The Strength of FGI Research

FGI is an company specializing in supporting strategy leaders define and reach their goals by offering a range of marketing solutions. As far as I can see, the strengths of FGI Research is as follow:

First, FGI offers a wide range of marketing solutions such as product marketing, pricing strategy, innovation, brand awareness, usage, satisfaction, and retention & growth. The wide scope of its services covers most of the fields that need to launch a new idea, a new product, and a new organization.

Second, FGI has a professional profile in serving its clients. It boasts over 30 years experience in research and marketing area. It have applied its extensive and in-depth knowledge and skills in market research with big data analytics to bring the clients the information they need to make the right decision for their business.

Third, FGI has competitive methods of marketing research to meet the clients' needs. In order to improve business results by providing the right insights to the right decision makers at the right time, online panels and research tools are widely used. Quantitative products includes SmartSuite, Online consumer surveys, SmartPanel et al. Qualitative products includes SmartSpace, SmartScan and Focus groups.

Forth, FGI services clients from various industries, from Grocery stores to electric utilities, from retail to healthcare, from media to nonprofits. The diverse of its clients gives FGI an expertise insights about the marketing in different industries.

Overall, FGI boasts the strengths in marketing research to help more people to reach their goal!

Career Service Writing: Job fair on October 30.

      On October 30, ASU downtown campus held a fall career and internship fair for students who are looking for internship and full time job. Around 80 companies and organizations has come here to look for talents. 

      I was surprised how diverse the employees were. There were government agencies, such as state government and the City of Phoenix. There were many companies from varied industry like news, broadcasting, entertainment, estate, electricity and so on. Companies like Allstate Insurance Company, Danny's Family Companies, Yelp, Inc. were there.  Of course, there were also nonprofit organizations, such as Help International, Valley of the Sun United Way, Mayo Clinic and The Phoenix Symphony. Though there were a number of employees in the fair, as a public administration and nonprofit student I was a little disappointed to see the small number of nonprofit organizations there, which was the main reason I left the job fair early. 

       As far as I have talked with the nonprofit organizations at the fair, most of them were looking for volunteers and internship for the winter and spring semester. It seems that most of them were really well-organized nonprofit with years of history, which I think was good and beneficial for students like me who was going to step into the professional career in a few months if I could have a chance work with them when I was still at school.

       A random thing happened on the fair that I wanted to share was about my name tag. Because I was in both programs of master of public administration and nonprofit leadership and management certificate, my name tag only showed the certificate, which I think was really cool and I felt good with it!

Free writing: Volunteer at Feed My Starving Children

Last Saturday, I volunteered at Feed My Starving Children helping out packing food for kids overseas! WOW! Two amazing things I want to say at first I show you how the volunteering went on.

First, I was amazing that our class project group made the efforts to come here to volunteer just because we were going to write a paper about this organization. I like how people try everything they can to accomplish something, which is a spirit I have not seen much in China.

Second, the volunteer experience was amazingly easy, fun, and full of love. 

Now let's move to the volunteer part. I might have too much to talk about it. 

This packing event happened at at a local church in Mesa, Love of Christ Lutheran Church. Surprisingly, people coming to volunteer varied from middle school students to retired couples. 

After we checked in, everyone get a headgear to prevent our hair from dropping off. No necklace and bracelet is allowed during packing food. After everyone set up, we attended the orientation.

See how cute everyone look in the headgear. They did a good job in orientation telling people their mission, what they are doing, where the food is going, and what impact it has. 

Here is a picture showing a staff member was demonstrating everyone how to team up and pack the food package. There should be at least 6 people in a group, one putting vitamin and protein in to the bag, one putting rice and grain into the bag, two people holding the bags and weighting them, and the last two people sealing the bags.

See our working station!

This is my project group and we had 9 boxes food that are sending to Philippine to help children suffering typhoon.

They also has a small marketplace selling bags and bracelets making by women in rural places. One of the amazing thing is that they put the maker's signature on the price tag so you can keep them! I like it so much that I bought a bag for myself!

Free writing: Nonprofit Conference on Sustainability Strategies

Last Thursday, Nov. 7th, the Lodestar Center held the 21st Annual Nonprofit Conference on Sustainability Strategies. I am so lucky to have the chance to be volunteer for this conference and attend some sessions.

Nearly 25 innovative and informative workshop sessions, interactive discussions and impactful networking opportunities comprised the recent "Solutions: Mission, Strategy, Impact" themed Annual Nonprofit Conference on Sustainability Strategies, presented by the ASU Lodestar Center. Participants were exposed to a variety of innovative solutions to common problems faced in the nonprofit sector, and gained tools for finding new ways to approach and solve their organization's challenges. (https://lodestar.asu.edu/conferences/2013-conference).

One of the session is really interesting talking about how to involve everyone at everywhere at every time. It talks about how to turn everyone you meet into your funders and donors. It tells about how to use the "elevator pitch" to sell your organization and how to impress people with your uniqueness.

For me, this is a chance to observe how nonprofits here get together, learning and discussing issues. It has been really rewarding and eye-opening.

FGI research and public service

FGI is a marketing research company that serves a diversity of clients. Based on its research and marketing professional, FGI focus helping personal and organizational success that relies heavily on serious market research.

Dealing a lot with data, the CEO David Wilson says that FGI believes that market research is an art in science understanding how you can create a better world. At its core, market research seeks to service people, create better service and produce that change and improve people's lives. When you commit great market research, it means that you care enough to stop and listen to the very people who buy your products, who talk about your brains, and who feed your family. It means first you seek to understand. However, a good market service is more than listening. It also means to put the insights into action and make the action counts. 

Free writing: cooking wings

Yesterday, I tried for the first time after I came to the USA to make wings using an oven. Because in China we do not use oven in family cooking as much as people do here, I felt so excited that I was going to learn how to use oven to make food and it turned out that it was not so hard!

The wings I wanted to make was Buffalo wings. The first the step was to make sure the wings were full of spicy flavor. Put flour, salt, red pepper, and garlic powder in a bowl and mix them together. Then put the wings in and coat the with the mixture evenly. Then Cover the bowl and refrigerate it for 1 h -------This is the ideal process. However I made a mistake that I put the wings in first then add all the flour and seasonings, which turned out to be not evenly on the wings. :(

 The second step was to make the spicy baking sauce. This step was easy. Melt the butter in a pan and then added hot sauce, garlic powder, and black pepper. Mixed them thoroughly. Let it cool down a little bit, then ready to go!

The third step was to bake them! Before place the wings on the baking sheet, make sure you dip and coat them in the mixture sauce you just made! Preheated the oven to 400 degree F and then put the wings in! Baked them for 40m and turned them halfway so each side was cooked!

Ready to serve!! Yummy! I will try more things in the future!