Of course, thanks to Randall Munroe’s massive observer effects, those stats (including the stat cited by the rollover text, And nothing for ‘I’m glad I saw Epic Movie.’) no longer hold true… yes… I did an audit… … but that’s not the point… the point is,  1)  the author of this comic picked up on a poetic truth about people’s personal (and private) reflective moments, using the results of a search engine algorithm, and 2) the example of this truth began to fade the moment it became a public spectacle. 

To put it another way:

1. people, more often than not, regret the things they didn’t try doing, and
2. this regret is less apparent when one is under the social pressure of public observation.

In some field research conducted last year at Newcastle University, a group scientists — building on previous studies — demonstrated how merely hanging up posters of staring human eyes is enough to significantly change people’s behavior.  We are wired to detect objects that resemble human eyes… and when we detect something that looks like an eye it triggers certain responses.

"Please don't deface my facade."

We think the world is watching us — we are the center of our private universes — and indeed sometimes it’s a really good idea to ask ourselves the question ”What should I do if the world was watching?”  However, a lot of times we unnecessarily inhibit ourselves from making the leap – from seizing the moment – because of imagined eyes watching us. 

There are times in a the story of a person’s life — usually those turning points or later chapters of the story – where the person feels freed of social pressures and can fully regret/not regret the roads taken/not taken, the blind alleys visited/not visited.

When we take a big step back (Les), we can see that we are defined as much by our “failures” as we are our “successes” and we celebrate both as necessary and integral parts of a unique and complete story. 

What will happen today — what will you do – to make that story an even better one?

Let’s review the model, and what these terms “Skill” and “Will” actually mean:

The implications of this model are that there are different ways you’d want to deal with each situation if you are a manager (or, if you are self-managed, see the aforementioned post). Here is my rendering of the typical “situational leadership” or “coaching styles” model, based on the Skill-Will Matrix:

Ok, great. We’ve got it summarized neatly into one nice little graphic. Now, let’s take a closer look at these two dimensions of “Skill” and “Will” and try to figure out what it would take to make an accurate assessment (or self-assessment)… because the utility of this model absolutely depends on the ability to make accurate assessments.  (That’s why in management training, the Skill-Will Matrix is often followed by a lecture on the Pygmalion Effect… getting this stuff wrong is bad for everyone’s health!)

The dimension of “Skill” refers to one’s ability, proficiency, facility or dexterity in a given capability… a “capability’ being some bit of knowledge or behavior that the person can demonstrate. 

 Where does “Skill” come from?   It is acquired or developed through training/learning, understanding, latent talent or experience.

What are some of the things a coach can do to enhance “Skill?”    They can…

•   provide tools and resources to develop the capability
•   reduce obstacles and facilitate a learning pathway
•   provide effective guidance and feedback

Ok, that was easy… and you could see how easy it would be to assess the level of a person’s Skill:  If they demonstrate it, they can do it.  

If they don’t demonstrate it, though, it may or may not be because they lack the Skill.

Enter the wonderful world of “Will”….

The dimension of “Will” refers to one’s motivation, volition, inclination or desire to achieve, to initiate (and sustain, despite obstacles) a given capability… this includes actions such as taking on new responsibilities or new learning.

Where does “Will” come from?  It is acquired or developed as a result of beliefs, values, attitudes, habits and incentives.

What are some of the things a coach can do to enhance “Will?”  They can…

•   provide appropriate incentives and sense of safety
•   reduce obstacles or other de-motivating factors
•   provide encouragement
•   facilitate intrinsic motivation

Ok, but how does one measure or assess ”Will?”  Notice some of words I chose to use above:  beliefs, incentives, habits, attitudes, values… each of these words has a distinct meaning and each provides a potential means for measurement and assessment.

“Oh, BIHAV!”

Beliefs inform a person’s willingness to do something, and a person’s beliefs can be measured by asking questions directly to the person being measured.  There are all sorts of beliefs that can affect one’s willingness to initiate or sustain an activity, and one of those beliefs is called “self-efficacy,” which is our belief in our own ability or capacity do to something.  Interestingly, the self-efficacy component of belief is connected at the hip with the observable “Skill” dimension. Am I good at something because I believe I’m good at it (or can be good at it)? ..or do I believe I’m good at it because I actually am good at it?  See, it’s a feedback loop, and so for most people there is a strong upwards (left-to-right) diagonal correlation between “Skill” and “Will.”  That’s why typical Likert-scale-driven  “Please rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 5″ skills assessments can sometimes provide a fair approximation of overall competency… but always remember those are measures of self-perception of efficacy, not actual efficacy.

Incentives, on the other hand, are a whole different ballgame. Incentives exist externally — they are part of the overall performance context — and  they can block or enable behavior very easily. The great news is that these can be measured through direct observation and context analysis… no interpretive self-assessments necessary.  Millions of dollars in training could be saved each year if companies paid more attention to what behaviors they were tacitly rewarding vs. punishing. Also, remember that measurement and observation is itself an incentive, so go on and measure away, your clients can thank you later. 

Habits are trickier to measure, as the target capability itself must be measured, which gets into the fuzzy territory of “which part of this performance/non-performance came as a result of Skill versus Will?”  Perhaps habits are merely an effect of Skill… a manifestation of Skill that has been… habitualized?    No, not quite.  I think that habits, by themselves, are also a major causal factor of “Will” since we are willing to do things (or don’t do things) simply because we’re used to (or not used to) doing those things….  sheer habit drives our motivation. Nevertheless, it’s still a pretty blurry distinction.   Perhaps behavioral frequency analysis (“how often do you…”), particularly on subordinate skills (the sub-components of the target behavior) would provide some measurable inputs here. Worst case, trying to measure people’s habits will cause you to develop some decent hooks for that all-important-but-hard-to-make-credible ROI Analysis, which is currently replete with rainbows and unicorns.

Attitudes are different than beliefs in that they aren’t necessarily grounded in anything other than a person’s mood, temperament, reaction to circumstances, or even simply physiology… how long has it been since that last cup of coffee/sugary doughnut/visit to the gym/hug from a friend?  Attitude is a managed state (though many people have a hard time managing it) which directly impacts the ”Will” component of performance.   The great news is that it’s easy to learn how to manage your attitudinal state, and therefore your performance at any task. Now for the bad news:  Your attitude is almost impossible for you to objectively self-assess. Direct observation of you — particularly under challenging situations — is probably the only way to go on this one… or maybe I could simply ask you this question: “How much do you enjoy doing [insert capability being measured]?”   Pure enjoyment, excitement, boredom, etc.  might be good emotions to look for… though it does bleed a bit into my fifth and final component of “Will” which is…

Values. These are a wonderful thing. Are you willing to do something because you think it’s a good/useful/fun thing to do?  Values run deeper than beliefs, though there is definitely some overlap there (..hey, I don’t get as good an acronym if I combine the concepts.. BIAH??)  but I think that values have to do more with the person’s perception of the task or capability itself, rather than their perception of their own abilities or their organizational context. In that sense values represent a very different type of opinion measurement:  “How important is this to you / the business?”   So values get measured similarly to beliefs, though it can be extremely difficult to get an honest self-assessment on values… I prefer to used forced-ranking / prioritization between items on a list, and then index those results to a baseline and top line score of “importance” or “value” for everything on the list.  This sort of thing is best done a few items at a time. Forced-choice responses with an asymmetrical word pairing (a-la StrengthsFinder) are the best, but those assessments take forever to build and almost-forever to complete.

So those are five measures you can use to quantify “Will.”  

Of course, if you only need to assess just one person’s level of willingness, ditch all that stuff above and simply ask them a series of good, open-ended coaching questions… however, even that isn’t so easy to do… 

 What do you think?

Sandra: if it costs more than $1,000, I feel like I should be able to take a hammer to it, and have it still work when I’m done with it.  (Yesterday at 9:04pm)

Dan:  again with those Ming Vases, Sandra… how many times to I gotta tell ya… (13 hours ago)

Sandra:  I question where we place value. (11 hours ago)

Dave: I bought a 6-pack of temporary-adhesive towel hooks for $10 (for the adhesive strips) and a concrete cinder block for $1.80. Makes you question how we decide how much we’ll pay for things. (3 hours ago)

Some interesting things we learn from this data:

• At 8:30 a.m., more than 20 percent of the adults living with one child are asleep, compared with 15 percent of those living with two or more children.
• On average, the unemployed spend about a half-hour looking for work. They tidy the house, do laundry and yard work for more than two hours, about an hour more than the employed.
• Employed and unemployed people both average over an hour of travel per day. Travel related to working takes up 16 minutes of  the average day (or about a fifth of this time). Among people who do travel for work in a day, 25 percent spend more than an hour.
• The amount to time one can spend surfing data, especially when presented in animated, drill-down interactive graphs, is seemingly endless.

The story told from the group averages is not as interesting as the story told from more particular situations, such as how first born children receive 20-30 minutes more “quality time” from parents than other children, or how on rainy days, men typically spend 30 more minutes at work.  These are major modern myth-memes in the making!

This could have come straight out of a book by Edward Tufte, or any of those various classics about lying with statistics. 

This feat of manipulation was accomplished using three tricks:  

1) Vertical scaling:  Both graphs use a y-axis that is proportionately bigger than the x-axis, but Pelosi’s does so a bit more, thereby exaggerating the downward slope of recent job losses.

2) Absolute values:   Pelosi’s graph counts actual number of jobs lost, instead of the percentage of jobs lost.  The workforce has grown considerably over the years, so once again, this exaggerates the downward slope of recent job losses.

3) Narrower context:  Pelosi’s graph uses fewer past recessions in the comparison, and leaves out the more-severe 1981 recession, as well as two shorter-lived recessions ( 1974 and 1980).   This substantially reduces the nuance in our mental comparison with past recessions, and skews our extrapolation of what might happen going forward with the current recession. 

This would be an insult to our intelligence, if it wasn’t such a perfect example for instructional purposes… a fine example of information design. On a practical/political front: Score three points for cultivating greater hysteria on the one hand, and cynicism about data & public policy on the other hand.

The only thing lamer than this?  This graph : 

  This bit of USA Today-worthy Chart Junk put out by the Republican party (and posted to their website) tracks how many jobs were lost since Democratic Party took control of Congress in 2007… which compares nothing with… well… nothing. It’s like some sort of weird Creationist theory of economic history that picks an arbitrary “Day One” and denies the existence of independent natural forces, forces that can’t be fully controlled by the would-be gods in Washington.  If this were a tongue-in-cheek reprise to Pelosi’s graph, it might be clever, but it’s not… it’s just upping the ante of stupidity.  Memo to both parties:  Get Real.   

Finally, here’s a third graph, with even wider context, put together by economist William Poley:

Context and perspective is everything, ain’t it?

(More graphs and analysis on the above can be found on William Poley’s blog.)

“I’m the kind of guy who will spend half a day working out a way to avoid doing something twice.” 

“Yup, I can relate to that. I just did that yesterday.”  

Frustrated with his struggle to conform with the world of time sheets and seeking a better way to manage his time, Michael Hunger built himself a LEGO time tracking system (hat tip to Gil Y). Contrived? Not really… it actually seems like a very nice tactile/intuitive method for time management. Of course once he did that, he needed to write a Java app which would allow him to use a webcam in order to count the bricks and record them into… time… sheet… software.

POSTSCRIPT:  Pleased with his success and the attention garnered from over-developed, under-challenged minds on the net, Michael decided to extend the idea into a LEGO Project Management System.  This was approximately one year ago, and it appears the great LEGO-as-temporal-data-capture-system movement has fizzled.  This is the other part of the behavioral pattern, you see.  The guy who resists the time sheet is often the same guy who resists the notion of carrying everything to completion.  No offense, Michael.  At this point I’m verging on the autobiographical. 

Abort post.

At this point I’ve amassed a large collection of commentary on Barack Obama’s inaugural address, covering everything from his props to the nonbelievers to the spacing of his teleprompters. Being in the communication consulting world does that for you.  I won’t use this post to dump all that stuff here because, well, I’ve gotta save ammo for myself for use during presentation skills training sessions.  “What did you think of Obama’s speech… etc..”   So this post will serve simply to store a copy of the transcript, a video link and a quick little word count analysis.  And maybe some groovy web links.

The complete word count follows at the end of this post.

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because we the people have remained faithful to the ideals of our forebears, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land — a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America — they will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted — for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things — some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sanh.

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions — that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act — not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. All this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions — who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. Those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control — and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart — not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers … our found fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake. And so to all the other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort — even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West — know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment — a moment that will define a generation — it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends — hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence — the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed — why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent Mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America’s birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

“Let it be told to the future world … that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive…that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet (it).”

America, in the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.

English language word count: http://wordcount.org/main.php

Same-store sales is a simple but effective gauge of the financial health of a retailer — it indicates how a company is doing within its base of existing stores (1 year or older, by convention).  Sales results from newly opened locations during the reporting  period will not affect the same-stores sales number, which is good, because growth through new openings tends to cloud the picture for managers and investors who want to know how a retail chain is actually performing, all other factors aside. 

Amazon.com recently made its annual “best year of sales ever” press release and received numerous scathing critques from skeptical analysts (and maybe even some hopeful short sellers).   The problem with Amazon.com and other e-tailers is that they still enjoy the shroud of hype of opacity today as they did in the late 90′s.  There is nothing close to a sames-stores sales metric out there for e-tailers.   Online businesses routinely open “new locations” in the form of alternate websites (whether acquired or internally developed) as well as new sections of their websites that differ dramatically from their core product offering.  E-tailers do not typically break out these numbers for investors, let alone give visibility to key metrics of e-tailing health such as order size (or even revenue-per-customer), conversion rate (the e-tail equivalent to “revenues-per-square-foot”), customer retention rate (“loyalty”) or the like.  As a result, their weak performance (or outright mismanagement) can go undetected beneath a surface of selectively chosen numbers. 

While it would be nice to have something as simple to understand as same-store sales for online retail, the analogy unfortunately doesn’t work. Traditional retailers are “allowed” to offer new products within the walls of their stores and still have those dollars count towards same-store sales.  Without physical walls, it’s hard to decide where to draw the line of “new store” and “new product line” for e-tailers.   Yet, leaving aside semantics, there is a fundamental logic and rigor behind the same-store sales metric that makes it compelling for understanding traditional retailers, namely, “how well is this business doing in the areas that it has previously built out?”  Without this rigorous standard to stick with, it’s too easy for online retailers to get away with a whole lot of fluff and b.s. 

I once witnessed the perils of the choose-your-own-metric dot-com management style at an e-tailer’s company meeting, a few years ago.   This was a company that, according to a well-known retail veteran,  was “subsisting as the #2 or #3 player in a whole bunch of different categories,”  with “unstable leadership.”  As an observer, I initially thought they had promise.  But then, at the end-of-year company meeting, management made an announcement that annual sales were “up”…. well…, up…. WHEN YOU IGNORED those  product categories where their competition out-maneuvered them, and which they ultimately retreated from.  Yes, management insisted, not only were sales “up,” but they were “growing at an amazing rate.”   Yes, sales grow at an amazing rate when you ignore the part of your business that is just a few years old and dead, and focus only on the part that took off in recent months.  It’s ok guys.  Just fess up.  Your earlier store didn’t succeed, so you’ve decided to build a new store.  Time will tell if that new store does better.   However, lacking the discipline of a true same-store-sales -like metric to stick by, but having plenty of deep fear and insecurity, these folks perpetuated the image of the unscrupulous dot-con,  spinning their humble-but-still-decent story into an out-of-proportion blustering lie. Was it neccessary?  Probably not.  Did it cultivate employees trust in their leadership? Definitely not.  What it did do was prolong the inevitable decisions that would have to be made, to insure the health of the company and the protection of the venture backers’ considerable investment.

So where do we go from here?  I say, release the key metrics.  Tell us your conversion rates.  Tell us your average order size.  There’s no competitive issue — all the e-tail insiders know these numbers anyway. 

Barring that, at the very least, let’s get a breakdown by website (flagship site versus all the other stuff, including recent launches and acquisitions), or perhaps a little more granularity on those merchandise categories.  Not to pick on Amazon.com or anything (but this is what comes with the leadership territory), here is the merchandise-type breakdown of their Net Sales, in their last annual report (divided between the “North America” and “International” regions):

Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Electronics and other general merchandise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Other (1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
 

Compare that against how they broke-out their “Cash-and-Equivalents” holdings:

Cash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Money market funds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Corporate debt securities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
U.S. government and agency securities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Asset-backed securities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Foreign government and agency securities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Equity securities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Other securities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Seriously, I would gladly trade some of that detail on Amazon’s cash-equivalent securities, to get some info about, oh, I don’t know, let’s say… BOOK sales. Or maybe even a distinction between the “Electronics” and the “other” for starters.

This lopsided approach to what is important detail from an investor’s point of view is largely a function of SEC reporting requirements. When those requirements change, there will be some accountant fees and some bruised egos, but long term, we’ll see better-educated investors and improved management practices. And a lot less bluster.

How the U.S. Population Actually Voted (Cartogram)

more stats:   WordPress Bloggers Who Like To Fill Surveys vs. People in the U.S. Who Voted