Business capstone discussion 1: Discussion 1: Is it a bird or a plane? A plane with flapping wings? Background Information link to the video: https://youtu.be/n_ob-5eC8uw Richard Branson, the Virgin Atlantic billionaire, and his research team, came up with a plane with flapping wings that can cut energy costs and provide more of a green energy concept for planes. Review the video link above and post your thoughts on the concept, embedding insights on innovation, competitive advantage and marketability of the invention. As you reflect on this invention, think how you can embed innovation and creativity into your project for this course. For instance, think about how competitive is your idea or business venture. What are the chances to successfully introduce the idea in the marketplace ? The initial post should be at least 600 words.

During the following week you will reply to at least two of your classmates. The replies should be at least 200 words. See the discussion rubric for more details on grading. Discussions should always be completed prior to "class." If you are in an online class or an on ground course this is prior to the lesson portion of the week. Are you ready to begin? 1. Watch the video 2. Post Initial Post/answer to the question (600 words) 3. Reply Posts ( 200-word posts) with thought provoking questions and observations Do you agree or disagree with your classmates' posts, or can you offer different insights? Reply at least to 2 students. reply to student #1: Innovation is one of the elements that all entrepreneurs are looking for in order to make their products or services marketable in any industries. Innovation does not only cut the cost and make business revenues higher but also allows companies to improve their poor performance. Also, innovation gives competitive advantages and make customers meet their needs. This the video says that Virgin Atlantic came up with an idea that they will create the world first flight with flapping wings. This Boeing’s wings bend and flex to create a flapping motion, and generate its own power for onboard features. It will make the company to cut fuel cost and have higher revenue. However, it was an April Fool’s joke and they felt proud of themselves that they tricked people into thinking that they really would create a flight with flapping wings. Even though it was not real, I believe that it can be a good start. I believe that there may be some people thinking about this idea and trying to make it real. It does not matter how long it takes to complete the project but the matter is if we can come up with an innovative thought or not. Even though it may not be soon for engineers to create a flight with flapping wings that reduces energy use and generates powers to meet the electronic need, it will make engineers try to create this type of flights or come up with a better idea. Recently, Uber announced and unveiled plans for a flying tax program. They have been working with a number of companies to design the flying vehicles and with NASA to create an air traffic control system. It was announced they plan to begin demo flights in 2020 and they chose 3 cities, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Melbourne, Australia, to have its flying taxi trails. It has been a controversial topic that people talked about for years but there was no company that planned out and implement the plan other than Uber. There is no guarantee that we will have flying taxies by the end of next year. Also, once it is launched, we will find some issues with the products and services. Once it happens, it will give people another opportunity to come up with other innovative thoughts to make our lives better. My project is to bring another income source to support an existing non-profit organization. It is tough for non-profit organizations to manage funds or finance situations. Also, predicting and planning their monthly or yearly budget in advance is not easy because they tend to rely on the government sector and other donors financially. One of my ideas that I would like to apply to this organization is opening fingerprint service to the public. Since this organization already has fingerprint machines and operate this service only for their clearances, it will be better for them to open it to the public so they can make some profits, and support its own non-profit organization. As mentioned earlier, since they use fingerprint machines for their own employees’ clearances, it does not require a large budget. I believe it is definitely marketable because this is the metropolitan area that there are many jobs related to the social services field. It usually requires employees to complete their fingerprints at least every one or two years. This will allows this company to increase revenue and the company will be able to utilize the profits to support its social services programs in house. student#2: Innovation is defined by the Business Dictionary (n.d.), as “The process of translating an idea or invention into a good or service that creates value or for which customers will pay.” These ideas that inventors have normally come from a dream or by observing nature. The inventors of these products or services start thinking on how to resolve a problem that has been present in their lives, or simply enough a way to improve something that has been done previously. Inventions are done to facilitate the life of the people using them and improve the quality of the service and to create an advantage in the markets for the company or person that is selling the product or service, as having something unique, having the purple cow. But the key of this inventions is the usefulness of them, and the meaningfulness that it will have to the targeted audience. Virgin Airways new airplane, The Dream Bird 1417, is a prime example of this, when Richard Branson had an idea of improving the dynamics of the wings of the plains after looking at the birds and how they flew and he with his Research and Development Team made everything that was possible to see that idea become a reality, and the usefulness of the new airplanes improve the way the planes moves and the utility of it. The biggest inventions in the world are done by error trying to achieve something else. Some inventors made have the idea of what they may want for a product and at the end get another product that may be a bigger success, an example of this is a small appliance that is found in most of the households around the world, the microwave. Percy Spencer an engineer for Raytheon was experimenting with a new vacuum tube in 1945, when he “notice that the candy bar that he had on his pocket began melt and when the popcorn he had thrown in the floor to vacuum began to pop.” (Prabhune, 2015) After noticing this, he knew that the reaction it was creating will had a potential to become something big. And he was on the ride track, after 3 years he produce a microwave that may had been too expensive to be purchase by the average consumer, and to big in dimensions, “which weighed 750 pounds, was 51/2 feet tall, and cost about $5,000” (Prabhune, 2015), but it open to world for him and Raytheon to keep working on the idea, and they achieve the success 17 years later, when the microwaves hit the shelves of the stores to be sold, as the countertop microwave. Every industry has opportunities to have inventions created that will facilitate an expansion of a company that come by simple observing the process and understanding the mechanics of it and how it works. Knowing of a need of a small segment of a market and having an idea on how to resolve it, creates an advantage over products that may be in existence and may need to be modified to satisfy the need of the companies on the small segment of the market. The market that I’m targeting it is one that is small but has a lot of economic purchasing power, the fuel distribution industry. To have a successful entry for my product in the markets and be competitive with all the other similar products that are already in place, the best strategy to use is target a small group of companies of the industry that are willing to improve their services, to introduce the product and once that service is fully operational and increasing the sales of that company, expand to other companies.