The Case for Facebook Ads

What this chart does not show is that Chrome and Facebook have almost the same amount of users, 700 million. My ad will be most likely be seen on Facebook than of Google simply because  the amount of adds on Google is 6 times more.

You will find more statistics at Statista. Chart of the day of 08/28/13

5 Mistakes Steve Ballmer Made As Microsoft CEO

The most important piece of news in Corporate America this week was the resignation of Steve Ballmer as Microsoft CEO. He supposed to be until 2018 but in an unexpected long awaited decision he leaves his post within a year. Just before the bubble exploded on 2000, Steve Ballmer was named  Microsoft, CEO. The stock has made an all time high, pre-split price, of 119,43 in December 1999. The market crashed on March 2000, then came September 11, 2001, Iraq war, the market recovered  and the stock never recovered. While Apple and Google were making headlines, Microsoft felt behind never catching up and losing a decade. 5 mistakes that contributed to his lack of vision and leadership:

Not a Geek but a businessman: Pointed as his biggest obstacle was that Ballmer did not understand the tech world but the business world. if you are a tech company,  have a tech, cool, visionary, design oriented, creative, charismatic genius as  CEO, the business part will come along.

Bureaucracy: He may not know tech but a lot of employees did , getting to the decision maker was almost impossible(1). Technology companies must have a horizontal structure not a hierarchical one. Ideas must be implemented at the minute they are conceived or literally someone else will do.

Non Believer:  He said  “ Google's not a real company. It's a house of cards” and about Apple "There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance,".  He missed the two biggest tech trends of the decade, Internet Search and Mobile. A CEO of a tech company must be a believer and absolutely open to new trends.

Lack of Determination: Costly decisions like not being too pushy to buy Yahoo! or being too shy to buy just 1.6% of Facebook. He did not lack the vision but lack the determination in this two deals. On the upside He bought Skype, included in the deal Tony Bates , Skype CEO at that time and is one of the internal candidates for CEO(2). If you get an insight follow it with all your heart.

Corporate Culture of Fear: This was the most controversial issue inside Microsoft, a qualification system called “stack racking” considered the most destructive for corporate culture (1). You should learn in this era to have your employees happy, a fear culture is out of the question.

The result is a lost decade  for Microsoft. They still rely in its office products that are wonderful but more open software is out in the market and they are not into the cloud trend either. As expected the stock price went up 10% which is the way sentiment is expressed, meaning investors see Ballmer exit as a positive for Microsoft. Is this a new era  or  the continuation of the  end?  In a statement Ballmer said “There is never a perfect time for this type of transition, but now is the right time.”  This quote maybe his best yet.

(1) See Vanity Fair August 2012 -

(2) Wall Street Journal  - Microsoft's Potential CEO Candidates August 23, 2013

Facebook’s Algorithm for Internet Connectivity as a Human Right

On August 20, Mark Zuckerberg made the case on Why Internet Connectivity is a Human Right. The striking number, 5 billion people in the world are still without internet connectivity as of 2013.  Here is a brief of his analysis:

Algorithm

low cost data + limited data = limited access *knowledge economy = Facebook

Introduction

•   In his proposal Mark Zuckerberg points out that Facebook will not necessarily profit from this initiative but his purpose is just the inclusion of people.

•   5 billion people without internet access. Of  these,  4 billion own  feature phones and 1 billion have smart phones.

•   People should get at least a service like Facebook and then grow from there.

Why internet is so important

To spread knowledge, the more things we all know, the better ideas, products and services we can all offer and the better all of our lives will be. He says “The knowledge economy is the future”.

4 Obstacles on the path to connecting everyone

1.       Most people in the world don’t have much disposable income to spend on data access.

2.       The global infrastructure required to deliver the internet is extremely expensive.

3.       Lack of understanding of what a data plan is.

4.       A lot of people do not have cell phones yet, but they are not covered in this presentation.

The Vision

Increase data delivery by 100x in the next 5-10 years by bringing down the underlying costs of delivering data, and using less data by building more efficient apps.

The Rough Plan

•   Making internet access affordable by making it more efficient to deliver data.

•   Using less data by improving the efficiency of the apps and experiences we use.

•   Helping businesses drive internet access by developing a new model to get people online.

Win-Win Situation

•   This is good for people because they’ll have an affordable way and a reason to connect to the internet and join the global knowledge economy.

•   This is good for mobile operators because they’ll have more customers who want to buy more data, which will increase their profits and help them invest in building out the networks

•   This is good for phone manufacturers and technology providers because more people will want better devices, which will push the industry forward.

•   This is good for internet services because the efficiencies we’ll all drive will make it easier and cheaper for the next 5 billion people to access their services.

•   This is good for the world because everyone will benefit from the increased knowledge, experience and progress we make from having everyone connected to the internet.

  

Conclusion

If it all works according to plan 5 billion people will have at least a data service called Facebook.

Content provided by info@AlphaSMC.com

La Educación como parte de la Solución a la Inclusión Financiera

Sin lugar a dudas el tema para la siguiente década va a ser la Inclusión Financiera. El sector financiero está  solidificado después de la aguda crisis del 2008 y en el marco de las nuevas regulaciones su mejor posibilidad de crecimiento es atreves de la inclusión financiera.  Tres interesados surgen con el mismo propósito:

·         Bancos y Entidades Financieras,  necesitan de fuentes de ingresos frescas y crecimiento para poder sostener el precio de sus acciones que se han apreciado en un 31% a lo largo del último año. [1]

·         Los Gobiernos,  necesitan incentivar la economía con pequeñas empresas y más personas usando los mecanismos formales dela economía.

·         Fundaciones de Apoyo, que están abogando para  incluir a más personas de la base de la pirámide en el sector financiero. Esto en países del continente Africano y demás países en donde las finanzas informales siguen siendo altas.

Un ejemplo de Gobierno, es el caso de México, en donde  el objetivo principal de la reforma financiera a aprobarse es dar más crédito y más barato con la intención de incluir a millones de mexicanos en el sector formal de la economía.

Varios productos se están creando para suplir esta deficiencia económica. El Centro de Inclusión Financiera ACCION – público en su blog [2] como las remesas podrían ser un instrumento de inclusión conjunto a un programa de educación el cual se llevó a cabo en el país de Armenia en donde el 16%  del PIB proviene de remesas, similar a los casos de Honduras, El Salvador, Jamaica, Nicaragua y Guatemala.  El programa fue patrocinado por el Banco Europeo de Reconstrucción y Desarrollo, BERD. El programa consiste en proveer educación financiera gratis a los recipientes de las remesas en el sitio en donde las reciben, en este caso el banco. Con un resultado de apertura de nuevas cuentas corrientes en el 50% de las personas entrenadas. El mismo piloto se implementó en Tayikistán y la Kirguizistan
.

La capacitación de las personas que están ingresando al sistema se probó de vital importancia en este programa.  La relación entre el banco a donde llegan las remesas y el remitido o quien recibe la remesa nunca se formaliza,  mantenido a las remesas como un típico producto de la economía informal. Con un programa de educación financiera como el patrocinado por el BERD se demostró que al menos el 48% de los usuarios de las remesas fueron receptivos y además incluidos.

Grafica 1.0 Remesas como % del PIB 

De acuerdo a cifras del Banco Mundial los ingresos de remesas en países no desarrollados alcanzo un nivel de $401 billones en el 2012 y con una tasa de crecimiento de un 8.8% en el periodo del 2013-2015 este monto aumentara a $515 billones en el 2015. [3]

En general los países con menor PIB de la zona latinoamericana, son los que tienen mayor ingreso de remesas porcentualmente. Ver Grafica 1.0 [4]

Así es mucho el campo de acción que hay para desarrollo de instrumentos financieros que incluyen remesas, un mecanismo calificado de informal en donde se puede cerrar el gap entre el sector financiero informal y el formal usando la educación financiera de muchos habitantes de bajos recursos que las utilizan. 

References:

[1] Datos tomados de finviz.com en 08/16/13

[2] Blog de the Case for Offering Free Financial Consulting en http://cfi-blog.org

[3] Migration and Development Brief, 19 de Abril, 2013- World Bank

[4] Datos tomados de Remmitance Data- World Bank

[5] Source: World Bank staff calculation based on data from IMF Balance of Payments Statistics database and data releases from central banks, national statistical agencies, and World Bank country desks. See Migration and Development Brief 12 for the methodology for the forecasts.

Note: All numbers are in current (nominal) US $.

Date: April 2013

Unemployment and Planned Talent Acquisition

The United States Department of Labor releases the unemployment number the first Friday of every month. July’s unemployment was 7.4%, non-farm payrolls were 162.000. The labor market has dropped from 8.3% to 7.4% since last year. The unemployment number is a lagging indicator, long before the employment improves the economy has reactivated. Being this the case and with an economic rate policy at it lowest level, 0.25% for the longest time, it will not be long before the unemployment rate drops to 6.5%, level at which the rates will start to rise, according to the latest FOMC Policiy Statement. 

Unemployment Rate July 2013

Estimates are pointing towards the end of 2014 or beginning of 2015 for unemployment to fall below this levels. This is the appropriate period for a company to set up the platform for a new wave of economic growth. The assessment of talent your company needs for a period of economic growth is imminent. With online and social communities becoming so active, top talent is having lots of opportunities thus making it harder and more expensive for companies to close and acquire top candidates. ConsulTree offers strategic and planned solutions for talent acquisition to be prepared for the next wave of economic growth.

[Post this blog as you own content. Contact us info@alphasocialmediacontent.com]