Compound this!

This is a bit of digression, but, hey, it is my blog.

So, last week, I was faced with the task of figuring out the annual compound growth rate - don't ask why, it is a long story. The trouble is that I cannot remember how to do it in terms of the right formula. My initial attempts at solving the equation using Excel ended unsatisfactorily (turns out to be a human error.) Then, I got really worried and grabbed a piece of paper and started to construct the summation equation from scratch. The first sample run was inconclusive because I was doing everything by hand including the compound calculation. Eventually, the formula hit me and I did a second simulation on Excel and it suddenly all made sense.

This is kind of freaky. You see, being an alumni of the school that wins the most Nobel Prize in economics and with graduates flooding the floors of Wall Street and other financial centers around the world, I am trained to do this kind of calculation even in my sleep. It is partly a pride issue where I was stunned that I could not recall how to do this.

I suppose when my school friends suggest that my diploma from that erstwhile institute should be stripped, they are onto something? But, That, I definitely take pride in.

so, how to you find the annualized compound growth rate. The equation in an Excel cell looks like:

V0*(1+r)^t=Vt

where
V0 = the base value of the growth
Vt = the ending value after t period
r = the growth rate
t = time period

And people think marketing folks are only foo-foo.

Harte Hanks is getting on my nerve. Whenever there is a request, their first reaction is to say "no" because it is out of the standard protocol. For example, I requested the daily update to include the field to indicate the number of employees for the enterprise. Within minutes, the reply was that this cannot be done because it is not one of the standard fields and it would have a major major impact for their operation. So, I replied with an e-mail that I was getting that information in prior daily updates and it just disappeared a few days ago. So, I would like to get it back. Anyway, I think I am getting it back starting tomorrow, but I don't know until I see it. Separately, I requested that HH provide new tape recordings of the call. They turn it down saying that unless we are not happy or concerned with the caller quality, it would be the same and this is additional work that they rather not do. Now, my question is that given all the calls are recorded, what is so difficult about getting that information to me? For that matter, I'll pay for the postage!

Things are getting interesting for Google again. With help from our capable engineering team, we now have the capability to send text strings via Google AdWords clicks. So, for each Google Ad, I have added information specifying the category, campaign, and ad title. In other words, i can now track where those pesky junk e-mail requests come from. And, amongst the good email requests, I will be able to measure the effectiveness of each category, campaign, and ad titles in a very granular way. Data collecting is half of the game and we are definitely starting on it.

Remember the concern with the sudden spike, it turns out that it was because the ad's were approved for Content on the 21st, thus the spike. It is pretty amazing that it went from 10-20 hits to thousands in one day. I understand how it works at an intellectual level, but it is still pretty mind-blowing in terms of the scale. On the other hand, it does appear that Google have process issues in Content approval. The campaign has been set up for a while and I just assumed that the Content has been approved (had I look closer, it would have been obvious that was not the case, but anyway.) On the other hand, since I split up the Search and Content hits for the campaign last Friday, I just got the new Content campaign approved in three days. What explains the difference in time? I believe the trick is to be a squeaky wheel. This Monday, I fired up another enquiries on why the Content hits has not been turned on yet. Today, I got a reply saying that it has been turned on - a turn-around of two days. On the other hand, in fairness, you have to give Google credit for the customer service. So, the lesson is to know what you want and demand that people give it to you.

I think.

Oh, the PR stalker. He gave me his references and I have set up a few calls. Unfortunately, the first call, I was about 10 minutes late and I left her a message about calling me. The second call, the person was not there. We will see how the stalker's references stack up.

The new thing for me is website revamp. I have been interviewing designers and setting expectations. The initial discussion did not go very far because the designers were looking for a comprehensive projects costing $15-20K with usability analysis and the other things nice. Lovely and wonderful but I cannot afford it. So, I have been in talk with a number of other designers and I told them that I am looking to get 5-7 website templates and we will do all the content and implementation. So far, some of them are still talking with me and I have a phone call tomorrow to interview another designer who is actually a friend. I hope that does not spoil our relationship.

On the website revamp, it also gave me an opportunity to reflect on how I want to position the company in terms of its public image and persona. I think the key thing for me right now is that it should not be text heavy which is a common fault of most tech company's site. The navigation should be such that a visitor can quickly find the relevant information he/she is looking for instead of having to read three pages of information before it. Color-wise, I like to keep it warm and bright. My concern is that given the number of new items that we want to add to the home page - webinars, quiz games, etc., I am not sure how to make the navigation clean and obvious. This will be an interesting challenge. But, first thing first, let's find a web designer.

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