profile

Hello, Everybody in Houston.

I am Selvia from Indonesia, going to join the Business Internship Program
in Houston from September 1st to 26th.

Now, I am in my last year of my degree at Fukushima University,
majoring in Financial Accounting in the Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
I speak Indonesian, Japanese and English.

I am hardworking and ambitious, fighting to get what i want.
I feel happy if i can help and share with others,
so if you need my helps some day, please feel free to ask me.

I am crazy about the Korean Dramas and Taiwanese Dramas
I can sit in front of my laptop whole a day just to watch the series of dramas.
But, it doesn't mean i forget my duty as a student.
I study hard to keep my GPA and never miss the deadline of the reports.
Watching dramas is just one of my ways to spend my leisure time.

Recently, I go to the gym twice or three times a week to stay healthy.
I love doing BodyCombat, Balleton, and Pilates.

If you want to know about me more,
you are pleased to follow my account twitter @SeLv_
or visit my blog
http://selviaelfrida.blogspot.com

I am looking forward to seeing and working with
all of you in the next three weeks.

Houston, I am going to you soon!

Be blessed,
Selvia

And we're off!

Our first intern arrived safely at Hobby Airport in Houston this morning and was met by our in-country coordinator Mr. Dave Anderson. We are really excited about the program and we'll start posting more to the blog now that the program has officially started! Looking forward to having everyone share this experience with us!