Columbus

Right wing party responsible for EU adhesion

Posted on 16 September 2011 by dselz

By undercutting the Swiss Central Bank the right wing party SVP actually expedites the Swiss adhesion to the EU.

9/11 – ten years on

Posted on 11 September 2011 by dselz

In Memoriam

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Swiss bankers apparently are unable to learn: For three years the Credit Suisse says it has a zero tolerance policy towards tax evasion, and yet the business took place on large scale. Why exactly did senior management not intervene earlier?

Digital noise reduction

Posted on 7 September 2011 by dselz

“Why Google+ rocks”. Aha. That assertion was brought to me multiple times on consecutive days. Here’s a recent screenshot of my Google+ stream: Same message, twice (additional duplicates omitted to save space).

The early praise was all about Google changing the social network game. After a few days though, non-distinct and re-posted messages started to take the front seat.

And I am lucky to be only exposed to this amount of re-sharing the already shared: Last year Forrester Research published research that shows that almost 70% of people using social media simply consumed content. They did not post, they did not comment, they did not interact. Would they, I’d need to skip the same post many times more.

Given this information inflation we need to find ways to readjust the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The SNR compares the level of desired information (signal) to undesired (background) noise. If it stands above 1 it indicates more signal than noise, below 1 more noise than signal. The trend? Towards ratios consistently below 1.

How can we reverse the trend?

A good place to start is information you deem worth keeping. A given collection of information snippets on a certain topic is a pretty good starting point to filter through the sea of information the Internet has become.

First such solutions sifting through your social media streams and filtering the relevant items are available; NewsMix.Me, Summify, Flipboard, TweetedTimes, etc. Here at Memonic we’re experimenting on such digital noise reduction techniques for the business space. With features such as the dashboard quite a bit is built into our product already (And much more is to come).

Filtering implies omission. This is good if it reduces above screenshot in half and simply would indicate which other person found this helpful, too. It is a problem if we look at the world at large only through such filters. More on that in a later post.

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Short note – big impact

Posted on 6 September 2011 by dselz

Swiss National Bank sets minimum exchange rate at CHF 1.20 per euro

A short note and the long decline of the Swiss Franc came to a brisk close.

Source: ZKB.ch

We may guestimate the consequences.

Posted in Banks, PracticalEconomics | Comments Off

Information Hyperinflation

Posted on 21 August 2011 by dselz

The Economist recently published this chart.

Source: Economist, 2011

That reminded me strongly about a chart depicting the hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic in the 20ties of the last century. Shortly before converting the currency it was in the million percent range. Okay we’re in terms of digital data creation only in range of a 60% yearly increase. At this pace we’ll soon be in the >100% range.

Source: Financial Times 2001

Hyperinflation describes a rapid and sustained price increase. Say an item costing 1$ on January first with a monthly inflation rate of 50% will cost $130 next January. Hyperinflation basically destroys the monetary value of your belongings.

The same is today happening with information. At the hyperinflationary pace new data is created and replicated the actual value of a piece of information gets destroyed.

Social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and many others are prime guarantors of a continued acceleration of data creation and duplication. How many links in your streams have you seen twice, three times and more as tweets, retweets, and retweets of retweets. Once would be enough.

It adds incremental value only to see a post four times. May be it is really a valuable post I really should read. And that link points to some interesting read, because so many of my friends retweet (only few do more than simply retweet) it. Yet a symbol indicating its popularity included in the tweet would be enough.

Now though I have to skim through a lot of clutter. It becomes increasingly impossible, to find a nugget of valuable information in a sea of nonsense.

In the money world there is a simple recipe to stop the frenzy: Change the currency. They did that in the Weimar Republic introducing a new currency called Rentenmark backed by real assets such as mortgaged land and industrial goods (there was no enough Gold available to back to the currency).

This solution is not available in the digital realm. You can’t simply introduce a new digital information standard to stop this replication frenzy. We all simply will continue to post pictures, tweets, Google+’s and more… The problem is here to stay.

Or is it?

Much of what is posted is noise. To get the signal-to-noise ratio again down to acceptable levels we’re in need of a new paradigm digital noise reduction.

Message to Greece: fix your mess

Posted on 21 August 2011 by dselz

Sitting in the plane at ZRH airport delayed by an hour because of Greek air traffic controllers.

Guys seriously, we love you, support you, do economic development for you – ie. come for holidays to you. We don’t expect the world in return but a little less rear-guardedness. You overspent, over-cheated (at least on taxes) and over-privileged yourselves (unionized state employees such as air traffic controllers).

Fix your mess, ie work harder for less, stop cheating. In return we help you overcome your temporary hitch and come for holidays to lovely Greece for years to come.

Posted in PracticalEconomics | Comments Off

Off to San Francisco – Memonic that is

Posted on 19 August 2011 by dselz

We reached the top 4 of the AppQuest 2011 contest! This means that Memonic – together with our partner PARX – will fly to the Dreamforce Conference in San Francisco! There we will be able to present our Memonic Clipper for Salesforce in front of the audience and the jury.

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Collusion in the Swiss Publishing Industry

Posted on 16 August 2011 by dselz

Had lunch with one guy from one reputable Zurich newspaper publishing company and met a guy from another reputable Zurich newspaper publishing company. Both have intimate knowledge about their respective digital strategies. And both were complaining loudly that their companies don’t get anywhere.

Worth reading: Stop Coddling the Super-Rich

Posted on 15 August 2011 by dselz

The world’s most successful investor, Warren Buffet, calls for an end to the low-tax regime for the super-rich on the ground that it undoes society:

“While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks.”

Worth reading: “Stop Coddling the Super-Rich“.

Posted in Politics, Society | Comments Off