Central Perk

vineri, 23 august 2013

Seth's Blog : No decisions, no responsibility

No decisions, no responsibility

We presume.

Human beings take shortcuts and believe in stereotypes. Sometimes we misjudge someone as dumb, who isn't, or unsuccessful, who is far from it. Too often, we make grave errors, disrespect our fellows and lose out on opportunities because we're too busy judging.

The way the authorities treated Aditya Mukerjee a few weeks ago will/should make you shudder. This goes far beyond one person relying on stereotypes, though. It's an indictment of how too many organizations work.

I don't think we can assume that the people we hire will somehow lose their prejudices. I do think, though, that we ought to build systems where the system itself works against those stereotypes, instead of amplifying them.

Throughout his story, we encounter individuals who should have known better, professionals who should have been trained and monitored, but most of all, we see a typical bureaucracy. People who refuse to make decisions and who are absolved of responsibility for their actions (or non-actions).

TSA, TSA, TSA, NYPD, NYPD, FBI, JetBlue, TSA, NYPD... in this parade of uncaring cops and bureaucrats, wasn't there one person who could grab Aditya a glass of water? One person who could talk to him like a fellow human, like a fellow citizen? In the many hours that he was held, why didn't even one person stand up and say, "wait!"

We presume. And often, we're just wrong.

There are only two choices available to any large organization:

1. Hire people who make no original decisions but be damn sure that if they are going to run by the book, the book better be perfect. And build in reviews to make sure that everyone is indeed playing by the book, with significant monitoring and consequences in place for when they don't.

2. Hire people who care and give them the freedom and responsibility to act. Hold people responsible for the decisions they make, and trust their judgment.

We can do better, all of us. We better hurry.

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Join the conversation on making college affordable

Friday, August 23, 2013

Join the conversation on making college affordable

Putting higher education within the reach of all those who are willing to work for it is one of the most important economic challenges we face. So President Obama is introducing a new set of ideas to rethink the way in which we pay for college.

On a bus tour to meet with students, he asked people to raise their voices online to discuss why this issue is so important, and the hashtag #MakeCollegeAffordable started trending nationwide.

Each of these voices is an important reminder about why we can't wait to take action.

If you want to join this conversation online, use Twitter or post to Facebook using the hashtag #MakeCollegeAffordable.

Have questions about the details of President Obama's plan? Check out the graphic and share it with friends.

Learn more: Check out the discussion between Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Khan Academy from earlier today:

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President Obama's Plan for Making College More Affordable

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President Obama's Plan for Making College More Affordable

Yesterday, President Obama introduced a new set of ideas to rethink the way in which we pay for higher education -- and shake up the current system. He wants to connect financial aid to school performance, support academic innovation and competition, and make college more affordable.

Have questions about the details? Check out the graphic and share it with friends.

Solving the Pogo-Stick Problem - Whiteboard Friday

Posted: 22 Aug 2013 04:02 PM PDT

Posted by randfish

Getting your site to display at the top of a SERP is quite an accomplishment, but it also takes quite a bit of effort to keep it there. If people click through to your site only to click their back buttons and look for another result, the search engines are going to catch on, and you could fall in the rankings.

In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand helps us broaden our thinking to satisfy the searchers and keep them from pogo-sticking back to the SERP.

Pro tip: Learn more about on-page optimization for content and UX at Moz Academy.

For reference, here's a still image of this week's whiteboard:

Video Transcription

Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Today I want to talk to you about the pogo-sticking problem.

So here's the story. Basically search engines, Google included, use a lot of different kinds of data for their ranking algorithms, but one of the pieces that's in there, we don't know exactly how big it might be, but it's certainly possible that it's sizeable, is what's called pogo sticking. They measure this feature or this occurrence where someone performs a search. I performed a search here for IT consultants, and there are a few listings that come up. I click on "IT Boston." It takes me to IT Boston's website, and then I decide, maybe in the first five or ten seconds, "You know what? This site is not solving my problem. This isn't really what I wanted," and I go right back to the same search result.

Either I click back or I search for it again or I search for something different, and then I go and click on other results. Maybe I click on this "Is IT Consulting Dead?" It's sort of a link bait article from some news source, BuzzFeed maybe, click on that, go to that page, and I stay on it and I don't come back to the search result.

Google measures these kinds of things. So does Bing. They measure this pogo-sticking, and they come up with essentially, this is a very simplistic representation of what actually happens, but X% of people pogo stick away from IT Boston in their first 5 seconds of visiting the site, Y% do it for this BuzzFeed page, and Z% do it for IT 101. We're going to calculate some average, the average pogo-sticking as sorted and weighted by the ranking position for this particular search result.

Here's the problem. For every search result, there's some different pogo-sticking rate. But great pages and sites tend to have the trait that they've got really low pogo-sticking rates. If IT Boston is a great result, people click it and they stay. Their search query has been satisfied. Google likes that. That means that a searcher is made happy, and they're not coming back and doing other searches and clicking other results. Sometimes this might be okay. Maybe there are some sorts of searches where Google says, "Oh, lots of people do click multiple times, and lots of people do bounce back and forth and it's fine." But for the vast majority of searches this is really important to get right. So I have some tactical tips for you.

If you've got a pogo-sticking problem, a high bounce rate, people are going back to the search results, clicking on your competitors' links, that kind of thing, the number one thing you can do is get in the searcher's head. This is different, might be different from getting in your customer's head. You might say, "Hey, we've designed this excellent landing page. It's really focused. If the 10% of people who search, who are our kind of customers, come to this page, they're going to convert."

The challenge there is you've got to think bigger. You have to think about all the searchers, the 90% of the searchers who may not be your customer and how do you answer their query, because otherwise you're probably going to be falling in those search results. What questions do those people have? What makes them engage versus leave? What is it, when this person performs a search, that they want to know? And if you don't know, you can ask.

One of my top recommendations for people who have just kind of a crummy page is, "I want you to go out and survey people in your office, people who work with you, people who are long-time customers, people who are in your network. I want you to survey them, and I want you to ask them, 'Imagine you have performed a search for X. Tell me the first, most important thing you're looking for. Now tell me the second thing that you'd probably be interested in, and now tell me the third thing.' " People will just free-form leave a couple phrases or sentences in those boxes, send it back to you. Boom. Now you know what people want. If you don't have that sort of searcher empathy built into your head already, you can do it this way, through the surveying system, and then you can make a page that people are going to love. You can answer those questions.

Number two, I see a lot of search results out there that are missing design and UX elements that are critical to success. If you've got this crappy, crummy 1990s design aesthetic going on or even a more updated thing, but it's just not a very usable website, the navigation's poor, the images are poor, the content quality is poor, you've got to work on that. If you can't say with conviction that you have the highest quality, most usable, beautiful, high visual-quality page in the results, get to work man. Get to work. This stuff is really important.

If you're looking, by the way, one of my top suggestions is to check out Dribbble.com. That's D-r-i-b-b-b-l-e.com. Wonderful designers are available on there. Some of them are very expensive. Some of them are less expensive. Great resource to check out.

Number three, the last thing I'll mention on tactical tips for this is load speed and device support. A lot of times I do see this problem where someone goes to a page and then after two or three seconds if something hasn't loaded, they go back. You can work on this. Even if you have a relatively robust page, you can get elements to load in those critical first second, second and a half time frames. Check out developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed. They've got an analysis tool and a system you can walk through to make sure that that works.

You should also be multi-device compliant. Make sure that if you don't have responsive design, you at least have a mobile-friendly site, an iPad-friendly site. I do love responsive design. I recommend it. But this becomes a challenge too, because remember, if lots of people are searching on mobile and they're bouncing back because your page is slow or it doesn't work with a mobile device, you're in trouble. Those stats are going to hurt you in the results.

All right, everyone. I hope you've enjoyed this edition of Whiteboard Friday. We'll see you again next week. Take care.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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Seth's Blog : Getting smart about the time tax

Getting smart about the time tax

If you want to go to Shakespeare in the Park in New York, you need to really want to go.

That's because it's free. Well, mostly free. They use a time-honored tradition to be sure that the tickets are allocated to people who truly want them: they tax the interested by having them wait on line, for hours sometimes.

It seems egalitarian, but it's actually regressive, because it doesn't take into account the fact that different people value their time differently. People with time to spare are far more likely to be rewarded.

Another example: Call the company that sells your favorite tech brand and ask for customer service. You'll be on hold for one to sixty minutes. Why do they do this? They can obviously afford to answer the phone right away, can't they?

Like the mom who waits for the sixth whine before responding to her kid, these companies are making sure that only people who really and truly need/want to talk to them actually get talked to. Everyone else hangs up long before that.

You can hear the CFO, "well, if we answered on the first ring, more people would call!"

Again, at first glance, this seems like a smart way to triage with limited resources. But once again, it misses the opportunity to treat different people differently. Shouldn't the really great customer, or the person about to buy a ton of items get their call answered right away? The time tax is a bludgeon, a blunt instrument that can't discriminate.

We don't need to make people wait in line for anything if we don't want to. Why not have the most eager theater goers trade the three hours they'd spend in line in exchange for tutoring some worthwhile kid instead? Instead of wasting all that time, we could see tens of thousands of people trading the lost time for a ticket and a chance to do something useful. (Money is just one way to adjudicate the time tax problem, but there are plenty of other resources people can trade to get to the head of the line).

This logic of scarcity can be applied to countless situations. First-come, first-served is non-digital, unfair and expensive. And yet we still use it all the time, in just about everyone situation where there is scarcity.

The opportunity isn't to auction off everything to the highest bidder, but it might lie in understanding who is waiting and what they're willing to trade for the certainty and satisfaction of getting out of line.

When in doubt, treat different customers differently.

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joi, 22 august 2013

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Bond Market Misconceptions, Facts, and Fallacies; Bond Market About to Collapse?

Posted: 22 Aug 2013 07:00 PM PDT

The number of truths, half-truths, and blatantly false perceptions regarding US treasuries all strewn together is quite typical in mainstream media analysis, and also non-mainstream media analysis.

For example, please consider Will the Last Person to Leave the Treasury Market Please Turn Out the Lights? by Michael Pento as presented on Yahoo!Finance.

Here are some statements Pento presents with my comments.

Pento: In truth, [treasury] yields currently do not at all reflect the credit, currency or inflation risks associated with owning Treasuries. If the Fed were not buying $45 billion each month of our government bonds, investors both foreign and domestic would require a much higher rate of return.

Mish: Correct, depending on the definition of "much".

Pento: Investors have to be concerned about the record $17 trillion government debt (107% of GDP), which is growing $750 billion this year alone.

Mish: Correct

Pento: Foreign investors have to factor into their calculation the potential wealth-destroying effects of owning debt backed by a weakening U.S. dollar.

Mish: Somewhat correct but also misleading as well as incomplete. Foreign "investors" do have to factor in a weakening dollar but primarily vs. their own currency. The US alone is not printing like mad. Currency risks are everywhere you look. More importantly, foreign central banks do not have to factor in weakening dollar calculations (and indeed they don't for mathematical reasons explained below).

Pento: Due to its foolish embracement of Abenomics, Japan will also have to fear a collapse of its debt market from rising inflation in the near future, just as we do in here.

Mish: Correct but Backwards. On the current Abenomics path, Japan faces a far bigger risk of currency collapse than the US. Japan is the big story and faces a bigger as well as quicker collapse than the US.

Pento: If the free market were allowed to set interest rates and not held down by the promise of endless Fed manipulation, borrowing costs would be close to 7% on the Ten Year Note.

Mish: Pure speculation and likely drastically overstated. Pento does not know where rates would be, nor do I, but I suggest Pento simply does not understand the debt-deflation drag that would force yields lower. 4-5% is a much more reasonable expectation in my opinion, and even that might be high. If governments reined in debt on account of a less-accommodating Fed, long-term rates would likely collapse with short-term rates rising.

Pento: Long term rates have been pushed lower by four iterations of QE. The latest version is record setting, open-ended and massive in nature. Since QE is mostly about lowering long-term rates, it shouldn't be hard to understand that its tapering would send rates soaring on the long end.

Mish: Correct depending on the definition of "soaring", but also assuming governments did not rein in debt and also depending on actions of other central banks. If 4% constitutes soaring, then assuming not much else changes, I am inclined to agree (but that is a lot of IFs).

Pento: When the Fed stops buying Treasuries, foreign and domestic investors will do so as well. This means for a period of time there won't be any one left to buy Treasuries unless prices first plunge.

Mish: A very common misconception, and widely spread fallacy. It's important to distinguish between foreign investors and foreign central banks. Central banks buy US treasuries as a function of math, no more - no less. If the US runs a trade deficit, it is a 100% mathematical certainty that countries with a current account surplus vs. the US will have dollars to "invest". Where do they put them? The answer is US treasuries. In theory, foreign central banks could invest in any US$ denominated asset, but not wanting equity risk, and in preparation of eventual capital flight, the only market big enough to meet the needs is the US treasury market. Therefore, in practice, foreign central banks in current account surplus countries are net buyers of treasuries regardless of price.

Nonetheless, people propose all kinds of silly things such as "China and Japan should buy oil or other commodities with their dollars".

The problem with such ideas is two-fold. First, Commodity-buying is pro-cyclical. China is slowing, it has less demand for raw materials. What would China do with a stockpile of coal or copper with prices collapsing and infrastructure needs sinking at the same time? Second, assuming China or Japan bought oil (ignoring storage costs) what would Saudi Arabia or Iran do with the dollars?

Once again, it is a mathematical fact that someone has to hold US trade deficit dollars or dollar-denominated assets. It is also a fact that foreign central banks are not concerned about theoretical losses on treasury holdings.

Here's why: If China and Japan did somehow permanently stop buying US treasuries, it would place upward pressure on the Yen and the Yuan. Does either Japan or China want significant upward pressure on their currencies? I think not.

The US has been begging China to strengthen the yuan. China has resisted, and Japan is doing everything it can to sink then Yen.

Bond Market About to Collapse?

Pentto is Author of the book "The Coming Bond Market Collapse".

Depending on the definition as well as the suggested timeline, I might even agree with the idea of a "bond collapse". However, Pento clearly missed some significant factors and seems far too US-centric focused as well.

From my point of view, a bond market collapse in Japan, India, Indonesia, Argentina, the UK, and the Eurozone is far more likely.

For further discussion, please see Mish Video: Troubled Currencies (And There are Lots of Them), Gold, Bernanke, Carry Trades, Bubbles).

Also consider Official Denials Run Rampant in India; "No Question" of Economic Crisis; Rupee Plunges to Record Low; Gold Coin Imports Banned.

Please think about a definition of "collapse" and your timeline. Depending on your definition, a collapse may be a lot further away than most think.

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

Gallup Unemployment Rate Spikes from 7.9% on Aug 1 to 8.9% on August 20! Sampling Error or Seasonal Effect?

Posted: 22 Aug 2013 10:43 AM PDT

Inquiring minds note the steady rise all month in Gallup's Daily Employment Survey.

7.9% August 1-2
8.0% August 3-6
8.1% August 8-8
8.2% August 9-11
8.3% August 12
8.4% August 13-16
8.6% August 17-18
8.8% August 19
8.9% August 20

Is This a Seasonal Effect?

That's quite a trend. The unemployment rate steadily rose a full percentage point in a mere 20 days.

Gallup notes "Because results are not seasonally adjusted, they are not directly comparable to numbers reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which are based on workers 16 and older. Margin of error is ±1 percentage point."

My first inclination was the rise was part of a seasonal trend: "Each result is based on a 30-day rolling average; not seasonally adjusted".

To test seasonal bias, I downloaded the data which dates back to 2010. Let's take a look at an apples-to-apples comparison of August 2013 vs. August in prior years to eliminate any seasonal bias.

August 2010

Date	% Underemployed	% Unemployed
8/1/2010	18.4	8.9
8/2/2010	18.4	8.9
8/3/2010	18.6	8.9
8/4/2010	18.7	9
8/5/2010	18.5	8.8
8/6/2010	18.6	8.9
8/7/2010	18.5	8.9
8/8/2010	18.5	8.9
8/9/2010	18.4	9
8/10/2010	18.4	9.1
8/11/2010	18.5	9.2
8/12/2010	18.6	9.2
8/13/2010	18.6	9.2
8/14/2010	18.5	9.1
8/15/2010	18.3	9.1
8/16/2010	18.2	9
8/17/2010	18.1	9.1
8/18/2010	18.1	9.1
8/19/2010	18.3	9.3
8/20/2010	18.4	9.4
8/21/2010	18.4	9.4
8/22/2010	18.4	9.4
8/23/2010	18.4	9.4
8/24/2010	18.6	9.6
8/25/2010	18.6	9.6
8/26/2010	18.6	9.6
8/27/2010	18.7	9.5
8/28/2010	18.7	9.5
8/29/2010	18.5	9.4
8/30/2010	18.5	9.3
8/31/2010	18.6	9.3

August 2011

Date	% Underemployed	% Unemployed
8/1/2011	18	8.8
8/2/2011	17.9	8.8
8/3/2011	17.9	8.9
8/4/2011	17.9	8.9
8/5/2011	18.1	9
8/6/2011	18	8.9
8/7/2011	17.9	8.8
8/8/2011	18	8.8
8/9/2011	18	8.8
8/10/2011	18	8.8
8/11/2011	18.1	8.8
8/12/2011	18.1	8.8
8/13/2011	18.2	9
8/14/2011	18.1	8.9
8/15/2011	18.2	9
8/16/2011	18.1	9
8/17/2011	18.2	9
8/18/2011	18	8.9
8/19/2011	18.2	9
8/20/2011	18.2	9.1
8/21/2011	18.1	9
8/22/2011	18.1	9.1
8/23/2011	18.1	9.1
8/24/2011	18.1	9.1
8/25/2011	18.2	9.1
8/26/2011	18.2	9.1
8/27/2011	18.2	9.1
8/29/2011	18.4	9.1
8/30/2011	18.5	9.1
8/31/2011	18.5	9.2

August 2012

Date	% Underemployed	% Unemployed
8/1/2012	17.1	8.2
8/2/2012	17	8.2
8/3/2012	16.9	8.2
8/4/2012	16.8	8.2
8/5/2012	16.6	8
8/6/2012	16.6	8.1
8/7/2012	16.6	8.2
8/8/2012	16.6	8.1
8/9/2012	16.8	8.2
8/10/2012	16.8	8.2
8/11/2012	16.9	8.2
8/12/2012	17	8.3
8/13/2012	16.9	8.3
8/14/2012	17	8.4
8/15/2012	17	8.3
8/16/2012	17.1	8.4
8/17/2012	17	8.3
8/18/2012	17.1	8.3
8/19/2012	17.1	8.4
8/20/2012	17	8.3
8/21/2012	17.2	8.3
8/22/2012	17.3	8.3
8/23/2012	17.2	8.2
8/24/2012	17.2	8.3
8/25/2012	17.2	8.2
8/26/2012	17.2	8.2
8/27/2012	17	8
8/28/2012	17	8
8/29/2012	16.9	7.9
8/30/2012	17.1	8
8/31/2012	17.2	8.1

August 2013

Date	% Underemployed	% Unemployed
8/1/2013	17.3	7.9
8/2/2013	17.3	7.9
8/3/2013	17.4	8
8/4/2013	17.5	8
8/5/2013	17.5	8
8/6/2013	17.4	8
8/7/2013	17.3	8.1
8/8/2013	17.4	8.1
8/9/2013	17.4	8.2
8/10/2013	17.5	8.2
8/11/2013	17.5	8.2
8/12/2013	17.5	8.3
8/13/2013	17.6	8.4
8/14/2013	17.6	8.4
8/15/2013	17.5	8.4
8/16/2013	17.4	8.4
8/17/2013	17.6	8.6
8/18/2013	17.7	8.6
8/19/2013	17.8	8.8
8/20/2013	17.9	8.9

No, It's Not Seasonal

A close look at August 2013 vs. August in prior years shows no other strong seasonal spikes.

2010 did show a half percentage point rise August 1-20, but that was at a time when BLS seasonally-adjusted unemployment rates were steady or rising. 2011 sported a 0.3 percentage point rise August 1-20 and 2012 had an insignificant 0.1 percentage point rise August 1-20.

This upward trend is steady, stronger, more persistent, and with a unique divergence to BLS reported data as compared to prior years. Whatever is going on, it's not a typical seasonal pattern.

What About Sampling Error?

Even though Gallup states the "margin of error is ±1 percentage point", my interpretation is the dsclaimer pertains to the results in any one survey, not trends that strengthen in one direction for 20 straight days.

As Nate Silver proved in the last presidential election, repeated surveys and trends are important.

For details, please see my confident prediction 90% Chance of Obama Win; Three Things Romney Needs to Win; Election Night Coverage With Mish on National Syndicated Radio

In this case, there is only one pollster, but given no history of bias by Gallup, and given the steady, significant rise in polled unemployment, the trend looks ominous.

Monthly BLS Not Seasonally Adjusted Data

Let's do a final check to see patterns in the BLS Civilian Unemployment Rate (non-seasonally adjusted).

Date	BLS Not Seasonally Adjusted Rate
2010-07-01	9.7
2010-08-01	9.5
2010-09-01	9.2

2011-07-01	9.3
2011-08-01	9.1
2011-09-01	8.8

2012-07-01	8.6
2012-08-01	8.2
2012-09-01	7.6

2013-07-01	7.7

BLS vs. Gallup Comparison

In BLS not-seasonally adjusted data, in every year between 2010 and 2013, the unemployment rate declined from July to August and then again from August to September.

Why the seasonal decline? Teachers going back to school.

We do not yet have August or September 2013 numbers to compare, but if the BLS matches Gallup, the next couple of unemployment reports are going to look downright ugly.

Expect a Jump in BLS Reported Unemployment

I expect to see a strong jump in the BLS unemployment rate unless the Gallup trend reverses significantly, and soon.

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