Article on Louisiana Unemployment
Here is an example of the problem. This report stats important information but does not link the information with other obvious questions, such as "How much of the federal government's $60 billion will be spent helping people who have been unemployed as a result of the storm find employment?" or even better "Is the government making use of available Louisiana labor a priority in FEMA contractor selection?"
Now this article: New Orleans seeks federal aid for courts, jail starts to scratch the surface a little, but will it get picked up by the major media outlets (it is a Reuters service piece).
In another story (with positive implications), some evidence that the recommended model is being adopted in some cases - U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and MWH Help Put New Orleans Area Utilities and Local Contractors Back to Work
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
New Orleans, Katrina, FEMA, and the aftermath
My friend Alex has just returned to his home in uptown New Orleans. They have power and water, but the city is far from returned to normal. Alex is a very intelligent and well-informed citizen and his role as an officer of the local United Way chapter has given him unique access to the situation on the ground. Unfortunately, the news is not good.
The city of New Orleans is nearly bankrupt. The absence of commerce, the exodus of its tax base, and some ironic aspects of even the good stuff that is happening means that the city's revenues have ground to a halt. Few people realize that of the $60 billion approved for relief by the federal government, the city of New Orleans (i.e., government) receives almost none of this. 3,000 city workers (about half of the staff) has been laid off in the past couple of weeks, and the city's ability to pay the remaining workers is seriously threatened. Recently, Congress allocated $750 million of the $60 billion to be shared with affected municipalities across the gulf region, but this is a drop in the bucket compared to what is really needed.
The situation was not helped by the asinine proposal by the state's two senators to grant the state of Louisiana an astronomical $250 billion in federal aid IN ADDITION TO the $60 billion. This proposal would be equal to nearly 10% of the entire federal budget and was ridiculous. The resulting loss of credibility in congress means effectively that the state is unlikely to receive any material aid from the feds.
So where is the money going? FEMA is hiring contract services firms, like Haliburton, to clean up the city. These firms are subcontracting out the work to firms around the country. For example, the removal of stranded, ruined cars from throughout the city is being conducted by a firm based in California. This firm did not use local labor and trucks, but instead drove its own trucks from California and hired migrant labor for some of the more menial tasks. This example highlights a pattern for the city.
The mainstream news media is divided into two camps - those outlets who operate as a political engine (conservative talk radio, Fox News, etc.) are propogating spin - New Orleans is suffering because of a bad mayor and a bad governor but the federal government is doing wonders. The more liberal or independent media outlets are focusing on human interest stories - the tragic circumstances of evacuee families, the plight of an unemployed New Orleans worker, etc. NO ONE is covering the story of how the federal money is being spent and the realities of the city's economic situation.
Is Nagin the best mayor? Probably not. But is the situation his fault? No, not by any reasonable measure. You cannot ask a government to operate effectively with no money and no means to earn revenues.
New Orleans will eventually recover much of the magic that the world has known for centuries. But the process is abominable and appears to be done entirely the wrong way. Any ideas about how to escalate the visibility of this?
Ugh.
My friend Alex has just returned to his home in uptown New Orleans. They have power and water, but the city is far from returned to normal. Alex is a very intelligent and well-informed citizen and his role as an officer of the local United Way chapter has given him unique access to the situation on the ground. Unfortunately, the news is not good.
The city of New Orleans is nearly bankrupt. The absence of commerce, the exodus of its tax base, and some ironic aspects of even the good stuff that is happening means that the city's revenues have ground to a halt. Few people realize that of the $60 billion approved for relief by the federal government, the city of New Orleans (i.e., government) receives almost none of this. 3,000 city workers (about half of the staff) has been laid off in the past couple of weeks, and the city's ability to pay the remaining workers is seriously threatened. Recently, Congress allocated $750 million of the $60 billion to be shared with affected municipalities across the gulf region, but this is a drop in the bucket compared to what is really needed.
The situation was not helped by the asinine proposal by the state's two senators to grant the state of Louisiana an astronomical $250 billion in federal aid IN ADDITION TO the $60 billion. This proposal would be equal to nearly 10% of the entire federal budget and was ridiculous. The resulting loss of credibility in congress means effectively that the state is unlikely to receive any material aid from the feds.
So where is the money going? FEMA is hiring contract services firms, like Haliburton, to clean up the city. These firms are subcontracting out the work to firms around the country. For example, the removal of stranded, ruined cars from throughout the city is being conducted by a firm based in California. This firm did not use local labor and trucks, but instead drove its own trucks from California and hired migrant labor for some of the more menial tasks. This example highlights a pattern for the city.
The mainstream news media is divided into two camps - those outlets who operate as a political engine (conservative talk radio, Fox News, etc.) are propogating spin - New Orleans is suffering because of a bad mayor and a bad governor but the federal government is doing wonders. The more liberal or independent media outlets are focusing on human interest stories - the tragic circumstances of evacuee families, the plight of an unemployed New Orleans worker, etc. NO ONE is covering the story of how the federal money is being spent and the realities of the city's economic situation.
Is Nagin the best mayor? Probably not. But is the situation his fault? No, not by any reasonable measure. You cannot ask a government to operate effectively with no money and no means to earn revenues.
New Orleans will eventually recover much of the magic that the world has known for centuries. But the process is abominable and appears to be done entirely the wrong way. Any ideas about how to escalate the visibility of this?
Ugh.
Friday, October 14, 2005
In 1996, I started writing about advertising price equilibrium on the Internet. (Yep, this is a yawner, folks.) 9 years later, I'm still talking about it, but more than that we are leveraging this within IHG E-Commerce. My theory revolves around the premise that advertising costs are a function of risk and timing combined with the value of the advertiser's desired outcome plus any branding value. Here is my first attempt to express this function mathematically:
Risk describes which party - the advertiser or the publisher - is bearing the risks of the advertisement. If the advertiser is required to pay irrespective of performance metrics, his risk is greater. If the publisher is not paid unless a sale (or equivalent desired outcome) is achieved, she bears the risk. For the advertiser's cost model
Timing refers to when payment is made for the ad. This value ranges from prepayment to payment in arrears, with a lower value for payment terms similar to prepayment and a higher value for payment in arrears (inverted for the publisher's pricing model).
Uncertainty takes into account asymmetry of information between the advertiser and publisher. For the advertiser, this factor is highest in the first instance where a particular ad placement is purchased by an advertiser (so it would have a value between 0.0 and 1.0, with a lower value indicating greater uncertainty). For the publisher, this risk continues as long as they are not able to access income about the success rate in achieving the advertiser's desired outcome and the value placed on that outcome by the advertiser. Publisher's tend to deal with this uncertainty by under-pricing ads, so values here would be greater than 1.0. An absence of uncertainty (perfect information) would yield a value of exactly 1.0.
Value of desired outcome is entirely determined by the advertiser. This needs to be a real, fixed value in order for this theoretical model to actually be useful in pricing. For some firms, it may mean reaching an arbitrary value by consensus until a more mature and robust valuation model can be built.
Branding value, also determined largely by the advertiser, attempts to quantify what an impression is worth irrespective of the specific, trackable outcome that might otherwise be desired. (This one gets tricky not because in some cases the impression is the desirable outcome, but because most advertisers do not have this metric defined and this would vary from publisher to publisher or even placement to placement.)
I have a powerpoint chart which expresses this function graphically, and at some point I'll publish it to this forum in some way.
Increasingly, I find myself thinking that there might be a book in this somewhere. My friend Bill Nussey, author of The Quiet Revolution in Email Marketing advises me that this is a minimum 1,000 hour effort even with a professional writer.
Price of Advertisement = [(Risk/Uncertainty) X Timing] X Value of desired outcome + Branding value.
Risk describes which party - the advertiser or the publisher - is bearing the risks of the advertisement. If the advertiser is required to pay irrespective of performance metrics, his risk is greater. If the publisher is not paid unless a sale (or equivalent desired outcome) is achieved, she bears the risk. For the advertiser's cost model
Timing refers to when payment is made for the ad. This value ranges from prepayment to payment in arrears, with a lower value for payment terms similar to prepayment and a higher value for payment in arrears (inverted for the publisher's pricing model).
Uncertainty takes into account asymmetry of information between the advertiser and publisher. For the advertiser, this factor is highest in the first instance where a particular ad placement is purchased by an advertiser (so it would have a value between 0.0 and 1.0, with a lower value indicating greater uncertainty). For the publisher, this risk continues as long as they are not able to access income about the success rate in achieving the advertiser's desired outcome and the value placed on that outcome by the advertiser. Publisher's tend to deal with this uncertainty by under-pricing ads, so values here would be greater than 1.0. An absence of uncertainty (perfect information) would yield a value of exactly 1.0.
Value of desired outcome is entirely determined by the advertiser. This needs to be a real, fixed value in order for this theoretical model to actually be useful in pricing. For some firms, it may mean reaching an arbitrary value by consensus until a more mature and robust valuation model can be built.
Branding value, also determined largely by the advertiser, attempts to quantify what an impression is worth irrespective of the specific, trackable outcome that might otherwise be desired. (This one gets tricky not because in some cases the impression is the desirable outcome, but because most advertisers do not have this metric defined and this would vary from publisher to publisher or even placement to placement.)
I have a powerpoint chart which expresses this function graphically, and at some point I'll publish it to this forum in some way.
Increasingly, I find myself thinking that there might be a book in this somewhere. My friend Bill Nussey, author of The Quiet Revolution in Email Marketing advises me that this is a minimum 1,000 hour effort even with a professional writer.
Monday, October 03, 2005
Find out how some of the world’s most successful companies are taking advantage of the international online marketplace and how they are expanding their brands beyond domestic borders to create tremendous global growth for their companies.
The panel is taking place at The Travel Distribution Summit 2005, which is produced by EyeForTravel.com. It will be moderated by Henry Harteveldt, Vice President of Travel Research at Forrester Research. Panelists include:
· Del Ross, Vice President, Global E-Commerce Services,
InterContinental Hotels Group
· Michael Hanke, International E-Commerce Strategist,
United Airlines
· Noreen Henry, Vice President, Hotels, Travelocity
Date: Tuesday, October 4th
Time: 3:30 - 4:30 p.m. Central Time
To Participate: Log onto:
http://events.streamlogics.com/conferenceplus/business/Oct0405/index.asp
Please RSVP as soon as possible to:
The panel is taking place at The Travel Distribution Summit 2005, which is produced by EyeForTravel.com. It will be moderated by Henry Harteveldt, Vice President of Travel Research at Forrester Research. Panelists include:
· Del Ross, Vice President, Global E-Commerce Services,
InterContinental Hotels Group
· Michael Hanke, International E-Commerce Strategist,
United Airlines
· Noreen Henry, Vice President, Hotels, Travelocity
Date: Tuesday, October 4th
Time: 3:30 - 4:30 p.m. Central Time
To Participate: Log onto:
http://events.streamlogics.com/conferenceplus/business/Oct0405/index.asp
Please RSVP as soon as possible to:
Subscribe to:
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