Author: tania30113f14

The Ressurection of Spikeball

Posted on by tania30113f14

Have you ever heard of Spikeball? Spikeball is a sport that is becoming more popular in the United States. Spikeball is basically a combination of volleyball and foursquare. It’s a very easy game to play all you need is two teams of two people and the net. Spikeball is very portable it can be played in the backyard or on a beach.  If you purchase the product, which retails around $50 you will receive a trampoline like net which is a couple of inches off the ground, and a palm size ball. Basically, players stand around the net each team has up to three hits to transfer the ball to the opposing team. The purpose is to hit the ball into the net so the opposing team can’t return it. The winner is the team to get to 21 points first.

Chris Ruder is the founder and CEO of Spikeball. He first came across Spikeball in the 1980s when he purchased his very own Spikeball from Toys R Us. Ruder would always get the same question when people saw him playing Spikeball with his friends. The questions included, “What’s that game? How do you play? Where can I get one?” this were all simple questions but the last one because Toys R Us didn’t sell Spikeball anymore. That’s when Ruder had the idea to make Spikeball his own. Spikeball Inc. sold their first set in 2008 and Toys R Us was not involved. After having great success and growth Ruder quit his day job to focus on Spikeball. Spikeball has become more popular and has become a popular new sport. There are many tournaments in which people can compete in all over the United States. The top places are Chicago and Nashville. Other places include Los Angeles, New York, Georgia, and Iowa.

What makes this company interesting is the fact that how Ruder took Spikeball which seemed to be dying out and making it into something bigger. Ruder had no money to be able to advertise his product but it made it grow by simply going to the beach and people see him have fun. The game was originally trying to target a younger age group but Ruder realized that the target was not the correct target for Spikeball he believed that it was more for an older age group instead of kids. Ruder had to be in charge of everything that had to be done. He had to deal with inventory, customer service, and e-commerce. He had to be able to manage everything that had to do with improving Spikeball and making it known. He would also like to email customers that made purchases and ask them how they learned about Spikeball. By emailing the customers Ruder was able to receive better feedback regarding his product.

Have you heard of Spikeball before?

Would you try to play Spikeball?

http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20130730/lincoln-park/chicago-based-spikeball-exploding-popularity-nationwide

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/news/spikeball-toy-to-sport

http://spikeball.com/

 

The Retuen of the Ice Age

Posted on by tania30113f14

Operations management is one of the three most important things to understand when learning the functions of an organization. Learning more about operations management helps us learn more about understand how organizations work and how people organize themselves. I honestly do think that being able to understand and organize are very important skills to know when managing anything. Operations management is also a very costly part of the organization.

The past few weeks have being interesting. The only job that I had I recently had, but I also recently quit. I was working at Chipotle Mexican Grill during the summer. I only worked there for a month, but a month was good enough for me to learn more about the company, how the managers work, and I learned more about myself and how I work. It was interesting to see that there are different types of managers. I had a total of three mangers. They didn’t all have the same responsibilities but they had similar responsibilities as in telling employees what they had to do. I noticed that I would only like to do my job that I was supposed to do if a certain manager told me to do. I believe that I would do that because I sometimes wouldn’t like how the manager would talk to me when he would tell me what I had to do. So like I learned in class, some of the basic functions that operation managers do consist of planning, organizing, staffing, leading, and controlling.  I definitely saw these function being applied with the employees. The manger had to plan around with the employees and being able to schedule them and they tried their best to work around with the employee’s schedules. The also had to make sure that everything was running smoothly that the throughput was good and that they had all the supplies that the needed to make sure that everything was prepared and ready to go.

I haven’t had a job for longer than a month put I have noticed that some of the skills that I have learned in the class can also apply to any organization. There are many skills that you can learn through participating in organizations at school that you can later apply to your job. These five functions, planning, organizing staffing, leading, and controlling can apply to a job or like previously mention it can also be applied to extracurricular activities. For example, I been involved in organization at DePaul such as DePaul Alliance for Latino Empowerment (DALE) as well as MEChA. I’m also part of a fraternity. In the three organizations that I have been involved with, I know that I have applied these skills.  For example, we have to e able to work with other people that are in the same group to have events, we have to stay organized and make sure that everyone is participating one way or another. In addition we have to make sure that we are staying within our budget. I have definitely improved my skills by being involved with different organizations on campus as well as working at Chipotle.

In what ways have you applied the basic operations in your life? Do you think that they have improved over time? What are your experiences with the basic functions?