joi, 20 decembrie 2012

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis


Boehner Scraps Fiscal Cliff Plan "B", Futures Plunge; Why the Surprise?

Posted: 20 Dec 2012 06:06 PM PST

Lacking Republican support, House speaker John Boehner scraps Fiscal Cliff Plan "B", not that it ever had a chance in the first place.

Representative Rob Bishop of Utah says "The odds go up that we go over the fiscal cliff".

S&P Futures



S&P futures are fluctuating around -20 points or so, but are up 30 points from the initial massive reaction.

Boehner Scraps Fiscal Cliff Plan "B"

Please consider House Scraps Vote on Boehner's Tax Plan Lacking Support

House Republican leaders canceled a planned vote tonight on Speaker John Boehner's plan to allow higher tax rates for annual income above $1 million amid stalled budget talks.

"The House did not take up the tax measure today because it did not have sufficient support from our members to pass," Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said in a statement. "Now it is up to the president to work with Senator Reid on legislation to avert the fiscal cliff." Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, is Senate majority leader.

Boehner said he will call President Barack Obama, said Representative Steven LaTourette of Ohio. A House leadership announcement said the chamber will hold no more votes until after the Christmas holiday and will return "when needed."

"The odds go up that we go over the fiscal cliff," said Representative Rob Bishop of Utah, a Republican. Texas Republican Joe Barton said, "It was just too big a hill to climb."
Why the Surprise?

Does anyone find the cancellation of the vote a surprise? If so, why?

As I have pointed out for days, "Plan B" had no chance of passing the Senate, so it made no difference even if it passed the House.

Here is a clip from a post I did on Tuesday titled Boehner Floats Fiscal Cliff "Plan B".

Significant Differences

  • There is a huge gap between $400,000 and $1,000,000 on tax hikes.
  • There is a huge gap between $400 billion and a $trillion on entitlement cuts.
  • Boehner wants a debt-ceiling deal to include spending cuts for every dollar upped.

Nothing has changed since Tuesday, at any point. Yet, for some reason the market seems surprised by all of this.

For the conspiratorial folks, this is a Wall Street staged event to get Congress to do what it wants.

Regardless, assuming the futures hold, this may be one of the biggest "bull traps" in history.

Nothing would surprise me at the moment, including a "green" open tomorrow morning or a gap down that takes out the low on the overnight futures at 1391, nearly a 60 point plunge from Thursday's close.

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

Euroskepticism on Rise in New EU Members

Posted: 20 Dec 2012 10:51 AM PST

The Financial Times reports Newest EU members go cooler on euro.
The enthusiasm for the euro is cooling among the EU's newest members in eastern Europe, as Latvia's prime minister warned that his citizens are turning against the single currency.

Valdis Dombrovskis, who led one of Europe's toughest austerity programmes in part to keep Latvia's euro membership hopes alive, says he faces a struggle to get the Baltic republic into the single currency by the 2014 target.

"Five years ago before the eurozone crisis everyone wanted to enter the euro, but we weren't economically ready. Now that we are ready to enter, many have become sceptical," said the centre-right leader.

Bulgaria, which like the Baltic states has pegged its currency to the euro for a decade and is one of only three EU countries that currently meet the Maastricht entry criteria in full, has recently made clear it has no short-term plans to move towards membership.

Boyko Borisov, prime minister, told the FT recently his government had no plans to join until the eurozone crisis was over. The EU's poorest country should not have to help fund bailouts of richer states, he said.

"I think for the time being it would be unfair to join the eurozone and to support countries where pensions are higher than the pensions of our people," he said. "How can we tell Bulgarians, we will take from your pensions in order to pay pensioners in Greece, Spain or Italy?"

In Poland, public opposition to euro adoption has edged up slightly as the eurozone crisis has deepened, with a new opinion poll sponsored by the finance ministry finding 56 per cent of Poles were against joining, up 3 percentage points from a last year.

Petr Necas, the [Czech] premier, has said that his country will not join during this government, whose mandate expires in 2014, and not until 2020 at the earliest, subject to approval by a referendum.

Vaclav Klaus, the eurosceptic Czech president, has called the European Stability Mechanism "a monstrous and outrageous thing" and said this month he would not sign the EU treaty amendment creating the eurozone rescue fund.
Why any country would consider joining the eurozone now is beyond me. Yet, in spite of the fact that 56% of Polish citizens are against the idea, the Polish government intends to ram this mess down their throats anyway.

The Czech president has the right idea, that the ESM is a "monstrous and outrageous thing". Moreover, nannycrat agreements like the ESM are bound to get worse as the Spanish, Italian, and French economies implode.

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

France Faces Growing Pension Deficit; French Youth Lose Hope; Politicians in Denial; Bond Market Patience Can't Last

Posted: 20 Dec 2012 01:06 AM PST

With sovereign debt yields in most of Europe stabilizing, and the euro on the rise vs. the US dollar there is a growing sense of complacency in the eurozone. Such complacency is not warranted.

I sense another storm in Southern Europe and huge problems ahead for the core of Europe, including Germany and France. The focus of this article is France.

Young French Losing Hope as Prospects Fade

French president Francois Hollande has not delivered on his promise to create jobs so Young French Lose Hope as Prospects Fade.
Youth unemployment in France has been high for some time, but it has now climbed to 26 percent. For decades, regardless of their political affiliation, lawmakers have been promising to create a better situation for young people. But exactly the opposite has happened. Labor laws protect those who already enjoy steady jobs, while the economic crisis and recession have limited the number of new jobs created. Meanwhile, housing has become both scarcer and pricier.

Some 23 percent of the country's 18- to 24-year-olds live in poverty, according to a study by the National Institute for Youth and Community Education (INJEP). These are mainly high school or university dropouts who have little to no access to health care and limited chances of improving their situations.
Such is the folly of Hollande's Economically Insane Proposal: "Make Layoffs So Expensive For Companies That It's Not Worth It". If companies cannot fire workers, they will not hire them in the first place.

Coupled with foolish tax hikes on businesses and consumers alike, rising unemployment should be expected, and that's exactly what has happened. Businesses are upset, as well they should be, yet the politicians have not gotten the message that they are the problem.

Last week, Arnaud Montebourg, the French minister of industrial renewal, threatened steel giant ArcelorMittal, with "temporary nationalization" if Mittal shut down two furnaces, eliminating 630 people. Mittal employs 20,000.

Montebourg's inane proposal sent shock waves all the way up to the president's office.

French in Denial as Crisis Deepens

Spiegel reports French in Denial as Crisis Deepens
In the midst of the economic crisis, France's Socialists are denying reality. The minister of industrial renewal is calling for nationalization of some industries, while the president shies away from necessary structural reforms. Business leaders fear the clock has been turned back 30 years.

France's business leaders felt as if they had been set back 30 years, to a time when the first Socialist president of the Fifth Republic, François Mitterrand, began his term with a wave of nationalizations and, after two years, was forced to reverse his policy. Some even drew a comparison with 1945, when the government nationalized automaker Renault after accusing it of having collaborated with the enemy. Wasn't Montebourg, who had always been an eloquent preacher of deglobalization, dividing business owners into different camps, good and evil, patriotic and unpatriotic?

"Has the government forgotten that nationalization means expropriation?" asked Laurence Parisot, the appalled head of MEDEF, the employers' union.

The liberal economist Nicolas Baverez, who predicted "France's downfall" 10 years ago and has just written a book titled "Réveillez-Vous" ("Wake Up"), saw the wrangling over Florange as proof that the French left still hasn't accepted globalization, and acts as if the country were an economic and cultural preserve. "The idea of nationalization sends an ominous message to all investors," Baverez said.

Even Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici carefully distanced himself from Montebourg, saying: "Our policy differs from the past experiences of leftists in power."

But the workers at the Florange site and their unions were thrilled with Montebourg's threat. According to a snap poll, a majority of the French people and, in particular, leftist voters, appreciate such showdowns with the patrons, or business owners. It's no accident that France's young people see working in the public sector as the ideal professional career. The government promises protection and security.

A Plethora of Public Servants

"Whenever a new problem popped up in the last 25 years, our country reacted by increasing spending," says banker Michel Pébereau.

Public sector spending now accounts for almost 57 percent of GDP, more than in Sweden or Germany. For every 1,000 residents, there are 90 public servants (compared with only about 50 in Germany). The public sector employs 22 percent of all workers.

La douce France
is a sleepy country of bureaucrats and government officials who want their peace and quiet. But the bad news is beginning to pile up for Hollande.

There are many indications that time is running out for Hollande, that Prime Minister Ayrault's days could already be numbered, and that the valiant knight Montebourg, who had initially aspired to be Ayrault's successor, is more likely waging a tragic battle against the windmills of globalization.
France Faces Growing Pension Deficit

On top of a growing unemployment problem, a growing deficit problem, and a bloated
public sector France Faces Growing Pension Deficit.
France's national pension system is sliding deeper into deficit despite bitterly contested reforms pushed through by Nicolas Sarkozy, former president, adding to the tough economic challenges facing François Hollande's socialist government.

An official report published on Wednesday forecast the pension system deficit would rise to €18.8bn in 2017 from €14bn last year and would be likely to exceed €20bn in 2020. The annual cost of pension payments has risen to 14 per cent of gross domestic product.

The issue is a big headache for the government, already battling to reduce public debt rising above 90 per cent of GDP. It has run into strong opposition from business over its hefty increases in taxes and has yet to detail where the burden will fall from €60bn of spending curbs planned over the next five years.

Mr Hollande's Socialist party opposed reforms enacted by Mr Sarkozy's right-of-centre government in 2010 which raised the minimum retirement age to 62 from 60. Although relatively modest by the standard of reforms in other European countries, they provoked weeks of mass street protests led by trade unions

The scenarios set out by COR, the pensions' council, showed that unemployment would have to be more than halved from its present level to 4.5 per cent and productivity growth increased to 1.8 per cent to bring the pension system back into surplus by 2060; if unemployment averaged 7 per cent and productivity growth 1.3 per cent, the deficit would widen to more than €60bn in the same period.
Bond Market Patience Can't Last

How long the bond market puts up with these problems is unknown, but it will not be forever. Indeed, I doubt bond market complacency with France lasts another year.

In the meantime, the odds of France doing something to address these problems is roughly zero percent. If anything, Hollande has shown a marked propensity to send France into reverse.

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

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Damn Cool Pics

Damn Cool Pics


Best Photobombs Of 2012

Posted: 19 Dec 2012 09:50 PM PST

Never stop 'bombing and bring enjoyment to our lives.





































































Get the Facts about House Republicans' 'Plan B'

The White House Your Daily Snapshot for
Thursday, December 20, 2012
 
Get the Facts about House Republicans' 'Plan B'

With tax cuts for middle-class families set to expire soon, Republicans in Congress have proposed legislation known as “Plan B” that not only raises taxes on 25 million middle-class families, but cuts taxes for households making more than $1 million each year.

We've put together a graphic to help explain the proposed legislation. Check it out:

Under The Republicans' Plan B

In Case You Missed It

Here are some of the top stories from the White House blog:

President Obama: "Words Need to Lead to Action" on Gun Violence
Five days after the tragic shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, President Obama said that he is committed to reducing the epidemic of gun violence that plagues this country every single day.

Congressional Republicans "Plan B" Legislation: Cuts Taxes for Millionaires, Fails To Meet The Test Of Balance
Yesterday, White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer released a statement on the Congressional Republican “Plan B” legislation. In addition, the White House released a fact sheet detailing the harmful impacts of the Congressional Republican “Plan B” legislation.

Resources for Parents and Schools After Connecticut Tragedy
Following Friday's shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, CT, the Department of Education has provided a number of resources to help parents in the wake of traumatic events, as well as a host of resources to help schools prepare for and recover from crisis. 

Today's Schedule

All times are Eastern Standard Time (EST).

10:00 AM: The Vice President delivers remarks at the Arrival Ceremony for Senator Daniel Inouye

12:30 PM: Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney WhiteHouse.gov/live

1:00 PM: The Vice President meets with law enforcement leaders as part of the Administration’s response to Newtown and other tragedies

1:45 PM: The President departs the White House en route Bethesda, Maryland

1:55 PM: The President arrives Bethesda, Maryland

2:15 PM: The President visits the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center

3:45 PM: The President departs Bethesda, Maryland en route the White House

3:55 PM: The President arrives at the White House

WhiteHouse.gov/live Indicates that the event will be live-streamed on WhiteHouse.gov/Live

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What Happened on December 13th?

What Happened on December 13th?


What Happened on December 13th?

Posted: 19 Dec 2012 06:43 PM PST

Posted by Dr. Pete

On the morning of December 14th, MozCast registered the largest 24-hour Google ranking flux on record since we started tracking data in early April. The temperature for Thursday, December 13th was 102.2° F (for reference, the original Penguin update was 93.1°):

102 degrees

This was especially striking since I had just rolled out a small fix in our computations for a problem that was slightly overestimating temperatures on some days since the rollout of 7-result SERPs.  SERPmetrics confirmed substantial levels of 24-hour flux, and webmaster chatter suggested that people were seeing major ranking and organic traffic changes.

Unfortunately, Google was unable to confirm an algorithm update. So, where does that leave us? It turns out that it’s not an easy question.

The Big Signals

A while back we launched a set of five top-view metrics to help provide an at-a-glance view of patterns across the entire set of rankings MozCast tracks.  Only one of those metrics moved noticeably between December 13th and 14th – PMD Influence suffered a sizeable one-day drop. PMD Influence is the percentage of Top 10 results occupied my partial-match domains (PMDs). This includes hyphenated and non-hyphenated domains that contain the keyword phrase but are not an exact match. Here’s the 30-day view:

PMD Influence (30-day)

PMD Influence dropped from 3.73% on 12/13 to 3.54% on 12/14 (about a 5.1% drop in 24 hours). While my gut says that drop wasn’t the full picture, it’s a good place to start. So, which sites lost out in this change?

Across the 1,000 SERPs tracked, this PMD drop represents a change of only 18 partial-match domains that fell out of the top ten. It’s a bit more complicated than that, though. There were actually 36 PMDs that fell out of the top ten, and 18 new PMDs that entered the top ten, for a net difference of 18. Analyzing these domains one-by-one can turn into a wild goose chase pretty quickly, so let’s look at a couple of situations where a keyword lost multiple PMDs.

One query that lost two PMDs was “barbeque”. On 12/13 the following PMDs ranked in the top ten:

  1. www.springcreekbarbeque.com
  2. www.qbarbeque.com
  3. www.barbequeman.com
  4. scbarbeque.com
  5. www.waltsbarbeque.com

The next day, domains (4) and (5) fell out of the top ten. Domain (5) had been floating near the #10 spot, so that may be a fluke. Interestingly, for just one day, Wikipedia’s barbecue page fell completely out of the top ten, after ranking in the #1 position consistently. We’ll explore that in the next section.

Here’s another example with multiple PMD losses – the keyword “joannes" had three PMDs ranking on 12/13:

  • www.joannesbedandback.com
  • www.joannesbb.com
  • www.joannesgourmetpizza.com

The next day, only (1) remained. Again, (2) and (3) were taking up the tail end of the top ten, and in this case were bumped out by Yelp and Urban Spoon, so this change may be smaller than it initially looks.

One PMD that lost ranking caught my eye – a query for “gmaps”. On 12/13, the domain [www.mgmaps.com] fell out of the top ten. This turns out to be a shift from a 10-result SERP to a 7-result SERP, and the PMD was sitting at #8 prior to the shift. Interestingly, though, Google Maps, which had been sitting at #2, took the #1 spot and got site-links and a 7-result SERP. We’ll come back to this one.

Sorry - we’re not exactly making the situation clearer, are we? I want to illustrate just how complex the situation really is. I’ve come to believe that not even Google fully understands the dynamic system they’ve created. Ultimately, there were no clear patterns across the PMD changes, so let’s dive into a couple of specific situations.

A Wiki Situation

Wikipedia suffered a rare (albeit temporary) loss of their coveted #1 position for the query “barbeque”. Since Wikipedia holds the largest share of top-ten real estate in our data set, a major change to the site (such as a technical problem that caused temporary de-indexation) could cause very large-scale flux in the rankings. Luckily, we can run these numbers.

On 12/13, Wikipedia had a 4.56% top-ten share in our data set, which dropped to 4.41%, for a net loss of 14 rankings. This may not sound like much, until you recall that that change is on par with the 18 ranking PMD shift (and Wikipedia is just one site). In some ways, this seems to be an anomaly of 12/13 more than 12/14, as Wikipedia held a 4.46% share on 12/12. Historically, the 12/14 numbers aren’t unheard of – Wikipedia had a 4.82% share back in June, for example.

I should also note that the Wikipedia page in question for the query “barbeque” was actually the “/Barbecue” (alternate spelling) page. It’s possible that a spell-check adjustment or other very minor code tweak could have had unexpected repercussions.

This does go to show, though, how a site as powerful as Wikipedia can definitely have an impact on the overall SERP landscape. Like the PMDs, I don’t think it’s the entire picture, but it is a piece of the puzzle.

The Curious Case

Let’s go back to another oddity in the PMD analysis – the query for “gmaps”. On the morning of 12/14, the official Google Maps site not only jumped from #2 to #1, but it got site-links and a 7-result SERP, pushing out three domains. It’s easy to jump to conclusions and assume Google is favoring their own products, except that two pieces of data make that unlikely here.

The first clue is that Google Maps returned to the #2 position on 12/15 (and a 10-result SERP). The second is that we know that something big happened on 12/13 – Google Maps finally re-launched on Apple’s iOS6. Here’s a headline and time-stamp from Forbes:

Forbes headline for 12/13

Obviously, this story had a ripple effect across 12/13, and probably had a huge impact on metrics (CTR, dwell time, etc.) related to Google Maps and the official site. While this doesn’t help our quest to find the source of the update, it is interesting to note that a major news item could not only change a ranking, but cause a 7/10 shift in results. My ongoing investigations indicate that 7-result SERPs are highly dynamic and automatically change based on factors that may include user metrics and QDF (“freshness”).

The Big Movers

Everything to this point came out of just one data point – the PMD shift. Let’s go back to the beginning and ask the other obvious question – which queries changed the most from 12/13 to 12/14? This turns out to be a tricky question, because some queries are just naturally higher-flux than others. Typically, I compare the 24-hour “temperature” for any given query to the 7-day average for that query, to get a ratio. This helps indicate which queries are unusually high-flux. For 12/14, here are ten unusually high-flux queries (with temperatures):

  1. “knockout roses” (181°)
  2. “condo rentals” (168°)
  3. “rosatis pizza” (161°)
  4. “aerosoles store locator” (158°)
  5. “bj wholesale hours” (151°)
  6. “party stores” (143°)
  7. “kitchen sinks” (137°)
  8. “millionaire matchmaker” (125°)
  9. “celiac disease diet” (119°)
  10. “garnishment” (115°)

Any one query is an anecdote – the web changes. What we’re looking for in the data is a calling card of sorts – a story that ties these queries together. Unfortunately, the patterns are all over the place. Our top mover (1) was just a case of an eHow page jumping up the rankings. Two of these queries (6 and 10) have no clear explanation other than multi-spot shifts. Query (8) seems to be a case of QDF and has high volatility outside of the 7-day window.

Four queries (2, 4, 5, and 9) showed shifts in domain diversity. For three of them, one domain went from a single spot in the top ten to multiple spots. For query (5), though, one domain lost spots (diversity increased). Our top-view metrics aren’t showing any big overall shifts in domain diversity, but there are always winners and losers day-to-day.

Query (3) was another case where Wikipedia dropped out of the top ten, and (7) saw an Amazon product page fall from #1 to #10. In the case of (3), Yelp moved up and went from one ranking in the top ten to two. In both cases, the big sites regained their positions on 12/15, which is certainly interesting. If we look at the MozCast “Big 10” data, though, Wikipedia was still #1 and Amazon #2 on 12/14, and the overall SERP share of the Big 10 didn’t move much.

The Bigger Mystery

So, where does all of this leave us? A handful of people were kind enough to send me evidence of search traffic losses on 12/14, but it’s very difficult to reconcile these specific cases against MozCast’s sampling of top ten SERPs. I can’t pinpoint any single factor here, but it seems clear that the amount of change was unusual, and it can’t be simply explained by any single event (this data was all recorded prior to the tragic events in Connecticut, for example).

It’s possible that Google made a small change – so small that they didn’t even consider it an “update” – that had unexpected repercussions. It’s possible that something non-algorithmic but still under Google’s control happened, such as processing a large chunk of disavow requests (we have no evidence of this – just covering the bases). It could be that a small set of highly influential sites, like Wikipedia, made large-scale changes. Or it could just be a massive coincidence (although my gut still says no on this one).

I’d welcome further data and discussion. We’re actively working to expand the MozCast data set, and the next version of it will include some enhancements, including a keyword set that’s cleanly divided across some major categories/verticals. We’ll also be working in the new year to automate some of the analysis tools, so that we can process large numbers of SERPs more quickly. We’re learning as we go, and I hope the exploration is useful.


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Help Team University

Posted: 19 Dec 2012 02:26 AM PST

Posted by Nick Sayers

Here at Moz, we live for happy customers. We want to give our customers the best experience possible when using our product, interacting with our community, and solving problems if they arise, and the way we wanted to get there was to give everyone in the company a chance to do customer support. To help us reach our goal, we developed Help Team University, a daylong crash course where everyone at the company does support for our customers. The concept may seem a little odd. How does training developers, HR, and even executives on the finer details of customer care actually help customers?

Think about it this way: put a Mozzer who directly influences features in our products on the phone with a customer who has been adversely affected by a bug and it will provide a completely new perspective. By establishing a new window into customer support, we hope to make our products better from the ground up. We hope that HTU is a small step in the direction of being the most customer-driven SAAS company in the world!

Why HTU?

I believe that every single person at Moz is in customer support. We create a product for people to use and love. Every piece of the Moz process, from the E-team to Operations, deeply affects customers. HTU reinforces this connection and keeps the customer fresh in Mozzers’ minds. We like to think that the best customer support is a well-built product that is easy to use. Having the entire company interact with the people who use the product everyday will help us get there, because feedback is best coming directly from you, the customer.

Help Team University gives customers a tangible voice in shaping the entire company. For instance, one of our engineers had a conversation with a customer about a bug that had been persisting for a few weeks. The engineer then opened his laptop and started fixing the bug right then and there. In addition to providing on-the-spot fixes, HTU is also valuable in providing Mozzers insight into how customers actually use our product. Moz is rapidly growing and some of our newest additions may help develop our SEO crawler, but it's tough to know exactly what pieces customers use their crawl diagnostic reports without talking directly to users. HTU provides members from all teams the opportunity to learn how people use our tools, which aids the evolution of our analytics set to be more useful to you!

Another Level of TAGFEE

The most important thing Moz has to offer the world is TAGFEE. With HTU, we are teaching another level of TAGFEE to everyone at Moz, beyond how we express TAGFEE internally. The great thing about TAGFEE is that it looks different every time it's used, depending on the team or situation. People sitting down with us for HTU are getting a lesson in how to treat a customer with a deep level of empathy. Every conversation we have with a customer is framed with, “Well, put yourself in their shoes.” Mozzers are consistently surprised by how empathetic and generous we are to customers experiencing bugs. This will hopefully translate to generosity and empathy deeply embedded in our product.

Showing Off

The Help Team loves showing off how we interact with customers (for example, we send out a weekly digest to the entire company that lets them know how happy our customers are and what bugs are weighing heavily on our community). HTU takes this a step further. We get to show the rest of the team the entire process of how we collect happiness metrics and bug reports. HTU gives the Help Team a chance to show the rest of the team how we keep thousands of customers happy with 5-6 people.

Rewards

The HTU process wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t rewarding. Everyone on the Help Team rewards students by teaching them with optimism and humor. We like to make everyone laugh and keep their up, even if there is a tool outage or another issue is prompting a lot of customers to reach out. We also like to keep the HTU students grounded by focusing their attention to how important PRO is to our customers. In my opinion, that intimate connection could be the most rewarding takeaway from Help Team University. I think this is the reason people ask to come back and do HTU again, and why engineering leads frequently stop in to ask about any issues we’ve noticed, or even to just chat about customers. To top it off, we add an awesome HTU achievement badge (designed by Abe Schmidt) to their Moz profile page.

I am extremely lucky and proud that HTU continues inspire Mozzers. The entire process has been enlightening for the Help Team and the rest of Moz.  I think any company with a customer care team would benefit from having all hands help support their community. If your company does something similar or has thought about ways to be radical advocates for your customers, please share in the comments! Also, if you have any great ideas we can implement, please let us know! Oh, and don’t forget to thank everyone on our Help Team and Sarah Bird for giving HTU life.

Rand Fiskin helping customers

"It was a really fun day, and I feel like it grounded me back in the help world, which I've always loved." - Rand

"I really liked HTU. Specifically, I liked getting a feel for what kinds of issues come up and what Help Team thinks about to maintain a quality experience for customers.  I also liked being able to tell people outside of SEOmoz about HTU. Friends were very impressed by a company that values their Help Team's job enough to allow engineers to get mentoring from the Help Team. " - Ethel

"It good." - Miranda


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