Saturday, November 13, 2010

Friday, July 30, 2010

Google posting my old toll free number

Not sure where it is pulling the old phone number from.




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Scattered tribe

My oldest son is going to school in the LA area at my alma mater, and right now is working in Alaska at a salmon fishery 16 hours a day to be able to pay the tuition.

My middle son just got back from a couple of weeks in Colorado, and in a few weeks will be headed off to college as a freshman in Arkansas.

My youngest son is out in Colorado now, for five weeks, working on the Crew at a really neat Christian camp with The Navigators.

CRM Consulting

The CRM Consulting venture is gaining some traction. This is an interesting business, and gives me opportunities to be involved with some very talented people in middle market businesses around the world.

Right now, I've got clients or prospects in the UK, Australia, China, India, Mexico, and even some places as far-flung and exotic as Utah.

The CRM business dovetails in nicely with the venture development transactions. Getting a small company onto a CRM and onto the cloud with their Sales and Marketing, and getting them onto the cloud with their accounting (like QB Online) contributes to transparency, which contributes to healthier working relationships in venture deals.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Socionomics defined

Socionomics is the study of social mood and its results in social actions. It studies how waves of endogenously regulated social mood in turn regulate changes in the economy, political preferences, financial markets, pop culture, etc.



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Herding

Herding Impulse

Academics and the media often use the term "herding" differently than socionomists do. Here are some distinctions.

Socionomic Perspective: When do people herd? They herd when they are uncertain. In contexts of uncertainty, the herding impulse drives social behavior. There is an evolutionary advantage to this. If you were unsure if there was any danger around, but all of your friends started running, your chances of survival increased if you, likewise, joined in—otherwise you might be the only one the lion sees. However, there are devastating consequences to this in finance, namely losses. You’ll buy tops and sell bottoms. The herding impulse is based in the amygdala, a part of the brain’s limbic system. It is non-rational, unconscious, endogenously-regulated and impulsive. By “non-rational” we mean that the herding impulse is not based on reason, but is not necessarily “irrational.” As demonstrated in the lion example, there are instances where running with the flock is sensible.

People always herd in financial markets, but not economic markets. In economic markets, people use their rational capabilities to maximize the utility of their resources.

Non-Socionomic Alternative Perspective: Some academics and media writers view herding as rational and conscious. This is the exact opposite of how socionomists theorize it. There’s a significant literature on “Bayesian updating,” which theorizes that sometimes people consciously and rationally ignore their private information and follow the group. While socionomists recognize that this phenomenon may occur, we would not refer to it as “herding,” nor do we think it is a useful way of describing financial markets.

This brings us to an important distinction. According to socionomic theory, not all synchronized group action is herding behavior. While some academics look at the phenomena of people going to the mall when there’s a sale, for example, as herd behavior, our perspective is that the people are simply rationally maximizing the utility of their resources. Socionomists only recognize herding when the behavior is non-rational and performed in the context of uncertainty.



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Socionomics - Social Mood

Social Mood

Social mood is the engine of social action. It is always present. Social mood governs the character of social events. Neurologically, social mood is manifested via the herding impulse in the amygdala, a part of the limbic system.


Social mood waxes and wanes positively and negatively. A positive social mood is associated with a host of social phenomena, such as bull markets, bright colors, short skirts, re-election of incumbents, peace, and deregulation. A negative social mood is also associated with a host of social phenomena, such as bear markets, dark colors, falling hemlines, rejection of incumbents, discord, and regulation.

A subtle but important point: Although social mood governs social events, it fluctuates independently of such events. In other words, wherever mood goes, events will follow. But, the events themselves have no impact on the direction of social mood; there is no feedback loop. If social mood governs social events, what governs social mood? Answer: The Wave Principle.

When we say social mood determines the character of social events, we mean is that the mood determines the general type of events that will emerge, but not the specific events themselves, nor the actions of specific individuals. Here is an example: Socionomic theory predicts that during times of negative social mood, horror movies will be popular. However, we cannot say whether or not a movie studio will green light the feature-length production of a particular horror film. Nor can we say—if the film gets made—that a specific individual will see the movie at his local cineplex.

Www.socionomics.net


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Socionomic Causality

 

This is taken directly from the Socionomics.net website. 

 

Socionomic Causality

Socionomics

Have been going back through Socionomics Institute research. There is a video on their website that is worth taking a few minutes to look at if you want to gain an introduction to their ideas: History's Hidden Engine.

Www.socionomics.net

Ideas have some interesting practical implications for business decision-making.


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Thursday, February 11, 2010

ZOHO CRM and Business Applications Suite

You have to go check out Zoho.com's business applications. I've been using them for a few days now, after having used Salesforce.com, and LongJump.com, and MS Office and Office Live Small Business apps.

This thing blows them away.

Zoho has officially "commoditized" the CRM and SaaS Business Applications space. Their pricepoint is so competitive and their funcitonality is so high that anyone in this space who thought they were going to be in the business of selling seats for revenue is now going to have to change their business model. this thing is fantastic.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

My Grandmother painted this

Wow!

Great books with practical insight and seasoned, biblically sound and godly wisdom on the local church...

"The Master's Plan for the Church" by John MacArthur

"Nine Marks of a Healthy Church" by Mark Dever

"Vintage Church" by Mark Driscoll


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How far we have come from the good sense of this nation's Founders

"But with respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, 1789

(from today's Patriot Post)

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Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Furtive efforts at blogging

These blogs are really sparce right now. I apologize for that. Just recently, I made a decision to try to use them to log meaningful information on each of the respective ventures that are in development. I have been experimenting with how I want them set up, and how I want them to refer to other thing like my Linkedin, Twitter, and Facebook accounts. I am still not sure that I have that completely resolved at this point.

My hope is that over the coming weeks, I will be able to settle some of these issues and begin to put meaningful and relevant information here.

Scott


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Monday, January 11, 2010

Character vs Reputation

“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merelywhat others think you are.” John Wooden

How well I know it.

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Sunday, January 10, 2010

Expect more

Expect more out of life than what cash can buy.


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"...no more Mr nice spy..."

Chuck starts tomorrow.


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Friday, January 8, 2010

The 9530 building





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Thursday, January 7, 2010

Test from the iphone app

Just a quick "ping" to make sure the iphone app is set up right.


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Friday, January 1, 2010

New Years Day

1Thessalonians 5:16-18

Rejoice always
Pray continually
In everything give thanks


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