Hiring in Washington DC outpaces the rest of the country – Sep. 15, 2010
Except – can anybody afford to live there?
Monthly Archives: September 2010
Gulf of Mexico oil spill story continues – UK parliamentary committee to hear from BP’s Hayward – CNN.com
UK parliamentary committee to hear from BP’s Hayward – CNN.com
As I said on my Facebook page – Hayward is their guy – I hope they get better answers from him than we did.
The eccentric world of home-made guitars – CNN.com
The eccentric world of home-made guitars – CNN.com
With pictures – very nifty.
10 Things You Can Get Personally, Individually or as a Business by Building The America the Beautiful Show Event Where You Live -
10 Things You Can Get Personally, Individually or as a Business by Building The America the Beautiful Show Event Where You Live -
1. Something to do with your spare time that builds toward a better future.
Whether you are a business owner watching a store with few customers, a person laid-off or unemployed or barely employed, a dealership of something whose sales have fallen, or a community organizer in a community with lots of foreclosed homes, empty businesses and huge unemployment, the time spent in this will improve the chances for a better community with more opportunities which means more potential sales, more customers, more jobs, more money coming into the community, and more chances for success.
2. New Relationships can be built and a foundation for a network of people you never knew before this. New relationships mean new opportunities to build new things.
Communities are filled with people who do not know one another, who’ve never met, who’ve never had the occasion to speak to one another and who have not participated in activities within the community to build it and increase its economic development. It is possible to bring all those people together into new relationships with a common purpose of rebuilding the economic foundation of the community.
3. Building The America the Beautiful Show will put tools in the hands of people and make greater things possible for each of them which is in the greater good for all of us. That may seem hard to believe, if you think that it is simply a very small pie being sliced up a few more times. But, what if it makes the entire pie bigger or adds a greater number of pies for everyone to enjoy and have available to use? Isn’t that what built our nation?
4. And, since tools are an applied science best understood in the opportunities to use them, every step along the way building the America the Beautiful Show amplifies what the individual and businesses doing it can do, can learn to do, can find possible to do and can apply into other things to succeed there as well.
5. As we succeed, we all succeed. With every step forward in our communities to a healthy economic future, our nation comes closer to repairing the economic damages that have been done and gets a step farther away from that nightmare. That is in the best interest of each of us individually and serves our national interests at the same time.
6. The purpose driven life improves the internal landscape and dissolves the isolation, despair, loneliness and sense of insurmountable difficulties. This purpose of building the America the Beautiful Show event to help yourself and to help your community works just as good as any and better than some. It is definitely better than doing nothing.
7. Meet new people, make new friends, swap stories, trade skills, let people know the talents and abilities you bring to the community that they would’ve never known about otherwise.
8. Get access to resources across the world to bring into your community through the America the Beautiful Show and have access to markets across the US and throughout the world that would’ve never been possible before these efforts were made.
9. Find new ways to do things that you never knew were possible. There is an exponential growth of ways to do things by virtue of the number of people asked. Knowing twenty ways to cook an egg certainly increases the chances that one of them will work at any given time with a unique set of difficulties, conditions and options. True with many things.
10. Bring your unique set of talents, skills, knowledge and experiences to the table in your community. There have been many years in our nation and in our communities where it was not possible to do this and we have all suffered for it. Decisions were made without taking in the information that came from many people’s common sense and experiences and knowledge and skill sets and talents, to the detriment of our economy and all of us. Why don’t we try doing something else now? Your ideas do matter. Let’s prove it.
- cricketdiane
(from page 10 of the America the Beautiful Show project website)
http://www.americathebeautifulshow.com/index_files/Page378.htm
(Note – this page name will change after the next update because it needs to say page 10 – obviously)/
Gulf of Mexico oil spill debacle continues
Some interesting things coming from the BP oil spill mess -
At the town hall meeting in Houma, La., fund czar Kenneth Feinberg told hundreds of people who packed a convention center that he is reconsidering the requirement that cleanup wages be subtracted from claims. He said he understands the loud concerns raised by people who are still hurting.
( . . . )
Glenn Poche, a 61-year-old shrimper from Lafitte, La., said after the town hall meeting with Feinberg that he felt like he had more questions than answers about why he only received a $600 emergency payment for six months. He said he was making thousands each month from his business before the waters he worked in were shut down because of the spill.
“He gave me $3.30 a day to live on,” Poche said. “I can’t pay my bills.”
( . . . )
Feinberg also said he would consider giving people in certain situations a supplemental payment after their emergency payment. Currently, people are getting an emergency payment and then, down the road, a lump-sum final payment. The final payment requires recipients agree not to sue BP.
As of Monday, there were roughly 12,000 claims for emergency payments that have proper documentation that have yet to be paid, Feinberg said. Another 12,000 unpaid claims have inadequate documents. Five hundred claims filed are ineligible for money from the fund because they deal with impact from the oil drilling moratorium, while roughly 1,000 claims appear to be fraudulent, Feinberg said.
( . . . )
Feinberg told The Associated Press after the event that within the next week to 10 days, Gulf residents will have another key question answered: How much he is earning for his services. He declined to disclose that figure to the AP on Monday.
One after another, shrimpers, boat workers and other victims came up to a microphone and yelled their demands at Feinberg. Some cursed. Others shouted insults.
Their concerns included the slow payment process, the fact that some people in similar situations are receiving vastly different payments and the bureaucracy they have to go through to get their money.
(etc.)
The April 20 rig explosion killed 11 workers and led to 206 million gallons of oil spewing from BP PLC’s undersea well into the Gulf of Mexico.
http://www.comcast.net/articles/finance/20100913/US.Gulf.Oil.Spill.Claims/
By HARRY R. WEBER, AP
48 minutes ago
BP claim czar considers making key concession
****
Feinberg Vows Quick Response On Gulf Spill Claims
Thursday, 08/19/10 4:44am – Morning Edition
Wendy Kaufman
Appearing Wednesday on a small stage before about 300 people in Houma, La., Feinberg lectured, cajoled and asserted that once he takes over Monday, the process will be accessible, fast and fair.
“I will be extremely lenient in documentation,” Feinberg said. “I don’t need reams and reams of stuff. I don’t need a tax return. Do you have something you can show me? Well, the ship captain will vouch for me — fine. Well, my priest will — fine.”
Feinberg says legitimate claims from individuals for up to six months of lost income will be paid within 48 hours. Business claims will be addressed within seven days. That would be a huge improvement over the current process. While some individuals have been paid promptly, others have not.
Mike Ferdinand, head of the Economic Development Authority in Houma, said many businesses were given the run-around with multiple agents, and little or no money from BP.
( . . . )
Feinberg promised to make public by Monday the 10-page document detailing how the calculations will be made.
The audience listened intently, but as the meeting wore on, frustration began to emerge. Claimants wanted to know how Feinberg could say he’s independent when his salary is being paid by BP.
“I feel that you have a serious conflict of interest,” one audience member charged. “The Bible states one man should not serve two masters.”
Feinberg answered with a question: “How else would you do this? The cause of this is BP.”
Feinberg has been asked repeatedly to reveal his salary. He says he will — probably next month — but insists that he is not beholden to the oil company.
Another testy issue: The compensation that will be given to those who helped BP in the cleanup effort. The oil company asked many boat owners to assist, and they were paid — often handsomely.
Feinberg intends to deduct that money from their compensation package. He contends that although they couldn’t do their regular job, they were paid.
(etc.)
Perhaps, but Chauvin, a boat owner, said later that Feinberg’s approach means she and others did BPs dirty cleanup work for free.
http://www.vpr.net/npr/129293800/
***
The administrator of the new claims process for victims of the Gulf oil spill said Sunday most of the individual claims reviewed in the first week lacked the minimal documentation to be paid.
(etc.)
“There are thousands of claims that have been filed with no documentation at all,” Ken Feinberg told state officials at the Southern Governors’ Association convention.
Feinberg said profit and loss statements, tax returns and similar documents are not necessarily required. He said minimal proof is all that is needed, and a crew member of a fishing boat might get paid based on a letter from his captain detailing how the worker had been affected.
( . . . )
Feinberg said success will depend on the speed of processing claims, which will not be delayed.
Joining Feinberg at the meeting were incoming BP CEO Bob Dudley and retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government’s point man on the spill.
BP is one of many companies that helped pay for the governors’ convention. BP officials said the organization has been a corporate affiliate of the Southern Governors’ Association for about 20 years and contributed $50,000 this year.
(also)
He said BP has no plans to try to use the well again or develop the Macondo oil field.
Dudley says BP officials will meet with representatives of Alabama’s governor and attorney general on Monday to discuss the state’s $148 million claim against BP for taxes lost due to the spill.
The attorney general sued BP the same day the governor filed the initial claim, which Dudley said complicated the handling. He said Monday’s meeting is a get-acquainted session, and he doesn’t expect a resolution.
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/08/oil_spill_claims_administrator_1.html
Feinberg says most spill claims lack documentation
Published: Monday, August 30, 2010, 8:20 AM Updated: Monday, August 30, 2010, 8:37 AM
****
. . . . but Feinberg’s message was the same. He would offer emergency payments—equivalent to six months of lost income—faster and better than BP’s justifiably criticized claims process, and that money would come without strings.
But if claimants decided to take an additional lump sum payments—meant to fully compensate them for the economic losses created by the spill—they would have to forego their right to sue BP for damages.
( . . . )
“I work for you,” Feinberg told the fishermen in Port Fourchon back in July. “And I want to make the claims system work for you.”
Read more: http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2010/08/23/oil-spill-is-the-claims-process-fair/#ixzz0zRYommSz
That much was obvious on Friday, when Feinberg released the initial rules for the claims process. (BP has been running the claims fund for the past few months—and not very well, according to many Gulf residents—but starting today Feinberg and his team have taken over.)
Fishermen who worked for BP during the clean-up process were angry that their income from those weeks would be deducted from any claims they were granted.
Business owners who depend on Gulf resources—like seafood for a restaurant far from the coast—were angry that Feinberg will take into account proximity to the coastline when evaluating claims.
Homeowners were angry that they would receive no compensation for any drop in property values due to the spill. State and local governments were unhappy that they couldn’t make damage claims through Feinberg’s process.
And just about everyone felt that was something fundamentally unjust in giving BP—and potentially other companies involved in the spill, though that’s less clear—a shield from further lawsuits.
Read more: http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2010/08/23/oil-spill-is-the-claims-process-fair/#ixzz0zRZT5hQp
****
By August 3 BP claimed that it had paid out $277 million on 140,000 separate claims. “I was born and raised in Louisiana,” BP vice president Darryl Willis, who heads the claims process, said in one oft-repeated ad. “I volunteered for this assignment because this is my home. I’ll be here in the Gulf as long as it takes to make this right.”
Problem is it’s never really worked out that way. Since the beginning of the claims process in May, the media has been flooded with complaints about slow payments, byzantine bureaucracy and insufficient funds, especially for the businesses hit hard by the spill and struggling to make payroll. Even BP’s official claims statistics show that only 28% of those 140,000 claims have received at least one payment. On my reporting trips to the Gulf, I repeatedly heard stories about how difficult it was to get a claim sorted—and how the money that was flowing wasn’t flowing fast enough.
But given the sheer confusion and chaos going on in the Gulf—the simple number of people who might have a damage claim—it’s hard to find solid, independent data on the claims process. The investigative nonprofit ProPublica is trying to change that, however. In its latest collaborative reporting initiatives, the website—working together with a number of newspapers and online news sites, mostly from the Gulf Coast—recently launched a callout for stories and data from people experiencing problems with their BP spill claims. (If you have a story you want to share, you can contact them here.)
The project is beginning to pay dividends. A ProPublica story posted this morning found that BP appeared to be purposefully delaying decisions about the validity of whole categories of spill claims, essentially punting the problem to Kenneth Feinberg, the independent administrator who will be taking over the claims process in mid-August:
The company’s claims process is guided by the Oil Pollution Act, a 1990 federal law that holds oil companies responsible for repaying direct “removal costs and damages” caused by a spill. But many claims are for damages that are not explicitly covered by the law — such as ruined start-up companies and lost income from commission payments — and many of those are in limbo.
The delays seemed especially acute for people who worked on commission—like real estate agents, who’ve repeatedly lobbied Feinberg for more recognition—though it was hard to tell how much of the delay was due to BP’s own decisions, and how much was due to paperwork problems. (BP’s own records indicate that the company has held up 43% off all claims for insufficient documentation, more than the total number of claims that have actually been paid out.)
(etc.)
Read more: http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2010/08/03/oil-spill-tracking-bps-problematic-claims-process/#ixzz0zRaGHzO7
****
Obama’s Executive ‘Pay Czar’ Feinberg Received Six-Figure Salary According to Documents Uncovered by Judicial Watch
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20100909/pl_usnw/DC62186_1
WASHINGTON, Sept. 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has uncovered U.S. Treasury Department documents that reveal President Obama’s “Special Master for TARP Executive Compensation” Kenneth Feinberg received a $120,830 annual salary to establish executive compensation levels at companies bailed out by the federal government.
These documents contradict multiple press reports that Feinberg would not be compensated for this work for the Treasury Department. Judicial Watch received the documents pursuant to its Freedom of Information Act request filed July 20, 2010.
When President Obama appointed Washington lawyer Kenneth Feinberg “Pay Czar” in 2009, the press reported that he would perform his duties pro bono. Dozens of mainstream media stories confirmed that Feinberg, founder and managing partner of the Washington, D.C., firm Feinberg Rozen LLP, would not receive a salary to set pay limits for more than two dozen executives at companies receiving government bailouts. For example, Forbes magazine reported in August 2009, “Feinberg is receiving no compensation for his role.”
However, Judicial Watch has obtained the Treasury Department’s June 8, 2009, welcome letter to Feinberg, congratulating him for being selected “Special Master of Executive Compensation” and listing his annual salary at $120,830. Judicial Watch has also uncovered a “Notification of Personnel Action,” from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management dated June 8, 2009, also establishing Feinberg’s salary level at $120,830.
(etc.)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20100909/pl_usnw/DC62186_1
****
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration‘s pay czar said Friday that he did not try to recoup $1.6 billion in lavish compensation to top executives at bailed-out banks because he wanted to avoid another public fight over banker pay.
Ken Feinberg said 17 banks receiving taxpayer money from the $700 billion financial bailout made “ill-advised” payments to their executives. But he stopped short of calling them “contrary to the public interest,” language that would have signaled a fight to get it back.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/23/pay-czar-17-bailed-out-banks-overpaid-executives/
Pay czar: 17 bailed-out banks overpaid executives
By Daniel Wagner
-
Associated Press
Updated: 1:48 p.m. on Friday, July 23, 2010
****
So why did he have the job at all, if nothing was changed by his being there except to say – that banks were lavish in spending on executives despite being bailed out with taxpayer’s money?
- cricketdiane
And, then he gets paid to muck up the situation further in the Gulf of Mexico economic disaster from the oil spill?
Its very conflicting to see the $600 for six months emergency payment and arguing over funds paid for work done to cleanup the Gulf while the man doing the decision-making is obviously being paid six figures (in all likelihood) to do the job better than it is being done. I don’t get it.
A note to all three people in the US who have a job – no wait, that’s an exaggeration – there might be four people with jobs – unemployed America
In the United States, the labor force participation rate rose from approximately 59% in 1948 to 66% in 2005,[3]
Normally, the labor force of a country (or other geographic entity) consists of everyone of working age (typically above a certain age (around 14 to 16) and below retirement (around 65) who are participating workers, that is people actively employed or seeking employment. People not counted include students, retired people, stay-at-home parents, people in prisons or similar institutions, people employed in jobs or professions with unreported income, as well as discouraged workers who cannot find work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_force
***
This is a list of countries by size of the labour force mostly based on The World Factbook [1]
# 3
United States
154,500,000
2009 est.
(from)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_labour_force
***
US Population -
307,006,550
Data source: U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division – Last updated July 26, 2010
(from)
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=uspopulation&met=population&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=us+population
***
The United States has a total resident population of 310,233,000.[1]
(from)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States
***
307,212,123 (July 2010 est.)
country comparison to the world: 3
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html
CIA FactBook
***
15-64 years: 67% (male 102,665,043/female 103,129,321)
65 years and over: 12.8% (male 16,901,232/female 22,571,696) (2010 est.)
(also from the CIA Factbook)
My note -
So, without adding those individuals over 65 who may now with the current economic disaster, need to go back to work or make money -
There will be around 205,794,364 employable people from age 16 – 64 years old in the United States next year – because that’s how many are estimated now. Considering some will have turned 65 and still need to work and many in the age groups beyond that who are coming out of retirement due to necessity – that means conservatively – 200,000,000 (million) people are in need of incomes and could be considered employable.
***
In February, the civilian labor force participation rate (64.8 percent) and the employment-population ratio (58.5 percent) were little changed. (See table A-1.)
(from)
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
****
In the United States, the labor force participation rate rose from approximately 59% in 1948 to 66% in 2005,[3]
(However, these two numbers were derived in different ways and include what? or rather exclude how many groups of the employable population?)
(from above – the estimated US labor force from official sites is – )
154,500,000
2009 est.
size of the labour force mostly based on The World Factbook [1]
205,794,364 employable people from age 15- 64
subtract 154,500,000
and that means their estimations of the participation in the employment or rather unemployment in America – is off by only 51,294,364
- uh huh -
that’s 51 million people more or less – (not including retirees going back to work or who need to re-enter the workforce).
But, over here on the wikipedia site of US demographics – it says there are some 228,000,000 adults – interesting.
See the chart of religious affiliations in the middle of the page -
Adult population, total
1990 -
175,440,000
2001 -
207,983,000
2008 -
228,182,000
Numerical Change 1990 – 2008 as percent of 1990
30.1%
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States
***
Friday, September 3, 2010
THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION — AUGUST 2010
The number of unemployed persons (14.9 million) and the unemployment rate (9.6 percent) were little changed in August. From May through August, the jobless rate remained in the range of 9.5 to 9.7 percent.
In August, the civilian labor force participation rate (64.7 percent) and the employment-population ratio (58.5 percent) were essentially unchanged.
(See table A-1.)
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
***
So, what these numbers say – is that out of
205,794,364 employable people from age 15- 64
or
2008 -
228,182,000 adult population, total
only
14.9 million are unemployed.
which gives the percentage rate of -
9.5 to 9.7 percent
only if over 52 million people and all retired people over 65 aren’t counted.
And, only if those working part-time or reduced hours without choice in the matter are considered “employed” despite not being able to survive on that income.
Because obviously – in the United States – there are not 90.5 – 90.3 percent of the population working at real jobs where they can make a living or we wouldn’t have the problems that we do.
On other charts, it becomes obvious as well, that there aren’t jobs for 90 percent of the people in the US available where people could be employed.
And, regardless of how many jobs that businesses are claiming to have “added” – without hiring people for those jobs, it represents no more than another way to manipulate the labor figures to make them look better than they actually are.
Also -
these numbers could easily be added to that total of “unemployed” -
The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) increased by 331,000 over the month to 8.9 million.
These individuals were working part time because their
hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.
and these as well -
About 2.4 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force in August, little changed from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.)
These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were avail-
able for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. (See table A-16.)
(from)
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
****
And, those are only the numbers from among those they are counting which don’t include a vast number of people in the adult population of various groups.
So, simply to add those two groups as the Labor Department admits the numbers (which likely are very conservative and truly too low to be anything close to reality) -
2.4 million trying to find work but not counted
plus
8.9 million people part-time without choice
plus
14.9 million people that the Labor Department admits are unemployed.
EQUALS
25.8 million people known to be unemployed or not making enough money or completely unemployed according to the Labor Dept.
plus
the other 52 million people that they aren’t counting at all
EQUALS
77.8 million people unemployed out of the employable adult population
And -
however many retired people who now need to go to work somewhere.
which is probably why the Labor Department population employment participation is around 58% instead of 90% …..
So, my question is – what if the real numbers are that 77.9 million people are not making enough money in the United States to be considered “employed” – wouldn’t that make the true unemployment rate significantly higher and the problems that result from those facts – utterly the truth of the state of affairs that we face as a nation?
Shouldn’t we maybe do something about that now?
- cricketdiane
***
Or is it enough to pretend like its all going to magically get better as long as people believe it is better . . .
From a different perspective -
Homelessness in the United States increased significantly in the late 1970s and became an important political topic.[1] The number of homeless people further grew in the 1980s, as housing and social service cuts increased and the economy deteriorated. The United States government determined that somewhere between 200,000 and 500,000 Americans were then homeless.[2] The number of homeless is reported to have risen since that time.
According to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, there were 664,414 sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons nationwide on a single night in January 2008.
Additionally, about 1.6 million persons used an emergency shelter or a transitional housing program during the 12-month period between October 1, 2007 and September 30, 2008. This number suggests that 1 in every 190 persons in the United States used the shelter system at some point in that period.[3]
(from)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States
Wonder what it is now with all the foreclosures that have happened.
Here is another figure from the same article (on wikipedia)
Lifetime homeless prevalence measured in 1990 by Bruce Link and colleagues found 7.4% or 13.5 million people reported experiencing literal homelessness.[15] These estimates were tabulated from telephone interviews and thus most likely excluded all currently homeless individuals.
As many as 3.5 million people experience homelessness in a given year (1% of the entire U.S. population or 10% of its poor), and about 842,000 people in any given week.[16]
(and this)
New York City
In 2009 in New York City, there were an estimated 51,000 homeless people.[84]
On June 22, 2010, the New York City Department of Homeless Services reported that the sheltered homeless population consisted of:[99]
- 8,243 Families with children
- 1,271 Adult Families
- 7,725 Single Adults
- 35,537 Total Individuals
In March 2010, there were protests about the Governor’s proposed cut of $65 million in annual funding to the homeless adult services system.[100]
There was a mobile video exhibit in the streets showing a homeless person on a screen and asking onlookers and passersby to text with their cellphones a message for him, and they also could donate money by cellphones to the organization Pathways to Housing.[101][102]
Scientific American: World Changing Ideas Video Contest
Scientific American: World Changing Ideas Video Contest.
Deadline for their project is September 15, 2010
For noncommercial videos of 2 – 5 minutes
about -
Energy
Transportation
Environment
Electronics or Robotics
Healthcare or Medicine
complete information about entering is found here -
Learning places and other stuff I’m adding to the America the Beautiful Show – how to think up new business models – online physics and math resources
Place to learn some stuff online -
I was just filling in some of the pages for the America the Beautiful website to update it with info on learning and how to innovative new business models – and thought about putting some of it here also -
cricketdiane - July 2009 Private Treasure - Stolen Art Cards - Baby Crickets Pocket Art and Treasure Maps - Cricket House Studios Art - Each Ocean Art Card handpainted and wrapped in individually created treasure maps and stamped with Stolen Art on them - created by cricketdiane 2009
Here are some of the links I’ve been working to put on the website -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_Maturity_Model
Levels of the Capability Maturity Model
There are five levels defined along the continuum of the CMM[8] and, according to the SEI: “Predictability, effectiveness, and control of an organization’s software processes are believed to improve as the organization moves up these five levels. While not rigorous, the empirical evidence to date supports this belief.”
- Initial (chaotic, ad hoc, individual heroics) – the starting point for use of a new process.
- Managed – the process is managed according to the metrics described in the Defined stage.
- Defined – the process is defined/confirmed as a standard business process, and decomposed to levels 0, 1 and 2 (the latter being Work Instructions).
- Quantitatively managed
- Optimizing – process management includes deliberate process optimization/improvement.
(etc. – lots of good information here – this system is used for other processes including human and organizational, as well as for software development)
***
And places to learn physics and math online -
from simple to complex -
http://physics.info/displacement/
This one has tabs along the top that allow quizzes on the material, finding other resources, problems to solve and a summary of the information.
***
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/FourierSeries.html
By navigating the left hand sidebar – much of the information about anything in mathematics can be located. Very understandable explanations and a great place to look up stuff on the fly to remember or review it as well as to learn it in the first place.
***
a place to learn C++ online -
http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/program_structure/
With easy to follow tutorials and explanations that make sense. Great way to learn it and then use it for Java and Object Oriented Programming books to make sense.
And, I was going to add this little article I wrote in 2008 for the innovation pages about business – and maybe follow some of my own advice in it to help build the America the Beautiful Show project a little better.
Fourteen places to make money -
Cricket Diane C Phillips, 2008
1. Take the Area Occupational Wages pamphlet or from the Department of Labor online sources (by state) and use is to target potential customers making over $20 – $25 per hour.
2. Using this target audience, introduce products and services directly to them online through the websites, brochures, magazines, distributors and retailers already in place to reach them.
3. Customize products and services specifically to these niche audiences. Coffee cups having sayings, emblems and ideas suited to them are more likely to interest them, etc.
4. Find a target audience in person / on site by finding announcements of events in the area that are drawing them to participate. Using this venue, introduce the business / product / service using this opportunity. T-shirts can be sold appropriate to the audience, so can books and specialties.
5. Tailor whatever the product or service to the specific target audience or use the basis of common ground to interest them. While discussing meetings, coffee will be served and every one there is missing someone or something else.
6. Facilitate cooperation, analysis and brainstorming among participants involved in a common event, association or vocation / hobby / business. This helps create networks of consumers that provide a database of possible sales.
7. Go where money runs like rivers flowing into an event, mall, highly trafficked sports or entertainment venue, trade show or similar to approach participants with availability of some specific need during the show or that will make their life better after the show.
8. Use a theme of commonality, such as an interest – like, camping, love of animals, pets, hobbies, types of cars or activities to customize products and services. Then, target these audiences through events, publications and websites where they are involved or through stores that already attract them.
9. Provide a service needed by everyone at least once a year or better yet, once a month. This is the basis of sales for more items in the marketplace than anything else. People do want funnel cakes when at a craft festival and they will pay for something their children can do while there.
10. Create a convenience that doesn’t exist currently but is much needed. Anything that can save time for a reasonable cost will make people’s lives more organized and do-able. To target this audience, find stress free topics and stress reduction topics and contribute there.
11. Offices and industries are a captive audience with continuing needs, some of which are being served and some which are useful and not being served. This is a good target through online high readership, interactive forums and office product websites where goods are being sold already.
12. The most creative, personable character that touches the common thread of experience with most people can be the basis for entire lines of products, opportunities and uses. However, until this character has an association with people seeing it, getting to know it and kindling a response to it – the character has little value. Target any common-theme areas for application and audience.
13. Style creates sales, money and opportunities. To target a style to a specific audience, find the places where products are already being introduced to these audiences and either use them or by-pass them using off-shoot branches of these arenas. A tv show or sitcom can introduce a product.
14. How to tell everyone at once about a product, service or business? Use television broadcast / cable opportunities through existing shows and audiences, including news, new product shows, talk shows, sitcoms and reality shows. Then, know it has to be in front of those audiences more than once in order to work and be backed up by web access to it and a strong web presence along other avenues to be credible.
***
and the Hyperphysics portal with lessons about it and dynamic bubble charts of the principles -
This one for the propagation of light and lightspeed
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/geoopt/cspeed.html#c1
A Feast for the Mind -
This landing page can go to any of the various bubble maps to offer a feast for the mind anytime -
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/hph.html
Hyperphysics is hosted by the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Georgia State University.
Very nifty. Great lookup place and extraordinary learning space – fun to wander through and follow wherever the mind wants to go – different every time but learning all the way the whole time . . .
Yep, now you know what I do for fun.
- cricketdiane
***
From the photos I took yesterday on my walk to the store -
cricketdiane - 09-11-10 - Georgia empty buildings and sky pictures 003 - 2 - Cricket House Studios Art
I am amazed that this picture actually worked and then I also took some photos of the empty businesses near where I live (and some other sky pictures too. It was pretty dramatic skies right before sunset yesterday).
cricketdiane - 09-11-10 - empty buildings and sky pictures 040-2 - Cricket House Studios Art
There used to be another business right beside it and it is gone too. The barbecue place up the street is also empty after having two or three other owners try to get it going and there are multiple business retail suites sitting empty and unused at every shopping center, not just a few but several in each large strip center that used to be covered in businesses.
- cricketdiane
***
Starting your own business and the America the Beautiful Show
After updating the two sites for the America the Beautiful Show project, I noticed that my page numbers are in the hundreds and thousands – that definitely needs to be fixed.
But, here is the page with a quick explanation for the project and with the schedule of shows for the event across three days – just an idea of what could be done.
http://www.americathebeautifulshow.com/index_files/Page719.htm
The original idea conceived in 2008 – was to meet a specific need that was and still is a problem. The vast number of people unemployed, businesses that have gone bankrupt, houses foreclosed and communities decimated by the economic crisis have some very common problems with rebuilding their economic foundation.
One of the very most basic problems is being identified as unemployed, as bankrupt, as economically challenged (for a community, in particular). That means – when hiring happens, they aren’t starting there. The places with jobs want to participate where there is not a void, strangely enough. And, when going to big trade shows to encourage companies to put their businesses in a community, the thing that is left out of that presentation – is, oh by the way, everybody in our community is unemployed now and most of our business properties are sitting empty around town.
And, most businesses that are hiring, don’t want to hire people who are currently unemployed or bankrupt. They want people with good credit scores, not people whose small business went out of business. Nor do they want people who don’t have a job now or were laid off – even if through no fault of their own. It is a way of narrowing the search from the hundreds of thousands of applicants to the few considered the “cream of the crop”.
BBC America this morning finally said, that the US unemployment might be more like 14% considering how many people have simply given up looking for work and aren’t counted any longer. However, I still say that the Labor Department figures suggest that one third of our employable population is in jails, prisons, institutions, and not employed obviously. And, the admitted numbers of 58% employment rate for those of employment age known to be employed.
One hundred percent subtracting 58% – doesn’t give an unemployment rate of 9 point anything percent. Not to mention that the unemployment figures that are used by the news and politicians and just about everybody – are not using the additional figures of disabled people who would like to work, those having to come out of retirement in order to afford to live, the people who stopped interacting with the labor department after their searches yielded no work in the last two years or longer, the people who have part time jobs and can’t pay their bills as a result, the people in jails, institutions and prisons that don’t have jobs and have to work somewhere when they re-enter communities and the vast numbers of business owners whose businesses went bankrupt and are unemployed – who aren’t counted either.
Those facts and my personal experiences of not knowing the exactly right name of programs that could help or where to find them, led me to the idea that there is a common need for the communities to reach out to their own people and bring everyone together with a sense of that community participation along with sharing the information that would be useful in rebuilding their economic future with everyone as they do that.
It is one thing to tell people where the foodstamp office is located. It is another to say that if you aren’t going to afford to drive your car and walk to the store for groceries instead – you are going to need a different pair of shoes and approach clothing, carrying those groceries and the weather a lot differently. And, it is something much needed, to say – hey, look – these companies are not going to hire unemployed people and they may not hire anybody for the next three years anyway – so your economic survival has to depend on something else like creating your own business of some kind.
Then, I noticed two years ago that many people and officials and business organizations didn’t say to the public that there wouldn’t be jobs available for a long period of time. And, even now – to listen to the news makes it sound like there are possibilities that may or may not actually exist when it gets right down to doing something with it – like going to job fairs or filling out applications online and at businesses’ little kiosks at their location. So, having been there myself, I thought that it would be better if people could have a lot of helpful resources in their hands immediately and at the same time which they could use to do something about it long before the economy can recover on its own – in a larger sense, regardless of what stimulus is made available. People have to eat, they have to pay their bills, they have to have clothes for their children to wear to school, among other things and in the last two years – and in the next three years, they can’t wait until the economy gets better in order to have the money to do those things and to live somewhere.
Now, selling everything on Ebay, going to the pawn shops with valuables, maxing out the credit cards, borrowing on whatever collateral is left and relying on the one working member of the household who is now working part-time for a tenth of the income that they used to make – has brought many families to this point, but that plan does not take a family or even an individual out through the next three years of this mess. Nor, does it bring an economic vitality to their communities for the foreseeable future.
I thought about changing the name of the America the Beautiful Show to America the Beautiful Information Powerhouse Show – but then that’s so close to calling it a brain trust to tap the resources of America and put them in the hands of the people that need to use them in America’s communities – maybe it all needs more thought put into it. The name will probably not be changed for simply one reason – it is memorable and once people start talking about it – which I have seen among my own family members, that’s what they end up calling it with an emphasis on what America means to all of us. It also reminds me personally of why it is important to do this.
When I made this video Animoto thing last night with photos I had taken of some empty businesses around where I live, there was something I wanted to say about the obscenity of seeing commercial properties where people used to work sitting empty and idle without cars in the parking lot – without customers coming through the doors. And, yet they sit idle at the same price they were when everything was booming which prevents anything from profitably using them now. Some of these in the photos have sat empty for well over the last two years, and yet to rent them would cost the same as if the economy were healthy and the locations were still well trafficked – which they haven’t been for durn near six years.
http://animoto.com/play/Zn3XiT0ot0fPh3Apmz0hNA#
If I were to take photos of every empty office suite, every empty storefront, every empty car dealership, every empty small business within a five mile radius of where I live – I would have a three hour video and a list of the businesses that have gone out of businesses or moved somewhere with better opportunities would likely run for ten pages or better. It is not right.
And, then two years ago – and last week as well, I noticed that many business and communities’ leaders have an attitude of slicing the pie that many more ways with a smaller slice for everybody when presented with the idea of having more or new businesses in the area where they are. And, yet that is the only way they will have more money spent in their communities and more money coming into it for their businesses and others as well, and new employment opportunities which yield incomes for people to spend in the community – and around and around it goes. But, their thinking seems to be something exactly the opposite of that even though they would say they are all for new businesses to come into the community and having people in their community start new small and medium-sized businesses. Their actions show that their real belief is that it would simply force them to divide up an even smaller slice of an already too small pie of economic resources.
Aside from my own incompetence and the things I don’t know how to do effectively (like twitter) and working with investors, the attitude mentioned above that is held by communities’ leaders and businesses as well, is likely the one basic thing that will undermine the potential of the America the Beautiful Show project or anything else in helping these communities to rebuild the American economy from the ground up. With one hand they are saying they want a thriving business community and with the other, they are insuring the only customers are their own. It is a strange paradox.
Maybe nothing will fix that.
In many cases, in many states and local areas – entry into the business community has been made as difficult as possible to thwart startups rather than to encourage them.
- cricketdiane
***
I’m watching the show about Enron again – on cnbc – it is amazing that they thought it was the way to do things and seemed like it was so great to everyone involved with it, including those in business schools and government officials. What is it about business that does that?
And, it screwed up so many things for so many people . . .
America the Beautiful Show website updated format
Very fun – a lot better.
Updated the America the Beautiful Show website and now it shows the new format that I’ve been working to do – it isn’t finished but at most of it is done.
http://www.americathebeautifulshow.com/index.htm
***
Now there are over 50 pages, but the information is a lot easier to find and to navigate. There is a bit more info that was on the original website to be moved over to it yet and some other things about learning resources and problems to be solved that have yet to be added but most of those are already written.
Just made a video on Animoto called “Oceanata”: http://animoto.com/s/8idmBwAjlCv5tmuJ8j6AfA
having a little fun in my spare time – and trying to conceive of what a full-length video of this type might be – this one doesn’t use my music – I need to fix that by converting the music I create into MP3 format
I’m going to do another one.
http://animoto.com/play/Zn3XiT0ot0fPh3Apmz0hNA
This isn’t music that I created but it is my photos and it is the truth . . .
I titled it “America the Beautiful 2010″
***
and Mander Commander updated the other website for the America the Beautiful Show -
http://www.americathebeautifulshows.net/
check out page 6 (on the tabs at the bottom or top of the page that fade in after the page loads)
I must’ve played this thing about 8 or 10 times already. I love it and I don’t know why. It is a bit on the funky side. And, it has had 54 views, not including mine in the last hour – wow – very nifty . . .
http://animoto.com/play/Zn3XiT0ot0fPh3Apmz0hNA
***
I think I’ll play it again.
