march 31 2015

paid rent

almost done packing for my staycation in costa mesa

westin south coast plaza using starwood points, finally

easter is sunday - have to visit my parents

mad men returns on sunday for the 1st of its final 7 episodes

make sure to pack some medication for anxiety

buy club soda for tonight and my trip

why work?

1. pay bills
2. appreciate unemployment!

minds are overrated
just don't lose your nerve

a friend of mine lost his mother to cancer last year.
he is still grieving.
i told him it's ok to be in mourning.
don't rush the grieving process.
you may be in mourning for the rest of your life and that's ok.

also, watch six feet under

yesterday was my brother's birthday
also, kentucky escaped against notre dame
in 1992 duke escaped against kentucky
len elmore called both games
in 1992 with verne lundquist on cbs, the spectrum in philadelphia
in 2015 with chris webber and brian anderson on tbs

reminder to myself: after job offer, apply for home equity line of credit

coach k at duke ties wooden with 12 final fours

the most tournament wins:
kentucky
north carolina
duke

tom izzo has 7 final fours

kentucky under calipari has reached final four in 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2015

wisconsin has reached final four 2 straight years, beating arizona twice in elite eight

remember when bo ryan was not a tournament coach?

life may not be perfect but your outfit can be

best quote of the day

never interview on a monday or friday

it's a sham interview

why would anyone want to interview on a friday?

i know from personal experience that friday interviews were bullshit

i got rooney ruled

never interview on a friday

if someone suggests a friday interview, tell them that you are no longer interested in the job

football playoffs january 11

big upset of the day was colts smothering broncos.

broncos could not get any first downs in the 2nd half.

scored td in first quarter. none the rest of the game.

lots of misses by peyton manning.
a couple drops by d thomas.

packers got lucky against cowboys.
dez bryant almost made a great catch on 4th and 2.
overturned on replay.

cowboys covered
colts covered and won

both games went under.

seattle blew out carolina.

patriots escaped against ravens in a high scoring affair.

think like a freak

Some of the steps toward thinking like a Freak:

• First, put away your moral compass—because it’s hard to see a problem clearly if you’ve already decided what to do about it.
• Learn to say “I don’t know”—for until you can admit what you don’t yet know, it’s virtually impossible to learn what you need to.
• Think like a child—because you’ll come up with better ideas and ask better questions.
• Take a master class in incentives—because for better or worse, incentives rule our world.
• Learn to persuade people who don’t want to be persuaded—because being right is rarely enough to carry the day.
• Learn to appreciate the upside of quitting—because you can’t solve tomorrow’s problem if you aren’t willing to abandon today’s dud.

IDEAS: small, big or

great ideas come in three sizes:

small

big

transformative

dumb ideas are dumb regardless of size.

if your idea is dumb, the smaller the better.

LITTLE BETS

how breakthrough ideas emerge from small discoveries

author is peter sims

wiseman found that lucky people tend to be open to opportunities or insights that come along spontaneously, whereas unlucky people tend to be creatures of routine, fixated on certain specific outcomes


praising ability alone reduces persistence, while praising effort or the processes a person goes through to learn leads to growth mind set behaviors.


those favoring a growth mind set believe that intelligence and abilities can be grown through effort, and tend to view failures or setbacks as opportunities for growth. they have a desire to constantly challenge and stretch themselves.


affordable loss principle: how much can you afford to lose?
seasoned entrepreneurs will tend to determine in advance what they are willing to lose, rather than calculating expected gains.


illusion of rationality:
ideas or assumptions seem logical in a plan, spreadsheet, power point or memo, yet they haven't been validated on the ground or in the real world


ned barnholdt: a lot of our most successful ideas came from the bottom up, by really understanding user needs

when much is known, procedural planning approaches work.
when much is unknown, they do not.
procedural planning is opposite of improvisation.

who is larry summers?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers

highlights:

economic advisor to obama
secretary of treasury under clinton
president of harvard
chief economist at world bank

board director at lending club

stupidity and lack of knowledge

most mistakes occur because of:

stupidity and/or
ignorance

insightful quotes

what you know, they will never know and what they know, you can learn.

for the last time, incentives matter!

origin of the word amok:
lonely men, suffering from loss of love, money and/or face (respect).

sunlight is the best disinfectant

look for the higher payoff strategy

launch fast and iterate

keys to maximizing earnings in the work place:
intelligence,
education,
human capital,
punctuality
and ability to handle criticism

each day management presents dozens of opportunities to do something dumb.
stellar managers simply resist the temptation.

smart people should resist the temptation to be too clever by half
and
should absolutely resist the temptation to make clever investments which they do not understand 100%

don't try to be brilliant.
focus on not being stupid.

i work to put food in the fridge

i need to pay for food, shelter and entertainment.

why can't people be honest about work and money?

....

pretending to add value


http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/11/the-art-of-not-working-at-work/382121/?single_page=true

always pick the choice that scares you a little

http://blog.codinghorror.com/10-years-of-coding-horror/

http://blog.codinghorror.com/how-to-achieve-ultimate-blog-success-in-one-easy-step/

the status quo is too easy

questions to ask yourself before accepting job offer

1. is the company growing?

2. is your supervisor competent? nice?

3. are your coworkers competent? nice?

week 9 post mortem

chargers were throttled by dolphins 37-0 in miami

zero points
zero red zone plays

why was the offense so ineffective?
offensive line

defense is also horrible especially on 3rd down and in red zone

3 game losing streak
1-3 last 4 games

3-1
2-2
0-1

patriots look like the best team right now but 8 weeks left in the season

peyton manning continues to struggle in foxborough

patriots defense did a great job neutralizing broncos offense especially on 3rd and 4th down

the game was over in the 2nd quarter

anatomy of a company (aka how to kill a business)

1. do not understand business model

2. lack of mobile strategy

3. operational inefficiency

4. ignore clients

5. ignore employees

job vs. career vs. calling

job = pay the bills

career = increasingly better work 

calling = important part of your life and identity

source: cal newport

billion dollar lessons - book review

above average

first half of book was interesting, slightly repetitive

second half of the book was more prescriptive, less interesting and more repetitive

don't buy it

monday morning qb - october 13 2014

lions defense looks good

giants look terrible

browns look good

steelers offense is struggling

dolphins blew game against packers with poor situational defense with 20 seconds left to play

chargers defense looked shaky against raiders.
raiders could have won their first game

rams were controlling game against 49ers, 14-3, right before halftime but 49ers scored on a deep pass td before halftime. bad defense by the rams, playing man to man in that situation. changed the game. 49ers took control in the 2nd half.

company valuation and future growth

how do you determine the value of a company?

i asked my friend 

he replied: future growth

my response: 

how do you know how much the company will grow in the future?

who can predict the future?

no one that i know

is it a growth industry?

my response: 

how do you know if something is a growth industry?

can you take market share or invent something new to generate growth?

my response: 

two different things

gaining market share is hard

inventing something people will use or buy is hard

the industry drives the innovation to a degree
does the industry have innovation to offer?
can the innovation make a material difference or just a minor contribution?
my response:
i don't know if industry drives innovation
people innovate, not industry
this is an assumption people will disagree about

in most cases industry have some innovation to offer, most of it minor

iPhones do not grow on trees

neither does innovative thinking

future valuation is based on a lot of optimistic assumptions

technology = scale
future growth depends on technology? sounds reasonable to me

schumpeter, the look of a leader

typical ceo is

at least 6 feet tall

deep voice

good posture

touch of grey hair (not bald)

fit for his age

negatives:

overweight

uptalk

power poses

amy cuddy ted talk

executive presence

sylvia anne hewlett

lower register of your voice

eliminate uptalk

eye contact during presentation

work out regularly

oscar wilde: only shallow people who do not judge by appearances

schumpeter: decluttering the company

for a person or a company

a manager's job is to facilitate 

yet most managers do the exact opposite 

decluttering the company 

relentless fight against bureaucracy

bulging inbox

endless meetings

long list of objectives

forms of clutter: 

1. organizational complexity

2. meetings

3. emails

clutter hurts morale and productivity

most valuable company resource = time of employees

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21610237-businesses-must-fight-relentless-battle-against-bureaucracy-decluttering-company

billion dollar lessons (kindle)

currently reading billion dollar lessons

story about failed mergers and acquisitions

so far, the book is disappointing
topic is interesting but the writing is dry and repetitive

sounds like 2 management consultants writing a book

interesting case studies:
kodak ignores digital cameras from 1981 until it died

how many people are using your product?

https://medium.com/@joshelman/the-only-metric-that-matters-ab24a585b5ea

the big picture

if you focus on too many details, you lose sight of the bigger picture

ignore mobile

treat tablet like desktop

idiot proof business

you should only buy a business any idiot can run because one day an idiot will be running (vs ruining) it

advertising (fight club)

advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.

technical debt

https://medium.com/@joaomilho/festina-lente-e29070811b84

lending club and baseball betting

avoid A's

avoid renters

avoid debt to income ratio over 25 percent

check baseball odds after midnight or morning

get users manually

Our advice at Y Combinator is always to make a really good product and go out and get users manually. The two work hand-in-hand: you need to talk individually to early adopters to make a really good product.  So focusing on the narrow and deep end of the sales/marketing continuum is not just the most effective way to get users. Your startup will die if you don’t.

http://blogs.wsj.com/accelerators/2014/06/03/jessica-livingston-why-startups-need-to-focus-on-sales-not-marketing/

you need to have something people want

 "What many people are missing is that you need to have something people want," says Noah Kagan, formerly a product manager at Facebook

http://online.wsj.com/articles/growth-hacking-helps-startups-boost-their-users-1401320789?tesla=y&mod=djemSB_h&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303633604579589872338854520.html?mod=djemSB_h

i picked the wrong career... now what (the fuck do i do)?

almost 40, stuck in a job i hate

i picked the wrong career

stupid career choice

after 9 years as a data analyst, i finally realize it's a dead end job, a dead end career.

now what?

study hacks

http://calnewport.com/blog/

detectify

https://detectify.com/

http://lifehacker.com/10-of-the-most-important-life-lessons-i-learned-from-my-1547298543

http://lifehacker.com/10-of-the-most-important-life-lessons-i-learned-from-my-1547298543 

https://www.snappycheckout.com/

https://www.snappycheckout.com/

what not to do...

what not to do:

1. ignore fixing bugs on site
2. ignore mobile: iphone and ipad

goethe

be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid

whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it

scorecasting notes

ignore data and diverse views at your peril.

seeking controversial or opposite opinions and challenging convention improve your decision-making.

lending club tips

http://www.lendingmemo.com/lending-club-strategy/

betting tips

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-maloney/dont-be-a-square-10-tips_b_753173.html


http://www.wagerminds.com/blog/nfl-handicapping/how-often-do-nfl-underdogs-win-outright-a-historical-analysis-by-spread-ranges-2496/


http://www.philsteele.com/blogs/2012/Aug12/DBAug1.html


west coast teams dominate night games

http://www.slate.com/authors.phil_birnbaum.html


http://experiencematters.wordpress.com/2013/03/03/my-insights-from-sloan-sports-analytics-conference/

lessons from colts comeback

if you have a 28 points lead in the 2nd half:

1. run the ball
2. prevent defense to prevent big play

chiefs fucked this up

data scientist trends

http://flowingdata.com/2012/09/19/hiring-a-data-scientist/

http://flowingdata.com/2011/07/29/statistics-has-a-new-name/

http://flowingdata.com/2012/02/03/an-action-plan-for-data-science-a-decade-ago/

currencies are a tool to increase the efficiency of barter

great quote

3 stages of career success

i don't know if i buy this

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-3-stages-of-career-success-2013-12

sql workbench amazon redshift

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/redshift/latest/mgmt/connecting-using-workbench.html

job update

december 14, 2013

how do i end up at dysfunctional companies?
clearly i need to do my homework more
salary negotiation - got to demand more
salary, salary, salary
think of the company as the enemy and try to extract as much as you can during salary negotiation


i hate my job.
i hate my career.
i hate my company.

how do i escape?

i don't understand why people try to get ahead
the steps people take
the compromises they make
the backstabbing, the lying
the ass kissing? 
why?
for money? prestige? status?
especially at nothing companies that are headed nowhere
broken businesses

maybe if the reward were great, all the underhanded moves, the lying, cheating, backstabbing would be worth it

but if the rewards are small, why bother?

fucking nonsense
fucking stupidity

fabric seen adwords lessons

change landing page: switch from shop to home

double down on upholstery

reduce spend on 'fabric store online'

focus on ads more than keywords

key metric is cost per transaction

lending club observations

borrowers from california who rent are high risk

especially if they leave a loan description

get nomi - in store optimization

http://getnomi.com/why-nomi.html

nba betting - voulgaris

http://www.businessinsider.com/sweat-in-the-game-a-gamblers-grind-in-the-nba-2011-4?page=2

over/under totals

http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/dollars/post/_/id/2935/meet-the-worlds-top-nba-gambler

a clean desk is a sign of a sick mind

the wire, refugees, season 4

charles marimow is a virus

the wire - home rooms

company man, corporate douche bag

how do you turn fuck all into something?

human capital investments
earning power

financial investments

government subsidy (i.e. education)

family/patron/spouse

find the 3 ingredients to job satisfaction

http://hbr.org/tip?date=033011

1. what you like to do

2. what you do best

3. what is valuable to the organization

http://businessintelligence.com/bi-insights/the-world-needs-data-scientists-infographic-2/

http://businessintelligence.com/bi-insights/the-world-needs-data-scientists-infographic-2/

1. machine learning
2. python
3. visualization

statistics sample size activity

http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v12n2/smith.html

interesting links

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/16/technology/for-retailers-new-gmail-has-one-tab-too-many.html?_r=0

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/09/13/business/From-Netscape-to-Twitter.html?src=recg

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/14/technology/the-payday-at-twitter-many-were-waiting-for.html?src=recg

http://freakonomics.com/2009/01/02/whats-with-the-home-underdogs-in-the-nfl/

http://freakonomics.com/2013/09/11/the-laws-of-attraction/

optimizely and clicktale

optimizely
clicktale

2 website tools that i am eager to try out

click tale is expensive for a small business

accountable and proactive

the 2 most annoying words in the workplace

most often used by incompetent managers and executives

typically used by poor managers to blame others for their incompetence and/or stupidity and/or laziness

people who use these words don't actually do anything

truecrypt

truecrypt.org

10 quotes from moneyball

http://sportsanalyticsblog.com/articles/10-quotes-from-moneyball

my favorites:

2. a young player is not what he looks like or what might become but what he has done

6. bunts, stolen bases, hit and runs - they were mostly self-defeating and all had a common theme: fear of public humiliation

7. ... the technical man with his analytical magic should have risen to prominence in baseball management, just as he was rising to prominence on say wall street

8. maybe they were just lucky. or maybe they knew something other people didn't. maybe they were as they privately thought, becoming more efficient

9. in human behavior there is always uncertainty and risk. the goal of oakland was to minimize the risk

10. trading players wasn't any different from trading stocks and bonds. a trader with better information could make a killing and billy was certain he had better information.

learn javascript and python

i told jenn warner the same thing

bijobs

http://bijobs.com

medium, coding horror, miss disruption

i discovered 3 great sites recently:

medium

coding horror

miss disruption

keeping credit score

factors:

1. payment history 35%

2. outstanding debt 30%

3. length of credit 15%

4. credit mix 10%

mortgage, car payment, student loans

5. searches for credit 10%

source: fico

build your own website or store

virb
weebly
square space
shopify
big commerce

zen cart
magento

volusion

lending club defaults

i have 3 loans that have defaulted and 3 other loans that are delinquent by more than 31 days.
all 6 loans share a couple attributes.
the one that stands out for me?
all 6 contain a 'loan description'.
weird coincidence or is there something going on?

by the way, i discovered coding horror today.
this blog is hilarious.

i stumbled upon it looking for an explanation of outer joins.

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/10/a-visual-explanation-of-sql-joins.html

3 parts of a date according to miss manners guide to excruciatingly correct behavior

there are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be offered:
entertainment, food, and affection.

it is customary to begin a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount of food, and the merest suggestion of affection.

as the amount of affection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately. when the affection is the entertainment, we no longer call it dating.

under no circumstances can the food be omitted.

galley bay

peter island british virgin islands

peter island, tortola, bvi

cocobay antigua

cocobay resort, st mary, antigua and barbuda

ventana inn

big sur, ventana inn and spa
ventana, vacationist

Hermitage bay

hermitage bay st john antigua

koa kea

Koa Kea, poipu beach, kauai

GreyStone estate

greystone estate in the vines, kenwood, california, sonoma county

turtle bay

Turtle Bay, kahuku, oahu

redfin blog post los angeles price in april 2006

house price max in los angeles = april 2006

http://blog.redfin.com/blog/2010/03/march_newsletter_the_lull_before_the_price_dip.html

3 questions your business model must answer

http://web.hbr.org/email/archive/managementtip.php?date=033110

1. why would someone want to buy something from you???

2. how will you make money selling it??

3. what exactly are the important things you need to succeed?

publish deals on twitter as a test

mobile app

1. iphone
2. android
3. maybe blackberry

luxury travel marketing

http://travelmarketingsecrets.com/

http://luxurytravel360.com/

halloween

daft punk

halo warrior

jedi knight

useful links regarding web analytics

immeria

engagement?

what the hell does 'engagement' mean?

http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2007/10/engagement-is-not-a-metric-its-an-excuse.html


1. why does website exist?

2. define 3 or less metrics to measure success (accomplish purpose)

3. revenue/conversion; engagement - how to measure?

4. don't call that metric 'engagement'

ideas....
1. are you engaged with us?
2. would you recommend site to friends?
3. primary market research
4. customer retention over time
5. recency of unique visitors (last resort)

6. fraction of multi-visit visitors (> 1 visit)
do visitors search the site?
do they 'save' stuff?
do they sign up for email?
how many entries to home page?

easter sunday march 23

roy williams is a great coach, first at kansas, now at north carolina.

memphis and ucla survived. north carolina is whipping arkansas. kansas had a close game but pulled away late. north carolina has looked most impressive as the number 1 seed.

stephan curry, son of ex-nba player dell curry, put on an impressive performance against gonzaga and georgetown. davidson may be for real... we'll see next weekend.

sweet 16 is set

random rants

1 american dollar is worth 99 canadian cents... what the fuck, what is up with that?

the houston rockets have won 22 in a row... 2nd best in history (lakers, 33 in 1972)... i like tracy mcgrady and yao ming (injured)... keep it up... this is truly an amazing streak when you consider that bird, magic and jordan never won this many in a row

luxury link

1. make logo clickable, link to home page

2. redirect luxurylink.com -> www.luxurylink.com

google website optimizer

webinar!

--->tom leung gwo ama vki

---->vki studios feb 5 ama testing

stop guessing, start testing, increase conversion!

phases of a business

phase 1: startup, make some money

phase 2: cut expenses

phase 3: focus on building value

phase 4: cash out (sell)

what they still don't teach you at harvard business school, page 90

moving average

look at 30, 60, 90 and 360 days

daily: current day, previous day, 30 day average, 90 and 360.

check out crazy egg

check out crazy egg.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr-PVnPmqVo

heat maps offer more than site overlay.

2 metrics plus 1 (jim novo)

http://www.google.com/analytics/cu/ac_two_metrics_for_you.html

1. bounce rate

2. bounce rates for top entry or landing pages

3. percent 1 minute visits

track these percentages over time (i.e. excel graph)...

measure effectiveness of your web pages

excellent analytics tip #11 by avinash kaushik

5 step program:

1. don't obsess about your home page
graph home page visits over time (y axis is % visitors)
what % of site traffic actually views your home page?

2. compute your cliff, then jump
this applies if a 'small' number of pages accounts for 'most' of your traffic.  for ticketing sites such as ticketmaster and razorgator, i have not found this to be the case.

3. bounce rate - it's good for you
what is wrong with the page?
content, calls to action, navigation?
who is coming to the page?
referring urls, campaign id's, search keywords, etc?  
expired promotion?

20% (ok), 35% (cause for concern), 50% (worry)

4. site overlay - something to love
why is page underperforming?
where are people clicking?

5. think holistically - multiple metrics, key context
you actually have to interact with your web pages to pinpoint problems.

bonus: insight -> improvements: multivariate testing rocks
test all ideas, don't go live with just one.
test different images, calls to action, content and layout that works best for your customers
tools: offermatica, optimost, sitespect, google's website optimizer
javascript tags on the page

getting started web analytics - first step - glean macro insights

getting-started-with-web-analytics-step-one-glean-macro-insights

1. how many visitors are coming to your website?

2. where are visitors coming from?

3. what do you want visitors to do on the website?
a. why does website exist?

b. what are your top 3 web strategies that you are working on?
i.e., paid, affiliates, update content, effective merchandising, etc.

c. what do you think should be happening on your website?

4. what are visitors actually doing?
a. top entry pages

b. top viewed pages

c. site overlay (click density)

notice we have not mentioned conversion rate and path analysis

4 attributes of a great metric according to avinash

1. simple

2. relevant

3. timely

4. instantly useful

example of a great metric: bounce rate
simple, tells you where you are wasting marketing dollars, which pages suck

3 important final lessons...

1. perfection is the enemy of good enough
90% is good enough. follow best practices, then move on. an educated mistake is better than no action at all.

2. critical few
which 3 metrics define your existence?

3. metrics life cycle
define -> measure -> analyze -> action -> improve or eliminate
do this once a quarter

web analytics demystified - winner of a semmy!!!!!!

congratulations avinash!

1. get primitive basics out of the way
look at how these trends change...
visits
pageviews
pages/visit
bounce rate
avg time on site
% new visits

2. understand traffic sources
direct traffic
referring sites
search engines
other such as email

3. fix stuff/save money
bounce rate for top entry pages
bounce rate for search key words (not as helpful in my opinion)
google website optimizer for a/b or multivariate tests

4. site overlay
click density
segment clicks if possible (can g.a. do this?)

5. focus on outcomes ("to get rich is glorious" - deng xiaoping)
what is purpose of your website?
e-commerce?
revenue, conversion rate, transactions, aov, products sold
are you converting enough?
what is selling and what is not?
why?
how much of it?
segment traffic: paid vs organic, campaign vs direct, new vs returning, geographic locations, etc

how to increase site conversion rate? (courtesy of avinash)

1. segment, segment, segment
segment by referral source, landing page, search terms, etc.

2. look at average order size, visitors, bounce rates in conjunction with conversion rate

3. put context around conversion rate
i.e. lowering price would most likely increase conversion rate but is that a great thing if you make less revenue?

4. track abandonment of each page (or every important page)

5. what is your true audience?

Testing...

method 1: a/b testing
simple, easy but limited

method 2: multivariate testing
more variables but more complicated

offermatica: marketing focused
optimost: technical
sitespect: no javascript code
google website optimizer: free with adwords

method 3: experience testing