Central Perk: 26 ian. 2015

luni, 26 ianuarie 2015

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Self-Driving "Fully Automated" Vehicles on German Autobahn; Supply Chain Math; Uber and Kahn Academy
Encircled
US Corporations Take Huge Losses on Venezuelan Currency
Dutch Central Bank President Cites "Financial Bubbles", Voices Strong Opposition to QE in TV Interview; Death by 1,000 Pin Pricks

Self-Driving "Fully Automated" Vehicles on German Autobahn; Supply Chain Math; Uber and Kahn Academy

Posted: 26 Jan 2015 07:32 PM PST

Don't worry taxi drivers, this is only a test: Self-driving cars to hit German Autobahn.

A section of the A9 Autobahn in Bavaria will be converted into a test route for self-driving cars, Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt said on Monday.

"We will set up a test stretch on the A9 Autobahn" Dobrindt told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in an interview, adding that the first steps towards the "Digital Testing Ground Autobahn" project would be taken this year.

Under Dobrindt's plan, the upgraded road will offer infrastructure allowing the cars to communicate with the road and with other vehicles around them.

"Cars with assisted driving and later fully-automated cars will be able to drive there", Dobrindt said.

"The German car industry will also be able to be world leaders in digital cars".

He added that "German manufacturers won't rely on Google" - the current leader in the field – to produce their own self-driving vehicles.

Cars, Trucks, Taxis

People will not give up their cars. But who needs truck drivers? And who needs taxi drivers?

I suspect trucking will be the first industry to go mostly driverless.

The Last Mile

Many claim trucks cannot load or unload themselves. Others argue trucks cannot maneuver around cities. Let's assume those objections are true whether they are or not.

Here's the simple solution as I have proposed before: Nothing stops a trucking company from having distribution facilities right off an interstate near major cities where local drivers deliver the goods the last mile.

Why can't all but the last few miles be driverless even if a skilled driver is needed some step of the way for safety reasons?

Supply Chain Math

SupplyChain247 reports Fuel Dip "Savings" Offset By Surge in Costs for Drivers, Equipment, and Healthcare.

Shippers negotiating with carriers over 2015 freight rates ought not be swayed by the dramatic lowering of diesel fuel costs into believing their carriers' overall cost of doing business are lessening. In fact, they are rising.

A new report by the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI), an arm of the American Trucking Associations, confirms what most trucking executives have been saying publicly for years: trucking costs are rising, with some components increasingly sharply.

"The cost of finding, recruiting, training and keeping drivers is steadily rising," Shevell says. "Equipment costs are through the roof. A new Class 8 truck costs about $135,000. Tires, insurance, terminal costs have all risen substantially. Plus, we're hit with rising health care costs for our people."

The ATRI study, "Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking," has been tracking truckers' costs annually since 2008. It is derived directly from carriers' financial and operational data and provides a vital benchmarking tool for both carriers and shippers.

It found the average marginal cost per mile was $1.68 per mile in 2013. That was a 3 percent increase over the previous year. That compared with $1.45 per mile in 2009, the start of the recession for the trucking industry.

The single biggest cost driver was drivers, according to ATRI. Average driver wage per mile was 44 cents in 2013, up from 42 cents the previous year. The average truck driver benefit cost rose a penny to 13 cents per mile, according to the study.

That was largely caused by driver pay and benefit increases necessary to attract and retain drivers in the current tight labor market for truck drivers, the study concluded.

All Commercial Driving Will Soon Be Local

Supply chain reported a shortage of 30,000 drivers.

In a few years, I suggest there is going to be little need for long-haul drivers at all. Nearly all commercial driving will be local.

What About Uber?

The taxi driving company Uber has been banned in many place. I started accumulating all sorts of links many months ago. I collected well over 20. Here are a few of them.

Germany: Car sharing service Uber banned in Germany
France: France Bans Uber As Taxi Drivers Stage Protest In Paris
New York City: Uber faces limited suspension in NYC for noncompliance
Belgium: Uber prospers in Belgian capital despite ban
Everywhere: Uber Is Apparently Illegal Almost Everywhere

In spite of the fact Uber is banned nearly everywhere, the company survives!

Why?

Because Uber is what the masses want.

Rise of the Disruption Economy

Here's a dated article (from October 2012), but it's also timeless in its message: Rise of the Disruption Economy.

By now, we've gotten pretty used to the disruption that the rise of the social web has created in the media industry, where it has upended traditional business models and allowed creators of content to connect directly with their audience. But that same wave of socially-driven disruption is now moving through the rest of the economy too.

Entrenched industries and regulators are fighting hard.

Coursera, which offers online-education courses, was recently hit with a regulatory freeze in Minnesota, because the rules for education-related businesses in that state require that they jump through a series of hoops, including filing for registration (and paying fees). The state later modified its views on the service after an uproar about these restrictions, but it is unlikely to be the only roadblock the company runs into as it tries to expand.

Airbnb is in a similar position to the hotel industry: the application of social features — which allow owners of apartments, houses, trailers and even treehouses to easily find and connect with potential short-term renters — has changed the balance of power to the point where someone with a spare room has the ability to create a peer-powered business with virtually no overhead. That's clearly a threat to the hotel business, which is using whatever political and regulatory connections it can to put limits on the company, even as its grows larger:

Uber, the car-scheduling service, has been another prominent participant in this back-and-forth struggle with regulations and an entrenched industry — virtually everywhere the company has set up shop, from San Francisco to New York, it has run into a regulatory morass that is designed to protect the existing taxi and livery industry as much as it is intended to protect consumers.

The service has had problems in San Francisco as well, and is likely to run into similar issues anywhere there is an entrenched taxi industry that is trying to protect its historic market power and profit margins. In New York, for example, taxi "medallions" — which allow an owner to operate a cab business there — sell for $1 million each. That kind of industry isn't going to appreciate a disruptor like Uber, and in New York in particular the taxi business is a big political player.

Kahn Academy

Disruptors are universally despised by bureaucrats and existing businesses.

Sal Kahn at the Kahn Academy is another one of those disruptors. Public union educators do not like his model of free education.

Click on the preceding link to check out free math classes for any grade you want from "early math" to 3rd grade through 8th grade.

Geometry, trig, calculus, differential equations? Yep, you bet. Science has 41 study topics. The list goes on and on.

Sal Kahn at TED

Please play at least the first couple minutes of the above video. Here's a link if it does not play: Sal Kahn at TED.

Progress Cannot Be Stopped

No doubt the Fed (central bankers) are deeply disturbed by all of this price-deflationary progress, as are bureaucrats in general.

Union teachers do not want to see online courses take hold or get accredited.
Taxi drivers fight Uber.
New York City wants to keep selling taxi medallions for $1,000,000.
Hotels fight Airbnb.

It's the biggest protection racket in the world. But progress cannot be stopped.

Taxi Drivers? Who Need Em?

Interestingly, I think even Uber's model will soon give way for the simple reason all commercial drivers will quickly be obsolete.

Uber's model, if it survives, may look something like this.

Customer pages a cab on his cell phone.
Cab locates customer via cell phone GPS.
Customer receives a code back and approximate wait time.
Cell phone sends signal to open door when cab arrives.

For hot locations such as airports where cabs are already waiting, a cab pulls up and the cab door opens right up with simple tap of a button. A conductor may be needed to oversee things.

Commercial Drivers? Why?

Communication dispatch with driverless vehicles will eventually handle most needs.

The above may take a few years longer than trucks, just as fiber or wireless to homes (the last mile) was once the telecommunication problem.

The Key

Disruptive technology is advancing so fast, that bureaucrats cannot keep up with it! And that's a good thing. The bad thing is they try.

Additional Reading on Driverless Vehicles

January 21, 2015: Job Site of the Future: Unmanned Bulldozers and Drones for Routine Construction
July 31, 2014: Driverless Cars on UK Public Streets Starting January; Transforming Personal Mobility; Taxi and Truck-Drivers Targeted
June 23, 2014: Robot Truck Convoy Tests in Nevada; Driverless Trucks Before Cars, and Before the End of the Decade.
May 25, 2014: Driverless Cars Legally Hit Roads as California Issues Licenses; The Last Mile
August 05, 2013: Message to 5.7 Million Truck Drivers "No Drivers Needed" Your Job is About to Vanish; Time Marches On, Fed Resistance is Futile

Additional Reading on Free Education

January 24, 2015: Education Moment: The Man with 26 Million Students
March 29, 2014: Teaching Revolution: Online, Accredited, Free; Start Learning Now!
January 27, 2014: New York Times - Salman Khan Turned Family Tutoring Into Khan Academy
September 03, 2013: Future of Education is At Hand: Online, Accredited, Affordable, Useful

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Encircled

Posted: 26 Jan 2015 05:03 PM PST

Here's a new map of major military operations in Ukraine.

I say "new" but the caption indicates it is a day old. An estimated 7,000 to 8,000 Ukrainian troops are about to be encircled.

Major Military Operations - January 25

Colonel Cassad posted this interesting video of rebel positions over time

link if video does not play: DNR Advance Over Time

DNR stands for "Donetsk People's Republic". Each encirclement (cauldron) has eventually been obliterated.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

US Corporations Take Huge Losses on Venezuelan Currency

Posted: 26 Jan 2015 12:04 PM PST

When black markets in currencies develop, you can be 100% sure the official exchange rate is overinflated.

In Venezuela, the fixed rate of exchange is 6.3 bolivars to the dollar, the floating rate of exchange is 50 bolivars to the dollar, and the black market rate is 184 bolivars to the dollar. The latter is what the currency is really worth at the moment.

From 6.3 to 184 is a loss of 96.6%

Even at the floating rate of 50 bolivars to the dollar, Venezuela's currency woes an increasing threat to U.S. corporate profits.

Ford Motor Co on Friday said it was taking a pre-tax charge of $800 million for its Venezuela business. It blamed Venezuelan exchange control regulations that have restricted the ability of its operations in the country to pay dividends and obligations in U.S. dollars. Ford also said that it was unable to maintain normal production in Venezuela with the availability of vehicle parts constrained.
On Friday, diaper and tissue maker Kimberly-Clark Corp said it took a fourth-quarter charge of $462 million for its Venezuelan business.
At the end of the third quarter, for example, American Airlines Group Inc, had $721 million held in the Venezuelan currency, at a weighted average exchange rate of 6.41 bolivars to the dollar. Theoretically, if the airline tried to repatriate all of that money into dollars at the current black market rate of 184 bolivars per U.S. dollar as quoted by the website dolartoday.com, it would only receive about $25 million.
Overall, foreign companies have an estimated $16 billion in outstanding dividends listed on their balance sheets that they have not been able to return to headquarters, according to Caracas-based research firm Ecoanalitica.

Dolar Today Quote

Here's the quote from Dolar Today.

Clorox did the smart thing and exited Venezuela entirely. I can see why Ford would not want to abandon its plant (but it's likely to be nationalized anyway).

Why American Airlines and Kimberly-Clark stick around is a mystery.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Dutch Central Bank President Cites "Financial Bubbles", Voices Strong Opposition to QE in TV Interview; Death by 1,000 Pin Pricks

Posted: 26 Jan 2015 10:17 AM PST

Mario Draghi has strong opposition to his QE program from two sources: German central bank president Jens Weidmann and Dutch central Bank president Klaas Knot.

In a television interview on Sunday, Dutch Central Bank Head Says He Doesn't Support ECB Bond Purchases.

Mr. Knot, who sits on the ECB's Governing Council, said in an interview on Dutch television that he wasn't convinced of the "necessity and effectiveness" of the program, known as quantitative easing. "Even if you believe it worked [in the U.S.], you cannot project its alleged success onto the eurozone," he said on the talk show "Buitenhof."

Email from Bruno de Haas

I got the above story from Bruno de Haas, head of policy & research at a medium-sized Dutch pension fund and author of a book arguing that the Netherlands should leave the euro.

De Hass Writes ...

Hi Mish,

This Sunday morning the president of the Dutch central bank, Klaas Knot, was interviewed on Dutch television. In my view he made some remarkable comments on the main topic, namely the ECB's decision to embark on QE.

Knot was very candid. He explained that he had not supported the decision because he thinks it is neither necessary nor effective. He doesn't think it is necessary because there is no deflation in the eurozone once you strip out the effects of the lower oil price.

With regard to effectiveness, he doesn't expect that buying sovereign bonds from banks will increase credit by banks. He does expect that "using the printing press" (a phrase he literally used) will result in higher stock prices and more expensive real estate, further inflating what he called a "bubble on financial markets".

According to Knot asset prices already are far detached from the real economy, and although this situation may last a while, there will be a moment when the two will converge again.

In contrast to the US, where a wealth effect could be expected from inflating asset prices, Knot doesn't find a positive wealth effect likely in the eurozone. The main reason is that most people have their assets in pension funds and insurers, and their solvency ratio decline because the negative impact of a lower interest rate on the mark-to-market value of their liabilities overshadows any gains in the solvency ratio from higher asset prices. This is indeed the case in the Netherlands where the two largest pension funds will have a funding gap at the end of January because of the low yield curve.

The only way that QE might support growth in the eurozone, Knot said, is through a devaluation of the euro, but he expects that to be a temporary effect. With respect to the position of Bundesbank-president Weidman he made it clear that they were in agreement on this. However, not all northern eurozone central bank president had voted against QE, Knot said. The Finnish president voted in favour.

I hope you find this of interest.

Bruno de Haas

Death by 1,000 Pin Pricks

I could not find much in English by de Haas. However, I did find a translation of a news article about him worthy of note.

Please consider "The Euro is Death by a Thousand Pinpricks"

Economist Bruno Haas pulls no punches in a Dutch financial newspaper article. According to Haas, the euro is a speeding train that runs straight into the abyss.

Haas knows whereof he speaks. He was involved in the drafting of the Maastricht Treaty and the department that oversees financial stability for the Dutch Ministry of Finance.

According to Haas, the EU's desperate attempts to pump more money into the rescue of the euro will fail. Moreover, these attempts will be at the expense of both the southern and northern European countries.

Naive Dream

The idea of one large currency union among diverse economies, according to De Haas is an increasingly a naive dream. To break out of the downward spiral in the eurozone, De Haas believes the project needs to be shut down.

"Continuation of the euro project is costing us billions. It's death at the hands of a thousand pinpricks," said the economist.

Rational Arguments

Add Dutch central Bank president Klaas Knot to the list of those saying the right things for the right reasons.

Prince Michael: Prince Michael of Liechtenstein Warns "QE a Sign of Helplessness, Will Not Reach Economy"; Prince Michael vs. Martin Wolf

Mervyn King: More QE will not help the world.

Steen Jakobsen: "Lower Interest Rates May Reduce Consumption". Michael Pettis at China Financial Markets and Lacy Hunt at Hoisington Management both agreed.

Grand Experiment Failure

I wrote about Steen's theory in Grand Experiment Failure; Bankers Prefer Bubbles; Europe is not USA; Final Epitaph, a rebuttal to Bloomberg author Barry Ritholtz, also in favor of massive QE.

Note that the rationale of Dutch central Bank president Klaas Knot is nearly the same as that of Steen Jakobsen and Michael Pettis.

The only thing QE can possibly do is create bigger bubbles. When they crash, what then?

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Damn Cool Pics

Australian model, Emily Sears, takes a selfie with her new friend
Dogs That Clearly Think They're Cats
Insane Pictures On A Cliff

Australian model, Emily Sears, takes a selfie with her new friend

Posted: 26 Jan 2015 10:00 AM PST

This is proof that everyone wants to get close to Emily Sears.

Dogs That Clearly Think They're Cats

Posted: 26 Jan 2015 09:55 AM PST

These dogs need to learn that they can't get away with the same things cats get away with.

Insane Pictures On A Cliff

Posted: 26 Jan 2015 08:32 AM PST

At Tijuca National Park in Brazil the highest point is 355 meters above sea level. These people are just crazy enough to take selfies on a cliff. But wait until you see the last one.

Get to Know the Moz Community Managers

Posted: 25 Jan 2015 04:15 PM PST

Posted by jennita

At this very moment a spammy comment is being written on the Moz Blog, a tweet is being sent to @Moz, and someone is signing up for the next Mozinar. You'll probably never see any of these happen, and may not realize that just like Newton's third law states, "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." As each one of these actions occurs, a Moz Community Manager is jumping into a reaction: The spammer is banned, the tweet is answered, and the Mozinar is being prepared.

Charlene, Megan, and Erica showing how much fun Community Managers have :)

Today is Community Manager Appreciation Day, or #CMAD as it's come to be known. It's a day to thank the amazing community managers out there who keep all things moving no matter what the day or time. At Moz, we're lucky to have an exceptional team of folks that manages everything from social media posts to handling spammers. It's not always a pretty job, but it's one they take to heart, and have come to live and breathe the role.

Did you know the @Moz Twitter account is handled by 7 different people?
I dare you to try to figure out who's tweeting when.

It's my great honor to introduce and thank each of our community managers, as well as several folks who contribute greatly to the team. They make sure our site isn't overrun with spam, your questions get answered in Q&A, your tweets see replies, and that you have help writing a great post for YouMoz.

Before I dive in, I'd like to give a shout out to all of our Associates, especially Gianluca and Miriam, who help the Community team in a myriad of ways every single day. In order to be fair, I'll introduce each person in terms of how long they've been working on community-related tasks here at Moz.

Keri Morgret - Community Manager

Keri started out as an Associate in early 2011, where she initially focused on YouMoz. She had been quite active in the greater SEO community, and her knowledge and experience was top-notch. Top that with a need for perfect grammar (she once refused to read a self-published book because of bad grammar), and she took YouMoz to great heights.

Over time, she took over Q&A, and eventually came to manage just about everything happening on the site each day. Keri moved to Seattle, and became a full-time Mozzer in May 2012. Here's a high-level peek at all the areas Keri currently handles:

Managing YouMoz
Managing Q&A
User moderation
Coordination with Help Team

As someone we often call our "super sleuth," Keri likes to know everything that's happening on the site at all times. My appreciation for her goes well beyond her keeping tabs on the community for us. She cares for Moz and our entire community to her core. She lives and breathes TAGFEE, and holds all of us at Moz to the highest standards, constantly reminding us to focus on our community.

This year in particular was a special one for Keri, as she welcomed her daughter Eloise to the world. I'll throw in a big thank you to Eloise as well, who has brought so much love and happiness to Keri and her husband. :)

2014 Stat: The team banned 1,235 accounts for comment spam.

Erica McGillivray - Sr. Community Manager

Between the time Erica accepted the role of "Community Attache" in October 2011, and the time she actually started just a few weeks later, her job had completely changed. Lucky for us, her background is diverse: Not only has she been an SEO in a previous life, but she's managed email campaigns, writes killer copy, and was once the President of GeekGirlCon. She accepted the changed role, and focused on marketing communications for a while. However, it didn't take too long for her to find her true calling back on the community team!

Erica quickly proved her prowess at managing speakers and events, and took over our bi-weekly webinars (a.k.a. Mozinars), as well as speaker coordination for our annual conference, MozCon. Plus, with her knowledge of SEO and social, she took over the management of our social media channels, and helped Keri with on-site work as needed.

Today, as our Senior Community Manager, she's in charge of the following areas:

Speaker management & promotion for MozCon, LocalUp Advanced, and Mozinars
Event project management (ensuring pages are created for events, videos are ready to sell, etc.)
Handling of escalated social or on-site issues
Community strategy
Team management backup

This year, I'm extremely thankful for Erica stepping in and helping with bigger strategy items, and being my backup! Ok, that really just means she ends up going to a lot more meetings, but still, it's been great. :)

2014 Stat: 8,945 people watched our webinars live.

Christy Correll - Q&A Associate

Christy and I worked together many years ago in Denver (in what feels like a completely different life). When we realized that Q&A was getting more active in early 2012, and we needed an additional set of eyes in there, I knew just who to turn to. Christy was running her own online marketing agency, so I knew she had the background and ability, and I was pleased to find out she had the time as well!

What began as a possible 10 hours/week job has grown into at least a half-time gig. We count on Christy's insights and smarts in Q&A every single day. She and Keri use a spreadsheet with all of our staff and Associates expertise to know who best to assign things to. She's also been helping out more and more with the editing of YouMoz blog posts.

Christy, thank you for your continued excellence in making Q&A an amazing place to give and get answers to all kind of online marketing questions.

2014 Stat: 8,165 questions were asked in Q&A with 31,218 replies.

Megan Singley - Social Community Manager

Megan had been working on the Help team for almost two years, when we stole her over to the community team in January of 2013 (yes, that means she just hit her 4-year mark!). She was more knowledgeable about our tools and how to help our customers than any of the rest of us were. Her love has always been in social, and she initially worked with Erica on managing our social accounts. It didn't take long, though, for her to take over social management, and she is currently the go-to person for all things social media. At this very moment we have some fascinating social tests happening on Twitter thanks to her work. (Now, if only I could get her to write a blog post about the tests!)

She's also the one who can always put a smile on someone's face if they're having a grumpy day. (She once sent a guy cookies because he tweeted @Moz saying the latest Whiteboard Friday had made him hungry for cookies.) And with this kind of work, you run into some grumpy folks now and then (usually me). ;)

Megan is focused on these areas:

Daily social management (everyone helps with this, but she does the scheduling and is the resource for escalation)
Social testing
Product feedback liaison
Weekly metrics
Community Chronicle (a monthly email about community metrics)
Community College (internal training on all things community)

Right? That's a lot! Megan has stepped out of her comfort zone, and helped us to create some great internal processes, and keeps us all on track on social (a place where I usually get in trouble!). I'm grateful to her for taking on this new role and striving to make our social marketing the absolute best in the industry.

2014 Stat: The team sent a whopping 9.6k tweets from the @Moz account.

Melissa Fach - Social Associate

Melissa began as an Associate in 2013, to help us manage the growing YouMoz queue. As a well-known SEO and previous editor at Search Engine Journal, YouMoz made perfect sense for her. During MozCon that year, we asked her to help us manage social while we were busy with the conference, and we quickly realized that social was her true calling for Moz.

With our growing international community, we had been looking for someone to manage all our social channels during our off-hours. Melissa to the rescue! Not only did she already know the industry, and had been a part of the Moz community for years, but lucky for us she lives in Florida, three hours ahead of the Mozplex.

I'm not exactly sure what we'd do without Melissa these days. Her role of managing all the social things during the wee hours of the morning is essential to Moz. She alerts us if there are multiple tweets about a tool not working, or if a certain post is doing exceptionally well (or exceptionally poorly, for that matter). She's the eyes and ears of Moz while those of us here in Seattle are still fast asleep. (Unless we're talking about Keri being up with her newborn at 3 a.m.)

Melissa has the difficult job of working from her home in Florida, yet staying on top of everything that's happening throughout the day at Moz. She does this well, so that each morning she knows how to respond to questions on Twitter, and knows when there's something going on. A huge thank you to her for always making us look so darn good!

2014 Stat: We saw a 43% YOY loss in Facebook traffic.

Trevor Klein - Content Strategist

Trevor is the lucky guy who gets to edit posts for the Moz Blog. Yep, he edited this one too, and when he gets to this part he's going to feel really weird for a few seconds. :) [Editor's note: It's true.] Trevor is a part of the Content Team here at Moz, but because content and community are so closely tied, his job often crosses roles.

Trevor started managing the blog in May 2013. He's upped the ante on our blog content, and quickly realized that content doesn't end upon publishing a post. We get tons of comments and thumbs on posts, and he helps Keri and the rest of the team to moderate all the things. He'll email a member who's posted too many spammy links in their otherwise well written comments, or reply to a comment reminding a member to stay TAGFEE in their responses.

Personally, I'm grateful to have someone on the team who cares so deeply about Moz and the community that he's willing to stand up for his beliefs, and for the community. (Even if he is standing up to or disagreeing with me. ;)) [Editor's sarcastic note: That never happens. Ever.]

2014 Stat: Moz staff edited 622 blog comments for spammy links, TAGFEE wording, etc.

Charlene Inoncillo - Community Brand Manager

Although Charlene started back in September 2011, and had been handling all our event details for a while, it wasn't until 2014 that she became an official part of the Community team. She initially started as the Marketing Admin, and swiftly worked herself into a full-time events manager. Over time this role has changed as she's increased her skillset, and has continued to break her own goals.

Charlene works closely with Erica on all of our events, plus she's in charge of any sponsorships or speaking engagements we have throughout the year. Here's the high-level list of Charlene's roles:

Event logistics & promotion for MozCon, LocalUp Advanced, and MozPlex events
Conference sponsorships & promotions
Swag Management
Social branding
Brand monitoring

With her addition, we've completely upped our game when it comes to branding. Charlene works with our design team to create beautiful swag, have a perfect brand experience at MozCon, and essentially make us look good, consistently. It also helps that she's the most organized person I know, and always considers even the tiniest of details. (Which is really great for someone like me who dislikes dealing with details.)

What am I most thankful of Charlene for this year? It's the little things, actually. She ensured that every blog post, webinar, event, product launch, etc. has branded images that we share on social, and in blog posts. These things make a huge impact!

2014 Stat: We sent 573 "Happy" packages and ordered 37,364 swag items.

Danie Launders - Marketing Specialist

While Danie isn't officially on the Community team, we pretend as if she is. We started stealing her time early in 2014, and just keep pulling her in farther (shh, don't tell Annette, our CMO). Danie's ability to jump into any project and willingness to learn all the things have had a great impact on the community team this past year. She's an absolute natural with the Moz "voice" and manages our social channels several times per week (in 4-hour shifts).

She's crazy-organized, so it makes sense that she helps Charlene with all the events, sponsorship, and swag tasks. This year, I'm thankful for every single thing Danie does. Whether making sure our Associates get paid, sending swag to an active member, or just replying to a Facebook message, she does it with grace.

2014 Stat: 9k+ tweets were sent using the #MozCon hashtag.

Ronell Smith - YouMoz Associate

Ronell may be our newest member of the team, but his impact has been swift and grand. While Keri was on maternity leave, we needed someone to help manage YouMoz posts. It had to be someone who knows the online marketing industry well, plus has great editing skills, AND is a great writer. When Keri went on leave a bit sooner than expected, we had to throw Ronell into the YouMoz fire without a ton of training.

If you've submitted a YouMoz post recently, and have worked with Ronell, you know what I mean when I say he's kicked royal butt for us. He cares deeply about ensuring that posts are of the highest quality, and he works with authors (I've seen email threads between him and an author that were 65+ emails deep!) to help improve their writing. This is why even after Keri returned from leave, we asked him to continue making YouMoz awesome.

My thank-you to Ronell is for helping us to not only improve our process, but to up our YouMoz game. Heck, the entire community thanks you.

2014 Stat: Only 3.7% of all YouMoz posts submitted were published.

Now it's your turn.

Impressive group of folks, right? Please help me in thanking them for all their amazing work every day for Moz. Also, I bet after reading about them you may even have a few questions of your own. Well, lucky you! Each one of them is on stand-by today to answer any questions you have about their roles at Moz or how we manage all things community.

Go ahead… ask us anything! (about our jobs)

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

Seth's Blog : Fear of public speaking

Fear of public speaking

Very few people are afraid of speaking.

It's the public part that's the problem.

What makes it public? After all, speaking to a waiter or someone you bump into on the street is hardly private.

I think we define public speaking as any group large enough or important enough or fraught enough that we're afraid of it.

And that makes the solution straightforward (but not easy). Instead of plunging into these situations under duress, once a year or once a decade, gently stretch your way there.

Start with dogs. I'm not kidding. If you don't have one, go to the local animal shelter and take one for a walk. Give your speech to the dog. And then, if you can, to a few dogs.

Work your way up to a friend, maybe two friends. And then, once you feel pretty dumb practicing with people you know (this is easy!), hire someone on Craigslist to come to your office and listen to you give your speech.

Drip, drip, drip. At every step along the way, there's clearly nothing to fear, because you didn't plunge. It's just one step up from speaking to a schnauzer. And then another step.

Every single important thing we do is something we didn't use to be good at, and in fact, might be something we used to fear.

This is not easy. It's difficult. But that's okay, because it's possible.