“The unemployment rate jumped to 6.1 percent in August, its highest level in five years, as the erosion of the job market accelerated over the summer.” - New York Times ”

Andrew To, the sales and research director for Taifook Securities Company in Hong Kong, was more optimistic, pointing out that Hong Kong’s stock market has already lost two-fifths of its value since reaching a record of 31,958.41 on Oct. 30 last year. “Personally, I see this as a golden buying opportunity,” he said.” - New York Times

Mint.com released an interesting charting tool since my initial write-up on their online money management services. It’s titled “SpendSpace” and helps you stay “below the average”.

• Now you can track spending online and compare your spending on all the categories you spend on, such as Coffee Shops, Movies, Clothes, Groceries, to the average spending of people in over 30 US cities, all 50 states, or the entire US national average.

Here’s an example:

Pretty cool stuff… and it’s still a work in progress…

Here is a quick email exchange that included some interesting statistics regarding the so-called “New Energy Crisis”. In short, the U.S. department of Labor estimates that as much as 50 percent of the nation’s utility workforce will retire in the next five to ten years. In 2006 there were 549,000 employees in the utilities industry (according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) which means over a quarter million people are estimated to exit this space as early as 2013. Major energy consulting agencies are already offering planning services and reselling Google’s Enterprise Solutions to enable one of the biggest “brain dumps” in history.

Question:

“Saw this article [below] on one of our industry daily newsletters. Are you
familiar with this Google Enterprise Professional program? Just curious. The company is called K-E-M-A, it’s an international consulting company. Suppose I could google “google enterprise” and get an answer too!”

“Faced with a graying workforce, [electric] utilities are seeking ways to
retain the knowledge and experience of their retiring professionals. K-E-M-A
has joined the Google Enterprise Professional program and is offering a new
line of services that helps utilities capture the knowledge of their aging
workforce by extending the power of Google across the enterprise.
BURLINGTON, MASS. - April 28, 2008 (News Release)”

Answer:

it’s this…

the certification costs $5k per year and has the following “Partner Requirements”:

Potential Google Enterprise Professional partners must meet the following requirements in order to initiate and retain membership in this program:

• Membership Fee
  • Search: $5,000 per year
  • Apps: $5,000 per year
• Partner Specialties - Choose from any combination of the following specialties:
  • Customization / Integration / Development
  • Installation
  • Training
  • Integration with your own Application
• Annual certification– Fulfilled via onsite training and certification, and then renewed annually
• Success Story– As a Google Enterprise Professional, you’ll be providing valuable assistance to Google Enterprise customers and we want to share your stories. Partners are required to publish a customer or solution success story.

Based on K-E-M-A’s press release it looks like they have already become a “partner”. This allows them to resell Google Enterprise Solutions with value-add consulting services to help utility companies establish an archive of their knowledge/data/processes and then hook up a google search appliance (below) to access it.

This is appears to be a smart move on their part based on these two articles:

“The U.S. department of Labor estimates that as much as 50 percent of the nation’s utility workforce will retire in the next five to ten years. From engineers to line-workers, the challenges associated with replacing the vast amount of technical and institutional knowledge of these professionals will be immense. Potential impact on day-to-day utility operations will be significant.” - KEMA

“Anyone and everyone with a power plant in the United States – municipalities, states, private-sector utilities, federal power agencies and manufacturers, as well as institutions from schools to hospitals – has a common challenge. The power industry workforce – the technicians, engineers, linemen and maintenance crews that fuel the industry – will be retiring in unprecedented numbers over the next ten years. The energy industry is one of the first to feel the effect of Baby Boomer retirements. This is partly due to massive hiring freezes and downsizing when the industry deregulated and focused on cost-cutting measures in the 1980s and 90s.” - http://www.uc.edu/news/NR.asp?id=4226

Below is a story extracted from a rather creative email marketing campaign which I actually read all the way through this morning (yes, 2 minutes of my life I’ll never get back again). It highlights a taxi driver’s perspective on the imminent recession…

Very cool how the company uses a real life experience to illustrate and validate the ominous state of the economy… telling the story in first person and then positioning their service as a solution to the problem.

Great job of seeking out opportunity in a somewhat dismal forecast…

A foreboding Monday morning Dan!

It was about 5 o’clock in midtown Manhattan and I was desperately looking for a taxi to get to a meeting in Greenwich Village when signs of the impending recession landed on my head the way the coming of the robins announces the spring.

Four–thirty p.m. is changeover time in Manhattan. All the taxis light their “off duty” signals and head for the home garage, which makes it difficult to get anywhere in a hurry at the end of the day.

So I was relieved when the driver of one black Town Car – so prevalent in New York streets and “Sex in the City” re–runs – pulled up and rolled down his window.

I’m used to negotiating with these guys. This was probably a $15 ride in a yellow cab, but the black cars will usually ask for $35.

I figured I’d offer $20 and haggle my way to $25.

So I was shocked when he offered “Bank and West Fourth? Twenty bucks.”

“That’s pretty odd,” I thought. But then I got in.

Drivers like to chat. It’s a staple of conventional wisdom and Hollywood movies that the musings of the wizened, world–weary driver are worth more than all the high–priced consultants and fancy lawyers you can hire.

“Tough year, man, so far…” he said over his shoulder.

“Oh yeah?” I asked.

“Yeah, none of them big firms are hiring us. It’s dead. That’s why I’m doing street hails.”

And that’s when it hit me, folks: the recession is really coming. When the financial services and law firms are announcing write–downs and lay–offs and, horror of horrors, they start to economize on expenses, that’s when the crimp has really hit the fan belt.

Cheapo town cars on the streets of Gotham mean one thing for you, Readers: the economy is really slowing up, and it’s time for you to take action.

We’ve got over 70,000 jobs right now on TheLadders.com, and it’s time for you to upgrade to Premium, start applying to jobs and contacting recruiters, and get your job insurance against the coming recession. It’s time to make sure there’s something else out there in case your division, your company, your industry suddenly finds itself doing the “Layoff Polka.”

And it’s time to get serious, folks. I’m asking all 200 employees here at TheLadders.com’s Manhattan headquarters to get even more serious on your behalf… we’re going to dig for every job, polish every resume, and call every recruiter we can in order to make your $100k+ job hunt shorter, more effective, and less painful.

Happy hunting, this week, folks, but also an admonition… get hunting now!

Warmest Regards,

Marc Cenedella
Founder & CEO
TheLadders.com, Inc.

A pretty good laugh…

YouTube  Tech Bubble Video

Google Trends allows you to compare the world’s interest in your favorite topics. You can type in up to five topics and determine how often they’ve been searched on Google. Although this tool has been out for a while I’ve never really given it the attention it deserves…

1. Presidential Candidates
If Google searches are effective at projecting the next president it looks like we are headed towards another texan Commander in Chief… although this one was actually born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

2. Newspapers, Blogs, Magazines
Blogs are taking over the world. It looks as though searches for blogs have surpassed newspaper searches (in volume) for the first time in history. Good bye traditional media.

3. Food and Exercise
Wow. We love food.

4. Fishing and Hunting
Apparently the Ice Fishermen aren’t pulling their weight. And people are less likely to shoot animals in the summer time (which can be attributed to regulated hunting seasons).

5. Turkey and Diet
Lots of Turkey for Thanksgiving, a little less for Christmas, and a whole bunch of New Year’s Resolutions to lose those extra holiday pounds (that typically last about 1.5 months)

6. Girl Scout Cookies
Girl Scouts of America must have some severe cash flow issues during Q2, Q3 and Q4. Maybe they need to start distributing to grocery stores to supplement their door to door sales?

7. Rain and Depression
Rain rain go away come again another day… seriously… you are driving people crazy!

The definition of a “Hype Cycle” is “a graphical representation of the maturity, adoption and business application of specific technologies” according to Wikipedia.org.

The term was originally “coined” by The Gartner Research Group (based in Stamford, CT). There supposedly 5 phases in the Hype Cycle:

1. “Technology Trigger“ — The breakthrough, or product launch
2. “Peak of Inflated Expectations“ — The frenzy of publicity typically generates over-enthusiasm and unrealistic expectations. There may be some successful applications of a technology, but there are typically more failures.
3. “Trough of Disillusionment“ — Technologies enter the “trough of disillusionment” when they fail to meet expectations and quickly become unfashionable. Consequently, the press usually abandons the topic and the technology.
4. “Slope of Enlightenment“ — Although the press may have stopped covering the technology, some businesses continue through the “slope of enlightenment” and experiment to understand the benefits and practical application of the technology.
5. “Plateau of Productivity“ — A technology reaches the “plateau of productivity” as the benefits of it become widely demonstrated and accepted. The technology becomes increasingly stable and evolves in second and third generations. The final height of the plateau varies according to whether the technology is broadly applicable or benefits only a niche market.

Click the thumbnail below (pulled from Gartner.com) to check out a handful of technologies mapped to the “Hype Cycle” chart:

What I found most interesting/enlightening about this Hype Cycle theory was outlined in a video presentation by Chris Anderson (Editor of Wired Magazine). He suggests that “unique opportunities exist at each phase of the hype cycle”. If you’re someone who spends time reviewing technology news sources such as TechCrunch, Mashable.com, etc… you’ll find many of the companies are written about @ the “Technology Trigger” phase and then quickly buried under the next up and comer. This goes for many of the VC bloggers out there as well… they pump out reviews/commentary on the latest and greatest technologies/startups at such an early stage… and often times these technologies become “old news” before they even reach the “slope of enlightenment”.

Here is the video presentation by Chris Anderson… but beware… it’s 16 minutes long:

YouTube  Chris Anderson - The Technology Long Tail

Last week Andrew Tobias (current Treasurer of the Democratic National Committee and Author of “The Only Investment Guide You Will Ever Need”) shared some of his readers‘ experiences with Mint.com.

Mr. Tobias: a big thanks for the link to my write up on Mint/Covestor. Apparently, AT is friends w/ one of the Mint.com founder’s which allowed him to share:

• The monetization strategy of this relatively new online finance management service:
  • AT: Their game plan is ad revenue and “sponsored links.” My friend who’s one of the founders says: “Some of the offers we present are sponsored, meaning we earn a referral fee if you sign up for them. However, Mint will always show you an un-sponsored offer ahead of a sponsored one if it will save you more money. We sort offers in order of their value to users, regardless of sponsorship.”
• A response to the concerns about how your login credentials are used/stored:
  • AT: My friend responds: “Mint does not store your credentials, we use them once to create a linkage with your account(s). Consider the benefits of being able to see all your account activity in one place – makes it easy to spot any suspicious activity (remember 90% of fraud occurs off line). Mint offers alerts (via email, or text message) to bring unusual spending to your attention.”
• Click here for the full article…

Evan: “Thought this story might be interesting to an economics major. I guess it’d be impossible to tell if it is true or not, and the story has been “censored’ by the media.”

Interesting concept Evan. The article identifies the owner of a small business who pays employee wages with circulating silver and gold U.S. coins. Since this form of payment has both “face value” (value of the currency) and “bullion value” (value of the metals) it questions the legal value of these coins that must be reported to the IRS.

After a bit of research it turns out rense.com (the source of this article) is run by Jeff Rense… a well known “Conspiracy Theorist”. “Rense’s radio program and website, Rense.com cover subjects such as UFO reporting” - Wikipedia.

Quite the creative article though…

If you or someone you know is considering an Irish Terrier…
Forget veterinarian bills or dog food… if you own an Irish Terrier you need to watch out for property damage. Below you can check out the latest tally of current damage caused by our little Irish Terrier Terror named “Toby”. He’s holding strong with an average of $155.83 worth of damage per month for the past six months. This gives him a total of $935 from 11/06 to 7/07. Also listed below are a few of Toby’s current projects which include two more big ticket items: his 3rd cell phone and another wooden chair:

Projected Damage…
Here is a look at the total amount of damage we should expect from Toby if he can keep up his current rate of $155.83 per month (a little over $1,800 per year).

Oh well… he’s definitely worth it…

A study at Cornell University has found that office workers in a warm environment are more productive than they are in colder spaces. The study was conducted by Alan Hedge, who is a professor of design and environmental analysis; he is also the director of Cornell’s Human Factors and Ergonomics Laboratory.The study was conducted in Olrando, Florida at the headquarters of Insurance Office of America. Nine office workstations were outfitted with sensors that sampled the air temperature every 15 minutes. In addition to recording the temperature in the work space, they also monitored the amount of time the workers used the keyboard, and the amount of time spent correcting errors.

The results are a little surprising. At 66 degrees Fahrenheit (18.8 degrees Celsius) workers typed 54 percent of the time and with a 25 percent error rate. When the temperature was raised to 77 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius), the workers were typing 100 percent of the time and with a paltry 10 percent error rate. From this data, it is clear that office temperature can have a drastic effect of worker output.

Of course, if you are in a cold climate, it may cost more to warm the facilities to these temperatures, but the incremental increase in heating costs, is far outweighed by the savings associated with increased worker productivity. Professor Hedge concluded that, on average, raising the temperature to the ideal zone saves employers $2 per hour per employee. If you multiply these savings across an entire corporation, you discover that the financial impact can be substantial.

More studies need to be conducted to properly isolate the ideal working temperature. Does this mean that companies seeking ultimate efficiency should pack up and head closer to the equator? (source: http://www.wisegeek.com)

The more employees your company has, the less productive each of these employees are. It is a generalization, of course, but a useful one and one that is confirmed by most people who have worked for growing organizations. As the company grows, so does the internal processes and the layers of bureaucracy, and the time spent on communications grows rapidly… more

The Big Picture | Whats a penny worth?

“The Quarter remains the government’s most profitible coin: Less than a nickel’s  worth of metal, selling for 5X that amount!”

Caloric Values of Alcoholic Beverages, Alcohol calories

Thanks to Evan for passing along this article… it reveals the “efficiency” rating (in terms of calories and alcohol percentage) for some of the most popular brews in the US.

Source: Journal of Labor Research, published quarterly by the Department of Economics at George Mason University, and the Reason Foundation, a Los Angeles-based think tank.

Key Points:
“Socializing underlies strong selling skills, and in a company like
ours, success is tied to your ability to sell,” Gisholt said. “Alcohol
can induce confidence, and that helps with people skills.”

“Regular drinkers make 10% to 14% more money than those who do not drink”

“It has the potential to be unfair for those who don’t drink,”

“The study also concluded that men who drink socially — defined as
visiting a bar at least once a month — earn an additional 7% more
than those who do not.”

Link: http://biz.yahoo.com/special/allbiz100406_article1.html