Central Perk

luni, 2 decembrie 2013

Progress on those 23 executive actions:

Twenty years ago, President Clinton signed the Brady Bill into law.

That law said that if you want to purchase a firearm from a federally licensed dealer in this country, you have to get a background check first. It was a historic piece of legislation -- one that's kept 1.5 million of the wrong people from getting their hands on a firearm in the last 14 years.

But in the wake of the tragedy in Newtown -- a year ago this month -- we know we've got to keep working to build on that progress.

And so even after a minority of Senators blocked commonsense legislation to reduce gun violence this spring, we're pushing forward.

President Obama laid out 23 executive actions to make sure the Administration took essential and rapid steps to save lives while respecting our Second Amendment rights. And since January, we've completed or made significant progress on all of them.

President Obama is keeping his word to make sure our families and communities are safe. See the progress we've made.

Those 23 executive actions are keeping guns out of dangerous hands. They're providing support for communities to hire school resource officers. And they're reducing the stigma around mental illness.

Now, it's not enough to take these steps on our own -- we still need Congress to pass comprehensive legislation to reduce gun violence. We need expanded background checks, and we need to create serious penalties for gun trafficking. There is no question that these kinds of measures would protect our kids and keep our communities safer.

No parent should ever face the horror of the scene at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Or a movie theater in Aurora. Or a temple in Oak Creek. Or the campus at Virginia Tech.

We've seen too much gun violence as a country. And if there's even one thing we can do to save a life, it is our most sacred duty to try.

That's where I stand. And you have my word that the President and I are doing everything we can to make sure no parent loses their child to gun violence.

Take a look at the progress we've made:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/Reducing-Gun-Violence

Thank you,

Joe

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World AIDS Day: Sharing Responsibility, Strengthening Results

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World AIDS Day: Sharing Responsibility, Strengthening Results

The theme of this year’s World AIDS Day is “Shared Responsibility: Strengthening Results for an AIDS-Free Generation.” Now more than ever, it is a fitting theme as the United States focuses, both on the domestic and global fronts, on building partnerships that strengthen our response to HIV and AIDS.

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Treat Your Channels like a Soccer Team

Posted: 01 Dec 2013 03:14 PM PST

Posted by CraigBradford

If you're like a lot of people (myself included) it's very easy to go into an analytics package and focus only on conversion rate. We look at reports like the one below and make short-sighted decisions:

Looking at only the information above, we might decide that "Organic Search" is a bad channel. Making decisions on how successful a channel is based only on conversion rate is short-sighted and will cost you money. Instead, I urge you to think of your channels like a soccer team.

A sensible soccer formation looks something like the image below:

You have one goalkeeper, defenders, midfielders and attackers. You would never think of creating a team of only 11 strikers. But that's exactly what we do with our channels all the time. We create a team that looks like this:

We have a team of channels that are all being graded on their ability to "score goals"â€"please don't make this mistake. I'm okay with the fact that some of my channels have a low "e-commerce" conversion rate; that may not be what they're designed to do.

Channels aren't binary

The one thing that I want you to take from this blog post is that channels are not binary. It isn't that they either drive sales or do nothing; there's lot's of value in between if you know what to look for.

In a report "The Customer Journey to Online Purchase" Google showed this to be the case by looking at the relationship that each channel is likely to play in the customer journey. The idea is to show on a very simple scale whether a channel plays an "awareness role" or more of a "decision making" role.This is an interactive piece so please have a look and play around in it. You can segment by industry or by country.

Let's take the US market as an example:

US â€" All Industries

It shows that in general, Display and Social are more of awareness channels, while Organic search and Paid search tend to be last interaction/decision making channels. I'm not surprised by that, but if that's trueâ€"if social is best used as a tool for driving awareness of my brandâ€"why would I ever use e-commerce conversion rate as a metric of success? The answer, of course, is that I shouldn't. Better metrics would perhaps be things like:

How many new visitors did social bring this month?
Brand awareness - how many people have heard of my business?
How many people interacted with my brand in some way?

These are just a couple of examples, but if you want more specifics I recommend you read this post by Hannah Smith on the Distilled Blog: Calculating ROI from Social Media - Problems, Pitfalls & Breaking all the thingsâ€¦

If you dig a little further, it gets more interesting. Let's look at the health industry in particular:

US â€" Health

Social is still an awareness channel, but look at display. It's now playing more of a decision-making role. Email has also moved from an awareness role to a decision-making role.

So what does this mean?

The data above shows that different channels play different roles depending on country and industry, so don't assume anything. Don't assume that social will be an awareness channel, don't assume that email will be a decision making channel, and whatever you do, don't assume that all channels are designed to only drive sales. Next time you're accessing your channels, try two things:

1. Assign attributes to channels

As mentioned above, not all channels have the same strengths, but that's okay as long as they are pulling their weight somewhere else. To see if that's the case, try assigning them some attributes other than sales. Avinash Kaushik gave an excellent presentation at MozCon 2013 (if you weren't there, the video can be purchased from Moz), in which he said that channels should solve for performance and relationships. This is shown in the table below (the example is for ModCloth):

As you can see, if we were to only solve for the line with red text ("Orders") we would ignore all of the other good that some channels are doing. Social, in this example, is terrible at everything except "Be the Buyer." I encourage you to do the same for your channels; add in all the metrics that are important for relationship-building, not just sales, and take a step back to see what else your channels might be contributing to that isn't immediately obvious when you simply look at sales.

Create SMART goals

Just about anyone who's ever read about goal-setting will have seen the theory of creating SMART goals:

I think most people are good at thinking about goals that are specific, attainable, and realistic. We think we're good at measurable, and we seem to often forget about time-bound. Since the rest could easily be a post on their own, I'll just focus on time-bound here.

When we look at tables like the one below, If we are going to make bad decisions like declaring channels "good" or "bad" from just one metric, at least remember to consider time.

If we say organic search is a bad channel, what you actually mean is organic is a bad channel at driving sales in the last X days. That's an important difference, because it has an impact on where the channel is placed on the scale of "awareness" to "decision-making."

In summary

Build a team of channels, not just strikers.
Don't assume channels work in the same way across all markets.
Assign attributes to channels (performance- and relationship-based).
Remember to create time-bound goals.
Let me know what you think in the comments.

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Seth's Blog : Speaking in public: two errors that lead to fear

Speaking in public: two errors that lead to fear

1. You believe that you are being actively judged

2. You believe that the subject of the talk is you

When you stand up to give a speech, there's a temptation to believe that the audience is actually interested in you.

This just isn't true. (Or if it is, it doesn't benefit you to think that it is).

You are not being judged, the value of what you are bringing to the audience is being judged. The topic of the talk isn't you, the topic of the talk is the audience, and specifically, how they can use your experience and knowledge to achieve their objectives.

When a professional singer sings a song of heartbreak, his heart is not breaking in that moment. His performance is for you, not for him. (The infinite self-reference loop here is that the professional singer finds what he needs when you find what you need.)

The members of the audience are interested in themselves. The audience wants to know what they can use, what they can learn, or at the very least, how they can be entertained.

If you dive into your (irrelevant to the listener) personal hurdles, if you try to justify what you've done, if you find yourself aswirl in a whirlpool of the resistance, all you're providing is a little schadenfreude as a form of entertainment.

On the other hand, if you realize that you have a chance to be generous in this moment, to teach and to lead, you can leave the self-doubt behind and speak a truth that the audience needs to hear. When you bring that to people who need it, your fear pales in comparison.

Media you choose to do is always about the audience. That's why you're doing it. The faster we get over ourselves, the sooner we can do a good job for those tuning in.

• Email to a friend •

duminică, 1 decembrie 2013

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Obamacare will Work Really Well By 2017, Promise! Website Unstable but Fixed for Vast Majority (Defined as 80%)

Posted: 01 Dec 2013 05:18 PM PST

David Plouffe, former Obama senior adviser and ABC News contributor says Obamacare Will 'Work Really Well' By 2017

Former Obama senior adviser and ABC News contributor David Plouffe said on "This Week" Sunday that the Affordable Care Act will "work really well" when all states run their own health care exchanges and fully expand Medicaid – actions that may not be seen until President Obama is out of office in 2017.

"This program was designed to be implemented by the states. And in most of the states that are running their exchanges it's going quite well," Plouffe told ABC's George Stephanopoulos. "You talked about Medicaid expansion. I think it's just a fact, and it may take until 2017 when this president leaves office, you're going to see almost every state in this country running their own exchanges eventually and expanding Medicaid. And I think it'll work really well then."

Video

Work "really well" for who? If Plouffe means the average (and shrinking) middle-class worker, he is out of his mind.

Website "Unstable" but Fixed for Vast Majority (Defined as 80%)

ABC News reports White House Declares Obamacare Website Fixed, But Problems Persist

Two months after the troubled launch of its signature health care initiative, the Obama administration on Sunday announced that its online insurance marketplace now functions smoothly for the "vast majority" of consumers seeking to shop for and enroll in coverage.

Today "is not a magic moment but a process of continual improvement over time," said Julie Bataille, communications director for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which manages the website.

The report identifies as root causes of the problems "hundreds of software bugs, insufficient hardware and infrastructure." It says technical teams have implemented 400 fixes, with more than 300 coming online in the last three weeks.

"We now believe the HealthCare.gov site works for the vast majority of users," Bataille said. The administration has defined "vast majority" as 80 percent of consumers looking to enroll online.

Still, significant problems persist with the system.

The report implies that the website continues to experience unscheduled outages at least 5 percent of the time, and officials signaled that there are still concerns about slow-downs during high traffic periods.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius advised consumers in a blog post Saturday to visit the site at off-peak times — mornings, nights and weekends — to avoid delays and potential congestion. Officials said today they are not yet ready to begin aggressively summoning people to the site until it's demonstrated to be stable.

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

Puerto Rico the Next Detroit?

Posted: 01 Dec 2013 09:57 AM PST

Puerto Rico has been in recession for 8 years. The unemployment rate is 15% and debt has piled up to the tune of $70 billion. For Comparison purposes, California public debt is $96 billion and Detroit debt was $18 billion. Wall Street rates Puerto Bonds at one step above junk.

How did Puerto Rico get into trouble? The short answer is the same way as Detroit: loss of industry coupled with lavish pensions.

The Washington Post reports Puerto Rico confronts a rising economic misery.

Boxes and wooden crates filled with household items bound for the U.S. mainland are stacked high in the Rosa del Monte moving company's cavernous warehouse, evidence of the historic rush of people abandoning this beautiful island.

The economy here has been in recession for nearly eight years, crimping tax revenue and pushing the jobless rate to nearly 15 percent. Meanwhile, the government is burdened by staggering debt, spawning comparisons to bankrupt Detroit and forcing lawmakers to severely slash pensions, cut government jobs and raise taxes in a furious effort to avert default.

Officials in San Juan and Washington are adamant that a federal bailout is not on the table, but the situation is being closely monitored by the White House, which recently named an advisory team to help Puerto Rican officials navigate the crisis.

The island's problems have ignited an exodus not seen here since the 1950s, when 500,000 people left for jobs on the mainland. Now Puerto Ricans, who are U.S. citizens, are again leaving in droves.

Puerto Rico lost 54,000 residents — 1.5 percent of its population — between 2010 and 2012 alone. Since recession struck in 2006, the population has shrunk by more than 138,000 to 3.7 million, with the vast majority of the outflow headed to the mainland.

The brutal combination of a long recession, a shrinking population and overwhelming debt has left Puerto Rico's political leaders struggling to manage a conundrum: How do they tame at least $70 billion in debt while marshaling the resources to grow a shrinking economy and battle corrosive social problems, including a homicide rate that is nearly six times the U.S. average?

Like states, the commonwealth of Puerto Rico cannot file for bankruptcy. Also, Puerto Rico's constitution offers bondholders strong guarantees that they would be paid before pensioners and public workers if the government went broke.

Puerto Rico's expansive web of debt includes standard government bonds as well as those floated by public corporations, including authorities for water and sewer, highways and electric power. Together, those bills have nearly tripled since 2000, as successive administrations turned to the bond market to plug gaping budget deficits. In addition to the $70 billion in government debt, the government also faces $37 billion in unfunded pension obligations, according to Morningstar.

Since 1996, the number of factory jobs in Puerto Rico plummeted from 160,000 to 75,000.

And while government workers make up about a quarter of the commonwealth's workforce — much higher than the U.S. average of 16 percent — their ranks are shrinking as the pervasive debt and economic problems careen toward a reckoning. Now, just over 41 percent of working-age Puerto Ricans are in a job or even looking for one.

As work has disappeared, more Puerto Ricans have relied on the government to survive: About a third of the commonwealth's population relies on food stamps, and residents of the island are twice as likely as those on the mainland to receive Social Security disability benefits, according to researchers.

Public Debt

Municipal Bankruptcies

Homicide Rate

Expect Default

Job flight, high crime rates, and huge pension woes in Puerto Rico seem similar to the problems in Detroit. However, there is no constitutional provision that allows US states and Commonwealths to declare bankruptcy.

Compounding the problem, Puerto Rico passed a massive set of tax hikes including corporate taxes, a broadened sales tax and a new gross receipts levy, hoping to get its budget under control. Given that tax hikes in the middle of a recession are about the worst possible choice, the situation is ominous.

So how is Puerto Rico's debt going to be paid back? The answer is it won't. Although, bankruptcy is out of the question, nothing can stop a default except a bailout by the US. Given that handouts from this Republican Congress are unlikely, look for Puerto Rico to default.

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

Seth's Blog : It probably looks higher from up there

It probably looks higher from up there

When we find ourselves on the edge of a precipice, looking down at the depths of the chasm below, it's easy to think that this time we went too far, that our plan is far too risky, that our product is way too bizarre, that our behavior is just too weird...

The funny thing about perspective is that most bystanders don't see you standing on a precipice at all. They see someone doing something a little edgy, but by no means nuts.

Just about all commercial behavior is banal. Even in movies that deal with businesspeople, the characters don't dream nearly big enough about one's ability to change the culture or the enterprise.

You're far more likely to go not-far-enough than you are to go too far.

Internal monologue amplifies personal drama. To the outsider, neither exists. That's why our ledge-walking rarely attracts a crowd. What's in your head is real, no doubt about it, but that doesn't mean the rest of us can see the resistance you are battling (or care about it).

• Email to a friend •

sâmbătă, 30 noiembrie 2013

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Provision in Obamacare Likely to Force Up Cost of Many Family Plans

Posted: 30 Nov 2013 11:28 AM PST

In an ongoing trend, unrelated to Obamacare, companies have been passing on more and more healthcare costs to employees.

However, an ACA gotcha has impacted the way costs are passed on, with families taking a bigger hit than individuals at many companies.

Please consider Companies Prepare to Pass More Health Costs to Workers.

Many employers are betting that the Affordable Care Act's requirement that all Americans have health insurance starting in 2014 will bring more people into their plans who have previously opted out. That, along with other rising expenses, is prompting companies to raise workers' premium contributions, steer them toward high-deductible plans and charge them more to cover family members.

The changes as companies roll out their health plans for 2014 aren't solely the result of the ACA. Employers have been pushing more of the cost of providing health insurance on to their workers for years, and firms that aren't booking much sales growth due to the sluggish economy are under heavy pressure to keep expenses down.

A quirk of the Affordable Care Act could make it more appealing for companies to raise rates for family coverage than for individuals, said Vivian Ho, a Rice University health-care economist.

Starting in 2015, companies employing 50 or more people must offer affordable health-care coverage to anyone working 30 hours a week or more. But affordability is measured using the cost of individual coverage, capping the cost at 9.5% of income, Ms. Ho said. Raising family rates could help companies recoup costs without running afoul of that limit, she said.

Gannett Co., which owns more than 80 newspapers and 23 television stations, expects one factor in its increased health costs to be the addition of more employees to its insurance plans due to the ACA rules, according to a person familiar with the company's projections.

To address an overall increase in costs, Gannett has replaced the two plans for families it used to offer its workers with a single high-deductible plan that requires employees to pay the first $3,000 of medical costs each year, according to workers at the Indianapolis Star, one of the company's papers. For those with individual coverage, who make up a little over half of Gannett's insurance pool, the figure is $1,500.

The company also scrapped a sliding scale that let lower-income workers pay lower premiums. For some employees, the result was a 60% jump in monthly premiums for family coverage, to $575 from about $360.

Gannett said more than half of its employees will see premiums fall by 12%.

United Parcel Service Inc. made headlines in August when it said that it would bar spouses from its nonunion health plan if they could get coverage at their own jobs. The company said it expected to see an increase in its health-care costs in part from adding employees to its plan who currently opt out.

About 6% of employers ban coverage for spouses who can get it elsewhere, and another 6% impose an explicit surcharge for covering a spouse, according to Mercer. American Electric Power Co., for example, began imposing a $50 monthly surcharge this year to cover spouses with access to insurance at their own workplace. AEP said 92% of its employees usually sign up for coverage, so it doesn't expect a surge of new enrollment.

In another shift this year, companies have become increasingly aggressive about steering employees toward plans in which they pay more of the initial costs for their care in exchange for lower premiums.

Trucking and logistics company Ryder System Inc. has replaced one of its two insurance options with one such high-deductible plan. Ryder is encouraging employees to choose the new option in part by raising the cost of more traditional coverage.

Winners and Losers

Half of Gannett employees will see a 12% drop in premiums. But others will see a 60% rise. And for those who do see premiums decline, the drop will be solely because they are forced into high deductible plans.

Obamacare created a pool of winners and losers, with some of the losers far worse off than before. Many people were hardly affected at all, at least initially. In aggregate, ACA did nothing to lower overall costs, it just shifted costs around in an inefficient manner, making things worse than before.

The most widely reported "success" has been the enrollment of tens of thousands of people into Medicaid. Because of cost sharing that kicks in later, many states are likely to regret that effort.

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

luni, 2 decembrie 2013

Progress on those 23 executive actions:

World AIDS Day: Sharing Responsibility, Strengthening Results

Treat Your Channels like a Soccer Team

Treat Your Channels like a Soccer Team