Category: Economy
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2016 Economic Conditions Snapshot: Don’t Panic
I shared the dire predictions of the Royal Bank of Scotland for 2016 recently; the TL;DR version was “panic, sell everything, and hide in your bunker“. Is their prediction warranted? Panic isn’t, but caution is. One of the most important lessons about economics is to do your own work. Download the data, make your own…
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End of Q3 Economic Check-In for Marketers
Once upon a time, when I worked in financial services, I checked charts and quotes daily. I watched the world’s markets like a hawk, because macroeconomic issues that could impact my work often had leading indicators days, weeks, or months in advance. Even today, I still check in, though not nearly as frequently because my…
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The hottest marketing job skills of 2015
LinkedIn recently published their data-mined list of the hottest individual job skills of 2014, based on recruiter interest and LinkedIn profile data. Here’s the raw list: Do you see a trend? I do. Let’s cluster them together by broad topic areas like marketing, data analysis, and technology skills: That’s impressive. Of the top 25 skills,…
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The long tail is longer than you think
I left the world of financial aid and student loans way back in January 2010. I had created a ton of content for the company I was working for at the time, including the very first financial aid podcast, and I’m proud that kids paid less for college based on the work I did. But…
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Economic outlook for marketers, 4Q 2014
One of the things I like to do from time to time is check in on a variety of different leading economic indicators to get a sense of how the overall economy is doing. That knowledge lets me know – within a certain amount of error – what marketers can expect their quarter to look…
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Economic indicators snapshot, July 2014
Every now and again, something bugs me, a little voice in the back of my head that says, “Go take a look at some other data sources to see a bigger picture”. This stems from my years in financial services, where every chart held the potential to be the insight you were looking for to…
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Leveling the playing field for economic growth
A lot of people have wondered and speculated about how to achieve more economic equality, about how to level the playing field so that the 1% don’t continue to dominate the economy. While this is not a comprehensive solution, Blizzard Entertainment may have given us part of the solution. For those who don’t play World…
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Why the Guild Wars 2 Economy Isn’t a Moneymaker
After having played Guild Wars 2 for 2 weeks, I’ve found a rather interesting comparison between its in-game economy and the World of Warcraft economy. In World of Warcraft, there’s a limit of 32,767 players who can participate in your faction’s Auction House, the in-game market. On some Warcraft realms, that number is significantly lower.…
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Cycles of creation and destruction
One of the hot topics yesterday was the acquisition of ExactTarget by Salesforce (which I wrote about here). As someone who worked in the email marketing industry for a long time, this is a huge seismic shift, because Salesforce is the gold standard CRM for most midsize and large businesses. Having a built-in email marketing…
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Opportunity costs and GW2 vs. WoW
I started playing Guild Wars 2 last week, and one of the most significant changes as a Warcraft player (and no, I haven’t given up on Warcraft, it’s just that the content for Patch 5.3 ran out REALLY fast) is that GW2 permits you to spend real world currency for in-game currency. You go to…