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marți, 2 septembrie 2014

"Hope Is the Better Choice"

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President Obama: "Hope Is the Better Choice"

Yesterday, the President celebrated Labor Day by visiting the city of Milwaukee for Laborfest, an annual end-of-summer festival hosted by the local AFL-CIO. Kicking off his remarks at the festival, he said that the Labor Day holiday belonged to the "working folks who are here today, and the unions who've always had your back."

The President explained how our nation's economy has gotten stronger by almost every measure since he's taken office, and reiterated the importance of building our economy from the middle class out. He also noted that changing the status quo is one of the hardest things to do, emphasizing that people need to get involved, organize, vote -- and stay hopeful.

"Cynicism is a bad choice," he said. "Hope is the better choice."

It's a powerful speech -- see more of the President's remarks here:

Seth's Blog : While you were out... (news from late August)

While you were out... (news from late August)

Two pieces of good news you might have missed while you were away:

a. I posted an opening for one or two paid internships. You still have a week to share this with a friend.

b. Thanks to my wonderful readers and my colleague Bernadette Jiwa, we were able to raise more than our goal of $200,000 for charity: water. Thanks to everyone who pitched in.

We missed you. Welcome back.

• Email to a friend •

Moz Local Summer Updates

Posted: 02 Sep 2014 02:34 AM PDT

Posted by David-Mihm

Hard to believe, but it's been five months since we released Moz Local into the wild! As I'm sure has been the case for many of you, our summer has just flown by.

While our engineering team has been hard at work on a number of behind-the-scenes improvements since Day One, today marks our first major feature release since launch--and it actually includes three features.

A TL;DR is at the bottom of this post for those strapped for time :)

Single-location distribution and editing

The most common request we've heard since our initial launch back in March is for a simplified web interface to submit your listings, as opposed to the CSV file designed for agencies and brands with hundreds or thousands of locations.

We realize for some of the formatting constraints required by our system are a bit onerous for those users not already managing their data in bulk at Google My Business.

So with the help of Moz's tremendous UX team, we're releasing a dramatically simplified one-page entry form that should dramatically reduce the time involved with submitting listings for the first time, or tweaking listings you've already submitted.

The submission form is broken into sections to allow casual users to focus on the most important attributes of their listings, but still gives advanced users the ability to add rich data fields like hours of operation, social media URLs, brands carried, and store code.

For those of you who do have a batch of locations you'd like to upload all at once, you'll still be able to do so using our CSV template. But you should find the validation of those listings a little smoother.

All in all, we're hoping that this makes the onboarding process much less cumbersome and much more efficient!

My favorite parts of this new feature:

Pre-filled baseline information from what we're able to find across the local search ecosystem, saving you hours of time if you've got multiple locations.
A snazzy category selection interface on par with Google My Business.
A killer Hours-of-Operation selector that's the best I've seen (though I am a little biased!)

Enhanced duplicate listing detection and closure

Back in my consulting days, one of the biggest headaches was always searching for and "nuking" erroneous or out-of-date listings for my clients. I'm sure that's the case for many of you as well, and for various reasons, not the least of which is the associated boost to the strength of directories, the Pigeon update has only made this task more important.

How this feature works:

Just as before, you'll see the Duplicates section highlighted in the sidebar of your dashboard if we're able to find duplicates for any of the listings in your account. But clicking that menu item gives you an entirely different experience.

You'll now see a call-to-action to add alternates of various NAP attributes, like business name, ZIP code, and phone number. Adding these alternates tells us to search all possible NAP combinations that use these alternate data points on every site we query.

We automatically show you close-match listings to the NAP you submitted in the same or similar ZIP codes. But now if a business has moved, lost a practitioner, or changed its phone number, this feature will find those broader-match listings as well.

And now you'll be able to request removal of these duplicates (on the sites in our network) right in the dashboard.

My favorite parts of this new feature:

Gives you the ability to cast a much wider net than our automatic duplicate detection.
Gives you the ability to ignore close-match listings that aren't actually duplicates.
Allows you to close listings directly from the dashboard rather than going to partner sites.

Our status as a Factual Trusted Data Contributor

Factual--one of the four primary U.S. data aggregators--launched a new initiative a couple of weeks ago called the Trusted Data Contributor program, and we're excited to be a part of it. The TDC program is a significant indication of Factual's commitment to an index of accurate and complete location information for businesses of all sizes.

We've been working behind the scenes with Factual over the past several weeks to adjust how we send them location data. Our inclusion in this program means that Moz Local customers can expect their listings to go live on Factual with a much higher level of fidelity, although it may take a little longer than it did previously for updated listings to appear in Factual's index.

A number of you have contacted our Help Team about your Factual listings during this transition, and we appreciate your patience. As part of this update, a significant number of pending listings will go live on Factual in approximately two weeks.

Read the official announcement and learn more about the program here.

Upcoming price increase

As we've learned a bit more about the operating costs of Moz Local over the past five months, and as part of the release of these additional features, we've decided to institute a price increase to $84 per location per year. This price remains true to our mission of providing a product that ensures accurate, consistent information across the web at a price point affordable for small business owners, agencies, and large brands alike. The added revenue from this price increase will allow us fund the development of future Moz Local products.

The price increase will go into effect on October 1, 2014 -- but any listings purchased prior to that date will be grandfathered in at our $49 rate.

So if you've been on the fence about distributing your locations through Moz Local, or have been too overwhelmed by the CSV input, now is definitely the cheapest and most efficient opportunity to submit your locations.

TL;DR

We're releasing:

Simplified web interface for listing submission and editing
Expanded duplicate listing detection and streamlined closure
Slightly slower, but more reliable listing updates on Factual
Price increase to $84 per location per year starting October 1

We're excited about the reception the product has received so far, and especially grateful for all the feedback and feature requests from our users and the broader Moz community. Please continue to let us know what you think we should focus on next by emailing me or suggesting features in our feature request forum!

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 : The wasteful fraud of sorting for youth meritocracy

The wasteful fraud of sorting for youth meritocracy

"Sorry, you didn't make the team. We did the cuts today."

"We did play auditions all day yesterday, and so many people turned out, there just wasn't a role for you. We picked people who were more talented."

"You're on the bench until your skills improve. We want to win."

Ask the well-meaning coaches and teachers running the tryouts and choosing who gets to play, ask them who gets on stage and who gets fast tracked, and they'll explain that life is a meritocracy, and it's essential to teach kids that they're about to enter a world where people get picked based on performance.

Or, they might point out that their job is to win, to put on a great show, to entertain the parents with the best performance they can create.

This, all of this, is sort of dangerous, unhelpful and nonsensical.

As millions head back for another year of school, I'm hoping that parents (and students) can call this out.

When you're six years old and you try out for the hockey team, only two things are going to get you picked ahead of the others: either you're older (it's true, check this out) or you were born with size or speed or some other advantage that wasn't your choice.

And the junior high musical? It's pretty clear that kids are chosen based on appearance or natural singing talent, two things that weren't up to them.

Soccer and football exist in school not because there's a trophy shortage, not because the school benefits from winning. They exist, I think, to create a learning experience. But when we bench people because they're not naturally good, what's the lesson?

If you get ahead for years and years because you got dealt good cards, it's not particularly likely that you will learn that in the real world, achievement is based as much on attitude and effort as it is on natural advantages. In the real world, Nobel prizes and Broadway roles and the senior VP job go to people who have figured out how to care, how to show up, how to be open to new experiences. Our culture is built around connection and charisma and learning and the ability to not quit in precisely the right moments.

But that's not easy to sort for in school, so we take a shortcut and resort to trivial measures instead.

What if we celebrated the students who regularly try the hardest, help each other the most and lead? We if we fast tracked those students, and made it clear to anyone else willing to adopt those attitudes that they could be celebrated too?

What if you got cast, tracked or made the cut because you were resilient, hard working and willing to set yourself up for a cycle of continuous improvement? Isn't that more important than rewarding the kid who never passes but still scores a lot of goals?

Before you feature a trumpet prodigy at the jazz band concert, perhaps you could feature the kid who just won't quit. No need to tell him he's a great trumpet player--the fact is, none of these kids are Maynard Ferguson--just tell him the truth. Tell him that every single person who has made a career of playing the trumpet (every single one of them) did it with effort and passion, not with lips that naturally vibrate.

We're not spending nearly enough time asking each other: What is School For?

Since I first published Stop Stealing Dreams to the web, it's been shared millions of times. My hope is that as we go back to school, you'll forward this video and this manifesto (screen edition) to every parent and teacher you know. (Here's a printable edition if you want to print it out and hand copies out).

Let's talk about school and figure out what we're trying to create.

• Email to a friend •

luni, 1 septembrie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Black Sea Oil Claims Before and After Russia Annexed Crimea

Posted: 01 Sep 2014 07:37 PM PDT

The significance of the annexation of Crimea by Russia goes far beyond land territorial claims. Here are a couple of maps that show how Crimea affects oil rights in the black sea.

Black Sea Claims Before Crimea Annexation

Black Sea Claims After Crimea Annexation

The above charts from the New York Times article In Taking Crimea, Putin Gains a Sea of Fuel Reserves.

Russia did not annex Crimea just because of Black Sea claims. But, those claims make it all the more unlikely that Russia would ever cede Crimea back to Ukraine under any circumstances.

Moreover, Russia has no land connection to Crimea, and Russia has every reason to want to end that situation.

If you are looking for another reason for the rebel counteroffensive "march to the sea", you now have one.

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

Eurozone Manufacturing PMI at 13-Month Low, with Germany Worse than Expected, Italy and France in Contraction

Posted: 01 Sep 2014 07:27 AM PDT

The Markit Eurozone Manufacturing final data shows Eurozone Manufacturing PMI at 13-month low in August.

The rate of expansion in eurozone manufacturing production eased to its lowest during the current 14-month growth sequence in August, as companies faced slower increases in both total new orders and new export business. The final seasonally adjusted Markit Eurozone Manufacturing PMI® posted 50.7 in August, down from 51.8 in July, its lowest reading since July last year. The headline PMI was also below its earlier flash estimate of 50.8. National PMI data signalled a broad easing in the manufacturing recoveries underwa y across much of the currency union. Although Ireland was a noticeable exception, with its PMI at the highest level since the end of 1999, rates of expansion slowed in Spain, the Netherlands and Germany.

The rate of expansion in new work received also slowed to the weakest in the current 14-month period of growth. Economic and geopolitical uncertainties were the main factors underlying slower demand growth. Inflows of new export business posted the slowest rise since July 2013. France was the only nation to report an outright decline in new export orders in August, while rates of increase eased in Germany, Italy and Greece. Ireland, Spain and Austria reported stronger inflows of new export business.

The big-three nations of Germany, France and Italy all reported job losses, as did Greece. Staffing rose in Spain, the Netherlands, Austria and Ireland, but Ireland was the only nation to report a faster pace of hiring than in July. Signs that the manufacturing sector may be on course for further easing in the coming months was signalled by data on purchasing and stock holdings. Input buying volumes fell for the first time in over a year and inventories were reduced further as strong competition led companies to maintain a cost-cautious position. Meanwhile, the forward-looking ratio of new orders to finished goods inventories dipped to a 13-month low.

Countries Ranked by Manufacturing PMI®

Ireland 57.3 176-month high
Spain 52.8 4-month low
Netherlands 51.7 13-month low
Germany 51.4 (flash 52.0 ) 11-month low
Austria 50.9 Unchanged
Greece 50.1 3-month high
Italy 49.8 14-month low
France 46.9 (flash 46.5 ) 15-month low

Ireland, Spain, and the Netherlands cannot sustain a eurozone recovery. A recession in Germany is on the way, and will take the rest of Europe along for the ride.

More sanctions on Russia will make matters worse.

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

On Labor Day:

Hi, everyone --

This Labor Day, I'm thinking about Austraberta.

I had breakfast at Austraberta Rodriguez's home in Houston two weeks ago. She's worked as a janitor for more than 30 years, and for most of that time, her wages put her below the poverty level. Every cent she's earned has gone toward providing the basics for her children and grandchildren. Today, she's still earning the minimum wage -- which, in Texas, is just $7.25 an hour.

Austraberta Rodriguez with her grandchildren

Austraberta told me over breakfast that a national minimum wage increase would mean more bread for her family. She said a few more dollars an hour would be "incredible." That raise wouldn't just go toward making Austraberta's life a little better. It would improve the odds for her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren too.

Austraberta's struggle is our struggle. On Labor Day, we celebrate all workers nationwide who contribute to our strength and prosperity. Because whether you made the burger or someone served it to you, whether you're driving the bus or riding on it, whether you're sweeping the floor or working in the clean office, you have a part to play.

So today, if you're ready for a country that does right by Austraberta and the nearly 28 million Americans who stand to benefit from a $10.10 minimum wage, then honor them by adding your name here.

A higher minimum wage doesn't just help workers like Austraberta. It helps the businesses they work for too. It improves employee morale, productivity, and customer service. It reduces turnover, absenteeism, and training costs.

And besides, when working families have more money in their pockets, they pump it right back into their local economies. They spend it on goods and services where they live. And that helps the businesses providing those goods and services to grow. And that creates more jobs.

But it all starts with making good on that basic bargain: If you work hard and play by the rules, you shouldn't have to raise your family in poverty.

The President is doing his part, with an Executive Order that would increase the minimum wage to $10.10 for private-sector workers on federal contracts.

You can do your part, too -- and there's no action too small to show your support for folks like Austraberta. Folks like LeDaya. Like Holley. Like Aaron.

Today, more than a century after its inception, we still haven't identified the true "founder" of Labor Day, and maybe that's fitting. Because today isn't about one person. It's about every American who's working hard to get ahead -- and it's about the progress we can make when we work together.

You can do that right now by standing up and saying you're ready to reward hard work with a fair wage for everyone.

Happy Labor Day. Let's continue standing with our workers not just on the first Monday in September, but every day of the year.

- Tom

Secretary Tom Perez
Department of Labor
@LaborSec

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marți, 2 septembrie 2014

"Hope Is the Better Choice"

Seth's Blog : While you were out... (news from late August)

While you were out... (news from late August)

More Recent Articles

Moz Local Summer Updates