You've never seen data presented like this before

It's fun, it's educational, and it's highly thought-provoking.

Thanks to an old friend Mohamad Ferej, I had the pleasure to get acquainted with  Hans Rosling and his work.

With the drama and urgency of a sportscaster, statistics guru Hans Rosling explains how the world population will grow, global warming, child mortality vs number of childrens per woman born, the rise of the east vs the west - and why it all matters for the decisions and planning for the future!

Below you will find some of the presentations that I like best. These are all between 10 to 20 minutes long, You will definitely enjoy them all and get hooked just like I was when I saw them the first time.
It's amazing how Hans Rosling in such a short time frame can get his message through and deliver a solid statement.




Recommended videos: 
- Hans Rosling on global population growth
- Hans Rosling and the magic washing machine
- Hans Rosling: Religions and babies
- Hans Rosling: Asia's rise -- how and when


... and there are plenty more. You just have to find out yourself.

Good luck and enjoy the shows!

What Greece and Argentina have in common

The scary part is that if you replace the name Argentina with Greece and people's names and currencies; you will find this to be a rather similar account of what is going on now in Greece and Europe, more than 10 years after the events in Argentina. The big difference is that Argentina had its own currency, which makes the case of Greece so much more complicated.

Argentina

Greece

Below is my summary of the Argentine economic crisis (1999-2002)  from Wikipedia:

"The Argentine economic crisis (1999-2002) was a dire financial downturn that affected Argentina's economy during the late 1990s and the early years of the 2000s. In macro-economical terms, the critical period started with the decrease of real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 1999 and ended in 2002 with a return to GDP growth. However, the origins of the collapse, as well as the effects upon the country's residents, can be traced back to earlier economic and political decisions that were reportedly of a questionable nature.

In a 2001 interview, journalist Peter Katel identified three very serious crises that converged at "the worst possible time" in his explanation for why the Argentinian economy unraveled in the manner that it did, at the time that it did:

• The Argentine peso was bound to the US dollar at the start of the 1990s by the Economy Minister at the time, Domingo Cavallo.
• The large amounts of borrowing by former Argentine president, Carlos Menem.
• An increase in debt due to the considerable shrinkage in the size of tax revenue that the government was receiving.

By late December, 2001, riots had reached the capital, Buenos Aires. Confrontations between the police and citizens became a common sight, and fires were also set on Buenos Aires avenues

The crisis intensified when, on 5 December 2001, the IMF refused to release a US$1.3 billion tranche of its loan, citing the failure of the Argentinean government to reach previously agreed-upon budget deficit targets and demanded further budget cuts, amounting 10% of the federal budget. On 4 December, Argentinean bond yields stood at 34% over U.S. treasury bonds, and, by 11 December, the spread jumped to 42%. By the end of November 2001, people fearing the worst began withdrawing large sums of money from their bank accounts, turning pesos into dollars and sending them abroad, causing a run on the banks. On 2 December 2001 the government enacted a set of measures, informally known as the corralito ,that effectively froze all bank accounts for twelve months, allowing for only minor sums of cash to be withdrawn, initially announced to be of just $250 a week.

During the last week of 2001, the interim government led by Rodríguez Saá, facing the impossibility of meeting debt payments, defaulted on the larger part of the public debt, totalling no less than US$132 billion, what approximately represented the seventh portion of all the money borrowed by the Third World.

Rodríguez Saá, utterly incapable of dealing with the crisis and unsupported by his own party, resigned before the end of the year. The Legislative Assembly convened again, appointing Peronist Eduardo Duhalde—then a Senator for the Buenos Aires province—to take his place. After much deliberation, Duhalde abandoned in January 2002 the fixed 1-to-1 peso–dollar parity that had been in place for ten years. In a matter of days, the peso lost a large part of its value in the unregulated market. In addition to the corralito, the Ministry of Economy dictated the pesificación, by which all bank accounts denominated in dollars would be converted to pesos at official rate. This measure angered most savings holders and appeals were made by many citizens to declare it unconstitutional. After a few months, the exchange rate was left to float more or less freely. The peso suffered a 80% depreciation, which in turn prompted inflation since Argentina depended heavily on imports, and had no means to replace them locally at the time."

- - -

I ledaren 20 maj i DN så gör Peter Wolodarski följande sammanfattning att  "historien på väg att upprepas, med större efterdyningar" där han synar händelserna Argentina och hur dessa speglas i dagens händelser i Europa och Grekland och hur aktörerna runt agerar kontra-produktivt. Detta trots att facit redan finns att hämta från tidigare kriser, såsom som den i Argentina.

I ledaren 3 juni i DN så fortsätter Peter Woldodarski att diskutera vilka vägskäl och beslut som kommer att krävas inom EU för att Euro-samarbetet inte skall spricka. Wolodarski sammanfatta på ett bra sätt bakgrunden "Orsaken är att ekonomierna under lång tid, precis som Sverige på 1980-­talet, eldats på av billiga krediter och omfattande spekulation i bostäder. Medlemskapet i euron pressade ned räntan till en alldeles för låg nivå. När så krisen kom spräcktes prisbubblan och fastighetsmarknaden kraschade. Som en direkt konsekvens backade BNP, skatteintäkterna rasade och budgetunderskottet exploderade".

och....den 17 juni är det nyval i Grekland. Nu gäller det att ingenting händer under de fyra veckorna som är kvar fram tills dess.

I ett tidigare blogginlägg kan du läsa om hur du kan positionera ekonomiskt inför Greklands högst troliga utträde ur euro-samarbetet. Vi får hoppas att det inskränker sig till Grekland, för annars blir det, som Peter Wolodarski skriver "potentiellt katastrofala politiska och ekonomiska konsekvenser".

Det är lätt att glömma bort hur vackert det är i Grekland

när man bara läser om de ekonomiska problemen

The surprising truth about what motivates us

It's really interesting to understand what drives people to do wonderful stuff. Take a look at this animated video adapted from Dan Pink's talk at the RSA 1).

The conclusion by Dan Pink is that as long as you pay people enough salary to keep the topic of money off the table, there are 3 things that REALLY drive people to innovate and come up with new ideas;
- Autonomy - give people a frame and a goal to work towards - don't micro-manage
- Mastery - people wants to get better at stuff and master new disciplines
- Purpose - people wants to make the world a little better place to live in
Unless those 3 things are in place, it doesn't matter how much bonus you throw at people...

So, what can you do after listening to this talk?

Well, make a new start at your own  company today.
Present the concept for your group or department. Make sure you have your clear goals of what you want to achieve. Target the broken down goals for your specific department. What is your group supposed to aim at in order to support the overall top company goals?. If you're in R&D it could be to lower the cost of goods sold, improve the performance of the product, or to reduce the manufacturing time or lead time etc.. If you're in an economy function it can be about how you can improve your most important financial KPIs. Everybody can do this.
Start with a 1-day workshop, and repeat that every 3rd month. Increase it to a 2-day workshop if that workds better for your kind of work. Let people work on and present new ideas and concepts on whatever they think is interesting during 24-48 hours. Then invite sales and management when the group is presenting all their new ideas; each group has 15 minutes and a 5 minute session for questions. Make it a party! Celebrate! Afterwards, go through and analyze all new ideas and put the best ones into the plan or road map. It's amazing what people can come up with. I tried this concept.Not only does it works, it's big fun too!

Here are some suggestions when discussing with your group what could be good to keep in mind when coming up with new ideas or trying to improve on already existing methods;
- Consider with new (unprecedented) connections between cause and effect - ask stupid questions!
- Simplify!
- Experiment and do simple prototypes; there's nothing like trying out things in practice.
- Re-use or re-visit earlier failures; sometimes a new approach under new conditions can change things.
- Have patience!

Here is the book by Dan Pink: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates/dp/184767769X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337465566&sr=1-1

 

And, here is the link to the full presentation by Dan Pink at RSA. Enjoy!

1) The RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) is an enlightenment organisation committed to finding innovative practical solutions to today’s social challenges.

Positionera dig inför Greklands utträde ur euro-samarbetet

Alla verkar nu mer eller mindre överens om att det bara är en tidsfråga innan Grekland lämnar euro-samarbetet. Frågan är vad som händer med övriga Europa och hur marknaden reagerar?

http://www.economist.com/node/21555572 "The Greek run"

"It is not a good idea for Greece to leave the euro. But it is time to prepare for its departure..."

Är det bara att "sitta still i båten", eller kan man göra något?
Enligt ett extra nyhetsbrev som kom 16 maj från SEB så är det dags att lägga om sina tillgångar inför "sommarens härdsmälta" (min formulering). Ni som kommer ihåg kanske minns förra sommaren? Nu skall man särskilt hålla sig borta särskilt från aktier som är cykliska, obligationslån/fonder (investment grade och high yield), samt alla små valutor. Köp istället USD, japanska yen, schweiziska CH, och fyll på med Guld....
Se bilden nedan.

SEBs förslag på positionering, för den som vill skydda sig vid grekiskt utträde ur eurosamarbetet, är:
1) 25% Valutacertifikat Long JPY F S
2) 25% Råvarucertifikat Long Guld D S
3) 50% SEB Penningsmarknad USD - Lux ack


En annan intressant detalj är att folk har börjat göra sig av med Euro-sedlar som har bokstaven Y framför det elva-siffriga löpnumret (se t ex sedeln i bilden högst upp). Dessa är Euro-sedlar tryckta av Grekland. Läs den här artikeln för mer om hur löpnummren och landskoder fungerar.

Selling cars online... also in Sweden?

Så här har det sett ut i bilhallarna sedan 2:a världskriget...

http://www.economist.com/node/21542456

I USA har det kommit nya tjänster på nätet som låter konsumenter att välja och begära offerter från bilhandlare på nätet. Bilbranschen står inför vad som redan har skett i andra branscher med internets intåg, nytt kundbeteende och smart phones.

Här i Sverige så har nu den nya oberoende sajten FACIT  dragit igång. Där man kan jämföra samtliga bilmodeller och bilversioner som finns att köpa. Testa själv!

www.facit.com

Varför blir det så här då?

Jo, enligt en undersökning baserad på svar från 8 000 globala nybilsköpare så är 1/3 av alla nybilsköpare osugna på att handla av en bilhandlare. Mest för de vill slippa att förhandla om priset eller ha med bilsäljare att göra. Varför skulle man inte kunna sitta och jämföra bilar av olika märken med varandra på nätet hemma i lugn och rooch sedan åka till rätt ställe på en gång som har en kampanj på den bil man söker eller som redan gett en offert?
Enligt samma undersökning så har 71 procent svarat att de också skulle kunna tänka sig att ändra sitt bilval efter att de har läst positiva omdömen från andra om en bilmodell i sociala medier. 51 procent skulle kunna ändra sig efter att ha läst negativaomdömen.

En annan undersökning från Moderna visar också att vi i Sverige är de som har lägst märkeslojalitet när det kommer till bilar i hela Norden. Endast 28 procent av oss skulle kunna tänka sig att köpa en bil av samma märke som man haft tidigare när det är dags att köpa nytt.

Annat var det på farfars tid då man höll sig till ett bilmärke och gick till sin lokala bilhandlare!

Paper Money Collapse & Tulip Mania

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Paper-Money-Collapse-Monetary-Breakdown/dp/1118095758/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337285221&sr=8-1

Just finished reading this book while the news all around are screaming "Greek exit" and "Euro collapse"...
It's a bit repetitious but still drives home the point and the fact that there has never been one single stable system of paper currency or similar without a fixed value base during the last 5000 years...
If finance had been a science, the elastic paper would not be around due to all failed experiments so far in China, North America, Europe etc.

Otherwise, do you remember the painting Tulip Mania and the tragic story behind it?

A Satire of Tulip Mania by Brueghel the Younger (ca. 1640) depicts speculators as brainless monkeys in contemporary upper-class dress. In a commentary on the economic folly, one monkey urinates on the previously valuable plants, others appear in debtor's court and one is carried to the grave.

Sydney Wignall, explorer, spy and marine archaeologist, died on April6th, aged 89

Obituary worth reading

http://www.economist.com/node/21554174