Creating a Business Case for McDonald’s Employees Using an LLM.

As a final project in a business technology management class, our objective was to familiarize ourselves with a local language model and apply it in a business setting. Our strategy was geared towards reducing the costs fast food chains such as McDonald's face due to the alarmingly high turnover rates for crew such as cashiers and bottom-level cooks. to make a language model that is responsive enough to be effective in a fast-paced setting such as a kitchen. There were many hurdles we needed to deal with.

• Interview McDonald’s managers to understand their needs that are not met with current technologies and common questions they are asked during operations

• Compressing data used into text files for our model to search through smaller-sized documents with the same amount of information

• Designing embedded prompts to give you actionable responses with little to no “fluffer” words for frequent questions so workers can easily get the information they need and not waste time reading through heavy text

In the end, our conclusion discussed the fast food industry and its shift towards automation. Rather than investing in having higher skilled labour like a food and beverage service such as Starbucks, McDonald’s would have a higher return on investment moving away from employees and using voice recognition and screens to reduce costs involved in this high turnover issue, rather than focusing on training.

Creating a viral video for Church Brewing Co. Wolfville NS

My most exciting accomplishment of my winter semester 2025 had to be creating a video advertisement for the Church Brewing Company.

We were very fortunate to partner with this iconic brand synonymous with the town of Wolfville’s aesthetic, and we wanted to capitalize on that as much as possible.

Wolfvilles scenery from footage we were able to use of an overhead drone shot in the summer was an instant emotional hook that in my opinion, was they jey to our success keeping the audiences attention flicking through Instagram reel’s. we received over twice as many interactions with our video than the business’ average, and were very pleased with the amount of that coming from non follower exposure(over 60%!!). the video garnered over 4,000 views on instagram alone.

It also tought me a lot about the audience in the food and beverage industry. While many beer lovers are loyal to a brands products, there is a higher return on investment when sharing a brands setting and the value of the experience when you come visit. to achieve this, our video incorperated as many shots as possible of the churchs beautiful landmark, and had co-founder Erin Haysom tell the story getting the brewery up and running. two browthers who love local craft beer moving home to try it themselves…… the video made itself once Erin gave us their story.

Starbucks’ Use of Technology for a Superior Value Network.

Being a part of a group discussing the coffee giant’s international supply chain, my research focused on the company’s use of data and how it translates to a more streamlined service.

Starbucks’ big advantage in using customer data starts with its already established brand. They garner social media interactions like no one else, and more importantly, they hold the largest membership numbers on their mobile app (17 million), more than any other business in the food and beverage industry.

Using this data, Starbucks leverages their strengths to improve relations with its customers as well as its suppliers. Their proprietary AI, “Deep Brew,” is used to take in every amount of consumer data (mobile and local POS systems congregated in a cloud data storage) and make real-time decisions on the following:

• Altering inventory orders to reduce waste

• Promoting certain products based on weather, local events, and national events

• Organized staffing schedules

• PPE maintenance tracking

• Personalized deals and product suggestions for mobile users

What has made this strategy stand out is not so much a monumental advancement in their use of technology or AI. Rather, their methods of how to use this real-time data deliberately.

This I Know, By Terry O’Reilly

This is a book chosen by me to use in a marketing course. Terry O’Reilly, a prominent voice on CBC with his marketing show “As It Happens,” was the first and only name that popped into my head when I needed a marketing book to select as reading material.

My experience reading through his fourth book felt to me like a stroke of luck getting to sit with him for coffee, spewing words of wisdom for hours. His first-hand experience and storytelling divide life and business lessons right down the middle. this will certainly not be my last terry oreilly book. the following are my favorite lessons/stories that stuck with me to use as general rules of thumb in the future.

“Trust me”

As soon as someone tries to sell themselves to you by saying “trust me,” you instantly have your guard up. Instead, tell sroties involving you and your company relating to trust. ingnighting those feeling without ever having to say those words out loud gives your buyer more autonomy in choosing you. “Trust is meant to be felt not stated”.

Commitees are not creative

the politics of large groups smothers individuals voices and lacks the freetome to be creative, O’Rielly beleives two or thee smart people with the same goal is all you need. big groups will carry an idea far and execute accordingly, “their just not good at coming up with one”.

“Unless you have big ambitions, you’ll have small outcomes”

Most money spent on avertisments are wasted by being lost in the middle, to be the top 5% that garners attention, you must be ambitious to step outside of conformity to avoid incremental gains at best. “The biggest risk is compacency”.

“Marketing rules are meant to be broken”

There are whole books writen on conventional thinking when it comes to advertisments. O’Reilly’s view on the matter is once you know the rules, breaking them can lead to memorable marketing. An example of this in practice discussed in a marketing class of mine was the outlandish owl maskot for Duolingo, breaking most rules thought to be guidlines to avoid alienating your audience has picked up enough traction where it is recognised alll over social media.