8 Keys to Achieving Higher Performance in Your Purpose: Key #2 - Same Approaches = Same Results

In the introduction to this series, I talked about getting intimate with your own special purpose. I believe that each of us was put here with a unique calling and a special mission. It may not always be grand, but it's yours. Key #1 discussed being UNIQUELY YOU!!!

Now let's explore Key #2!

First, this short video!



The bottom line is this: if you want different results, you have to change your attitudes, actions and approaches. How many challenges have you approached the same way over and over and over and over?! That's like trying to kill all the pigs in Angry Birds with the same shots you've used 30 times!

Sometimes you just have to do something differently! Otherwise you're going to become as angry as that bird! Some of you haven't done anything different in years. You're frustrated with your relationships, but won't get help...or even go out on a date. You're upset about your money, but won't work harder, ask for a raise or find a job that pays you what you want to earn. Even if you're accustomed to effort, if you aren't getting results, make a shift. A small shift can make a big difference sometimes.

Write it out if you have to. List out the things you normally do, but don't work. Next to them, write out other actions you could take instead.

I know this personally. Some of the biggest and best blessings in my life have come after I got tired of beating my head against the wall and did something different. How about you? How can you approach tomorrow in a new way? If you do everything the same way, you'll get the same results you have right now. If you're okay with that, fine, but I suspect you're not!

In case you're interested in being able to quickly navigate the entire series, here are the links!

Series Introduction
Key 1: Be Who You Are!
Key 2: Same Approaches = Same Results
Key 3: Change Your Associations
Key 4: The Least Appreciated Key
Key 5: Seek Favor
Key 6: Get Expert Help
Key 7: Open Your Mouth
Key 8: What Are You Afraid Of?

Please leave me your comments so I know how to serve you better!! If this was helpful, forward it to a friend. Talk to you soon!

Great Ideas for Using Phones in the Classroom

Great post from Nicky Hockly on mobile phones in class.

http://www.emoderationskills.com/?p=736&cpage=1#comment-23139

I'm keeping my eyes open for using the camera in a BE context.  Company policy could be an issue, it would be best to check first what students should and shouldn't take pictures of.

Idea 1:  "My Workplace"

Students take pictures of their office, desk, kitchen, canteen, even colleagues.  They then share the photos in small groups.  It would be great practice for "giving a tour".  Target language... "This is my colleague Jim, he's responsible for..."  "Here is the conference room, we'll have our meeting in here." etc.

Idea 2:  "My Commute"

Similar to the "My Workplace" lesson it would start good conversations about the trip to work (often a small talk topic).  Additional English awareness exercize could be to take pictures of all the times they see/hear English on the way to work.  It could be on the radio (picture of the radio would be funny and be great use for reported speech).  It could be advertisements.

Idea 3:  "The Conference Room"

Students take a picture of the conference room in which they have meeting in English.  The explain where everyone sits, why they are in the meeting, and what they contribute.  The describe in detail their last meeting in this conference room and we are slowly building roles (and moving chairs).  As a group we then either reenact the meeting or simulate the next meeting.

Hmm... tomorrow I will look for more.

The Millionaire Decay Function

Did you know that the most downwardly mobile members of society are millionaires?

It's true, and what's more, we have the data and math to prove it!

Our featured chart today was originally produced by Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Institute, which is based upon data from the IRS and analysis by the non-profit Tax Foundation.

Here, the story begins in 1998, when the IRS reports that there were approximately 675,000 tax returns with adjusted gross incomes of $1 million, or more.

[Side note: The traditional definition of a millionaire was someone who had accumulated at least one million dollars in total assets. However, since the word was first documented back in 1826, the effect of inflation is such that perhaps a more modern definition would be those who earn incomes of at least one million dollars in a year. In any case, $45,000 in 1826 dollars is roughly the equivalent of $1 million in 2012, going just by changes in the Consumer Price Index.]

Then, beginning in 1999, following the tax returns filed by the same people, the number of those with incomes over $1 million begins to drop dramatically - by nearly 50% in the first year!

Time After Earning $1 Million
Input Data	Values
Number of Years After Having Earned $1 Million

The Odds of Still Being a Millionaire
Calculated Results	Values
Odds of Earning $1 Million in Each of the Entered Number of Years

And then, it continues, at an ever declining rate, until by 2006, some eight years later, of the 675,000 millionaires of 1998, only 17,000 made a million dollars or more, just 2.5% of the original number.

Expressed a different way, the probability that a millionaire after eight years would be able to make $1 million or more is just 2.5%!

And that's the math our newest tool tries to estimate! Just enter the number of years after which a millionaire has made a million dollars, and we'll give you the odds that they will have done it again!

In a sense, this is very similar to an exponential decay function, such as might apply for things like the decay of radioactive materials, or pesticides. Unlike those things however, the half life of a millionaire is much, much shorter!

One thing we do note from the actual data is that the number of millionaires after nine years begins to increase (38,000 represents 5.6% of the original number of millionaires in 1998). We suspect this is due to a combination of factors, including the effect of inflation from 1999 through 2007 and also the economic expansion that peaked in that year.

It would be very interesting to see how those millionaires have fared in the years since! How many would you think are still making over $1 million per year for the recession years of 2008 through today?

Update 4 February 2012: A sharp-eyed reader has a different take on what the data presented in the chart is actually communicating:

It seems that the number in column N is not the number of "those who were in the original 675,000 while still making a million N years later" as you suggested in your paper. According to that interpretation people would be counted repeatedly in several columns, and it would be a miraculous coincidence that the numbers in all nine columns add up to exactly to the total 675,000 (and the percentages adding up to exactly 100).

My guess is that the number in column N seems to mean the number of people who made it to the end of year (N-1) but not to the end of year N (Except the last column). Or equivalently, it is the number of those fell of the line during year N (Except the last column). It is the number of those being a millionaire for exactly N year and no more. That's why the horizontal axis is called "the number of years as a millionaire". In that case the sum certainly equals to 675,000 since the columns are just an exclusive division of the total number.

If I'm right the number of millionaires by the end of the 8th year is not 17000, but rather 38000. More generally, the percentage of "those who remain millionaires N years later" should be 50, 35, 27, 20, 16, 13, 9, 6. Naturally this curve is much smoother and fit better with an exponential than the original figure which designate the differences between these numbers.

Also, the "increasing" in the last column you mentioned would not surprising at all and may not need any special explanation. This is because the 38000, unlike each of the columns on its left which designates those remain millionaires for exactly N years, designates all those who remain millionaires for 9 years, 10 years, 11 years and more. It's just the sum of all the residue part of the declining curve.

Although, I'm really confused since the original article seems to suggest the same interpretation as yours. But if that's the right interpretation then I do not know how to make sense of the fact that those numbers sum up to exactly 675,000, among other things.

Our reader's interpretation of the data is right on the money - we've re-done our tool to match!

Forecasting GDP: Looking Backwards (2011-Q4) and Forwards (2012-Q1)

The advance GDP estimate for the fourth quarter of 2011 was released on Friday, 27 January 2012, with that quarter's inflation-adjusted GDP figure being reported at $13,422.4 billion, in terms of constant 2005 U.S. dollars.

That value is just 0.29% higher than what we would forecast using our Modified Limo method for projecting the value of GDP in the next quarter, using the final value of $13,331.6 billion for the third quarter of 2011.

On a side note, since Political Calculations was on our annual year-end hiatus when that final value for 2011-Q3 GDP was reported, and because we had never updated our previous public projection of $13,393.3 billion, the advance figure for 2011-Q4 real GDP is just 0.21% higher than our last posted forecast.

In any case, we anticipate that this figure will be revised lower by the time the BEA's third estimate for 2011-Q4's GDP is recorded.

Looking forward and assuming that the forecast given our Modified Limo methods follows a normal distribution with respect to the trajectory of real GDP, we currently anticipate the following for GDP in the first quarter of 2012, in terms of constant 2005 U.S. dollars:

• A 68.2% probability of falling between $13,357.5 billion and $13,640.0 billion.
  
• A 95.0% probability of falling between $13,216.3 billion and $13,781.3 billion.
  
• A 99.7% probability of falling between $13,075.0 billion and $13,922.5 billion.
  

The midpoint for our forecast range for real GDP in 2012-Q1 is currently $13,498.8 billion. We will revise these projections as the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis revises its estimate of real GDP in 2011-Q4. The BEA will release its second and third estimates of real 2011-Q4 GDP in February 2012 and March 2012 respectively.

At present, it appears that our overall forecast of U.S. economic performance remains on track. We continue to anticipate that the most recently reported pace of economic growth will begin decelerating in the first quarter of 2012.

For our GDP forecasts, any major deviation from our projections is an indication that the U.S. economy is undergoing a significant change in its overall economic trajectory, which you can see in our chart above whenever the economy goes through a major turning point. One advantage of our methods is that the results are useful, even on those rare occasions when they turn out to be off target.

If you'd ever like to play along at home, we've created a tool that will calculate the midpoint of our forecast range!

Growing energy willow “Salix viminalis energo”

Description: The energy willow or Salix viminalis "Energo" is a species of willow which proved to be the most efficient plant cultivated for energetic purposes. This willow has a volume of timber of 40-60 t / ha dry material and a very high calorific value of approx. 4900kcal/kg, higher than that of oak. The energy willow is used in the form of briquettes and pellets. This willow is characterized by very rapid growth, rapidly regenerating its annual harvest. In addition to high speed growth, energetic willow planting is done very easily, as it is not a demanding plant. Planting the willow is done by means of cutting and planting branches, and it is required only once every 25-30 years to achieve annual crops. It can be planted on any soil (considering that it even helps to stop landslides), but a fertile soil and crops can prove more efficient.

The planting costs are between 1500-2000 euros / ha (investment is made only once for a harvest of 25-30 years) and in the first year there is only a modest harvest obtaining about 10 t / ha with profits of between 300 -400 euros / ha, but the next year after the harvest, it is to reach 40-60 t / h, increasing profits between 1500-1800 euros / ha/year.

Resources needed: - rigorous documentation regarding the characteristics of its planting and harvesting
                             - Availability for a lot of land
                            - Acquisition cost depending on the desired area to be planted
                         - Availability / rent equipment for the annual harvest
Advantages: - Environmentally friendly
                - Once invested, it is regenerated annually.
                - It is a tree that can be planted on any land (even swampy soils) with a resistance to temperature and weather variations.
                - It comes as a renewable and cheap energy solution
                - High calorific value (4900kcal/kg)
                - Once planted, annual profits are obtained, with minor costs.
                - It is more profitable than the use of land for vegetable growing
Disadvantages: - if you opt for the cultivation of large areas, the investment with the acquisition of cuttings can be very high (documentation regarding funding opportunities with EU funds)
Conclusions: In many countries the plant is grown in large quantities (such as Sweden), considering it is an alternative energy product easily obtained and at low prices. In some countries the multitude of agricultural land (or the one that can not be used for agriculture) may be used for this purpose, especially as the international interest in this area is growing.

Bean Bags

Description: This object consists of a chair, of various shapes and colors, characterized by a great comfort. Well known since the early 60's in the U.S., this item is back on the market and is increasingly present in modern interiors. The bean bag can be filled with different materials, varying from different types of seeds, rice, small polystyrene balls, to different types of wool or down. Here you can see an example of design and several models:

The American businessman, Shawn Nelson, managed to build an empire around this product, creating a unique and more comfortable option than the existing products on the market. Here you can see the product's story, called Love Sack:

Resources needed: - determine the patterns to be made ​​and the list of materials needed
- The purchase costs of the materials
- Minimum knowledge of sewing and basic understanding of sewing machines
- A website to promote and sell the product efficiently

Advantages: - low manufacturing costs
                 - Products increasingly popular in modern decorations
                 - The product addresses several age categories
Disadvantages: - minimum skills required in the field
Conclusions: It may be a product that will bring significant profits, keeping in mind that the bean bag is still unknown to many countries. A high quality product and efficient promoting strategies will be essential in achieving success in this business.

Pet rent (Rent-a-pet)

Description: On the international market has recently appeared a service that allows dogs to be rented. Whoever wants a pet, but on the short term, can do so by renting it. Such a service has created great scandal among animal lovers; although at that time the rental service provided for stray dogs. For a stray dog, this alternative of "holidays" in the company of a loving family on a monthly basis would be more convenient than staying in the shelter, in a cage. The service is for those who do not have very much time available, travel a lot or live in an apartment so one can not handle such a relationship on the long term. Also the service can be extended not only for renting dogs, but also cats, hamsters, rabbits, parrots and other small animals.

The supply needed for a rental may be included for each animal: a cage, food, toys (depending on each individual animal), etc.. Rent-a-pet acquisition can be started with small pets and their offering for rent / with option to sell or by making contracts with pet shops and existing animal shelters. It will also be necessary to create a site where the price bids shall be submitted, accompanied by pictures of the animals and details of the items offered in the price and details of the optimal care for each animal.
Resources needed: - to study the most effective strategies (acquisition, rental contracts with animal shelters)
                                -
Advantages: - if you opt for an agreement with the shelters, the investment is very small
                 - For animals in shelters, there are very large benefits
                 - This service may cause additional financial resources and animal shelters reduce the number of animals on the streets.
                 - Comes to help people who want to test whether or not to acquire this pet on the long-run.
Disadvantages: - it is important to apply certain conditions to the customers, in order to avoid any kind of problem for the animal.
Conclusion: If done correctly, this service not only helps reduce the number of animals on the streets, but also offers better living conditions. Besides, all this can be a profitable business, without much investment.

8 Keys to Achieving Higher Performance in Your Purpose: Key #1 - Be Who You Are!

In the introduction to this series, I talked about getting intimate with your own special purpose. I believe that each of us was put here with a unique calling and a special mission. It may not always be grand, but it's yours. It is unique to you and you've been equipped for it. Check out what the Bible records as God's conversation with Jeremiah from Jeremiah 1:5-8:

"5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
And before you were born I consecrated you;
I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
6 Then I said, “Alas, Lord GOD!
Behold, I do not know how to speak,
Because I am a youth.”
7 But the LORD said to me,
“Do not say, ‘I am a youth,’
Because everywhere I send you, you shall go,
And all that I command you, you shall speak.
8 “Do not be afraid of them,
For I am with you to deliver you,” declares the LORD."

Please hear me on this point as you continue through your day: you are special. God knew you and planned for you and accounted for YOU in His eternal plan before you got here. You were always in His mind and never, never, ever and accident!

So, be who you are. No question this is the #1 thing I have "learned" and I'm walking in more powerfully than ever. I aim to be even more aggressively "me" in 2012. You have to determine in your mind to do the same. Just like Jeremiah, our first instinct is to give God and excuse! "I'm too young." "I'm too old." "I'm too short." "I'm too black." "If I had a wife, I would do it." "If I had a husband I could do it." "I'm too ______." Yap, yap, yap! You forget that He already knows. He created you with certain qualities for your mission. Some deficiencies He's allowed so He can get the glory.

Understand the distinction I'm making. Don't become overly concerned about being "better" at any particular task just yet. You're not going to prosper outside of your purpose anyway. There are many good things you are naturally, but you suppress them. Being authentically you will fix most of that and propel you forward in life.

Now go back and look at Verse 8. You don't have to be afraid to be yourself and do what you're here to do. Even if you have enemies, you have a Great Deliverer. Your worst imaginings of what could happen are just that. Imaginings.

Go forward. Be YOU!

In case you're interested in being able to quickly navigate the entire series, here are the links!

Series Introduction
Key 1: Be Who You Are!
Key 2: Same Approaches = Same Results
Key 3: Change Your Associations
Key 4: The Least Appreciated Key
Key 5: Seek Favor
Key 6: Get Expert Help
Key 7: Open Your Mouth
Key 8: What Are You Afraid Of?

Please leave me your comments so I know how to serve you better!! If this was helpful, forward it to a friend. Talk to you soon!

New Technologies, New Can Do Statements

A report recently on Bayern 2 about how Twitter and Facebook are developing languages similar to the telegraph in the 1800s got me thinking.  For the sake of coolness, let's ignore the fact that I was listening to Bayern 2, the dry public radio station for intellectuals in Southern Germany.  But they made an interesting point.  So I started thinking about how workplace software is changing communication, and how I should adapt.

First, most of my students use Microsoft communicator in the work place to carry on simple question and answer communication events.  This real-time communication medium introduces a couple of things.

• One sentence requests for updates and one sentence responses.
• Short descriptions of what is happening around them.
• Talking about events in the immediate future.
• Spoken grammar in written form.
• Use of emoticons to replace body language and facial expressions.

In fact, the communication method is exactly what we used to do in school before texting.  We wrote notes on paper and pass them around the class when the teacher was writing on the chalkboard.

I have been using strips of paper for years in the classroom to help scaffold telephone conversations and meetings.  But now I see that reenacting real-time communication with note passing could provide engaging supported practice in all kinds of situations.  In fact, it wouldn't even be unrealistic... we would in fact be practicing a skill they use everyday.  Speaking with communicator.

To many teachers this will be nothing new... you are probably using SMSs and Facebook for this, but to be honest... my aging, privacy-rights obsessed learners are not willing to take that kind of leap.  Using it as a supported practice exercise facilitates the main goals and trains this kind of interaction.

Second, many students now work in some kind of virtual team.  For the most part, I do not have trouble adapting to the fact that my students will probably never meet their English speaking contacts (goodbye greeting visitors!).  But, in my opinion we need to introduce a few skills to our traditional toolbox to suit of their special requirements.  Most are based on the fact that students must not only use the IT system to communicate, but also talk about the IT system.  Here are some proposed 'can do' statements.

• Can ask for and give virtual directions in an IT enviroments (tell someone how to find a document on the server/internet, ask where they should send the updated document in the workflow, direct users through an application)
• Can ask questions to fill out a form  Can describe how to complete a database form.  (Think about when you call customer support and they tell you to go to the website and they will walk you through the fix online.  This is not limited to solving IT problems.)
• Can describe documents and document formats, including spreadsheets, word processor features, presentation themes and layouts (most virtual teams must decide on and follow certain reporting formats and structures).
• Can find detailed information using appropriate search terms in knowledge database or search engine.  (This is sooo difficult in L2)  This goes beyond websearches and trains them how to build search strings and filter results.
• Can understand and participate in a collaborative discussion board to solve problems and make decisions.

Can you think of anymore we should add to the list?

Note, these are not exclusively for IT professionals, rather tasks all workers must perform on a daily basis in English.  Sadly, the most formal material I have seen in coursebooks doesn't go past introducing 'copy, paste, delete'.  We can do better.  I will have to test some lesson ideas on these and I will keep you updated on the effectiveness.  But I would love to hear your thoughts.

How Good Are Earnings Forecasts?

How good are stock market earnings forecasts?

Well, if you go by our chart below, which we constructed by sampling data we obtained from S&P roughly one-year apart (at the dates indicated) and mostly looking one-year-ahead in time, the answer is: not good at all!

The moral of the story: future earnings projections are not necessarily very good indications of actual future earnings!

8 Keys to Achieving Higher Performance in Your Purpose: Introduction

I get a lot of questions e-mailed to me about purpose and how to get better, do better and be better. Tons. (I want more of them, frankly! I appreciate all the interaction.) There seem to be common themes emerging so I felt like it was time to dedicate some focus to these areas. People ask me things like

What is my purpose?
How can I know it for sure?
I know my purpose, but I feel stuck. What can I do?
Where can I find a mentor?
How can I raise the money?
How can I earn more money?
I'm not sure I'm meant for anything more. Am I?

These are all great questions! Over the next several blog posts, I'm going to address these and more. We have to start out talking about purpose and how to figure out yours, however. I truly believe you can't prosper or have true peace if you operate outside of your own special purpose. Therefore, until you are doing so, you're going to have a level of frustration in life you'll never be able to get away from.

The first thing I want you to do is watch this short video. It should help with some basics. I believe you already know your purpose in life and could just use some clarity. This video will give you some clarity. I first wrote about them here.



Now that you've watched that, you understand that hope and hype are great, but you need METHODS to truly advance in life.  In case you're interested in being able to quickly navigate the entire series, here are the links!

Series Introduction
Key 1: Be Who You Are!
Key 2: Same Approaches = Same Results
Key 3: Change Your Associations
Key 4: The Least Appreciated Key
Key 5: Seek Favor
Key 6: Get Expert Help
Key 7: Open Your Mouth
Key 8: What Are You Afraid Of?

Please leave me your comments so I know how to serve you better!! If this was helpful, forward it to a friend. Talk to you soon!

New Jobless Claims: Still on Track, But Increasingly Volatile

Two weeks ago, we observed that the number of seasonally-adjusted initial unemployment insurance claims being filed each week was still following the same trend it has since 9 April 2011, but that it was becoming increasingly volatile, suggesting that the trend is beginning to break down:

Today's number also underscores the increasing level of volatility in the data - when the current trend was establishing itself, it was characterized by relatively small changes in the number of new jobless claims being filed from week to week.

Today new data marks the fourth time in the last six weeks in which the size of the change in the reported numbers from week to week has exceeded one standard deviation. That's specifically what we're looking at when we suggest that the established trend may be beginning to break down.

The chart below reveals that if anything, that volatility has increased, although it still appears to be following the established trend of an improving (falling) number of claims over time at this point.

If we look just at the micro-trend established since 26 November 2011, when the level of volatility in the data really took off, the data suggests that the rate of improvement in the number of new jobless claims filed each week is leveling off between 370,000 and 380,000.

Hopefully, things will settle back down and the number of new jobless claims filed each will will continue to improve until they reach the average level of 318,000 that was typically recorded in the months prior to the most recent recession.

The President's Failing Focus on Jobs

In his 2012 State of the Union Address, President Obama sought to "embrace manufacturing". Since the President has been in office for three years now, we thought we would take a look at how well he's done so far in embracing manufacturing, by his own terms.

Our first chart shows the seasonally-adjusted number of individuals employed in the Manufacturing and the closely-related Transportation and Warehousing industries (aka "the supply chain"), which is based upon data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in its Current Employer Survey, as of 22 January 2012, from November 2007 through December 2011.

In the chart above, we've emphasized several points with bold text indicating the number of employed at various points of interest. These points correspond to the month preceding the start of the "Great Recession", the month President Obama was sworn into office, the bottom of job loss for the recession, and the most recent month for which we have data, December 2011.

Here, we find that the number of individuals counted as being employed in the manufacturing and supply chain industries has fallen considerably from November 2007 through the present, with 1,583,000 fewer being employed in Manufacturing and 1,964,000 fewer being employed in Transportation and Warehousing as of December 2011. Together, these two sectors of the U.S. economy represent almost 3 out of 5 of all the jobs that have disappeared from the U.S. economy since November 2007.

Starting the clock from January 2009, we find that 946,000 jobs in manufacturing evaporated before job losses in the economy finally bottomed in February 2010, eight months after the recession officially ended, while the number of individuals employed in the transportation and warehousing industries fell by 1,097,000. Combining these figures, we find that these two sectors of the U.S. economy account for over 47% of the 4,317,000 total jobs that were lost according to the BLS' data during the first 13 months of President Obama's tenure.

Since job losses in U.S. manufacturing and supply chain-related industries bottomed in February 2010, some 617,000 jobs in manufacturing and 328,000 in transportation and warehousing have been added to the U.S. economy. These two sectors account for 35.6%, or a just over 1 out of 3 of the 2,654,000 total jobs that have been added to the U.S. economy since February 2010.

Going by the post-recovery figures, we find that President Obama hasn't been paying much attention to manufacturing, either during the recession or during the recovery, as its share of jobs lost and created has been essentially identical during his three years in office.

If anything, it appears that the President's focus on "creating" jobs has been in any area outside of manufacturing or supply chain-related industries, as these areas have seen a disproportionate gain compared to jobs lost during the President's first three years in office.

But perhaps the bigger story is the extent to which President Obama hasn't been paying attention to boosting jobs in the Transportation and Warehousing sector of the U.S. economy. This is the unglamorous industry that ties together all U.S. manufacturers, from the most upstream makers of parts that go into other products all the way through the final link in the chain that reaches the final consumer, moving and storing manufactured goods as value is added through each stage of manufacturing production.

We'll close by sharing our final chart, spanning all the time the President has been in office at this writing, showing the net change in jobs by industrial sector from January 2009 through December 2011:

Perhaps the President should have "pivoted to jobs" more often in the first three years of his Presidency. Especially those unglamorous ones that don't make for good photo ops, as his agenda today suggests is his real focus....

The Poison Pill

On 23 December 2011, the Republican party majority in the U.S. House of Representatives caved in on its opposition to President Obama and the Democratic party majority in the Senate's proposal to provide a two-month long extension for the President's payroll tax cut.

Here, the percentage that individuals must pay in their taxes that support Social Security was maintained at 4.2% through the end of February 2012, after which, the rate is set to rise back up to the 6.2% level it had been for the two decades from 1990 through 2010.

With President Obama's State of the Union address scheduled for tonight, there is little doubt that he will seek to extend the payroll tax cut through the end of the year, which will have to be supported by increased deficit spending in order to pay out benefits to today's SOcial Security recipients, which will increase the national debt as the program is set to continue running more deeply in the red.

Given the political damage from the collapse of the Republican's political strategy in December 2011, it seems unlikely that the party's senior leaders will seek to oppose the President's payroll tax cut again. They might be able to get some traction by letting the payroll tax cut expire by cutting federal income (and withholding tax) rates, however that would depend upon the President and Senate Democrats to go along, which seems even more unlikely given their late-year political victory.

If that outcome is not really possible then, perhaps the best strategy that congressional Republicans might follow would be to allow the President and Senate Democrats to have another small victory, but one that would cost them dearly in the November 2012 elections.

It's often said that "people vote their pocketbooks", meaning that economic conditions have a lot to do with the choices people make at the ballot box. For example, if conditions are stable, good, or improving, then it would be more likely that incumbent politicians, such as the President and many Senate Democrats, will hold onto the offices that they hold so dear.

But if conditions are bad or worsening, then they would be more likely to be voted out of office.

The trick then would be to give them the bill they want, but with one key addition - a "poison pill" that they cannot resist ingesting, one that seems like a good idea to them, but that would have the effect of sealing their fate through the damage it might cause to the economy.

It would also have to be something that would have a relatively small effect, because if it works, you'd only want a relatively small mess to have to clean up pretty easily.

To that end, we would suggest raising the federal minimum wage in the U.S. to $8.00 per hour, with the increase taking effect in April 2012.

Even with a growing economy, the amount of that increase would enough to decrease the number of jobs that might otherwise exist in the U.S. economy by roughly 300,000. Since it takes roughly six months for the full effect of a change in the minimum wage to take hold in the economy, that would put the greatest job loss in October 2012, just ahead of the 6 November 2012 election.

Better still, the action would not leave any real political fingerprints, as the reduction in jobs would mostly be in the form of jobs not being created, where the most affected would be teens and young adults, who can have their unemployment more easily concealed since their attendance at school would keep them from being counted as being part of the U.S. workforce.

It's an intriguing idea. And it's very unlikely that the President and Senate Democrats would even consider resisting it, given their beliefs! We wonder if any U.S. politicians have ever tried doing it before....

Why Needs Analysis Isn't Working...

Over the past few years I have tried several methods at needs analysis to draft effective course outlines and syllabi.  First, I used the format from Teaching Business English by Syvlie Donna from CUP.  While this is an outstanding book, and I received valuable feedback from my students on the types of skills they needed, it didn't really help me determine priorities, context, and functions.  So, I incorporated more negotiated needs analysis at the beginning of the session to help prioritize what the learners wanted.  Finally, I went back to the drawing board and did some benchmarking against some of the best trainers.

Two I specfically like are Evan Frendo's ideas on his blog, and Claire Hart, who is a particularly innovative trainer.  Her student expectations exercise is great.  Both are outstanding trainers.

Then after reading from Harmer and Emmerson and Scrivener I realized that all of these methods were still using the learner as the main resource for the needs.  I guess I just wasn't asking the right questions because all I got was "I make presentations." and "I don't have the words."  Although I was getting information about their jobs, it wasn't much information to really work with.  Looking through the presentations from the BESIG meeting in Dubrovnik I realized that many of us are having trouble with this.

So here is my new method for needs analysis and it seems to give me more insight and reduce the number of surprises as the the course progresses.  The advantage is that it gets the learner talking about something they don't know (what they lack) and onto something they know a lot about (what happens).

Communicative Event Analysis

The first thing we do is sit down and talk about the department/team.  What is the function of the team, what are the inputs and outputs?  Based on my knowledge of business practices I have a pretty good idea of what is happening.  Second, I want to find out the communicative events which facilitate this knowledge transfer.  Are we talking about weekly meetings, telephone calls, emails, forms, etc.?  Some outputs will have one event ("a form arrives, we read it and forward it to the correct person"), some have many ("we meet with the customer and then work with the R&D department to find a solution, then we propose the solution to the customer").

My goals is to break down all the contacts into events.  Once I have the events, we start working out the nature of the events, the more detail the better.  So if they have a web meeting every month, I want to know the agenda.  Is the meeting focused on updates and past actions?  Is it a time for the management to delegate tasks?  Is it a forward looking meeting to solve problems?  etc.  We will also look at reoccuring tasks and one-time events.  This can help me devise a schedule to give them the skills needed when they need it.

We will break down every communicative event in this way.  At this point, I have a list of skills, a context to gather lexis, a list of functions which occur regularly, and even an idea of which grammar the person is most likely to need.  It also gives me an idea of where the communication bottlenecks are in the department. 

Finally, I will ask who does all this stuff.  Clearly, the student will not do it all.  This leads to a discussion of which tasks the student has the most trouble with.  Which emails are the most difficult to write?  Which phone calls are the toughest to handle?  Do you speak more in this meeting or in this meeting?  Why?  I can then see clearly if the learner's colleagues are handling more of the difficult communication tasks because they are better at English.  By identifying the colleagues' tasks, I can help teams eliminate the communication bottlenecks.

At the end of the session I have several priorities:
1.  Current tasks the learner cannot perform.  (And testing the ones they say they can do)
2.  Tasks the learner would like to perform.
3.  Tasks the learner should be able to perform.  (often similar to 2)
4.  Tasks surrounding the department function.  (Tasks the learner might need to perform in the future.)

Now, I can go back, find resources, plan a syllabus, combine learning objectives, disguise overly dry parts, and shape the program.  This systems approach to needs analysis allows me to give them exactly what they need.

Some examples of information on a communicative event.

Email from International Sales -
The learner often receives questions from the international sales to find out if a product can be changed for a special customer.  They also want to know how long the change will take, and what price they should charge for the product.

Language foci -

• product specifications
• passive (present and infinite)
• product uses (inteded for, for use in, etc.)
• modals of ability (it cannot be used for)
• describing a process (it must be tested)
• expressing probability (talking about the future without making promises)

Weekly project meeting (web meeting) -
The learner works on a virtual project team and has a one hour web meeting to go around and give progress reports on their sub-projects.  The project leader then asks questions.  Each sub-project leader goes in turn and the end of the meeting is an open discussion about outstanding problems or future concerns.

• Common opening sentences, giving a concise introduction
• Talking about schedules and resources (by Friday, take, last, need, enough, too)
• Giving an update (we finished or we have finished)
• Giving reasons why (because, due to, because of, as a result)
• Describing current activities (We are doing...)
• Making predictions about future activities (might be able to, will definitely)
• Talking about consquences (If... then)
• Identifying and answering questions
• Stating an opinion
• Making suggestions

These are just examples.  The real needs of the event are determined on an individual basis.  For group classes, much of this can be done in pairs with the learners interviewing each other.  Then, I can match common elements among the learners and design the most appropriate course.

Using the F-Score to Detect Accounting Fraud

If you're just an average investor, how can you pick up on whether or not a company is cooking its books?

Craig Newmark recently pointed to one of the neater ways in which someone might be able to determine if the numbers they're examining are following a natural pattern as opposed to an artificially-contrived one using Benford's Law, but unless you have access to reams and reams of internal company data, it's pretty unlikely that you as an individual without that kind of access could find out if something shady might be going on.

But for publicly-traded companies, you can get access to a company's publicly-reported financial statements, such as their annual reports or the 10-K statements they file with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). And with that information, you can calculate a company's "fraud score" or "F-Score", which can provide a pretty good indication of whether or not the people inside the company might be manipulating their accounting.

Using math originally developed by Patricia M. DeChow, Weili Ge, Chad R. Larson and Richard G. Sloan in 2007 using data from 1982 through 2002, and updated in 2010 to include all years from 1982 through 2005, we've updated our tool for calculating the F-Score for any publicly-traded company for which you can obtain the indicated data below!

For that, you'll need consecutive years worth of the company's annual data - our tool below provides that using Enron's data for the years 1998 (two years prior), 1999 (one year prior) and 2000 (year of interest).

Income Statement Data
Input Data	Year of Interest	One Year Prior	Two Years Prior
Sales (Revenues)
Net Income Before Extraordinary Items or Cumulative Effect of Accounting Changes
Balance Sheet Statement Data
Input Data	Year of Interest	One Year Prior	Two Years Prior
Cash and Cash Equivalents
Short Term Investments
Receivables (Total)
Inventories (Total)
Property, Plant and Equipment (Total Net)
Total Assets
Preferred Stock (Total)
Total Shareholder's (or Owner's) Equity
Statement of Cash Flows Data
Input Data	Year of Interest	One Year Prior	Two Years Prior
Issuance of Long-Term Debt
Issuance of Common or Preferred Stock

Probability of Accounting Manipulations
Calculated Results	Values
F-Score

Here, a result greater than a value of 1 indicates a statistically higher than expected likelihood that the numbers the company in question has published have been misstated, which is "accountingese" for suggesting that the company's books may have been cooked! The following guide, developed by the F-score's creators, may be used to interpret the tool's results ("F-Score 1" corresponds to the specific model used in our tool):

We should note that the math is somewhat sensitive - the formula's creators indicate it will produce a high frequency of false positives, which means that an F-Score greater than one should be taken as an indication that an average investor should be much more diligent in reviewing a company's business before making investing decisions related to it.

The tool above provides different results from our original version of the F-Score formula, which was based upon the original 2007 math.

This update to our original tool is the result of a collaborative project with Pasi Havia, who was seeking to implement a Finnish-language version of the tool. We owe our thanks to Pasi for his detective work in finding that the formula for calculating a company's F-score had changed from 2007 and for developing the new and improved code to calculate the F-Score!

If you compare the results between Pasi's version and ours above, you'll find that the results between the two tools are nearly identical - the difference comes down to how the rounding for the value of the mathematical constant e in the formula was done (Pasi rounded it to 8 decimal places for the sake of matching the authors' results in their paper, while we just let it run!)

Related Tools at Political Calculations

Predicting Bankruptcy

How likely is it that a publicly traded company will declare bankruptcy in the next year? Our tool for calculating the company's Altman Z-Score can answer! It predicted General Motors failure years before the company failed!

Liquidity

Does that publicly-traded company have enough money flowing through its veins to keep operating?

The Core Business of Planned Parenthood

How much of the revenue Planned Parenthood generates through its health center affiliates comes from performing abortion procedures?

The question arises because of a chart Planned Parenthood provided in its 2009-10 annual report. In it, Planned Parenthood indicates that abortion services account for just 3% of all the health services it provides:

We suspect this chart was generated to attempt to underemphasize the extent to which Planned Parenthood's provision of abortion services add to its bottom line through the health centers the organization's affiliates operate. [As an aside, that contribution is even visually understated in Planned Parenthood's pie chart, in that abortion services are depicted in a very understated gray tone, where all the other procedures are shown in bright color.]

Since we've already worked out the average price paid for the majority of abortions performed by annual caseload volume of non-hospital abortion providers in the United States for 2008-09, we'll go back to Planned Parenthood's 2008-09 annual report to work out how much of the revenue it generated from abortion services contributed to its overall revenue for all the health services it provided in that year.

Will it be just 3%, as the pie chart depicting all of the health services Planned Parenthood provided in 2009-10 suggests? Our pie chart below provides the answer:

In 2008-09, Planned Parenthood reported that it generated $404.9 million in revenue through the health centers operated by it and its affiliates. Our low end estimate of $135.6 million for the 324,008 abortion services the organization performed in that year would then represent at least one-third of all the revenue generated by the organization through its health centers.

To put that into the context of Planned Parenthood's total revenue for 2008-09, the amount of revenue the organization generates through abortion services would account for 12.3% of all its annual income, or very nearly 1 out of every 8 dollars:

As such, despite representing just 3% of Planned Parenthood's reported number of health services provided each year, abortion represents the core business of the organization.

Previously on Political Calculations

• The Volume Pricing of Abortion


• The Throughput of Abortion Providers


• The Providers of Abortion in the U.S.


• Race, Poverty and Abortion