Here’s when the next recession might start | Business Insider

July 27, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

I have previously shown that based on the past five business cycles, the next recession might not start until March 2019. I examined the Index of Coincident Economic Indicators (CEI) for some historical guidance on the longevity of economic expansions. Let’s update our analysis.

It has taken 68 months–from January 2008 through October 2013–for the CEI to fully recover from its severe decline during 2008 and early 2009. The previous five recovery periods averaged 26 months within a range of 19-33 months. The good news is that the average increase in the CEI following each of those recovery periods through the next peak was 18.6%, over an average period of 65 months within a range of 30-104 months. If we apply this average to the current cycle, then the CEI would peak in 45 more months, during March 2019, with a substantial gain from here.

Autonomous trucks: Daimler seeks licence for road tests | BBC News

July 27, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Car manufacturer Daimler is hoping to test self-driving trucks on German motorways this year, according to a company executive.

Speaking to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, Wolfgang Bernhard said he was “positive” the firm would get certification within weeks.

Daimler has been road-testing its autonomous trucks in Nevada since May.

Although a computer controls the vehicles, a human driver is present at all times.

Daimler is currently seeking certification for a self-driving truck so it can be tested on public roads in Germany.

5 Gorgeous Hospitals That Show How Good Design Can Improve Patients’ Lives | Co.Exist

July 27, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

If you’ve ever been wheeled into an ER room on a stretcher and spent hours staring at a windowless gray wall, you’re already aware that traditional hospitals haven’t exactly been designed to be comforting. But that’s changing. Forward-thinking hospitals are realizing that good design that improve patients’ mood can actually help people get well faster.

“In the past, the design of health care facilities was focused more on supporting the patient care team than the actual patient,” says Scott Habjan, associate director at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, who served as jury chair for the recent AIA National Healthcare Design Awards. The winning designs all give patients more attention, based on research that shows the physical environment can help patients feel less stressed, take less pain medicine, and improve more quickly.

“Qualities like natural light, views to nature, and quiet and clean patient rooms all contribute to a positive patient experience,” Habjan says. “Planning that keeps caregivers closer to the patient and environments that give them a sense of control serve to support the healing process. Conversely, facilities designed without the patient in mind can be particularly stressful and depressing to someone already in a vulnerable state.”

Read about a few of the award winners to see examples of facilities thinking differently:

Google’s YouTube Signs Up Everyone But TV for New Paid Service | Bloomberg Business

July 21, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Google Inc.’s YouTube, which has signed up partners for a new paid video service, may find out by early next year whether its own Internet stars really are as valuable as those in Hollywood.

Partners accounting for more than 90 percent of YouTube viewing have signed on to the paid service, the company said in a statement. While the lineup incudes home-grown celebrities and music videos, YouTube so far doesn’t have TV networks such as Fox, NBC and CBS, according to people with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified discussing the project.

TV staples like Fox’s “Futurama,” NBC’s “Parks & Recreation” and CBS’s “Under the Dome” are a featured part of competing products from Netflix Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. Without shows like those, YouTube’s commercial-free service will have to attract paying viewers with original series, music videos and thousands of its channels already available for free.

Holacracy, Explained: An Illustrated Guide to Management-Free Organizations | Page19

July 21, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Have you heard about Holacracy? If you’re watching the startup and tech scene, then there’s a pretty good chance you have.

Holacracy is a management-free way to run a company. It’s been around for a few years, but it may have come to your attention just recently when its inventor, Brian Robertson, released a book on the concept. Another place you might have recently heard about Holacracy is in the media when Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO, asked his employees to either fully buy in to the company’s holacracy initiative or take their leave (along with a nice little bonus to sweeten the exit).

Even before all the media buzz, we at Blinkist were fascinated with Holacracy. In fact, it led us to develop our own, lighter approach called Blinkracy and roll it out through our team.

One thing that we noticed along the way is that there’s a huge breach between how simple and efficient Holacracy can make work and how not simple it is to understand. Holacracy is a beautiful concept that makes organizations more effective and much better places to work. However, the mass of holacracy-only lingo makes the adoption curve high.

Economic storms hit U.S. – 6 biggest threats to the stock market | CNNMoney

July 20, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ 1 Comment

The American stock market is heating up again.

The Greek bailout and strong earnings from tech companies like Google (GOOG) and Netflix (NFLX, Tech30) have carried the Dow and S&P 500 near record highs. The Nasdaq is on track for a third-straight record close.

But that doesn’t mean the bull market in U.S. stocks is bulletproof. The biggest threat: a slowdown in the American economy.

Just look at how retail sales unexpectedly declined in June.

If people continue to hold back on spending, it will throw cold water on investors who are betting that economic growth will accelerate during the second half of 2015 following a weather-fueled contraction in the first quarter.

10 Time Wasting Tasks You Can Automate in 30 Minutes | Small Biz Trends

July 20, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Time is one of the most precious assets to business owners. But with so many time wasting tasks on your to-do list, you need to take control of your work or it will take control of you. Luckily, technology can help.

Here are 10 common time wasting tasks to automate to free up time:

Sorting Emails

Before you get around to responding to emails, it helps to organize them. One of the best efficiency moves you can make is to use the label, tag and/or folder functions in your email program. That way, you can tackle important emails first, and less important ones later (or maybe never). It also helps you to “batch” emails for efficiency.

This Guy Sold His Startup for $575 Million in Cash — And Gets to Keep Every Penny | Entrepreneur

July 17, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

On Tuesday, the dating website Plenty of Fish got acquired by Match Group, an IAC/InterActive subsidiary that recently announced plans to go public later this year. Plenty of Fish sold to Match Group for $575 million in cash.

Markus Frind, 36, is the founder and CEO of the Vancouver-based Plenty of Fish.

Frind told Business Insider he started Plenty of Fish in 2003 “as a way to improve my résumé.”

“At the time there was a new programming language called ASP.NET, and I don’t like reading books, so I just went and created the site in two weeks, and then people started signing up, much to my surprise,” he said. “And it blew up from there. It wasn’t like I had a plan to create a dating site. It was just a side project I created that got really big.”

Frind, who was a developer before he founded Plenty of Fish, built the site without any venture-capital funding. He has retained complete ownership of the company, which has 75 employees.

“By the time I found out what VCs were, I was already making millions in profit, and I didn’t see the need to raise money because I wouldn’t know what to do with it,” he told Business Insider. “It was a profitable company, and there was no need to raise money.”

The Future Of Retail Won’t Be So Good For Consumers | TechCrunch

July 17, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Shopping — both online and offline — is a great luxury of the modern era. People can enjoy a great selection at lower prices and shop from the convenience of their home, while still having the option of going to a local mall or retailer to peruse the aisles for instant gratification.

But consumers can’t have their cake and eat it, too, and the retail world as we know it today can no longer give it to them.

Retail Will Change Forever

Technology is killing the traditional retailer. Victims will include those selling commodity brand-name-type products like consumer electronics, appliances, sporting equipment and furniture, and may even include those selling consumable goods.

Price wars, combined with technology shifts, will eliminate national, regional and local competitors who just can’t keep up. Many of today’s vendors will cease to exist as online shopping takes larger shares of all sorts of markets. Just look at the trends in companies like Best Buy, Staples, Radio Shack and Sears.

Student Loans Stunting Small Business Growth | Business News Daily

July 17, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Student loans aren’t just negatively impacting you financially; they’re also hurting your chances of starting a new business, research finds.

Entrepreneurship is significantly hampered in parts of the country where residents carry more student loan debt, according to a recently updated study by researchers at Pennsylvania State University and the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

For the study, student loan debt across the United States was analyzed by county and compared with small business creation in those areas. Researchers discovered that between 2000 and 2010 a one standard deviation increase in student debt reduced small businesses in those counties by an average of 14 percent.