Say 2017 has a rocky start -- maybe your car needs repairs that will set you back $1,000. Would you have the money available? This is the kind of unexpected expense that an emergency fund could cover, preventing you from taking on debt.
If you don't have an emergency fund, make a New Year's resolution to build one. Here's how to start.
Open a savings account. For an emergency fund to be useful, it must be handy. Tap a certificate of deposit or your 401(k) for those car repairs, and you'll face hefty early-withdrawal penalties. Keep your emergency fund in its own savings account, which you can access easily and for free. This account should be separate from one where you save for short-term goals, such as paying for a vacation.
Start small and keep saving. An emergency fund that's too small won't be able to cover life's unexpected scrapes. Replacing a broken water heater could send you into debt, for example. But an emergency fund that's too big has its own drawbacks. With more cushion than necessary, those extra funds will earn little in interest in a savings account when they could be growing more quickly in investments or paying off high-interest debt.
To find the sweet spot, aim to start with $500. That can be enough to keep you from having to take cold showers. Continue adding to your safety net so you're prepared for bigger crises, like losing your job. Build up to a fund that would eventually cover living expenses for three months, then work up to six months.
Figure out exactly how much to save. Determine how much money to set aside for your fund by tallying the monthly costs of indispensable needs. Account for electricity, heat, water, food, rent, health care, insurance and payments for your mortgage and car. (Nice-to-haves, such as cable, don't make the list.) Multiply the sum of those costs by the number of months -- aim for three to six -- you're aiming to cover.
This formula isn't a perfect science, given that everyone's situation is different. If you're the breadwinner for your family or are expecting a child, for example, you may want to shoot for a larger fund.
Diversify your savings. You'll likely have to toggle between other priorities, such as long-term savings, as you work up to this three- to six-month goal. For most people, that means contributing to a 401(k) or other tax-advantaged retirement account while growing an emergency fund. If your employer offers a 401(k) match, contribute at least enough to get the maximum. After you snag the match, start tackling whatever you have in toxic debt, like high-interest personal loans and payday loans.
Once you've built an emergency fund that covers up to six months, direct your savings entirely to retirement and debt repayment. If you have to dip into your emergency fund later, you can always divert money back to the safety net to replenish it.
Laura McMullen is a staff writer at NerdWallet, a personal finance website. Email: lmcmullen@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @lauraemcmullen.
Creating a startup can be a wild ride, rocketing from the thrill of launch to crash-and-burn in a matter of months. A few decades ago, Fortune 500 companies could count on being around for at least a half-century. Most now last about 15 years. And the average startup? The lifespan is just three years.
Today's business environment demands speed and transparency, and the key to longevity is building a company that matters. Marketplace survivors have become the obvious choice -- to customers, investors, teams, employees and even competitors. Successful companies lead the pack without leaving it behind. They anticipate and embrace disruption in ways that enable their markets to grow.
Our research identifies seven key factors that help leaders successfully launch a business and position it for long-term success:
1. Build a Dream Team. Companies that matter need top-notch people who can quickly assess market needs, develop an elevated perspective and, most critically, execute on decisions. This isn't the time to hire your buddies. Talented people with meaningful insight will create the foundation for a company that takes off successfully and continues to soar.
2. Employ a Telescopic Lens. It's natural to want to celebrate every transaction, but keep your eyes on the long view. A company with a buy/sell mindset will be plagued by shortsighted decisions. Decision-making that considers the market, the community and society at large is critical to sustaining relevance. Keep a keen eye out for potentially disruptive evolutions, and quickly figure out how to make them work for you.
3. Anticipate and Share. Foresight and futurecasting are powerful assets that help you dominate your market by anticipating customers' needs and wants. Leaders must stay attuned to what the future holds -- and how to thrive in disruption. Openness to doing things differently is essential. And the best way to gain credibility and ensure the health of the market is to be willing to share that wisdom with others in your organization.
4. Partner Strategically. Companies that matter know how to connect with the right high-value partners and build trusting, open relationships. Don't waste energy on partnerships that don't clearly align with company goals. Remember that by definition, partnerships are mutually beneficial. Both sides get value out of identifying problems and creating solutions. Each invests in success for the benefit of both.
5. Fixate on Value. In today's marketplace, hungry competitors are constantly prowling. It's not enough to offer super products or great service. Envision a full spectrum of value, where customer problems are solved and changes in the industry are anticipated and addressed. Customers and clients will flock to companies that provide resources and solutions.
6. Attend to Growing Pains. From a market share perspective, a startup has different goals than a mature company. Startups are hungry and hard-driving. With growth and maturity, leaders must consciously shift the culture. It's essential that decisions and actions align with company aspirations. Successful leaders foster collaboration. This might mean altering organizational structures and taking the time to make sure everyone understands strategies and values.
7. Be courageous. Facing disruption, rather than fighting it, takes bravery and will. Companies that discover and deliver on new opportunities are investing in longevity. Consider Adobe, which saw its market dominance wane as technology changed and competitors emerged. Instead of digging in, the company redefined itself and seized the opportunities a disrupted market was providing. Adobe helped define the new market, and it became the obvious choice.
Startup companies need an expansive, wise perspective on the now and the future to successfully grow and create sustainability. While these tips can help a company get firmly established, they remain relevant as the company matures. A sustainable evolution -- from a hungry launch to a healthy enterprise -- means staying connected with the world you're growing into. By maintaining perspective, and making sure your company culture is aligning with your growth as well, you can get to the front -- and stay there.
The U.S. economy added roughly 2.4 million workers over the past year. Over the same period, the unemployment rate fell from 5.0% to 4.9%, close to the lowest it has been in nearly a decade. The 1.7% employment growth nationwide was not uniform, and some areas lost a substantial share of workers.
To determine the cities that lost the most jobs, 24/7 Wall St. analyzed employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Most cities added jobs in past 12 months, and most have posted unemployment declines. In 75 metro areas, however, there was a net loss in total employment. The Lafayette, Louisiana metro area had the greatest loss workers, with total employment falling by 4.5% since October 2015.
One major factor driving employment changes across the United States is industrial composition. Continued outsourcing and automation has lowered international demand for American manufacturing, and the downturn in the price of petroleum has hurt the oil and gas sector. Nationwide, the worst performing sectors were manufacturing, information, and mining, logging, and construction.
Click here to see the American cities losing the most jobs this year.
Cities with economies that heavily depend on these industries tended to have the most job loss. In an interview with 24/7 Wall St., Martin Kohli, chief regional economist at the BLS, explained that a “large concentration of employment in energy and construction-related industries has definitely been negative in the last few years for communities.” In many cases, a major round of layoffs or plant shutdowns contributed to employment declines in the past year.
People are not likely to move to a city without a job or some other opportunity available. As a result, the distribution of employment growth across the country mirrors today’s domestic migration patterns. Kohli added that residents of the Northeast and Midwest, where a majority of the metro areas are losing workers, have been relocating to major cities in the Sun Belt, which is gaining the most workers.
Employment tends to increase as unemployment declines. In metropolitan areas losing the most workers, employment declines contributed to labor force declines and a rise in unemployment. In Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for example, the 14,200 workers lost in Oklahoma City was among the most of any metro area. At the same time, the labor force shrank by a total of 9,000 workers, while area unemployment rate rose from 3.6% to 4.4%.
To identify the cities losing the most workers, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed metropolitan statistical areas with the largest employment decline from October 2015 through October 2016. Unemployment rates, the size of the labor force, and employment levels are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and are seasonally adjusted. Industry-specific growth rates for the same period are from the Current Employment Survey (CES), a monthly BLS survey. Educational attainment is from the 2015 American Community Survey (ACS) of the U.S. Census Bureau.
These are the cities losing the most jobs.
5. Mansfield, OH
Employment change: -2.33%
No. of jobs Oct. 2015: 50,576
No. of jobs Oct. 2016: 49,399
Unemployment rate Oct. 2016: 5.6%
Cities without a talented, educated workforce often rely on one dominant, low-skilled industry and may be more vulnerable to changes in commodity prices and other market shifts than more diversified economies. Nearly one in five workers in Mansfield works in manufacturing, and just 14.4% of adults in the metro area have at least a bachelor’s degree. As demand for American manufacturing continues to decline, Mansfield’s reliance on the industry may have partially caused accelerated employment decline over the past year. The number of employed workers in the city decreased by 2.3% in 2016, more than nearly any other metro area.
4. Shreveport-Bossier City, LA
Employment change: -2.35%
No. of jobs Oct. 2015: 180,977
No. of jobs Oct. 2016: 176,731
Unemployment rate Oct. 2016: 6.8%
Employment in the Shreveport-Bossier City area decreased by over 4,200 workers in the past year. During the same period, nearly an equal amount of people left the labor force.
Following the statewide trend, the Shreveport area is losing workers in the oil and gas sector. Unlike other areas in Louisiana that are more dependent on the oil and gas industry, however, Shreveport has a more diverse economy, and employment losses in this industry have had a less dramatic effect on the area's overall employment. Still, due to falling oil prices and reduced natural gas production at the Haynesville Shale -- a rock formation rich in natural gas -- the industry's job losses accounted for a sizable share of the area's 2.3% employment decrease.
3. Houma-Thibodaux, LA
Employment change: -3.74%
No. of jobs Oct. 2015: 91,738
No. of jobs Oct. 2016: 88,311
Unemployment rate Oct. 2016: 6.7%
The number of employed workers in the Houma-Thibodaux area decreased by around 3,400 in the past year. While area employment declined by 3.7%, the number of workers increased by 1.7% nationwide. A large share of the area’s employment decline resulted from a shrinking oil and gas sector. Following a drop in oil prices and the first decrease in North American oil production in years, many oil workers nationwide have lost their jobs. The effects of these industry declines are exaggerated in Houma-Thibodaux, where a large share of residents are employed in the sector.
2. Casper, WY
Employment change: -3.77%
No. of jobs Oct. 2015: 40,156
No. of jobs Oct. 2016: 38,644
Unemployment rate Oct. 2016: 6.6%
The Casper metro area lost around 1,500 employed workers in the past year. This 3.8% decrease was largely caused by a declining coal mining industry in Wyoming. During the first quarter of 2016, coal production nationwide was the lowest it has been in 35 years, with Wyoming among the regions whose production has declined the most. The Casper metro area is around 100 miles from America’s two largest coal mines. Earlier this year, both of these mines announced large layoffs.
1. Lafayette, LA
Employment change: -4.46%
No. of jobs Oct. 2015: 210,224
No. of jobs Oct. 2016: 200,845
Unemployment rate Oct. 2016: 7.1%
The Lafayette metro area lost around 9,400 workers in the past year. Employment in the area fell by around 4.5%, even as nationwide employment increased by 1.7%. Following a trend of declining manufacturing employment nationwide, Lafayette’s manufacturing sector shed the most jobs of any industry. The employment declines likely led to a large share of residents giving up looking for work or leaving the area. The overall labor force decreased by nearly 8,500 in the past year. This 3.8% decline in labor force was the largest of any U.S. metro area.
The incoming Trump administration has made very clear that eliminating regulations of all types was a major agenda item. The question is whether or not they can do that effectively, and the home mortgage market will be a good test case. New home construction today is running well below what would ordinarily be expected at the current phase of the business expansion, and a major cause may be some of the regulations imposed in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
I underscore "some" because regulation is not a quantity - something that conservatives want less of and liberals want more of. Some regulations are good and some are bad, and the objective ought to be to get rid of the bad ones and retain or even strengthen the good ones as needed. A good regulation is one that makes the market work better, and a bad regulation is one that doesn't, which makes it worse than no regulation.
It often takes a great deal of knowledge and wisdom to fashion a good regulation, and here also you have a political split. Conservatives usually have less confidence than liberals that regulators have the competence necessary to fashion good regulations. But what we are going to see in the next year or so is how well a new batch of conservative regulators do in identifying the bad regulations that need to be axed. This article aims to give the new mortgage regulators a head-start by identifying a particularly bad regulation directed to mortgage documentation requirements.
In the decade prior to the financial crisis, documentation requirements evolved from full doc for every borrower to a range of requirements, from full doc to no doc, with 5 categories in-between. The less complete the documentation, the higher the price of the mortgage and the larger the required down payment and credit score. These three poles of the underwriting system were flexible in the sense that a good score on one could offset a poor score on another.
That sensible market-based system worked well until the housing bubble emerged in the early years of this century, when lenders and borrowers alike came to believe that house prices would rise forever. When house prices continually rise, it is very difficult to make a bad loan because borrowers unable to pay can sell their houses at a profit.
In that atmosphere, large numbers of borrowers elected less than full documentation so that they could exaggerate their incomes and purchase more costly houses, while many lenders accommodated them by relaxing their standards and reducing their surveillance. When the bubble burst in 2006, mortgage defaults and foreclosures rose to levels not seen since the 1930s.
The Federal Government in response imposed a range of new regulations, one of which was to eliminate all documentation options other than full documentation, and to make it an absolute requirement. No longer could inadequate documentation be offset by good credit or large down payment. That is when I began to receive letters from self-employed loan applicants whose applications were rejected because they could not document adequate income, notwithstanding that their credit was pristine and they were making a substantial down payment. Many of these rejected borrowers are small business owners who collectively are important contributors to economic growth.
In an important recent article in The Journal of Finance, Brent W. Ambrose, James Conklin and Jiro Yoshida show that the income exaggerations that played a major role in the boom and bust were concentrated among borrowers who could have documented their incomes with W-2s but chose not to so they could lie. Self-employed borrowers did not lie about their incomes.
The implications for regulatory reform are very clear. Full income documentation should be required only for those with incomes shown on W-2s. Self-employed applicants should have access to multiple documentation options, and underwriters should have discretionary power to balance the option selected against the applicant's credit score and down payment.
This is one small yet important example of a bad regulation that is easily fixable when there is a will to fix it. In the weeks to come, I plan to identify a number of others.
For more information on mortgages or to shop for a mortgage in an unbiased environment, visit my website The Mortgage Professor
The debate over false and fake news continues, as it has for millennia. It will no doubt flare up as the means of information distribution get ever more efficient. And who knows? One day the Pinocchio effect might actually be realized, as embedded chips in our brains cause physical changes to our bodies if we fib...
Yet the spread of DIGIBABBLE, which is not false news, but rather skewed reporting, continues unabated and frankly, in my view, limits our true understanding of the amazing advances being made in the world where technology is actually changing people's lives, as opposed to "disrupting" shopping.
What set me off this week was the widely reported story of Amazon's first actual drone delivery of goods to a customer. The Wall Street Journal reported:
Amazon last week made its first customer delivery by drone, carrying a package containing popcorn and a Fire TV video-streaming device several miles to a two-story farmhouse near Cambridge, U.K., in 13 minutes...
The delivery marks the start of operations for Amazon's drone program after three years of skepticism and regulatory hurdles. Prime Air, as the initiative is known, aims to get packages to customers within 30 minutes...
Drones are just a part of the online retailer's long-term plan to develop its own transportation network to control more of its deliveries and one day compete with UPS and FedEx Corp., according to people familiar with the matter.
All of which fits nicely with Jeff Bezos' interview on CBS's 60 Minutes in late 2013, in which he said 86 percent of the orders the online retailer ships weigh less than 5 pounds. That's lightweight enough to be delivered by drone.
So now drones join ocean freighters, jetliners, trucks, cars, bicycles, stores and people in Amazon's arsenal of delivery, giving them control of air, land, sea and point of origin to point of usage.
All amazing and inspirational, truly...but....
Single-item drone delivery is a great story for investors and stock prices. I find it almost absurd that in the rush to gush there is no questioning of pricing, logistics, staffing needs and on and on.
Also no thought as to how do you, as the buyer, collect your goods.... setting up a little landing site right before they're delivered is so WWII English-French spy network...n'est-ce pas ?:
Clearly there is an argument and a good one to be made for unfettered creativity and development, and I could not agree more!
In fact, I am inspired. My mind is reeling with the potential for drone use and more not just the potential, but the amazing things we can learn and be inspired by...none of which are "disruptive" but rather are changing the world.
To be clear, a day doesn't go by when we don't hear about drones delivering death from afar, without endangering the sender. We all know that telltale movie cue when the bad guy looks up:
via GIPHY
Like many innovations, military needs speed up technology, but true human advancement is to take that need and #changetheworld.
A number of years ago at the Kinnernet unconference, I heard a military drone expert talk about his vision...not of enhanced mayhem but of commercial possibilities.
He believed that one day all commercial planes will be flown by pilots sitting comfortably in remote locations, well rested, frequently relieved, using the most advanced technology, which when taken into aggregate consideration will make flying safer than ever before as it will reduce the human factor. NB - I just watched the movie Sully and I have met Captain Sullenberger and listened to his personal telling of the amazing landing in the Hudson - sometimes the human factor is what makes the difference - give me Sully any day.
But again, that is in the future - but why not? Driverless cars are here...no?
Yet, as I started by saying, we are sadly shortchanging what is really happening in the world and I'm more inspired by what is in this instance than by what might or not be.
So allow me to share some examples courtesy of Consumer Reports and I hope that you get inspired, too:
Agriculture
...Farmers have discovered that drones are very useful for monitoring the health of their fields. "It would cost me a couple hundred dollars an hour for a plane or helicopter," says fourth-generation grain and apple farmer Jeff VanderWerff. "With my [DJI] Phantom 3 drone, a device I paid $1,200 for, I can fly it every day."
...Aerial imagery from a drone equipped with an NDVI (normalized difference vegetation index) camera could help him accurately estimate the yield of a crop in July, rather than waiting until harvest in October. With special software he could analyze that imagery, spotting crops beset by diseases, weeds, and flooding while there's still time to save them. And he could then use the drone to efficiently apply fertilizers and pesticides...
Humanitarian Aid
Some 1.3 billion to 2.1 billion people on the planet don't have access to essential medicines, the World Health Organization says, often because they live in hard-to-reach places. To address that concern, California drone maker Zipline signed a deal with the government of Rwanda last February to shuttle supplies to remote areas on demand...
"We are already delivering more than 40 percent of the transfusions for the entire country," says Zipline founder Keller Rinaudo. "These are cases where, if bad roads or lack of supply prevents deliveries, people die."...
First Responders
In February 2015, the Michigan State Police received FAA approval to fly a SkyRanger quadcopter made by Canada's Aeryon Labs for public safety efforts. A week later, troopers used it to investigate a suspicious fire in Jenison. According to Aeryon CEO David Kroetsch, the craft can also be used to conduct search-and-rescue operations, gather aerial intelligence for SWAT teams, and even map accident scenes. That last task usually involves an officer on foot measuring the crash site and sketching the details on graph paper--a system ripe for inaccuracy, given the time constraints. With a drone and a laptop, he can instead stitch together a series of geotagged photos and even film fly-throughs to determine what drivers might have seen in the moments before impact. "That's evidence-grade data," Kroetsch says, "and it can be done in 15 minutes." By completing the mapping quickly, officers can reduce the length of lane closures on busy highways, potentially sparing hundreds of thousands of dollars in tolls for a state, he says.
Better yet, aerial footage provided by drones keeps early responders out of harm's way. In a SWAT scenario, for example, a camera-equipped craft with a powerful 30x zoom lens can give officers a close-up look at a compound where hostages are being held--while they remain 1,000 feet away. And, likewise, a fireman can fly a drone with thermal-imaging and video-streaming capability over a four-alarm blaze and determine, in real time, where to direct his colleagues and where to help them avoid trouble...
Safety Inspections
Drones are exceedingly effective at finding structural flaws, not only because they can quickly and efficiently take high-resolution images and laser scans but also because they can get up close in treacherous spaces, such as the underside of an offshore drilling rig or the top of a cell tower.
Boeing's drone-making subsidiary Insitu is working with BNSF Railway to test rail-inspection possibilities in New Mexico. "If there was a lot of rain overnight," says Jon Damush, the company's vice president and general manager, "we could send an unmanned sentry out before the first train of the day and see if there was a washout."
Insurance:
"Let's say a hailstorm rolls through Texas and damages 2,000 roofs in its wake," says Dan Burton, founder of DroneBase, an Uber-like service that connects businesses with independent drone pilots. "We could go take some pictures and then say, 'Based on the damage to this roof, there's a 98 percent chance you will pay a claim. On this other one, it's 80 percent.'"
With that in mind, most of the major insurance companies are now experimenting with drones, some by hiring outside contractors, others by sending out aircraft of their own. If you're a claims adjuster, it saves you time and money, and reduces the risks of climbing ladders and walking on damaged roofs. But if you're the customer, that might not translate to lower insurance premiums...
Internet Access
Well over half the planet's population--some 4 billion people--currently has no internet access. A full 1.6 billion live in areas too remote for mobile broadband. That means no Facebook, of course, but also no email, no world news, no information and instruction from YouTube, and no access to online commerce. And without a huge investment in satellites and cell towers, that's mighty difficult to change.
Google has floated a plan to fix the problem by relaying internet signals via a network of giant, high-altitude balloons, but the company is also reportedly looking into drones as a solution. Facebook is headed that way, too.
In the latter company's vision, a series of lightweight drones with the wingspan of a Boeing 737 will cruise high above normal airspace delivering connectivity to people within a 60-mile radius. Powered by batteries and solar energy, they will remain aloft for three months at a time. The company can't say when the project will be operational--"significant advancements in science and technology will be needed," a spokesperson says--but last June a full-scale prototype (shown at the top of this article) made a successful test flight of more than 90 minutes over southern Arizona...
Hurricane and Tornado Forecasting
In the future, when a severe tropical storm approaches Florida, as Hurricane Matthew did last October, autonomous aircraft developed by defense contractor Raytheon Missile Systems could fly right up to the maelstrom to take measurements for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Originally created for anti-submarine warfare, the small, fixed-wing crafts known as Coyotes launch from the bottom of hurricane hunter planes, which often fly in the upper reaches of a storm, often more than 10,000 feet in the air. The Coyotes can, by contrast, maneuver around at 500 feet--right at the dangerous boundaries of the storm, where the most dramatic atmospheric changes occur...
Wildlife Conservation
In recent years, scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts have used drones to monitor the health of humpback whales off the coast of Cape Cod, even capturing from their blowholes breath samples flush with DNA that can be analyzed for wildlife studies. The U.S. Geological Survey has also dispatched them to observe sandhill cranes in Colorado. But to date, the tech's most profound contribution to wildlife protection might be unfolding in Africa, where drones are policing vast tracts of land to catch poachers hunting rhinos and elephants. The horns and tusks of those animals can fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars from Asian crime syndicates...
Some more inspiration if you still think disruption is about delivering toothpaste. From The Guardian:
"Rwanda is essentially a rural country. Lots of blood products cannot be stocked at every health centre. At best it can take four to six hours to get supplies through," says the technology minister, Jean Philbert Nsengimana...
Enter Zipline, a California-based robotics company which has designed a fixed-wing drone to deliver medical essentials to rural health facilities. The "zip" - with a two-metre wingspan - releases a small, parachute-equipped payload that drifts down into a dropzone without the zip having to land...
In its first phase, Zipline plans to make 50 to 150 deliveries of blood a day to 21 transfusing facilities within a 47-mile (75km) radius, later adding vaccines and other urgent supplies. Each zip, operating from bases called nests housing 15 autonomous devices, can fly a 75-mile round-trip on a single battery charge, including in wind and rain.
And UNICEF and others are beginning to use drones in other innovative ways to save lives:
Drones are being tested in other emerging economies. Matternet, another Silicon Valley startup, has run pilots moving samples from rural clinics to a laboratory in Papua New Guinea and is launching a small medical delivery network in Dominican Republic. The company is also working with Unicef in Malawi to develop a project using UAVs to carry blood samples from infants born to HIV-positive parents, underscoring the physical and geographical challenges that are present across much of the continent.
And a host of other actual projects and applications some already standard in their areas of operation:
The Construction Industry Is in Love with Drones (Fortune, Sept. 13, 2014)
Walt Disney World announces its first drone light show (MarketWatch, Nov. 7, 2016)
GE Drones Are Coming to Squeeze More Savings From the Oil Patch (Bloomberg, Oct. 5, 2016)
Allstate Just Used Drones to Inspect Homes in Texas (Fortune, Sept. 2, 2016)
Relatively cheap drones with advanced sensors and imaging capabilities are giving farmers new ways to increase yields and reduce crop damage (MIT Technology Review, May 2014)
And even companies like Measure, which "operates turnkey drone solutions to deliver cost-effective actionable data to enterprise customers."
Of course the DIGIBABBLE irony is that while drones are actually being used commercially in so many different ways, as I have tried to show package delivery is ways away. From The Wall Street Journal, "Package-Delivery Drones Likely Years Away From Federal Approval."
And there you have it.
If you think that the future of the world is dependent on Prime Air delivering you popcorn...sorry I wasted your time.
But if you believe, like I do, that drones are already making an impact and can do way more follow some of these initiatives and fight back against DIGIBABBLE...#changetheworld...listen:
"We need to embark on a human revolution. A revolution where our reality is not replaced by drones but augmented by technology to do better." - Vishal Sikka
So, my dear readers, PEOPLE FIRST...with drones to help...and your popcorn will just have to wait...
What do you think?
Read more at The Weekly Ramble
Follow David Sable on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DavidSable
CES is an exciting time of the year for the tech world, with companies large and small attending to showcase their latest and greatest innovations. If you’re new to CES, you’ll want to focus on making it a valuable experience for your company. To set yourself up for success, here are a few fundamentals to keep in mind.
1. Plan & Execute
Do your homework and make a plan — having a detailed action plan will work to your advantage. Know ahead of time where you’re going, who you’re going to meet, and how you’re going to make the most of your time. Start with 10 or 20 people you want to connect with, and do some research on what they’re writing and tweeting about, so that you can better position yourself and your company. Make a list of anything and everything you need to bring or do, and keep items organized hierarchically by priority level. This includes everything from business cards and one sheets to press events and meetings.
Keep your planning documents in whatever format is most convenient for you and your team. Some people like to use Google docs, Slack, or even hard copy printouts. My team prefers to use Trello for its painless collaboration features and seamless mobile syncing.
2. Know Your Story
A well-crafted story is absolutely essential to a successful CES. Yes, cutting-edge innovations and groundbreaking technologies are worthy of celebration — but the truth is, nobody will really care how awesome your product is if you can’t communicate it successfully. This is even more critical at CES, where journalists are drowning in an ocean of new products and being pitched left and right. Plus, everyone is busy around the clock trying to squeeze everything in.
Thus, you need to make sure you have a strong hook that sets you apart from the crowd. Boil down a no-nonsense version of your story to 10 seconds or less. If you must spend longer than that demonstrating the value of your product, your story needs work. And remember: people will want to know what’s different about you; what unique problem are you solving? Be sure to address that in your pitch.
Do not, under any circumstances, start with the long version. Nobody will want to hear your life’s story. Focus on the most relevant, critical bullet points — a few sentences will always make a better impact than a giant wall of text. If the journalist wants more information from you, he or she will ask.
3. Stay Healthy
This one may sound a little obvious, but if you’ve never been to CES or a major trade show before it’s a worthwhile reminder. The simple fact is that you need to feel and look your best to put your best foot forward as the face of your company. You’ll likely be very busy with a packed schedule, so be sure to stay hydrated and carry a few snacks with you so you don’t pass out from low blood sugar. Food options can be variable in Vegas, so if you have allergies or dietary restrictions it definitely helps to plan ahead. If you’re anticipating long stretches on the show floor or anywhere indoors, bring a sweater — they tend to blast to A/C in the desert. And definitely don’t choose CES to break in a new pair of shoes — you’ll be doing a lot of walking.
In addition to being busy, you’ll also be meeting — and shaking hands with — a lot of people. Bring a travel-sized hand sanitizer, take lots of Emergen-C and wash your hands often. The last thing you need is to get sick while juggling important meetings and business opportunities. If you have an hour or two of downtime and no other priorities, head back to your hotel for a power nap and some reset time.
Either driverless cars replicate humans a bit too well or they need more tweaking before they’re ready for prime time.
Just hours after Uber proudly rolled out a fleet of sleek self-driving Volvos in San Francisco on Wednesday morning, one of them barreled through a red light. Now California officials have called a halt to the pilot.
All of Uber’s self-driving cars in both San Francisco and Pittsburgh, the first city to see Uber’s autonomous tech, do have an engineer at the wheel, so this could technically be classified as human error.
Notably, the car’s brake lights were on as it entered the intersection, indicating perhaps someone aboard the vehicle attempted to stop but did so too late.
Somewhat ironically, the incident was captured by a dash cam mounted aboard a taxi in the next lane, aka the thing Uber’s technology aims to one day replace.
An operations manager at Luxor Cab, which operates the taxi in the video, confirmed its authenticity to the San Francisco Examiner, which first obtained the video.
Demanding that it first obtain a permit for operating the autonomous vehicle, California’s Department of Motor Vehicles ordered Uber to halt testing its self-driving cars on public streets in a letter sent to the company Wednesday.
“It is illegal for the company to operate its self-driving vehicles on public roads until it receives on autonomous vehicle testing permit,” the letter from state officials said. “If Uber does not confirm immediately that it will stop its launch and seek a testing permit, DMV will initiate legal action.”
Uber had hailed the novelty for its customers Wednesday: “Starting today, riders who request an uberX in San Francisco will be matched with a Self-Driving Uber if one is available. Expanding our self-driving pilot allows us to continue to improve our technology through real-world operations.”
In a statement to The Huffington Post, Uber said the incident was a human mistake, not a technical one.
“This incident was due to human error,” the spokesperson said. “This is why we believe so much in making the roads safer by building self-driving Ubers. This vehicle was ... not carrying customers. The driver involved has been suspended while we continue to investigate.”
The quintessential problem all startups have is how do potential users of what they do (whatever it is) find them on the internet?
"You have a basic marketing problem," was the matter-of-fact way it was explained to us at a meeting.
I looked at my co-founder and he looked at me... we almost started to laugh... exactly!
Now, there is no easy way for people to find out about you; to drive people to your site, it takes a ton of work.
For many startups, the road to El Dorado is the venture capitalist. While there are many, many types, the basic idea is these VCs will provide the capital a startup will need, not so much to cover overhead, but to blow it out to the marketplace, or, at the very least, to get you noticed. The problem is this is a slippery slope. You give the VC equity (a piece of your company) in exchange for some money. Maybe you have some taste of success, but there is always the need for more money, and more money means giving up more of your company to "blow it out."
While you would always want 10% of something rather than 100% of nothing, you can see how this could deplete your equity rather fast.
My partner and I met one such young man at a conference. He had a snarky personality when we described what we did. As we realized we were each in a different space, he loosened up. His exhausted demeanor bespoke what we were already feeling. He was beat down. He said, "Try to avoid the money if you can because eventually your company does not become the company you were envisioning when you had that great idea." It was a cautionary tale as foreboding as the Ides of March.
And that's why we believe, if you can find one, a strategic partnership may be the best avenue to pursue. Here's a real nice primer I read: 4 Tips to Go Further, Faster with Strategic Partnerships
In a perfect world, your strategic partner should bring expertise in a field that you do not currently have.
What are YOU getting?
By forming a strategic partnership with a larger brand than you, you obtain "street cred." The idea that a large company has vetted you and your system and they think it would be a worthwhile venture for them.
You also get their expertise. Presumably, they have been doing what they are doing for a long time, or at least longer than you have. They will also have much greater resources to do the expertise that you need, the economies of scale to do it more cheaply, and the purchasing power should you need to buy things, like ad space.
What do THEY get?
They get an investment. They have taken the time, done their market research, and see a reason to take a calculated risk on you. If you are successful, they profit from the investment made in you. If you are successful, they will also get you as an account (in whatever services they are providing) for the future. i.e. a continuous income stream through services rendered.
So, while all strategic partnerships are different, when structured properly, they are a win-win scenario for both companies involved.
This post originally appeared on The Whole Magilla and was written by Chris Meyer, co-founder of MagillaLoans.com.
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“Uber’s lack of security regarding its customer data was resulting in Uber employees being able to track high profile politicians, celebrities, and even personal acquaintances of Uber employees, including ex-boyfriends/girlfriends, and ex-spouses,” Spangenberg wrote in a court declaration, signed in October under penalty of perjury.
After news broke two years ago that executives were using the company’s “God View” feature to track customers in real time without their permission, Uber insisted it had strict policies that prohibited employees from accessing users’ trip information with limited exceptions.
But five former Uber security professionals told Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting that the company continued to allow broad access even after those assurances.
Thousands of employees throughout the company, they said, could get details of where and when each customer travels. Those revelations could be especially relevant now that Uber has begun collecting location information even after a trip ends.
Spangenberg is suing the San Francisco-based ride-hailing behemoth for age discrimination (he’s 45) and whistleblower retaliation. He has worked information security jobs for a variety of tech companies. Uber tasked him with helping develop security procedures and responding to problems from around the world.
In addition to the security vulnerabilities, Spangenberg said Uber deleted files it was legally obligated to keep. And during government raids of foreign Uber offices, he said the company remotely encrypted its computers to prevent authorities from gathering information.
After beginning in March 2015, Spangenberg said he frequently objected to what he believed were reckless and illegal practices, and Uber fired him 11 months later.
“I also reported that Uber’s lack of security, and allowing all employees to access this information (as opposed to a small security team) was resulting in a violation of governmental regulations regarding data protection and consumer privacy rights,” he stated in the declaration, referring to requirements that companies notify consumers of any breach of personal information.
Michael Sierchio, a tech industry veteran who was a senior security engineer at Uber from early 2015 until June of this year, agreed that Uber had particularly weak protections for private information.
“When I was at the company, you could stalk an ex or look up anyone’s ride with the flimsiest of justifications,” he said. “It didn’t require anyone’s approval.”
In a statement, Uber said it maintains strict policies to protect customer data and comply with legal proceedings. It acknowledged that it had fired employees for improper access, putting the number at “fewer than 10.”
“We have hundreds of security and privacy experts working around the clock to protect our data,” Uber said in a statement.
“This includes enforcing strict policies and technical controls to limit access to user data to authorized employees solely for purposes of their job responsibilities, and all potential violations are quickly and thoroughly investigated,” the company said.
Uber would not give more details on its technical controls. In practice, the security sources said, Uber’s policy basically relies on the honor system. Employees must agree not to abuse their access. But the company doesn’t actually prevent employees from getting and misusing the private information in the first place, the security sources said.
Uber has a history of data problems
As Uber has rapidly grown to more than 40 million users worldwide, the gig-economy giant has also been dogged by leaks, hacks and privacy scandals.
In 2014, BuzzFeed reported that an Uber official had tracked its reporter’s movements without her permission, around the same time another executive suggested digging up dirt on critical journalists. The controversy – and an entrepreneur’s claim that he was tracked as well – drew attention to the company’s internal God View tool, which provided a real-time aerial view of Uber cars in a city and details of who was inside of them.
It later came out that a data breach that year exposed the personal information of more than 100,000 drivers.
After the embarrassments of 2014, Uber hired chief security officer Joe Sullivan, a prominent tech figure who previously held that post at Facebook and used to be a federal prosecutor. His team drew heavily from Facebook, including chief information security officer John “Four” Flynn.
The Federal Trade Commission, the consumer protection agency, is investigating Uber’s information security practices and recently deposed Sullivan, according to security sources.
Spangenberg and Sierchio – as well as three other former Uber security professionals granted anonymity to confirm their accounts – describe a startup culture that pushed back against security protections in favor of unbridled growth.
“Early on, ‘growth at all costs’ was the mantra, so you can imagine that security was an afterthought,” said Sierchio, whose tech career includes designing video games for Atari in the early 1980s.
Even after Uber assembled a security team, the pushback continued when employees raised concerns, he said.
“One of the things I was told is, ‘It’s not a security company,’” Sierchio said. Spangenberg said he was told the same thing.
As disclosures about God View sizzled on the internet in 2014, the company posted a statement saying that, “Uber has a strict policy prohibiting all employees at every level from accessing a rider or driver’s data. The only exception to this policy is for a limited set of legitimate business purposes.”
Lawmakers, including Sen. Al Franken, D-Minnesota, demanded details about those “legitimate business purposes.” Franken later wrote he was “concerned about the surprising lack of detail in their response.”
Sierchio, who said he was pushed out in June, said the company’s policy limiting access was “never enforced.”
After an investigation by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Uber settled in January and promised to “limit access” to real-time trip data “to designated employees with a legitimate business purpose.”
Even after the attorney general settlement, Spangenberg and Sierchio said thousands of employees could still search Uber’s database to get real-time ride information. The company said it complies with the settlement.
Uber did adopt some reforms. There was a pop-up message warning employees that their activity was being monitored, but few took it seriously, Spangenberg said. Another change flagged searches for customers considered “MVPs.” But that didn’t protect anyone not labeled an MVP, Spangenberg said.
It also changed the name of God View to Heaven View, Spangenberg said.
An internal audit team searched for abnormalities in all the database activity to nab employees tracking customer data illicitly, said Spangenberg, who assisted the investigations. Those they caught were referred to HR to be fired, he said.
“If you knew what you were doing, you could get away with it forever,” Spangenberg said. “The access is always there, so it was a matter of whether you got caught in the noise.”
Many employees, Uber said, need access for reasons such as providing customer refunds and investigating traffic accidents. The company added that it blocks some teams of employees from getting the data without approval, though it did not specify which teams or how the approval process works.
Drivers’ personal details, including Social Security numbers, were also available to all Uber employees, Spangenberg said in his declaration.
Spangenberg said he argued for shutting off access to sensitive data for those who didn’t need it.
“I would say, ‘We can’t keep this information, you can’t allow this information to be stored like this, you can’t leave it all connected like this,’” he said.
Uber, in its statement, said, “We have made significant investment in tightening our access controls during the past several years. Allegations that simply acknowledging our policy in a pop-up window would provide access to customer data for unauthorized employees are not correct in our current environment.”
According to his lawsuit, Uber told Spangenberg he was fired for violating a code of conduct and reformatting his computer, which erases everything on it. He said he deleted and began rebuilding his laptop because it had crashed, and that it was common practice.
He also got in trouble for accessing emails that dealt with his own job performance review. Spangenberg said he was only testing out a program to search company emails. The whole thing was a pretext, he said, to get rid of him.
In court filings, Uber responded that it “generally denies each and every allegation” made by Spangenberg.
Lawsuit says Uber destroyed documents
Spangenberg accuses Uber of destroying information he believed it was obligated to preserve. “Uber routinely deleted files which were subject to litigation holds, which was another practice I objected to,” his declaration says.
A company can face legal penalties or be held in contempt of court for scrubbing evidence it was supposed to keep.
Among his duties, Spangenberg said he was also a point person when foreign government agencies raided company offices abroad.
“Uber would lock down the office and immediately cut all connectivity so that law enforcement could not access Uber’s information,” his declaration states.
In May 2015, for example, the tax agency Revenu Quebec raided Uber’s Montreal office to gather evidence of tax evasion. Spangenberg said he worked from San Francisco to encrypt the office’s computers.
“My job was to just make sure that any time a laptop was seized, the protocol locked the laptops up,” he said.
Indeed, Quebec investigators – armed with a warrant to copy information from Uber computers – went back to a judge to say the computers had been remotely restarted and apparently encrypted, according to court records. They got permission to take the computers with them, but the machines are of little value if the information on them stays encrypted.
Efforts to encrypt data once a government search is in process “raises red flags and serious concerns,” said Judith Germano, a cybersecurity expert and former federal prosecutor.
A company could argue it was protecting sensitive information, she said. But if a judge determined it was a deliberate effort to hide evidence, the judge could impose legal sanctions or fines, and order the company to decrypt the data.
In its statement, Uber said, “We’ve had robust litigation hold procedures in place from our very first lawsuit to prevent deletion of emails relevant to ongoing litigation.” Uber said it has an obligation to protect personal information and that “we cooperate with authorities when they come to us with appropriate legal process.”
Uber challenged the Quebec search warrants in court, but in May, a Canadian judge wrote in French that Uber’s actions had “all the characteristics of an attempt to obstruct justice,” suggesting that “Uber wanted to shield evidence of its illegal conduct.” Uber is still appealing.
Looking back, Spangenberg describes a tangle of questionable practices and gaping vulnerabilities.
“The only information, truthfully, that I ever felt was safe inside of Uber is your credit card information,” he said. “Because it’s not stored by Uber.”
Energy consumption on a global scale is at an all-time high - that's why it's important to think about upgrading to a "green" standard. Not just for your life, but for your business as well.
Upgrading to green helps your bottom line (your pocket) in the long run.
•Conserving resources? Check.
•Cutting down on waste to save money? Check.
•Increasing your profits by reducing said waste? Double-check!
There's no shortage of green advocates that burn to preserve the planet. After all, we live here, right? And we want our great-great-grandchildren to live here, too.
The following are some simple ways you can implement energy-saving, money-reducing, world-helping methods into not just your life, but also your business.
Plus, your customers and clients will appreciate this since we all love being thought of as responsible and Earth-friendly. These tips are:
#1. Go Local
When you're in the market for new suppliers - go with those who accept mailed packages for reuse; greener is better. It's also standard practice -- in the quest for becoming environmentally conscious -- and logical.
If your suppliers and providers travel longer distances just to get to you, the more energy, gas, and time is spent. This is not good at all.
Going local doesn't help just the environment - it helps people in your community. People you know - and trust.
#2. Not Using It? Shut It Off!
Turn off equipment when it's not being used. This can reduce the energy used by 25 percent. Turning off the computers at the end of the day can save you an additional 50 percent and not to mention saving your company over $2.8B.
Believe it or not, something as simple as turning off all computers in the office when the cleaning crew comes in for the graveyard shift saves up to 50% energy.
This is because most offices (and buildings) never turn off their equipment. Aside from turning off your equipment when not in use, switching to energy efficient equipment is a huge advantage to your bottom line.
Which, down the line, should be reducing your carbon footprint.
#3. Switch to LED Immediately!
Are LED lights more expensive? At the outset, yes. But LEDs have shown to last monumentally longer than regular bulbs AND CFLS (compact-fluorescent), and use an incredible amount of less energy.
Let's do the math on this for a bit. Math is boring, I know but when it comes to keeping money in your pocket, I can't think of anything more interesting!
Luckily, this LED Savings Calculator does the math for you! Just put in the wattage, price per unit, and lifespan plus the hours you'll be using the LED lights and this nifty calculator will do all the calculations for you.
#4. Recycle the Old
Recycle everything under the sun that you can; the point here is to think green. Think green when buying items, and when you're replacing them.
Thinking of getting more furniture? Why not opt for used or vintage furniture? You get hundreds, if not thousands off the retail price and with a little thorough cleaning, they can be good as new.
Not only will they make your home or office look like new, you'll be happy with yourself for saving money. Try out sites like Craigslist or Kijiji for all your needs.
#5. Make the Best of Green Hosting
Believe it or not, there's a hosting service that's taking the world by the storm. Maybe you know about it -- I didn't until now because I've been living under a rock -- it's called green web hosting.
What is green web hosting? To put it frankly, it's for webmasters who plan to save as much energy as possible.
How? By using servers/machines that use as less energy as possible. These machines get power from wind and solar power, and other forms of renewable resources of energy.
This is seriously putting a dent in the use of coal/fuel to produce energy.
#6. Reasons to Refurbish
Old microscopes that are no longer useful, can actually be restored. Believe it or not, refurbishing surgical microscopes can save up to 50% compared to brand-spanking new equipment.
How isn't this wonderful? A $10k equipment will cost around $5k and will function as new.
When it comes to brain or liver surgery, this is a monumental ordeal. Half of lives saved? Imagine that it's your loved one that's going under the knife. Wouldn't you want those odds? It's certainly better than 5% or 10%.
Waste is another problem - refurbishing is the solution. Often, the case is "use it once and toss it." No, no, no! If anything, an eco-friendly method of using items over and again includes:
•Glass
•Plastic cups
•Ceramics
All beating out Styrofoam cups. Which makes sense. How long does it take to clean a cup or bowl? Ten or fifteen seconds?
Cleaning up spills with a cloth and rag -- $0.25 a piece at the local Dollarama -- instead of throwing a paper towel. Again, just toss the rag/cloth in the washing machine on laundry day. No muss, no fuss.
Use metal forks, knives, and spoons instead of plastic ones. Yes, washing utensils and bowls is annoying, but it's a part of daily life.
Washing these and more takes at most, five or ten minutes from your day. And it helps prevent the Earth from being poisoned even more which is a pretty big win.
#7. Travel Eco-Friendly
Given that thousands of people take their own private, fuel-hog vehicles everywhere -- spewing tons of carbon emissions that harm the environment -- it makes sense for people to take a healthier alternative - like walking (which has been shown to reduce body fat), cycling (which works your legs and gives you sexy leg-guns), carpooling, or taking the bus.
In fact, some businesses in the U.S. give their employees bonus payments for taking up property that's closer to work.
Final Thoughts
Have I just obliterated every single objection you've had against going green? Good.
There is no reason for you in this day and age for NOT going green. So what are you waiting for? Take advantage of the advantages.
What trend or opportunity are you most interested in as an investor, today? originally appeared on Quora - the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights.
Answer by Peter Fenton, General Partner at Benchmark, Dad, aspiring Cellist, on Quora.
I don't invest in trends. I know it sounds a bit too-cool-for-school but what I've found is that you get far more insight from purpose than from trends. So, for example, in the case of Docker, I invested in Dotcloud (which became Docker), in the purpose of this radical, intense leader, Solomon, who wanted to give the world's programmers superpowers, tools of mass innovation. In the case of Yelp, it was Jeremy's purpose to allow for the truth of great (and bad) local businesses to be visible to all. Or when I met Jack in 2007, he had this unstoppable purpose for Twitter to "bring you closer". Sometimes that purpose is just this raw force, an energy, like it was in the case of Shay at Elastic in 2012. When I feel like the trend, the space, the concepts vs the tactile reality of a purpose forms the narrative of the investment I lose all interest.
Another way to look at this is that I've found the best entrepreneurs have discovered preconditions that enable their purpose, that make it possible today versus in ten years. To increase the odds of finding the extraordinary, it helps to have a point of view about the most dynamic preconditions. As my partner Matt Cohler says, "to see the present most clearly". Obviously mobile ubiquity is the major precondition today, with the additional attributes of GPS, high quality cameras, and ever improving networks. I don't think we've even started to realize the potential of this enhanced mobile ubiquity. Another precondition is social behavioral norms, our readiness to share, to engage expands in what feels like a geometric way when the conditions are right. An "all cloud" world is another precondition -- it forces every layer of the technology stack to be reconsidered and in many cases reinvented for the cloud. Mass compute and mass storage is a precondition for machine learning at scale.
To make this more concrete, take the example of Houseparty. Ben's an extraordinary entrepreneur, he's moved by a purpose to make you feel closer to your friends when they're not physically present, and he has a fresh, new approach using live video. The preconditions of live video open up this world of exploration and the right entrepreneurial mind figures it out. I deeply regret not being his investor!
This question originally appeared on Quora. - the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
More questions:
Investing: What companies outside of your portfolio are you most bullish on?
Business: What are some of the smartest business moves made by tech startups and companies recently?
Venture Capital: What do you do differently than a vast majority of other VCs?
On its web site, Oppenheimer sets forth its purported goal of helping investors. Here's what it asserts: "We strive to help individuals maximize returns through an investment approach that's rooted in four key principles. Make global connections, look to the long term, take intelligent risks, and invest with proven teams."
Let's take a closer look at the "proven teams" who stand at the ready to assist you with reaching your retirement goals.
A checkered history
According to a comprehensive study by the Securities Litigation and Consulting Group (SLCG), the "team" at Oppenheimer consists of 2,217 registered brokers. 276 of these brokers (12.45%) had "investor harm" events in their background. "Investor harm" is defined as an award or settlement in excess of a threshold amount. Of this group, 92 (4.15%) were previously fired by other firms and hired by Oppenheimer.
While Oppenheimer ranked #7 in the top 30 firms with 400 or more registered brokers ranked by the percentage of brokers with investor harm events as defined in a previous study, it was #1 among brokerage firms with more than 1000 registered brokers. That's not a ranking to be proud of.
This data is significant because findings of a number of studies indicate the risk a broker will commit misconduct is "significantly increased" if co-workers have previously committed misconduct.
The SLCG study quantified the risk to investors of dealing with the six brokerage firms with the highest misconduct disclosures (Oppenheimer was #7 overall) in no uncertain terms, as follows: "Given their coworkers' disclosure record as of 2014, 83.7% of the brokers at these six firms would be in the highest risk quintile as defined by Qureshi and Sokobin and should be avoided by investors."
A cover-up
Clearly, this is data Oppenheimer and others in the securities are not eager for investors to learn. It appears that Oppenheimer intentionally delayed reporting events relating to misconduct by its brokers in order to keep that information from the prying eyes of the investing public.
According to a News Release dated November 17, 2016 issued by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, over a multi-year period, Oppenheimer failed to timely report more than 350 required filings to the regulatory authority. These filings included "actions taken by Oppenheimer against its employees, and settlements of securities-related arbitration and litigation claims."
The delay in reporting these claims was not minor. On average, according to the Release, "Oppenheimer made these filings more than four years late."
The Release also noted other misconduct by Oppenheimer, including failing to produce documents in discovery to customers who filed arbitrations, and for not applying applicable sales charge waivers to customers.
FINRA fined Oppenheimer $1.575 million and ordered it to pay $1.85 million to customers. As is typical, Oppenheimer " neither admitted nor denied the charges, but consented to the entry of FINRA's findings."
Lofty principles
In its annual report for 2015, Albert G. Lowenthal, the Chairman and CEO of Oppenheimer, stated: "As we stay true to our principles, always doing what is right and best for our clients in the best and worst of times, we can feel justly proud of our efforts."
Clients and prospective clients of Oppenheimer need to ask themselves whether these lofty statements have a hollow ring.
The views of the author are his alone. He is not affiliated with any broker, fund manager or advisory firm.
Any data, information and content on this blog is for information purposes only and should not be construed as an offer of advisory services.
Get Dan's investing insights by signing up for his free, weekly newsletter here.
Correction: The FINRA sanctions were levied against Oppenheimer & Co., Inc.. My blog mistakenly referenced the web page of the Oppenheimer Funds. The Oppenheimer funds were not involved in the FINRA matter. I regret the error.
"Providing relevant answers has been the cornerstone of Google's approach to search from the very beginning. It would undermine the people's trust in our results and company if we were to change course."- Google, in response to SEME research.
SEME, in this context, is for those who Googled and found links to Japanese culture:
"The search engine manipulation effect (SEME) is the change in consumer preference from manipulations of search results by search engine providers."-Wiki
According to some, "Such manipulations...could shift the voting preferences of undecided voters by 20 percent or more and up to 80 percent in some demographics."
Who knows? These days one has to be very careful sharing any information as the proliferation of fake news is so widespread and so deep.
Net fake/fake, Fake based on truth Truth clouded by fake Fake creating more fake Truth hard to ascertain I am content to merely comment on Google's statement, as it strikes a chord of dissonance. After all, the whole monetization structure of the enterprise is based on its ability to affect key and hyper targeted audiences. Yet seemingly that only holds true for the purple whale pants with the pink embroidery and not for anything else...hmm.
Frankly, as in the past, my issue is less with fake news--let's be clear, I find the fabled New York Times guilty in that arena as well--than it is with the way algorithms are developing. To suggest that the Google algorithm is open, honest and neutral is disingenuous at best and, more likely, misleading.
"The amoral status of an algorithm does not negate its effects on society," wrote Amit Datta and Anupam Datta of Carnegie Mellon and Michael Carl Tschantz of the International Computer Science Institute, authors of a 2015 Google advertising study.
Damien Tambini, an associate professor at the London School of Economics, who focuses on media regulation, was quoted by The Guardian as saying:
There's an editorial function to Google and Facebook but it's being done by sophisticated algorithms. They say it's machines not editors. But that's simply a mechanised editorial function.
It's a function I've written about, with respect and admiration, as the head of the Creative Data Jury at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in France.
I refer you to a recent article in The Guardian, "Google, democracy and the truth about internet search," written by Carole Cadwalladr, published Sunday, December 4, 2016.
It's a piece most worth reading, no matter your view, as it sets up the arguments in a coherent and rational way. The author documents her journey of typing "Jews/Muslims/Women (etc.) are" into the Google search bar and watching, with horror, the auto-fill that followed.
To be fair, and clear, Google has cleaned up this mess since I first read Cadwalladr's article last week--try it and you'll see for yourself. Nevertheless, what was coming up just a short while ago were hateful terms and hate-filled links.
"Jews are evil." "Muslims need to be eradicated." "Women all have a little prostitute in them." Cadwalladr writes about typing in the questions "Was Hitler bad?"As I've just confirmed, here's Google's top result: "10 Reasons Why Hitler Was One of the Good Guys." Among other things, the article states, "He implemented social and cultural reform." Eight out of the other 10 search results agree: Hitler really wasn't that bad.
Cadwalladr continues by quoting Danny Sullivan, founding editor of SearchEngineLand.com:
He's been recommended to me by several academics as one of the most knowledgeable experts on search. Am I just being naive, I ask him? Should I have known this was out there? "No, you're not being naive," he says. "This is awful. It's horrible. It's the equivalent of going into a library and asking a librarian about Judaism and being handed 10 books of hate. Google is doing a horrible, horrible job of delivering answers here. It can and should do better."
You seek answers thinking you'll find the truth and the trusted librarian hands you books on hate...
Yet here's the thing.
While sources from the left and right are attacking Google and others for bias, mainstream media has jumped in as well. It's not a new issue; in fact, it's a problem identified as early as 1999 in the United States and now recognized globally.
In the words of acclaimed media critic Robert McChesney from his paper "Shaping the Web: Why the Politics of Search Engines Matters (2000)":
The American media system is spinning out of control in a hyper-commercialized frenzy. Fewer than ten transnational media conglomerates dominate much of our media; fewer than two dozen account for the overwhelming majority of our newspapers, magazines, films, television, radio, and books. With every aspect of our media culture now fair game for commercial exploitation, we can look forward to the full-scale commercialization of sports, arts, and education, the disappearance of notions of public service from public discourse, and the degeneration of journalism, political coverage, and children's programming under commercial pressure.
Many, myself included, have written about the money at stake here. See "Google's Dance":
...from Google's perspective - and I don't mean Google's PR department, I mean Google's management - Google is an advertising company. Ninety-seven percent of Google's revenues, after all, come from advertising.
And we have all followed the fake news farms, whose farmers made a killing during the recent US election. Why look to Russian hackers (if it was them)--sadly they were sharing the truth--it was the novelists who were doing way worse damage.
I have shared this thought from The New York Times before, but it's critical enough to repeat:
There is a widespread belief that software and algorithms that rely on data are objective. But software is not free of human influence. Algorithms are written and maintained by people, and machine learning algorithms adjust what they do based on people's behavior. As a result, say researchers in computer science, ethics and law, algorithms can reinforce human prejudices.
And according to The Wall Street Journal,
The legacy media companies addressed this issue by trying, admittedly with varying degrees of success, to establish walls between the departments responsible for editorials, news reporting and advertising. This will be far more difficult in an era where algorithms--not editors--often control the content and ads a person consumes.
To be fair, there are many who would argue, rightly so, that the varying degrees of success referenced above have diminished over time and because of--you guessed it--monetization issues, is diminishing ever more quickly.
Robert Epstein, senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology in California, worries this is where it all leads:
Google has become the main gateway to virtually all knowledge, mainly because the search engine is so good at giving us exactly the information we are looking for, almost instantly and almost always in the first position of the list it shows us after we launch our search - the list of 'search results'.
That ordered list is so good, in fact, that about 50 per cent of our clicks go to the top two items, and more than 90 per cent of our clicks go to the 10 items listed on the first page of results; few people look at other results pages, even though they often number in the thousands, which means they probably contain lots of good information. Google decides which of the billions of web pages it is going to include in our search results, and it also decides how to rank them. How it decides these things is a deep, dark secret - one of the best-kept secrets in the world, like the formula for Coca-Cola.
And in my first and only appearance before a congressional hearing, in a scene out of a movie, I, sitting at the green covered desk in front of a room full of people, warned of the dangers of an algorithm in the hands of a monopoly...any monopoly.
So Google and the rest have to come to grips with who they are...Either they can influence or they can't. Either they can cause perception shifts or they can't. From Wired:
Jigsaw, the Google-owned tech incubator and think tank--until recently known as Google Ideas--has been working over the past year to develop a new program it hopes can use a combination of Google's search advertising algorithms and YouTube's video platform to target aspiring ISIS recruits and ultimately dissuade them from joining the group's cult of apocalyptic violence. The program, which Jigsaw calls the Redirect Method and plans to launch in a new phase this month, places advertising alongside results for any keywords and phrases that Jigsaw has determined people attracted to ISIS commonly search for. Those ads link to Arabic- and English-language YouTube channels that pull together preexisting videos Jigsaw believes can effectively undo ISIS's brainwashing--clips like testimonials from former extremists, imams denouncing ISIS's corruption of Islam, and surreptitiously filmed clips inside the group's dysfunctional caliphate in Northern Syria and Iraq.
"This came out of an observation that there's a lot of online demand for ISIS material, but there are also a lot of credible organic voices online debunking their narratives," says Yasmin Green, Jigsaw's head of research and development. "The Redirect Method is at its heart a targeted advertising campaign: Let's take these individuals who are vulnerable to ISIS' recruitment messaging and instead show them information that refutes it."
And it would seem that when it comes to those whale pants and terrorists we don't want, the answer is they think they can.
We the people need to demand the truth....listen:
Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter? - John Milton, Areopagitica
Place your bets. Me? I'm an optimist.
What do you think?
Read more at The Weekly Ramble
Follow David Sable on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DavidSable
How intelligent automation can improve the customer experience for brands
The bot economy has arrived. These days, chatbots are on the tip of everyone’s tongue and at our fingertips. Easier to build and distribute than mobile apps, bots are invading the mobile messaging platforms of choice for consumers today.
While it’s still early, thousands of bots are now available. Consider the fact that Facebook Messenger had zero bots in February of 2016 and by November of this year had over 34,000. Today bots allow consumers to do everything from call an Uber, book a flight or make a restaurant reservation, to review an e-commerce order or ask for the latest news or weather forecast.
While many bots are more annoying than helpful, 2017 represents the turning point where we’ll see more companies leverage bots for customer service and to aid consumers in making buying decisions. That could mean fewer Google searches for consumers in the future, allowing them to get the information or help they need directly from brands in a more conversational and engaging way.
Chatbots offer brands a chance to be where consumers are: messaging. While smartphone owners only use a handful of apps, messaging apps are the platform of choice for consumers with more than 2.5 billion global users this year. And this trend is set to continue, with messaging apps now outpacing social media networks in growth.
Without a doubt, mobile messaging is a channel brands absolutely must embrace. And chatbots, if done the right way, offer businesses an opportunity to create a better real-time experience for customers. That said, not all examples of chatbots we’re seeing right now are good ones. In the case of Microsoft’s Tay earlier this year, we saw how disastrous an open-ended AI bot system can be. Tay showed us what can go wrong when there are no guardrails in place to prevent comments outside the scope of what would be helpful to a customer.
As we head into 2017, one of the biggest misconception about chatbots is they can answer anything and everything. The belief that automating conversations in an open-ended way will in itself add value for customers. The reality is the most effective bots are purpose-built to solve very specific problems for customers–making common customer service requests and commerce easier, while ensuring customer privacy.
In other words, less is more. The focus of any bot should be intelligent automation of existing business processes delivered in a conversational way. And it’s critical to keep the customer experience in mind.
Delivering a great experience through intelligent automation
At the end of the day, chatbots should improve customer service, save customers time or help them with their buying decisions - such as customizing a product order or helping with a specific request. The experience and use case has to make sense and add value to the conversations customers are already having. How will a bot relate to customers? What specific problems will it solve? How will it improve existing processes for customer service, communication and commerce?
The ideal approach is to analyze customer communication and transactional processes, then identify areas where automation is both easy and effective. An example of this is the range of frequently asked questions that require a repeated and often scripted response from a live agent. Instead of having the customer go through the process of speaking with an agent, a chatbot can easily handle this conversation and transform an otherwise annoying experience.
Solving for these low-hanging-fruit issues first with bots allows brands to learn how to effectively automate their business, and over time they can increase the complexity. But keeping it simple is key, initially. We’re only just starting to see the ways in which chatbots can improve customer relationships. Any new technology needs to be implemented strategically and mastered over time, in gradual increments. Trying to do too much, too soon, often results in poor customer experiences.
Our approach at Pypestream reflects this philosophy. When we deploy bots for businesses we assess specific conversations and look for the repeatable interactions and apply business rules that a chatbot can handle with ease. From there, we grow and expand the chatbot’s capability using both business and behavioral data. Eventually, the chatbot can handle the majority of conversations allowing for lightning fast interactions and happy customers.
Customer service: the sweet spot for bots
Customer service is a natural for chatbots. Most often we see about 80-90% of customer service inquiries are for the same issues and require the same responses. These repetitive interactions are easily automated and streamlined with chatbots. The desired result is a reduction in operational costs for businesses while improving the speed and efficiency of customer service. In addition, chatbots can be triggered to proactively address real-time issues avoiding the costs of inbound calls. For example, alerts to a cable outage with instructions on how to reset the modem; where is my insurance claim in process and when can I expect my payment or storm notifications with safety instructions around down power lines and updates on when power will be restored.
Given how fresh chatbot technology is right now, the best outcomes are those that combine bots with humans. This is particularly true for customer service interactions. It’s difficult to predict or plan for every potential customer inquiry. Therefore, live agents are still needed to field the questions and inquiries that fall outside of a chatbot’s parameters - the more complex, higher touch interactions.
Overall though, for customers, the ideal experiences with businesses are intuitive and easy. The less friction, the better. That’s the central idea for the use of bots: convenience. When customers send a message to businesses to resolve problems, schedule appointments and make secure payments, the customer service experience is streamlined, frictionless and, well, easy.
Expect chatbots to continue to grow in popularity
Mobile messaging is steadily becoming the most popular means of communicating, as indicated by the staggering number of people on WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and other p2p applications. Chatbots offer a way for businesses to enter the messaging era and join the conversation. New platforms will emerge to support issues of privacy and security that are so essential to customer communication. But ultimately, as investment in the technology increases, we can expect to see more companies ditching traditional communication models for messaging.
If done the right way, conversational technology and bots have the potential to make a dramatic and positive impact on the customer experience, but only if brands take the right approach through intelligent automaton.
As an Asian American who writes and speaks about “Asian-American issues,” I have to admit every now and then I have been miffed when others have told the same stories. They too are acquainted with the name calling that threatens to escalate into violence, the assumptions about being good with numbers that conceal the parallel of not being good with people, and the suspicion that you belong someplace else where you are really from. I was mistaken. I have no proprietary claim to any adversity. My peers should be encouraged to stand up and speak out. Their experience is what will persuade their friends and colleagues if anything will.
When you are not only a minority, but imagined to be privileged, you can find yourself alone, all the more if you dare complain. If you share a grievance, people do not want to hear it. They have other priorities; they are sure you are doing better here than in your homeland — never mind that your family has three generations farming the California Central Valley. You are dismissed as having made up an excuse to grouse, or, if the reality cannot be denied, exaggerating the effects. It’s all political correctness and hypersensitivity.
When you are not only a minority, but imagined to be privileged, you can find yourself alone, all the more if you dare complain.
That is why when someone informs me that what I described in my book happened to them last week, I realize that I have not plagiarized from them, nor they me. I am sorry for us. But I am reassured. It turns out to be true. And it’s not trivial.
Lawyer Bill Lee, for example, disclosed a recent encounter with a hostile stranger, almost certainly related to race. Lee, a partner with a major firm in Boston, is of Chinese descent. Although his account has been publicized, he initially had been reluctant to reveal the episode until younger colleagues, also of Asian descent, urged him to do so. I am glad he did.
A friend of mine who is white and has a professional relationship with Lee forwarded me the news article. He couldn’t believe it, in a sympathetic sense. I replied that it happens all the time. He said, “That sucks.”
As Lee remarked, the man who confronted him felt entitled in a well-to-do neighborhood in a liberal area. Lee has made it, by any measure. If it can happen to him, it can happen to anyone Asian. They do not necessarily have the same status of a downtown lawyer. They won’t have access to media.
A woman I have known for years was pleased to inform me that she had witnessed an incident I described in an earlier essay. At the first-ever national convention of the Asian American Journalists Association (Los Angeles, 1987), a white male editor opened his speech by saying he was delighted to have been invited, because we Asians were so polite. To his surprise, he was hissed. I was worried that people would not believe my account. My friend was able to confirm my recollection.
That manager, who was in a position to hire and fire, likely had no idea that he was repeating a racial stereotype. The image also implies traits that are not as positive as “polite.” It includes submissiveness, staying in one’s place, perhaps not being as aggressive as a reporter needs to be. It’s a signal that one ought to remain “polite.” (Until the recent reversal, with Asians now being reputed to be rude, I actually took occasional satisfaction in displays of Asian brazenness, as I have a hunch other people of color do about being deliberately discourteous when the situation calls for it.)
Attitudes matter. Asian Americans face demonstrable bias. The challenge is that nobody wants to acknowledge the patterns and disparities.
Even in fields where Asian Americans are said to be overrepresented, we in fact are underrepresented at management levels.
Even in fields where Asian Americans are said to be overrepresented, we in fact are underrepresented at management levels. If facts matter, the data for this contention is robust beyond dispute. The drop off through the “pipeline” can be an order of magnitude. That means a 10x decrease from what would be expected. In the high tech sector, for example, Asian American executives tend to be founders of their own enterprises, not individuals promoted from within. In higher education, when I headed an institution I was among the very few to have that responsibility.
The misconception is produced by overrepresentation at lower levels, relative to our numbers within the population as a whole. But that baseline is inappropriate. The measure of true equal opportunity refers to parity, or disparity, relative to those who are qualified. Asian Americans are essentially being exploited as producers.
The point, however, is not to revel in resentment. It is to develop strategies for success. Asian American entrepreneurs have figured it out: they quit for their own start-up. The trouble is that will not be possible in every instance. It leaves their former employers no better.
At an affinity conference held in San Francisco today, I was honored to moderate the opening panel. As I listened to the remainder of the program, I was impressed by the interest of all the speakers in self-criticism and corresponding self-improvement: they had identified some of the same traits among Asian Americans that did not serve them well.
For example, too many Asian Americans — not all of them, but too many who conform to generalizations — display great technical expertise but not only lack “soft skills” — they disdain them. They expect their superior performance will be noticed. I’m not sure whether they are being arrogant, modest, or both, but it’s not working for them.
The problems are perceived and real, but, as we recognize, with race perceptions generate their own reality. Some who refuse to advance Asian American due to their weak communication skills are hearing more of an accent than there is, refusing to make a reasonable effort to comprehend, or resorting to a pretense because they are too sophisticated to be blatant in expressing prejudice.
Yet Asian American parents are not encouraging of their children emphasizing verbal disciplines, preferring STEM fields, and they are not enthusiastic about youngsters who express themselves freely. Non-Asian American supervisors still say they thought that Asian Americans were not interested in being put in charge. I’m willing, at least in part, to credit their sincerity, since Asian Americans are not always clear.
The world around is changing. But the trends are neither automatic nor accidental. They are the result of our own actions. For Asian Americans, that means we must do more for ourselves.
During the campaign Donald Trump boasted that he could kill someone on Fifth Avenue and it wouldn't affect his standing among his supporters. Whether or not this is true, this appears to be the approach that Trump and his fellow Republicans are taking to their role in governing. The basic story is that they can rip off the public as much as they want, because ain't no one going to stop them. They could be right.
The most immediate issue is Donald Trump's refusal to sell his assets and place the proceeds in a blind trust. This was a practice followed by every president in the last half century. The idea is that the president should be making decisions based on what they think is good for the country, not based on what they think will fatten their pocketbooks.
Trump's proposal in this area is essentially a joke. The idea is he turns over the operation of his empire to his kids. It's not clear how this helps at all. His kids will never discuss any business issues with him and also have no opportunity to discuss policy with their father or father-in-law?
Perhaps more importantly, he knows what properties are in his empire. This means that if he decides to make an issue of the crackdown on opposition by Turkey's president, Recep Erdogan, it is likely that Erdogan will retaliate against the Trump resorts in Turkey. The same applies to his dealings with many other countries.
We shouldn't have to rely on a "trust me" pledge from the president that the financial interests of his family will not be a consideration in his foreign policy. That is exactly why prior presidents put their assets into a blind trust. And, there is little reason to believe that Donald Trump is more honest than our past presidents.
It is also important to realize that divestment of Trump's empire is not an insoluble problem. The key is to have an appraisal process, which would set a value on his assets. Trump can then lock in this price by buying an insurance policy, which would protect him from the risk that the assets may be sold off at a lower price than the appraisal. The proceeds from the sale of properties would be put directly in a blind trust. Any extra funds go to a designated non-Trump affiliated charity.
From the point of the appraisal forward, Trump would have no financial stake in his empire. That would end this huge conflict of interest problem.
It appears that Donald Trump's indifference to problems of conflict of interest is likely to extend to his top appointees as well. Politico reported on evidence that Steven Mnuchin, Trump's nominee as Treasury Secretary, used the money from a tax exempt foundation under his control, to engineer a lobbying campaign. According to the article, when Mnuchin was chair of the bank OneWest, he used funds from the bank's foundation to make payments to non-profits that later lobbied on the bank's behalf.
If Politico's information is accurate, and the payments were in fact made to support a lobbying campaign, then it would be a clear case of tax fraud. A nice twist to this story is that as treasury secretary, Mr. Mnuchin would be responsible for overseeing the I.R.S.
We have yet to see the full list of top level appointees, but it is already clear that it will include some of the richest people in the country. Wlibur Ross, the billionaire private equity fund manager, is slated to head the Commerce Department. His pick for secretary for the Department of Education is Betsey DeVos, an heir to a multi-billion dollar fortune.
If Trump refuses to hold himself to the same ethical standards as past presidents, it is difficult to believe that he will pressure his cabinet and top advisers to avoid conflicts of interest. And given the wealth of some of his appointees, there will be plenty of opportunity for conflict.
In fact, it looks like the tidal wave of conflicted government has already spilled over to the legislative branch. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell announced that he will not recuse himself from voting on Elaine Chao, Trump's pick to head the Department of Transportation. Chao also happens to be McConnell's wife.
When it comes to ethics in government, presidents usually start out setting high standards which they don't always live up to. By refusing to put his holdings in a blind trust, Donald Trump is starting in the sewer. It is likely to go down from there.
