Reflection of My Top Three Posts

          Throughout the semester, I feel like I have grown in my writing and blogging abilities. When I first started blogging I had no idea what I was doing and realized I wasn't as good of a writer as I thought. In my first few blogs, I didn't use pictures, rambled and repeated myself, added information that was unnecessary, and put no links in my blog. Looking back on them, I see they weren't that good at all. I am most proud of Blog Post Four, Five, and Six. I think I gave a good point of view in blog post four and made it appeal to the eye. Everything in blog post five is about the topic I'm discussing and covered well. Blog Post Six is a revised version of Blog Post Two. I feel it is better written and done in a more professional blogger way.

          Blog Post Four is not my favorite blog post but is in my top three. I talked about whether or not college is enough and if it was any good. I argued that, "More and more students go in to a large amount of financial debt when they go to college." I showed how it could benefit you and how it couldn't by talking about financial aid, loans, and referenced from an article that basically said college can't teach you to think for yourself. I feel like I talked about reasons why college is a good idea and why it isn't. Because of my major, I have to go to college but not everyone has to.

          The ideas from an essay or an article in Share or Die was what we had to talk about in Blog Post Five. I had chosen to talk about worker's co-op's and how to start them. I went into great detail on when starting one, what would be appropriate, how to go about starting one, and what to ask yourself when you start one so it will be most successful. There is a graph in the post that shows how successful they are compared to other types of companies and an example of a workers co-op business that was mentioned in the book called Alvarado Street Bakery. I also gave several links to other websites that gives information on them to research it if someone wanted to start their own. It's a very popular type of business that continues to grow.

          Originally in Blog Post Two I talked about why I chose to go to college. In Blog Post Six I revised and made that original post better. I like Blog Post Six because of all of its improvements. At first I added no pictures, links, or even spacing of my paragraphs. When I revised it I added four pictures to better go with what I was saying. Instead of my paragraphs sounding so formal, unpleasing to read, and cluttered together, I reworded some of the things I said, separated my paragraphs, made my sentences flow. I like the way this post looks compared to its original form. This is what I should've done for Blog Post Two.

       In today's society, job opportunities are becoming harder and harder to come by, so many people have resorted to starting their own business, or a workers co-op. I had not known much about this type of company until I read about it.This type of business is becoming more popular because of the fact that the owners of the business have more say so over what the business does or doesn't do. Before starting this type of business however, you should gather a group of people willing and able to do the job and address certain questions one should ask themselves to help it succeed. Typically the people who own a workers co-op makes more money than someone who just works for a "traditional" business, and because of the economy, workers co-ops are becoming more popular. It's been said they even last longer than regular businesses do.

You are your own boss in a workers co-op. What exactly is a co-op? It's a business democratically controlled and owned by the workers. There are coworker-owners who share the responsibility of managing the company. This is more ideal to most people because the coworker-owners are typically more understanding of personal needs than middle management at any corporation. They also are not forced into hierarchy and have more of a voice in the decision making of the company. Cutting out the management and investors will save a lot of money for the business as well. It almost seems ideal to have this type of business, but some questions should be addressed first before starting up a business.

To get any business started, you must have people to get the job done. Some companies will switch to a workers co-op and keep the workers they already had there. Sometimes new employees are found to do the job. Once you have your people for the job, you need to ask several questions. Common questions used to help start a worker's co-op are:

-What is your common goal and purpose? 

-Are you forming a new business or converting an old one?

-Who will be on your team

-How will new worker owners join?

-How will you manage your co-op?

-Who will make decisions?

-How much money will you need?

-Where will you get the funding?

If all of these questions aren't addressed, then it's near to impossible to get the business up and running or successful.

It has been shown that people who work for a workers co-op make more money than those that work at a traditional business. On page seventy-one of the book "Share or Die" it gives an example of a man from Petaluma, California at Alvarado Street Bakery making $60,000 a year. It says in the book that the workers in these type of business are less likely to get laid off. The job security is major appeal especially since jobs today are becoming more and more scarce. 

If you're going to start a workers co-op, do your research on how to do it, get a group of people together who will work for you, and start your business. I find it to sound very easy to do and beneficial. It's almost ideal because of the pay, job security, and the fact the bosses are more likely to be understanding of any given situation. Workers co-ops will probably become a lot more popular than they already are.