Week 1. Garcia, Moises

A start-up doesn’t necessarily need a brilliant idea in order for you to start. It can be something super simple, as long as it’s either convenient or easier to use then prior technologies in that area or in the field that you are working on in that start-up. When working on a start-up make sure that it you’re truly going to go for it, that it has your undivided attention, because in order for it to be successful you’ll have to put in a bunch of work. That’s only part of the equation of a successful start-up, you must also make sure that you are passionate about it, because there are going to be a lot of failures in the process and that is ok, being passionate about it will help with the failures. Another main thing to keep in mind, is that no one ever has created a successful start-up by themselves, so make sure that you surround yourself with people that have the skills that you lack in order to  best compliment you, so that if you ever get stuck you have other intelligent minds the are continuously feeding you with ideas or working on other aspects of the start-up. It’s important you don’t rush any part of the start-up process, come up with ideas and make sure they are tested to the fullest capabilities, you don’t want to see yourself down the road struggling with something you could have handled at an earlier stage. If the idea is well thought out and makes sense and is useful to the general public, the money will follow.

-http:/www.paulgraham.com.html 

Week 2_Yueming Tan

The article "The Birth of Korean Cool: How One Nation is Conquering the World Through Pop Culture" by Hong Eung, the author first described his childhood experiences as "Chinese" or "Japanese" by other children. The author moved to Chicago and his family when he was 12 years old. At that time, South Korea was considered "invisible." However, South Korea was not cool in 1985. It is considered an inferior, nameless country. In 1965, South Korea’s GDP was even lower than North Korea’s.  The author also describes how South Korea takes place in the world through high-tech electronics and cultural output such as K-pop, movies, video games, and Korean drama.  This has aroused my interest because I feel that South Korea has achieved great success regarding cultural output. For example, the famous Korean men's idol group - BTS. I can say that 98% of the members of the K-Pop community in UC Davis are fans of BTS. (This means I need to pretend that I am a fan of BTS to make friends) Also, the members of Korean men's idol groups usually have beautiful shapes and trendy clothing to attract fans, which also makes South Korea's trend culture always in a favorite state in today's society. However, there is no doubt that South Korea succeeded by creat their nation branding.

I chose this picture because this is one of my favorite Korean drama, the descendants of the sun.

• Hong, E. (2014). The birth of Korean cool: How one nation is conquering the world through pop culture. London: Simon et Schuster.
• (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.kdramalove.com/DescendantsSun.html

Week 1_Yueming Tan

I learned three critical factors by reading these articles such as hiring the right people, creating what people need and reducing the cost of production. What I find confusing is the second point, creating what people need because the current "things" are too many and people often buy things they don't need at all. This phenomenon of blind consumption has caused over-manufacturing and led to a waste of resources. This is not good for a business or a country.

On the other hand, people lack imagination and always create things that have the same function. For example, a nice thermos bottle. Yes, it's just a thermos bottle that people use to keep water or coffee warm. The manufacturer slightly modified its shape or color, and it was a new product, but there was no practical change or improvement.

• (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html
• http://nationalaesthetics.blogspot.com/

Sam Soleta - Week 1

Creating a startup doesn't require groundbreaking new ideas, it only requires smart work and dedication. Smart work, rather than hard work, is essential to the successful start of a new company. Paul Graham describes the 3 key components of a successful startup to be: "to start with good people, to make something people actually want, and spend as little money as possible." In retrospect, these goals don't seem too far fetched but once into the swing of things, can prove to be a bit challenging.
Source: Why a "happy" team isn't enough for your startup to be its best ...



Step one of a good startup is hiring the right people. Not only should employees be qualified for the job but they must have a passion for the job, or at least a passion to succeed at their respective duties. Each person has a specific role within the workplace and a successful startup should aim to cover all bases. Secondly, it is imperative to work to what the customers want. If a product isn't appealing, the company won't see any profit from that product. Being aware of the market and the different trends and needs of the consumer is important to understanding how to adapt a product. Finally, raising money as well as saving money. Once you've established a team and a product, the foundation is set to start the company. Once a foundation is set, raising money and finding investors allow that next step into building that company from the ground up.

Taking these lessons and applying it to my own startup, I think it creates a good basis of how to approach the rebranding of a nation. Understanding that we can start first with the practical needs and values of the consumers (other nations and people) allows us the opportunity to find new solutions that can help further the development and social status of a nation.

Works Cited

Graham, Paul. “How to Start a Startup.” How to Do What You Love, www.paulgraham.com/start.html.

Uyen Ngo-Week 2

When is comes to countries and the subject of rebranding, Korea is what some may call "a cinderella story". In present day it is the 15th largest economy and continues to produce a culture that has impacted the rest of the world in a dramatic way (Hong, 3). However, what most of the world forgets is that just over five decades ago, Korea was not "cool".

In my previous post, I raised the question of whether or not the consequences of rebranding is worth the economic growth or desire to enter the market as a "top" country. When it comes to Korea, I would argue that their benefits outweighed the cons. Of course, it is important to keep in mind that there were consequences, its almost impossible to reinvent a country without some criticism and judgement. For example, Korea had faced backlash from the Chinese and Vietnamese who "are now critical of the Korean Wave as cultural imperialism (Joo, 497). The reason in which they have specifically received this criticism as opposed to other countries is because while "other countries have gone from rags to riches in the last century, but among these, only South Korea has the cheek to set its sights on becoming the world's top exporter of popular culture" (Hong, 2). I believe that Korea's aim to make impact via culture, specifically entertainment, as opposed to something concrete as food makes them a bigger threat as they are able to impact the rest of the world in a more lasting and bold way. It is easy to forget which country you got this apple from but impossible to remember that you are listen to K-pop from KOREA. 

A lot of the positives that comes from Korea's rebranding seems to have resulted from Korea's ability to twist the consequences into benefits. Instead of resulting to "critical reexamination of globalization, nationalistic fear of foreign cultural invasion is largely replaced by equally nationalistic pride in the transitional advance of Korean popular culture, or pop nationalism (Joo, 496). by the people learning to embrace this change and view it as an opportunity to restart the country after the devastation of the war, Korea say benefits that came for their own people, not just economically. For example, after the division in 1945, Korea was homogeneous for the most part. However, they were able to grow in heterogeneity and differences in terms of not just race, but also language, culture and arts (Yim, 39). This is only one of the many countless examples of the positive change that occurred in the journey to Korea's rebranding and it is a perfect example to reflect the idea that a country cannot be able to successfully rebrand itself without the cooperation of its people. 

Works Cited

https://www.thebrandingjournal.com/2016/11/korean-tourism-organisation-reinvigorate-refresh-nations-brand/

Eung Hong. “The Birth of Korean Cool: How One Nation Is Conquering the World Through Pop Culture.”

Haksoon Yim. “Cultural Identity and Cultural Policy in South Korea.”

Jeongsuk Joo. “Transnationalization of Korean Popular Culture and the Rise of ‘‘Pop Nationalism in Korea”.

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Uyen Ngo-Week 1

 While there are many factors that contribute to a successful cooperation, one of the biggest contributors is by far, branding and marketing. In fact, creating a company's image has become so crucial in the business world that it has become its own field. This also translates when it comes to nations, which some could argue, are large cooperations themselves. However, this time, instead of selling a tangible object to consumers, they are attempting to sell an idea to their fellow nations. It is important to note that when it comes to "rebranding, there are benefits that are paired with consequences. While there is no doubt that rebranding could be the first step to catalyzing a nation in the global economy, it can ultimately come at the cost of its own people. 

For quite some time, Greece was seen as the ultimate paradise travel destination. As shown in popular films such as "Mamma Mia", who wouldn't want to come to Greece, dance on the sunny beach, and fall in love? However, in an attempt to rebrand themselves as a world destination, they have unfortunately let that attempt become a factor in their current financial demise. A major example comes in the form of the Olympics. On its own it seems like an amazing idea. What is a better way to enter the elites than to host the biggest sporting event in the world? However, the 2004 Olympics led the Greece government to end up spending 11 billion on the venues, money that could have easily been allocated elsewhere (Scherer, Shi). A usual benefit of hosting the Olympics is that it usually leads to the construction of new buildings, airports, transportation systems, etc. The irony was that Greece had missed out on this benefit as the majority of these venues ended up being torn down due to neglect (Scherer, Shi).

While change is always positive and rebranding as a whole is a great idea, it is important to remind ourselves that when it comes to rebranding something as complex as a nation, there are precautions that must be taken. There are no rules or guidelines as every country is unique on its own so it is important to assess the country as a whole before deciding what is the right steps when it comes to the rebranding process. Ultimately, it is about finding a balance in order to rebrand the nation in a way that does not lead to consequences that could ultimately sink a country on its way to reforming its identity.

Works Cited

http://fortune.com/2016/08/10/olympics-financial-disasters/
https://publicandculturaldiplomacy3.wordpress.com/2012/04/21/public-diplomacy-and-nation-branding-7/

Nina Huang- Final Blog

If I had the opportunity to do over my project, I would researched different startups that are already in the market so that it could give me a better idea on what a startup is. Then I would have tried harder on thinking about what country, nation, or city I would want to brand and look at what startups are already there. Even though we had sample presentations from past students, I was still confused on what a startup is and how to rebrand a nation. My group mates and I had some ideas on what we may do, but most of the ideas did not fit into the assignment requirements or did not work as a startup. We just took the easier route to sticking with our original idea and changing it to fit the assignment since we wanted to be done with the assignments that were due each week. If we talked about our ideas more and have it confirmed earlier that our idea is good and works in this project, we would not have to redo the first two assignments.

Besides that, I would have tried harder on the group project assignments if I knew what we need to have in each assignments. Most of the assignments did not have specific guidelines, so we did do much research and just tried to answer the prompt with our ideas alone. For some reason, I thought we had to put all the assignments into an essay format for the last assignment so that I thought that is when we would edit our answers and cite the sources from assignment two. As a result, I thought we answered the questions well and would get a good grade on each assignments. I now know that we need to cite outsides sources after the second assessment so that we would have other information to support our arguments. Moreover, if we communicated better and divided the assignment equally, each person would have done equal amounts of work for each week. That way, each of us would know exactly what we have to do to finish the weekly assignments and how to answer the prompts better. It would also help us generate more ideas and make us put more effort on each assignments.