luni, 4 februarie 2013

Seth's Blog : How to listen

 

How to listen

Live interaction still matters. Teachers, meetings, presentations, one on one brainstorms--they can lead to real change. The listener has nearly as big a responsibility as the speaker does, though. And yet, Google reports four times as many matches for "how to speak" as "how to listen." It's not a passive act, not if you want to do it right.

If listening better leads to better speaking, then it becomes a competitive advantage.

Ask an entrepreneur leaving the office of a great VC like Fred Wilson. She'll tell you that she gave the best pitch of her career--largely because of the audience. The hardest step in better listening is the first one: do it on purpose. Make the effort to actually be good at it.

Don't worry so much about taking notes. Notes can be summarized in a memo (or a book) later.

Pay the person who's speaking back with enthusiasm. Enthusiasm shown by the expression on your face, in your posture, in your questions.

Play back what you hear but in your own words, using your own situation. Don't ask questions as much as make statements, building on what you just heard but making it your own. Take what you heard and make it the foundation for what you are trying on as your next idea.

If you disagree, wait a few beats, let the thought finish, and then explain why. Don't challenge the speaker, challenge the idea.

The best way to honor someone who has said something smart and useful is to say something back that is smart and useful. The other way to honor them is to go do something with what you learned.

Good listeners get what they deserve--better speakers.


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duminică, 3 februarie 2013

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Rajoy Further Implicated in Scandal; Support Drops to 23.9% in Record Plunge

Posted: 03 Feb 2013 06:24 PM PST

Prime minister Mariano Rajoy is now personally implicated in the slush fund scandal in Spain. Via Google translate, please consider Rajoy and his family were paid with money from Gürtel travel
The front page of Monday's newspaper "La Gaceta" promises new revelations about political scandals that are playing close to the popular government of Mariano Rajoy.

The fore mentioned entitled 'A Rajoy also paid travel, "about a picture of the back of the highest representative of the Spanish.

"His wife, his son and personal assistant flew business class to Las Palmas with money Gürtel", added the subtitle, attaching notes as evidence under seal 'exclusive'.
That should not be a surprise, but what choices do voters have?

Please consider this choppy translation from El Pais: crisis and corruption lead to PP to lower expectations


At this time, there is a ruling party with almost hegemonic majority, allowing it to act with little parliamentary scrutiny and yet have an estimate of the single vote of 23.9%, the lowest of democracy, only one year after having swept the polls. In a month and has lost six points from more than 20 points overall, without stating whether touched and thoroughly. And in theory are almost three years to allow citizens to speak at the polls. Your vote expectancy is now almost three points below the result of the AP of Manuel Fraga , 1982, when the PSOE of Felipe González swept him with 202 deputies.
Political Party Descriptions

From Wikipedia, here is a description of the top political parties in Spain.



Who do voters trust?

No one. Worse yet, Rajoy and the EU have threatened journalists that do not toe the party line. It's 1984 in spades. For details, please see Big Brother in Action: EU Wants Power to Sack Journalists; Prime Minister Rajoy Threatens Newspapers Following Corruption Articles 

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Extreme Sentiment: Barron's Cover "Get Ready for Record Dow - We Told You So"; Top Call

Posted: 03 Feb 2013 10:44 AM PST

Looking for extreme sentiment?
Look no further than the cover of Barron's magazine.



The cover speaks for itself, but check out some of the commentary in New Highs in Sight
The party is far from over. The early-year rally that on Friday took the Dow Jones Industrial Average to within 1% of its record high, set in 2007, could have a lot further to run. For starters, stocks aren't expensive. The Standard & Poor's 500 index is valued at about 14 times estimated 2013 profits and the Dow fetches less than 13 times projected 2013 earnings. At the market peak in 2007, the Dow traded for 16 times forward earnings. Given ultralow interest rates, the market multiple has room to expand even if earnings growth remains modest.

There's a huge amount of money that could shift into stocks because individuals until recently have favored bonds over equities, based on mutual-fund flow data. "If there is a great rotation going on from bonds to stocks, we may be only in the top of the first inning," says Jason Trennert, chief investment strategist at Strategas Research Partners in New York. Trennert cites the TINA -- or "there is no alternative" -- factor, as yield-starved investors move into stocks.  
First Inning?

For starters, are the forward earnings estimates any better now than they were in 2007?

Second,  let me point out that money does not flow from stocks to bonds or vice versa. For every buyer of stocks there is a seller, so the statement on rotation from bonds to stocks is point blank absurd. There can be a repricing of bonds, a repricing of stocks, a repricing of both, or a repricing of neither, but there is no flow.

Third let me ask "Does it get any more extreme than someone calling this the first inning after stocks have had more than a 100% rally in a few years?

Nonetheless, sentiment alone cannot time a top. Perhaps the DOW or the S&P do make new record highs. Regardless, this Barron's cover reminds me of a post I did back in 2005.

Home $weet Home

Back on June 7th, 2005 I put in a top call with help from Time Magazine. That top call was based on this cover.



Time Magazine went gaga over real estate on the June 12th issue, right at the very peak of the bubble. Congratulations must go out to Time Magazine for that fine achievement.


On March 26, 2005, in It's a Totally New Paradigm I posted this chart



Then when the cover of Time hit, I moved the arrow to the top. Check out the comments at the time.
Ron Shuffield, president of Esslinger-Wooten-Maxwell Realtors says that "South Florida is working off of a totally new economic model than any of us have ever experienced in the past." He predicts that a limited supply of land coupled with demand from baby boomers and foreigners will prolong the boom indefinitely.

"I just don't think we have what it takes to prick the bubble," said Diane C. Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial in Chicago, who was an optimist during the 90's. "I don't think prices are going to fall, and I don't think they're even going to be flat."

"I look at this as a short-term investment," said Mr. Farquharson, 36, who works for a venture capital firm, "and plan to unload it as soon as things look dangerous."

Top Call  

Supposedly we are only in "the first inning" of a rally. Hmm. Are stocks supposed to rise 900% more? This may not be "the top" but it's close enough for me. I'm calling it.

Mike Shedlock / Mish
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/
Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.
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SEO Blog

SEO Blog

Why Is Your Website Not Performing?

Posted: 03 Feb 2013 02:26 AM PST

Fewer things have the potential to be more demoralising than a website that is not performing to your expectations.  After spending a lot of time and money on developing your site, realising that it isn't good enough can be a blow both to yourself as an individual as well as...
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Best Four iPhone Application for Business People

Posted: 02 Feb 2013 08:53 PM PST

Wherever you may be in the world today you need one thing and that is technology, whatever you may be, either young or old you need technology. The age we are today is the age of technology and because of this in our daily lives we need tech apps and...
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Top 5 Windows 8 Antiviruses

Posted: 02 Feb 2013 08:42 PM PST

Windows 8 comes with slightly different interface then previous versions. It is the main reason why you need a different virus for your Windows 8 operated systems. Here in this article I am with details about Top 5 free Antiviruses for Windows 8 systems. One thing which I would like...
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Seth's Blog : Why do we care about football?

 

Why do we care about football?

For someone outside the US, the visceral connection with football seems mysterious. You can understand a lot about the future (and past) of marketing once you understand how the sport turned into a cultural touchstone.

Tribes -> TV -> Money  -> Mass -> TV -> Tribes

Football as we know it started in colleges. It was an epic muddy battle, pitting one alma mater against another, a war-like, non-balletic battle that united (at a pretty elemental level) the tribes on each side. As it grew as a college sport, it became as much of a social event as a sporting one, with alumni and students finding connection around a game.

But if that's all it was, today wouldn't be the biggest day of the year for several industries. If that's all it was, you wouldn't be able to pick a fight merely by challenging the hegemony of football or the local team. We'd be spending as much time and energy on soccer or lacrosse or basketball, but we don't.

No, it turns out that, quite accidentally, football, more than any other sport, is made for television. It's better on TV than it is live. The combination of the play clock, the angles, the repetition and the opportunity for analysis all make it perfect to watch on TV. And perfect to run commercials on. TV and football grew up together, side by side. Instant replay and the thirty-second commercial, supporting each other. 

It's not an accident that the commercials are as much a part of the Super Bowl as the game. The commercials represent both the cash component of football as well as the cultural souvenirs that go with our consumption of the game.

Fifty years ago, a coat salesman paid $4,000 for the rights to film a game, and NFL Films was born. The decisions Ed and Steve Sobel made over the years turned the sport cinematic, amplifying the tribal origins but taking them much further. They used sound editing and shot on film, all to transform a game into a spectacle.

Then, the second great accident occurred: As football became the official sport of television, it generated billions of dollars in revenue. This revenue led advertisers to push for more football, which led to more television, which led to colleges transforming football from a small sideline into a cash cow of some focus, despite the fact that it has very little to do with the core mission of the institution.

People justify the unpaid (and dangerous) labor of college football players by pointing to all the scholarships. But the scholarships aren't for playing football, they are for appearing on TV. That's what pays for the system.

The media-football complex drives deep into childhood, with many kids fast-tracked from a very young age into the game (not soccer, not baseball, not physics) at some level because of TV and because of money and because of tribes. If football is part of what we stand for, then of course we're happy to have our kid be part of that. But what does it mean for football to be part of what you stand for?

No one stands for movies, or ice cream or double-entry bookkeeping. No, a sport has become a pillar of our worldview, a tribal and economic connection to our past and our future. We don't want to understand the history and the money and the happy accidents. We just assume that this is as it was and as it will be. 

Going forward, no other sport will ever have a run like this, because the TV-cash part of the connection can't be recreated. Mass TV built many elements of our culture, but mass TV (except for tonight) is basically over. 

The new media giants of our age (Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.) don't point everyone to one bit of content, don't trade in mass. Instead, they splinter, connecting many to many, not many to one.

The cultural touchstones we're building today are mostly not mass, mostly not for everyone. Instead, the process is Tribes -> Connections/communities -> Diverse impact. Without the mass engine of TV, it's difficult to imagine it happening again. So instead we build our lives around cultural pockets, not cultural mass. Our job as marketers and leaders is to create vibrant pockets, not to hunt for mass.

But for next season... Go Bills!


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