COUNTDOWN WEBSITE
The Business Plan Competition Final event is tomorrow at 4pm. Seth and I have a "Slap Bet". The winner gets to slap the loser right straight in the face.
Congrats on getting 2nd place tomorrow Seth!
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
The Lottery - Just Don't Do It
A fellow MBA wrote a post in our student forum about going to Idaho to get lottery tickets. This was my response:
Alright. As a finance guy, I beg of you to listen to some reason, sense, logic, math, etc and don’t waste your time or money. You will not win. I repeat. YOU WILL NOT WIN! Don’t be so stupid to think you can. I hate to be so blunt, but as a finance guy, there are 2 things I hate: lotteries and MLMs.
Dr Jarvis in the math department here has a great write up on it ( you can read more here: http://www.math.byu.edu/~jarvis/gambling/gambling/gambling-article.html ) but here is an excerpt:
“The odds for lotteries are even worse than casinos. The Minnesota State Lottery, for example, pays out only 60% of the money it takes in–substantially worse than slot machines or any other type of casino gambling. And the chances of winning the $5000 jackpot in the Minnesota scratch-off lottery are approximately one in 240,000. You are six times more likely to die from a lightning strike than to win this jackpot.[18] And bigger jackpots have still worse odds. The chances of winning the California Lotto Jackpot are approximately one in 18,000,000. If you have to drive ten miles to buy this ticket, you are three times more likely to be killed in an automobile accident on the way than to win the jackpot.[19] If all of the losers of this lottery were to stand in line, they would reach approximately 6800 miles, which is approximately than the distance from New York City to Japan. And to have a fifty-fifty chance of winning the jackpot of the British National Lottery, you would have to spend five pounds a week for the next 28,000 years.[20]
The worst odds are in the large multi-state lotteries like the Powerball, and they are are almost non-existent. Chances of winning are worse than one in fifty-four million. Put in perspective, this means that if all of the losers for one drawing of this lottery were to line up, the line would stretch most of the way around the world. You are far more likely to be injured by a lightning strike this week than to win this jackpot.[21] And if you were to read aloud the names of the losing ticket holders for just one drawing, it would take about three and-a-half years.”
So once again, don’t do it. If you feel you must then come find me, give me your dollar, I’ll kick you in the butt and the outcome will be the same (and I may even give you your dollar back).
To use a bizarro NIke phrase: Just Don’t Do It!
- Rhett
Alright. As a finance guy, I beg of you to listen to some reason, sense, logic, math, etc and don’t waste your time or money. You will not win. I repeat. YOU WILL NOT WIN! Don’t be so stupid to think you can. I hate to be so blunt, but as a finance guy, there are 2 things I hate: lotteries and MLMs.
Dr Jarvis in the math department here has a great write up on it ( you can read more here: http://www.math.byu.edu/~jarvis/gambling/gambling/gambling-article.html ) but here is an excerpt:
“The odds for lotteries are even worse than casinos. The Minnesota State Lottery, for example, pays out only 60% of the money it takes in–substantially worse than slot machines or any other type of casino gambling. And the chances of winning the $5000 jackpot in the Minnesota scratch-off lottery are approximately one in 240,000. You are six times more likely to die from a lightning strike than to win this jackpot.[18] And bigger jackpots have still worse odds. The chances of winning the California Lotto Jackpot are approximately one in 18,000,000. If you have to drive ten miles to buy this ticket, you are three times more likely to be killed in an automobile accident on the way than to win the jackpot.[19] If all of the losers of this lottery were to stand in line, they would reach approximately 6800 miles, which is approximately than the distance from New York City to Japan. And to have a fifty-fifty chance of winning the jackpot of the British National Lottery, you would have to spend five pounds a week for the next 28,000 years.[20]
The worst odds are in the large multi-state lotteries like the Powerball, and they are are almost non-existent. Chances of winning are worse than one in fifty-four million. Put in perspective, this means that if all of the losers for one drawing of this lottery were to line up, the line would stretch most of the way around the world. You are far more likely to be injured by a lightning strike this week than to win this jackpot.[21] And if you were to read aloud the names of the losing ticket holders for just one drawing, it would take about three and-a-half years.”
So once again, don’t do it. If you feel you must then come find me, give me your dollar, I’ll kick you in the butt and the outcome will be the same (and I may even give you your dollar back).
To use a bizarro NIke phrase: Just Don’t Do It!
- Rhett
Thursday, March 08, 2012
Klout.com
What is Klout?
Klout attempts to measure your online influence from you social networks. You can sign up for a Klout account at Klout.com and link your social media from twitter, facebook, google+, linkedin, youtube, etc. Originally Klout started by tracking twitter activity and I feel like it is still the main component of their algorithm. However, recently they have sections highlighting facebook and google+ activity.
Klout claims that their goal is to help their users find out:
Score Analysis
The score is on a scale of 1-100. However its not an arithmetic scale. The average score is 20 and it get's exponentially harder to increase your score. Also, Klout attempts to measure influence rather than just size of audience. If you generate activity, it will boost your Klout score. Even if you have thousands of followers, if they don't comment, reshare, like, pass on, etc your content, then you don't have as much Klout.
The score analysis includes things such as:
Score chart
Let's look at my score chart from the past 30 days. On Feb 16th I was given the assignment to report on Klout and my score was 52. Since then I tied in my Facebook and Google+ accounts and actively tried to post and tweet items that would get some attention. Some members of our class tried to do the same and it's fun (and possibly useful) to compare Klout scores.
Rhett vs Paul
Paul Bryan does an excellent job breaking down our Klout battle and the content I tried to generate. Worth the read just to see how I received Klout by talking about Disney Princesses, posted pictures of me with famous people, and generally just tried to "push buttons".
As you can see, content that generates "activity" raises your Klout score. The downside is that it now thinks I'm influential about Disney princesses.
Three Metrics
There are 3 metrics that Klout includes for analysis besides just score. They are:
First off: Don't game the system. Don't waste your time trying to increase your Klout score just to increase it. However this article about increasing your klout score I think provides some great tips on how to be more influential online with social media. They are:
Klout has an option for adding users to lists. This can be a good tool to use to see users in one space. Here is our class list for our MBA 693 Social Media Class.
Top 6 #SocialMBA Klout
My Experience at #SSAC
I went to Boston last week to the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. I tweeted a lot during the conference to try to raise my Klout score for this project. However a curious thing happened. During a panel that was discussing the technology regarding stadium wifi, I had the following twitter interaction:
It turns out that Steve Hellmuth is the executive vice president over technology and operations for the NBA. This is a great contact to have considering I worked on a project for Cisco involving their connected stadiums. It pays to interact.
Conclusion
Klout provides some interesting insights regarding online social media activity and "influence". I think they are still in their discovery phase of their business cycle and might pivot to provide more useful tools for measuring social media influence.
- Rhett
P.S. Another fun link: compare Klout scores, twitter followers, and facebook fans for major colleges: http://fanpagelist.com/category/organizations/colleges/view/list/sort/influence/
Klout attempts to measure your online influence from you social networks. You can sign up for a Klout account at Klout.com and link your social media from twitter, facebook, google+, linkedin, youtube, etc. Originally Klout started by tracking twitter activity and I feel like it is still the main component of their algorithm. However, recently they have sections highlighting facebook and google+ activity.
- How influential your opinion is online
- What topics you are most influential on
- How you compare to your "friends"
Score Analysis
The score is on a scale of 1-100. However its not an arithmetic scale. The average score is 20 and it get's exponentially harder to increase your score. Also, Klout attempts to measure influence rather than just size of audience. If you generate activity, it will boost your Klout score. Even if you have thousands of followers, if they don't comment, reshare, like, pass on, etc your content, then you don't have as much Klout.
The score analysis includes things such as:
- Twitter: retweets and mentions
- Facebook: comments, wall posts, and likes
- LinkedIn: comments and likes
- Foursquare: Tips, To-do's, done
- Google+: comments, reshares, +1's
As of right now, you can connect other networks (such as youtube, blogger, tumblr), but they won't influence your score.
Score chart
Let's look at my score chart from the past 30 days. On Feb 16th I was given the assignment to report on Klout and my score was 52. Since then I tied in my Facebook and Google+ accounts and actively tried to post and tweet items that would get some attention. Some members of our class tried to do the same and it's fun (and possibly useful) to compare Klout scores.
Rhett vs Paul
Paul Bryan does an excellent job breaking down our Klout battle and the content I tried to generate. Worth the read just to see how I received Klout by talking about Disney Princesses, posted pictures of me with famous people, and generally just tried to "push buttons".
As you can see, content that generates "activity" raises your Klout score. The downside is that it now thinks I'm influential about Disney princesses.
Three Metrics
There are 3 metrics that Klout includes for analysis besides just score. They are:
- True Reach - the number of people you influence in immediate and extended networks
- Amplification - how much you influence people
- Network Impact - the influence of your audience (how influential they are)
True reach is the actual number of people you influence while amplification and network are a score composed by Klout.
Interesting Article: 6 Ways to Increase Your Klout ScoreFirst off: Don't game the system. Don't waste your time trying to increase your Klout score just to increase it. However this article about increasing your klout score I think provides some great tips on how to be more influential online with social media. They are:
- Create content worth sharing
- Start a discussion
- Connect other networks
- Build a small community
- Engage with influencers
- Use buffer (i.e. don't post all your good stuff at once or in the middle of the night)
Klout has an option for adding users to lists. This can be a good tool to use to see users in one space. Here is our class list for our MBA 693 Social Media Class.
Top 6 #SocialMBA Klout
My Experience at #SSAC
I went to Boston last week to the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. I tweeted a lot during the conference to try to raise my Klout score for this project. However a curious thing happened. During a panel that was discussing the technology regarding stadium wifi, I had the following twitter interaction:
Conclusion
Klout provides some interesting insights regarding online social media activity and "influence". I think they are still in their discovery phase of their business cycle and might pivot to provide more useful tools for measuring social media influence.
- Rhett
P.S. Another fun link: compare Klout scores, twitter followers, and facebook fans for major colleges: http://fanpagelist.com/category/organizations/colleges/view/list/sort/influence/
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