Birth to 12 years in 2 min. 45 sec.

The Film shows 12 years of a girl from when she was born to her 12th birthday. All this is in 2 Mins. 45 Sec. It is amazing to see how the human being goes under transformation from being a toddler to being dead....The Girl in this video is beautiful and I wish a healthy and happy like.

I liked one of the comments from a viewer that said - "This is one of the reason why humanity still exists.We can make something everytime,we discover new things and we invent something everyday.You are a genius,man.Keep it up!"

Personal Home Robots that fly ... and cooperate

In his lab at Penn, Vijay Kumar and his team build flying quadrotors, small, agile robots that swarm, sense each other, and form ad hoc teams -- for construction, surveying disasters and far more.

2600 years of history in one object

How a piece of object can explain an entire chapter in history - A clay cylinder covered in Akkadian cuneiform script, damaged and broken, the Cyrus Cylinder is a powerful symbol of religious tolerance and multi-culturalism. In this enthralling talk Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, traces 2600 years of Middle Eastern history through this single object.

What happened to 8 wealthiest people in the world?

As we all understand that with the given economic situation, the window of opportunity(s) to bankruptcy is shortening; but it seems most evident in recent history of company(s) and individual(s) sliding from top to rock bottom….It seems the rule of law of gravity has simply multiplied its effect.

I was researching about top companies that were ruling the planet and now nowhere to be found. While researching about it; some one shared this amazing facts about few wealthiest, who had everything but then…..well…..Not everything……

In 1923, eight of the wealthiest people in the world met. Their combined wealth, estimated, exceeded the wealth of the government of the United States. These men knew how to make a living and accumulate wealth. 25 years later.

1. President of the largest steel company, Charles Schwab, died bankrupt.
2. President of the largest gas company, Howard Hubson, went insane.
3. One of the greatest commodity traders, Arthur Cutton, died insolvent.
4. President of the New York Stock Exchange, Richard Whitney, was sent to jail.
5. A member of the President’s Cabinet, Albert Fall, was pardoned from jail.
6. The greatest “bear” on Wall Street, Jessie Livermore, committed suicide.
7. President of the world’s greatest monopoly, Ivar Krueger, committed suicide.
8. President, Bank of International Settlement, Leon Fraser, committed suicide.

They forgot to make a life! Just made Money! Money provides food for the hungry, medicine for the sick, clothes for the needy, but is only a medium of exchange. We need two kinds of education. One that teaches us how to make a living and one that teaches us how to live. People are engrossed in their professional life and neglect their family, health and social responsibilities.

Our kids are sleeping when we leave home. They are sleeping when we come home. Twenty years later, we’ll turn back, and they’ll all be gone.

Without water, a ship cannot move. The ship needs water, but if the water gets into the ship, the ship will face problems and sink. Similarly we live in a time where earning is a necessity but let not the earning enter our hearts, for what was once a means of living will be become a means of destruction.

So take a moment and ask yourself….has the water entered my ship?

The 9 Trillion Dollar Loophole By Sarah…

A topic that is not often talked about due to its controversial nature, but a recent research by my friend Sarah @ COUPONS.ORG on tax havens, released ahead of Tax Day articulates on how tax havens work, what companies use them, and how much they cost the economy.

With tax day just around the corner, we’re happy to present  the latest infographic on the most popular and shocking tax havens in the world. Featured here are the havens of Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, and Ireland, but between these and every other offshore financial center, individuals and corporations have potentially $9 trillion in funds that is untouchable by the IRS.

With more and more pressure being put on these havens by international forces, they are constantly shifting policies and laws, but it’s unlikely that tax havens will ever go completely out of style. While some are used primarily for private banking, like Switzerland and Luxembourg, places like Ireland have become a mecca for US companies’ European headquarters, creating more than 100,000 jobs in Dublin alone.

Check out the graphic to learn more about these low-tax and tax-free safe havens and as always, let us know what you think in the comments below!

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The Story of India Investments/Inflation

This is an excellent research on Indian Investments/Inflation done/written by D. Muthukrishnan

We always discuss about various asset class, the need for equity to be part of portfolio not only for capital appreciation but even for capital preservation.

I’ve been looking for data in public domain which captures last 33 years (since 1979-80 when Sensex base was kept at 100) of returns from Fixed deposits, Gold, Silver and Sensex, duly adjusted for inflation.

I was unable to get the same.

Few days ago, I saw in a newspaper how FDs have scored over Sensex in the last 20 years. I was surprised with the comparison and I felt it was out of context. Firstly Sensex was at around 45 multiples twenty years ago due to Harshad Mehta pumping lot of money illegitimately from banking system. Currently the market is on sideways or consolidation phase for the last few years with around 15+ multiples.

Not only that when you calculate Sensex returns we’ve to take into account dividend yield. The data given in the newspaper has captured only capital appreciation but completely ignored dividend yield which is must for a proper comparison.

Also post tax return from any investment also needs to be looked into. The huge tax benefits in equity over FDs have been completely ignored.

It would have been better if the newspaper has also pointed out how a retail investor investing regularly would have benefited over the above 20 year period.

Likewise whenever people talk about returns of gold and silver; I see there is lot of misunderstanding and misconception on long term return part.

When I happened to chat with Kashyap Vyas, an excellent professional and a good friend of mine from a fund house; we hit upon on idea to collate ourselves what we could not find in public domain and then share the same in public domain.

I worked on the idea using him as a sounding board for certain clarification and inputs.

The notes in the above files have all the details about source of data, assumption etc.

If you’ve kept as cash Rs.1 Lakh in a suitcase 33 years ago, its value is only Rs.7 thousand today. What it actually means? This means your cost of living has increased by 14 times (Rs.1,00,000/- divided by Rs.7000/-). To explain it little more, assuming the inflation rates are similar for next 33 years, the Rs.1 lakh you’ve today would be able to buy after 33 years goods worth only Rs.7000/- as on today’s value.

You can see for yourself what inflation has done to each asset year on year, for more than 3 decades. When we say, the investments have to beat inflation; some people have difficulty in connecting to what we say.

I’ll tell you a real life example. A family known to me is living on a corpus of Rs.10 lakh for more than 10 years, keeping the money in fixed deposit. Ten years ago, they were getting Rs.6700/- as monthly income (@8% interest per annum), which was sufficient to take care of their expenses. Now they are getting around Rs.7500/- as monthly income (@ 9% per annum). Their standard of living has extremely deteriorated because what 7k would purchase 10 years ago is lot more than what it can do today.

To put it in the words of Buffett:

“It makes no difference to a widow with her savings in a 5% passbook account whether she pays 100% income tax on her interest income during a period of zero inflation or pay no income taxes during years of 5% inflation. Either way she is ‘taxed’ in a manner that leaves her no real income whatsoever. Any money she spends comes right out of capital. She would find outrageous, a 100% income tax but doesn’t seem to notice that 5% inflation is economic equivalent.”

Sensex have given an annualized return of 16.92% in the last 33 years. Since every year dividend yield of Sensex is not available in public domain, I’ve not included the same in the year on year calculation. However assuming a dividend yield of 2% per annum, the annualized returns work out to 18.92%. So Rs.1 lakh invested in Sensex 33 years ago is now around Rs.1.74 crores. Adding the above dividend yield, the return would be Rs.3.04 crores.

The annualized rate of return for fixed deposits is 8.37%. So Rs.1 lakh invested in FD 33 years ago is worth Rs.14.22 lakhs today.

The annualized rate of return for gold is 11.22%. So Rs.1 lakh invested in gold 33 years ago is worth Rs.33.52 lakhs today.

The annualized rate of return for silver is 11.60% (more than gold!). So Rs.1 lakh invested in silver 33 years ago is worth Rs.37.44 lakhs today.

Still the above comparison has a catch. How to compare today’s Rs.1.74 crores or Rs.14.22 lakhs with that Rs.1 lakh 33 years ago. Money in two different periods is not comparable unless accounted for inflation. You can very easily relate to this. Many retired civil servants tell that they started as a clerk with a paltry salary of say Rs.100/- in 1955. You may feel that it is very less. But at an annual inflation of 10%, their salary would be worth Rs.23,000/- in today’s prices. Not bad, right?! It depends upon how well we’re able to understand the data

So the returns mentioned above for each asset class is nominal rate of returns. To compare what is 33 years ago with what is today, we’ve to adjust for inflation and arrive at real rate of return (detailed working is available in the files).

So Sensex at 16.92% annualized returns, after accounting for inflation is now worth Rs.12.54 lakhs. After including the dividend yield mentioned above, at 18.92% annualized returns is Rs.21.95 lakhs. Since I feel including the dividend yield is most appropriate, the capital has actually multiplied 22 times. For some reasons, you do not wan to account for dividend yield still the capital has multiplied 13 times. Let me repeat, this is real returns and not nominal one; as we’ve seen above, if we do not adjust for inflation, in nominal terms the capital has multiplied by 174 and 304 times respectively (without and with dividend yield).

Let us now look at other asset classes:

If we apply inflation adjusted growth, FD has grown to only Rs.1.02 lakhs today. Almost zero capital appreciation over last 33 years. As FDs are taxed based on accruals and not on receipts, even this return does not reflect reality. Since only after paying tax or deduction at source, compounding happens in FD, your capital (purchasing power) would have eroded significantly.

If we apply inflation adjusted growth, Gold has grown to Rs.2.42 lakhs today. Capital appreciation of 2.4 times over last 33 years.

For Silver, if we apply inflation adjusted growth, it has grown to Rs.2.7 lakhs today. Capital appreciation of 2.7 times over last 33 years.

Gold and Silver had a severe price fall over two decades beginning 1980 in international markets. We did not feel the impact because rupee depreciated a lot during the same period.

Despite all these if you see in the above files, in terms of inflation adjusted value, gold and silver (even FD too) was able to decisively cross the original capital only after 25 years; fuelled by extreme increase in gold and silver prices for the last 8 years.

Even to my surprise, I observed that Sensex at no given time at has gone below the original investment value after adjusting for inflation.

One Dollar was worth Rs.8/- in 1981. Whereas the conversion rate was Rs.48/- in 2002.

Gold prices fell from $892 per ounce in 1980 to $272 in the year 2000. A fall of around 70% in value over 20 year period.

When gold has depreciated by 70%, the rupee has depreciated by 600% in the same period.

So the gain we saw in the Indian market while prices fell globally was due to the depreciation in the value of rupee and strong appreciation in the value of dollar.

This further strengthened our illusion that gold prices never fall.

As I’ve said before commodities have longer cycle. It is mentioned that on an average bull markets in commodities last more than a decade and bear market nearly 2 decades. So despite gold and silver at somewhere in the peak of cycle, despite due to strong currency depreciation in the past decades, gold and silver has been able to deliver only above returns. I’ve taken only Indian prices of gold and silver for the last 33 years.

What if the prices of gold fall again globally say by 30% and rupee conversion rate remains the same? We would also experience a fall in prices.

Again what if the gold prices fall globally and rupee strengthens, say Rs.40/- to a dollar. It would be a double whammy. The fall would be more.

Commodities like gold and silver generally have longer cycles whereas stock markets usually have shorter cycles.

This creates an illusion the stock markets are instable and gold is stable.

In stock markets the recovery also may be faster but in gold the recovery may be longer.

Globally it took 28 years to get the same price for gold (i.e.) the highest price reached in 1980 was again touched only in 2008. Zero return for 28 years! Adjusting for inflation, a severe loss of capital.

I’m not against FDs or debt based products. You do know that I recommend them and suggest following the prescribed asset allocation.

But with out equity, you’ll not only be able to enhance wealth but even preserving wealth in terms of purchasing power is next to impossibility. The only exception may be people who have huge, really very huge corpus.

As I repeat, do not time the market. Enough studies and research has been done in this regard and the general pointer is, if you miss the best 1% of days (roughly 20 days) in 10 years, your return may probably equal a savings bank account return and if you miss 2% of days, you may not get any return at all or may even loose some capital. Instead of timing make investing a regular habit.

You may time only in the following situations- making lump sum investments when valuations are attractive, not making lump sum investments when valuations are expensive, start planning to phase out withdrawal a year or two before you near your goal – retirement, child’s higher education, daughter’s marriage etc. Again the term attractive or expensive valuation is relative. In a bear market, when you invest at attractive valuations, the markets can go further lower too and become more attractive.That’s fine as our investment outlook is long term and notional loss should not bother us.

Likewise it is very difficult to know what is an expensive valuation in bull markets. Bull markets are very euphoric and we may think valuations are high, still it may run higher for even few years. Only in hindsight we’ll know when the valuations get peaked out; that’s also fine. It is better to be safer than sorry. In bull markets, especially at later stages, it is better to continue only monthly regular investments and not make any lump sum investments.

Whatever I mention as equity is only applicable to portfolio of stocks like mutual funds or index. Individual stock picking is completely a different game and what I say should not be applied for individual stocks.

The only asset class missing from comparison is real estate. I wish there is a reliable, long term and broadly accepted indices for the same. In the absence of it, comparison is not possible.

You may tell me about a particular piece of property multiplied by hundreds of times in last 30 years. I can even tell stocks multiplied by thousands of times!

Likewise some property might not have appreciated much, illiquid, got into litigation, occupied by goondas etc. Like wise there are stocks which have vanished in thin air over the years. So we can only do comparison as a basket.

Though the real estate sector lacks any reliable and broadly accepted indices like financial assets, some studies peg the annualized return of real estate as an asset class around 12%. I’ve no idea what the real number is.

2012 Social Media Marketing Report

The 2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report by Michaela Stelzner in out. It dwells on the aspect of how How Marketers Are Using Social Media to Grow Their Businesses.

Here's a quick summary of our primary findings:

• Marketers still place high value on social media: A significant 83% of marketers indicate that social media is important for their business.
• Measurement and targeting are top areas marketers want to master: Forty percent of all social media marketers want to know how to measure the return on investment (ROI) of social media and find customers and prospects.
• Video marketing holds the top spot for future plans: A significant 76% of marketers plan on increasing their use of YouTube and video marketing, making it the top area marketers will invest in for 2012.
• Marketers seek to learn more about Google+: While only 40% of marketers are using Google+, 70% of marketers want to learn more about it and 67% plan on increasing Google+ activities.
• Top three benefits of social media marketing: The number-one benefit of social media marketing is generating more business exposure (reported 85% of marketers), followed by increasing traffic (69%) and providing marketplace insight (65%).
• Top five social media networks/tools for marketers: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs and YouTube were the top five social media tools used by marketers, in that order.
• Social media marketing still takes a lot of time: The majority of marketers (59%) are using social media for 6 hours or more each week, and a third (33%) invest 11 or more hours weekly.
• Social media outsourcing underutilized: Only 30% of  businesses are outsourcing some portion of their social media marketing, only a slight increase from 28% in 2011.

You can download the entire report by clicking HERE

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Roundup of SaaS ERP Forecasts and Market Estimates, 2012

The latest round of SaaS ERP market forecasts are more grounded in the reality of CIO priorities and committed projects in 2012 than ever before.  And this is good news for the many vendors competing in the Financial Management Systems (FMS), Human Capital Management (HCM) and Manufacturing segments of the SaaS ERP market.

Two weeks ago in Houston I interviewed twenty-five different CIOs, IT Directors, CEOs and CTOs as part of a persona research study I am doing.  Their take on SaaS ERP was consistent with what this round-up shows, namely this type of SaaS application is best suited for extending beyond, not replacing, the main ERP systems and platforms.   I concentrated on SaaS ERP adoption in manufacturing and learned the following during my interviews:

• Of the CIOs I spoke with, SaaS ERP is getting the most traction on the Financial Management Systems side.  The majority of CIOs I spoke to at Convergence was there to learn more about how Microsoft will bring Dynamics ERP to Azure.  Frank Scavo, in his postMicrosoft Dynamics ERP on Azure: What Are the Benefits? provides insightful, excellent analysis of Microsoft choosing to be more strategic and leaving the hype behind.  Cindy Jutras does a great job explaining Cloud and SaaS technology and strategy differences in her recent post as well.  Both posts align exactly with where CIOs are in terms of their evaluation cycles and thinking on this topic.

• Usability and speed of deployment are the two most common benefits CIOs mentioned in my survey during Convergence.  The economics of cloud computing is a topic that CFOs love to talk about, especially in the areas of value-based pricing and how that is determined.

• When asked what kept them up at night, CIOs said it was the thought of a call from their boss (often the CFO) that a cloud system had been compromised or had completely gone down.  Security and reliability are holding back CIOs in manufacturing from adopting SaaS-based ERP systems more pervasively in their companies.

• CIOs from aerospace and defense companies get the benefits of cloud computing, yet they have much bigger issues to deal with right now, like replacing financials in their existing ERP system and staying in compliance to government requirements. Earned Value Management is a major focus they have as well.  SaaS-based ERP systems are interesting to them; they however would require a completely enclosed, locked-down implementation due to security requirements.

• There are vast differences in how CIOs view cloud computing – something that the following forecasts don’t really capture. For the CIOs who are strategists, cloud computing in general and SaaS ERP specifically is a consideration given the agility and time-to-market, providing customization is held to a minimum.  CIOs who came up through IT have a healthy degree of skepticism and see SaaS ERP as potentially useful for scaling out an operation yet never being the primary financial system.

Here are the latest SaaS ERP forecasts and market estimates:

• Gartner released their latest SaaS revenue forecast last week predicting revenue will reach $14.5B this year, a 17.9% increase from 2011 of $12.3B, with strong growth predicted through 2015 when the market is expected to be $22.1B. Source:http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh040212-story08.html

• In the report Market Trends: Cloud Computing and SaaS Adoption in Manufacturing and Natural Resources, Worldwide, 2012 Gartner is predicting  59% of manufacturers will adopt IaaS during the 2011 – 2015 timeframe and 47% will be either piloting or using SaaS-based applications.  Gartner cites the need for greater business and supply chain agility as the factors driving this rapid adoption.  The following figure is from the Gartner report Market Trends: Cloud Computing and SaaS Adoption in Manufacturing and Natural Resources, Worldwide, 2012.

• Forrester forecasts SaaS ERP spending staying at 2% of the global ERP market, while Gartner forecasts 7% through 2012. Gartner is projecting Project and Portfolio Management (29.1%) and Supply Chain Management (22.1%) will see the greatest growth rates through 2015.  Supply Chain Management is expected to reach $2.7B in revenue by 2015.  The Total Software Revenue Forecast for SaaS Delivery Within Enterprise Software is shown in the following table.  Source: Forecast: Software as a Service, Worldwide, 2010-2015, 1H11 Update Published: 22 June 2011 Analyst(s): Sharon A. Mertz, Chad Eschinger, Tom Eid, Chris Pang, Laurie F. Wurster

• Gartner, IDC and Forrester all predict that Human Capital Management (HCM) will see the broadest adoption of all SaaS-based ERP components through 2015. Vendors in this category include ADP, Concur, Cornerstone onDemand, HumanConcepts, Infor, Kenexa, Lumesse, Saba, SilkRoad, Sonar6, SuccessFactors, SumTotal Systems, Taleo, Ultimate Software and Workday.  Based on a recent Gartner Spending and Usage of SaaS Survey, 39% of manufacturers are piloting or using SaaS-based financials followed by 37% using Expense Management.The following figure illustrates their forecast, from the report Market Trends: Cloud Computing and SaaS Adoption in Manufacturing and Natural Resources, Worldwide, 2012

• Gartner’s IT Market Clock for ERP Platform Technology indicates that multitenant SaaS-based ERP is maturing rapidly, driven by time-to-market and cost advantages. The IT Market Clock is shown below, indicating SaaS ERP-based systems position relative to other ERP platforms now in use.  Vendors including  Epicor Express Editions, Glovia, Kenandy, NetSuite, Plex Systems, and SAP Business ByDesign compete in this segment.Source: IT Market Clock for ERP Platform Technology, 2011 Published: 19 September 2011 Analyst: Jim Shepherd.

Gartner has also compiled a Market Clock Recommendation Summary which is shown in the following table.  Of the CIOs I’ve spoken with during the persona research, the description of Multitenant SaaS is accurate.  No CIO I’ve spoken with is willing to bet their job on a rip-and-replace strategy for SaaS ERP; yet many are willing to extend their existing ERP systems using SaaS implementations to get up and running quickly at lower cost.  The one caveat nearly everyone mentions is little or no customization is necessary for SaaS ERP systems to be even evaluated by their companies.  Slight configuration is expected; however in-depth customization is not.

Bottom line: The persona research completed shows that the SaaS-based ERP growth is being helped by the transition occurring in the CIO ranks today.  More of them are strategists, who are expected to make business strategies happen, over and above just keeping the system dial tone on in their enterprises.

Courtesy – Louis Columbus

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Sherry Turkle: Connected, but alone?

As we expect more from technology, do we expect less from each other? Sherry Turkle studies how our devices and online personas are redefining human connection and communication -- and asks us to think deeply about the new kinds of connection we want to have.

Put forth the idea before it is late...

Marketer's Guide To Facebook Timeline: Tips for Brands and Marketers For The 2012 Changes To Pages

On 29 Feb 2012, Facebook launched its Timeline layout for brand Pages and several new advertising products. The new layout will have an impact on what brands have built on Facebook in the past and how brands can best use Facebook in the future.

What’s your timeline for making the most of the new layout? How about starting now?

Jack’s guide to Facebook Timeline suggests new best practices and addresses how the changes put brands over communities, could distract marketers from the News Feed, necessitate visualization and encourage storytelling through brand heritage.

 

View more presentations from Jack

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