SFU Library blog, BUEC Buzz, with colourful banner showing students

A current awareness resource for students & faculty members in Business & Economics


On Love Data Week workshops & Data Planet webinars

Published by Mark Bodnar

In celebration of Love Data Week (February 14 - 18) — an international celebration of all things data — the SFU Library has collaborated with the libraries of UBC, UNBC, and UVic to plan an illuminating series of online talks & workshops. Join us to learn about data acquisition, cleaning, management, mapping, and more! Click here to read about and register for each session.

Speaking of data... SAGE is also hosting three webinars during Love Data Week 2022, all focused on Data Planet...

Data Planet logo

(Read on... then register!)

Busy times!

Published by Mark Bodnar

Photo of Mark Bodnar
I'm back!

OK, I wasn't actually gone -- certainly not to a warm place with palm trees. I've just been incredibly busy since my last post. Something had to be dropped, and I'm afraid it ended up being my old friend, the BUEC Buzz.

My last post was 314 days ago. That is, by far, my longest break from the Buzz since I started the blog 22 years, 2 months, and...

(Read on for somewhat random stats from the last 314 days...)

Sage Business Cases: New for SFU instructors, students, and alumni

Published by Mark Bodnar

Screen capture of the search screen for Sage Business Cases.
I'm very pleased to announce that SFU instructors, students, and alumni now have unlimited access to over 4200 case studies in the Sage Business Cases database!

Sage Business Cases is a global and diverse collection of case studies designed to help students see theoretical business concepts put into practice. Sage has ensured broad coverage by partnering with well-known business case producers from around the world such as...

<Read on to get the most out of this valuable resource!>

Using long-term cycles & precedents to understand current rates & returns: GFDatabase in action

Published by Mark Bodnar

Chart from GFDatabase provided as an example of the deep data available.
It's been a couple months since I first announced our new subscription to GFDatabase, a source for global economic & financial data spanning decades — centuries in many cases! 

To help entice those who haven't yet explored GFDatabase, I thought I'd highlight the value of the long-long-long-range perspective that it provides...

<Read on to see GFDatabase in action!>

Sustainable at all stages: changing the fashion industry

Published by Mark Bodnar

Cover of ebook: "Designing Fashion's Future: present practice and tactics for sustainable change"
A couple years ago I collaborated with our Interactive Arts & Technology Librarian on a series of posts about one of the "wicked problems" of our modern world: sustainability in the textile & fashion industries.

Green line drawing of clothing hanging on a laundry line
That series was published to support an interdisciplinary cohort of students in our Business of Design program, all of whom were working on projects to change the way fashion and its materials are designed, produced, purchased, and discarded... change of the sort that our world so desperately needs.

The word "change" is key here. The Business of Design program has changed to Make Change Studio, but the students involved are still trying to change the world, and they've returned to the topic of fixing fast fashion.

<Read on for an update and expansion of the original posts on fixing fast fashion!>

On meal kits: Primary research questions & secondary resources

Published by Mark Bodnar

Line drawing of a bowl with chopsticks
One of our BUS 345 sections (hi, D100!) will be doing some primary market research focused on meal kits this term.

The students have a huge amount of flexibility when it comes to choosing the research questions they want to explore, so it would be difficult to suggest specific resources and search strategies for them. Instead, I thought I'd try a different approach: 

Simple line drawing of two people with a light bulb above them to indicate creative ideas
I'll highlight just a few of the possible research questions to give you a sense of the range of research that goes into marketing (section A below). I'll aim to highlight the amount of lateral/creative thinking that a market researcher has to do, but my list won't be anywhere near as detailed as that of a real marketer.

Then I'll list the guides and blog posts that cover the sorts of resources I'd normally use to answer such questions (section B).

Finally, I'll return to the target product and talk about research resources that are specifically about meal kits (section C).

Here we go...   <Read on!>