dantiernan.com Blog

Oh yeah! Hold on. Sure, your stock holdings are down - but if you hold long enough, that might all work itself out. However, job losses will cause real near-term pain and the reality is: the job losses are not there yet.

This is one stat that is really easy to measure and fairly reliable: non-farm payroll figures are released by the government on the first Friday of every month and these numbers frequently kick off a frenzy of speculative trading in the foreign exchange markets.

Interestingly, the unemployment rate in September stayed steady at 6.1%. About a year ago, the unemployment rate was 4.7%, so it has grown, but there have not been any recent surges. I am not sure of the typical lag, but I have to believe the job losses are coming.

The unemployment rate has not hit 10% since the government reported it in it’s current form in 1942 - - the highest being 9.7/9.6 in 1982/83 respectively. Those were the only years it ever rose above 9%. When people start losing their jobs, this will be a lot more painful than the loss of homes from bad loans (which should not have been made anyway).

The unemployment rate reached almost 25% during the depression in 1933, but I can’t imagine that we will screw up that bad this go around. So, things are not that bad yet. I am sure they will get worse, but confident they would be nearly as bad as they have been for those before us.

I saw a few good April Fools pranks floating around the net.

Josh Kopelman’s UNfunded
Michael Arrington’s $25 million suit against Facebook
Jason Busch’s departure to the analyst world

Sports Illustrated set the standard over 20 years ago with their story about Sidd Finch

He’s a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidd’s deciding about yoga — and his future in baseball

Google generally does a good job, but no one has matched Sidd Finch.

Seth is brilliant.

He is a prolific blogger and consistently writes thought-provoking posts and points us to other people’s great posts.

This morning I woke up and he gave me two gems.

This one he wrote reminded me to:
1. Not rely on their being one silver bullet marketing or sales tactic.

2. Don’t project my own personal preferences onto the rest of the market.

He also pointed us to the concept of 1,000 great fans, written by Kevin Kelly. Kevin offers a formula that can help artists/artisans/craftspeople transform their passion into a career.

Steve Jobs is a master story teller and salesman that uses themes, outlines, images and passion to make sure he is heard.

Learn how Steve does it. This analysis is very similar to a previous post that includes powerpoint presentation guidelines from Seth Godin and Guy Kawasaki.

Seth Godin recently reposted his views on how so many companies create really bad powerpoint decks with uninspiring, boring information presentation. His key message - a picture is worth a 1,000 words.

For example:

Can you trust job candidate interviews?

What makes the point better? this picture, or several bullet pointed phrases?
Meanwhile, Guy Kawaski preaches the 10/20/30 rule in making powerpoint presentations. No more than 10 slides, in 20 minutes with 30 point font. Who is right and who is wrong? I think they are both right. For an investor deck, I focus on Guy’s points first and mix in Godin. For sales decks, the oppposite is true.

If you are trying to sell a product that requires education on a concept, then you really out to check out this VERY innovative presentation on Identity 2.0 , made by Dick Hardt, the CEO of Sxip Identity. You will understand the challenges associated with Identity Mangement after listening to this and you will be entertained. Very unique approach - applicable for the right audience at the right time.