New Bookmarks
1999 Quarter 4: October 1-December 31, 1999 Additions to Bob Jensen's Bookmarks
Bob Jensen at Trinity University
You can change
the viewing size of fonts by clicking on the View menu item in your browser.
For the October 1-December 31, 1999 Additions and Summaries scroll down this document
For the other editions go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
For the full set
of Bob Jensen's Bookmarks go to http://WWW.Trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob.htm
(The full set is never up to date with the latest
additions to my New Bookmarks.)
Click here to go to Bob Jensen's home page http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/
Choose a Date of 1999 Additions to the Bookmarks File
December 22, 1999 December 16, 1999 December 8, 1999 December 1, 1999
November 23, 1999 November 16, 1999 November 9, 1999 November 2, 1999
October 26, 1999 October 19, 1999 October 12, 1999 October 5, 1999
For the other editions go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Speeding Up Evolution: Implanting
microprocessors in the biological brain
"Brave New World: the Evolution of Mind in the Twenty-first Century,"
by Ray Kurzweil http://www.kurzweiltech.com/WIRED/#THE GROWTH OF COMPUTING
What does it mean to evolve? Evolution moves towards greater complexity, greater elegance, greater intelligence, greater beauty, greater creativity, greater love. And God has been called all these things, only without any limitation: infinite intelligence, infinite beauty, infinite creativity, and infinite love. Evolution does not achieve an infinite level, but as it explodes exponentially, it certainly moves in that direction. So evolution moves inexorably towards our conception of God. Thus the freeing of our thinking from the severe limitations of its biological form is an essential spiritual quest.
By the second half of this next century, there will be no clear distinction between human and machine intelligence. On the one hand, we will have biological brains vastly expanded through distributed nanobot-based implants. On the other, we will have fully nonbiological brains that are copies of human brains, albeit also vastly extended. And we will have a myriad of other varieties of intimate connection between human thinking and the technology it has fostered.
Ultimately, nonbiological intelligence will dominate because it is growing at a double exponential rate, whereas for all practical purposes biological intelligence is at a standstill. By the end of the twenty-first century, nonbiological thinking will be trillions of trillions of times more powerful than that of its biological progenitors, although still of human origin. It will continue to be the human-machine civilization taking the next step in evolution.
Before the next century is over, the Earth’s technology-creating species will merge with its computational technology. After all, what is the difference between a human brain enhanced a trillion fold by nanobot-based implants, and a computer whose design is based on high resolution scans of the human brain, and then extended a trillion-fold?
Most forecasts of the future seem to ignore the revolutionary impact of the inevitable emergence of computers that match and ultimately vastly exceed the capabilities of the human brain, a development that will be no less important than the evolution of human intelligence itself some thousands of centuries ago.
Ray Kurzweil is the author of: the following books and tapes:
What ingredients comprise the "Dough" in the "Renaissance" of the next millennium? Why will the 20th Century be viewed as a global dark age in spite of the seeds of invention that sprouted just before or during our lives?
During a panel discussion in a conference in NYC on December 14, a financial analyst named Mark Brennan reminded me of a quote from Orson Welles in the 1949 movie called The Third Man. I recalled the quotation, but it has been years since I thought about those lines. With the impending end to this millennium, the lines seem to have renewed meaning. My recollection may not be literal, but the approximate quotation is as follows:
Don't be so gloomy! After all it's not so awful. In Italy under the Borgia regime they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed. But they also produced Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, and the Renaissance.
In Switzerland they had brotherly love! They had 500 years of democracy and peace. What did they produce? --- the cuckoo clock.
One wonders if Italy had more "dough" than Switzerland during the first half of the present millennium --- where I am using the word "dough" in the context of Bob Blystone's message below.
A fable to ponder --- transmitted by Bob Blystone
The following was found folded in a book (The Satire of Gulliver's Travels) left in a first floor restroom in the library.
Early one day there was a man who thought it would be nice to have some fresh cinnamon rolls at the end of the day. He decided to bake these rolls himself. Although he was a technology oriented sort, he had never baked cinnamon rolls before and like any modern person he would begin his task with a visit to the WEB for information and help. There he found the following recipe.
3 1/4 cups of all-purpose flour, divided 1 envelope Fleischmann's Quick Rise Instant Yeast 1/4 cup sugar 1/2 tsp salt 3/4 cup milk 1/4 cup water 1/4 cup margarine 1 egg 1 cup firmly brown sugar 1 tbsp cinnamon 1/2 cup margarine, softened 1/2 cup raisins, optional
SET aside 1 cup all purpose flour from total amount. MIX remaining flour, yeast, sugar, and salt in large bowl. HEAT milk, water, and 1/4 cup margarine until hot to touch, 125F-130F. STIR hot liquid into dry ingredients. MIX in egg. MIX in enough reserve flour to make a soft dough, that does not stick to the bowl TURN out onto floured board and knead 5 minutes. COVER dough and let stand for 10mins MIX brown sugar, cinnamon, & margarine together. ROLL dough into 12x9inch rectangle. SPREAD with cinnamon mixture. Sprinkle with raisins. ROLL up from long side, jelly-roll style; pinch to seal the seam. CUT into12 equal slices with a sharp knife. PLACE cut side up in large greased muffin cups; place on baking sheet over a shallow pan half-filled with boiling water. COVER dough and let rise 20 minutes. BAKE at 375F for 20mins or until browned. Remove from muffin cups to cool. Serve warm makes 12 buns.
He printed out the recipe and put it into his pocket. He knew that he really only wanted to eat two cinnamon rolls and the recipe would make twelve. So he thought he should share the future fresh rolls with his friends whom he would ask over to join him at the end of the day.
As the morning progressed he met his first possible guest. He asked if she could come over to have some fresh cinnamon rolls at the end of the day. Then he showed her the recipe. She said, "I'm a vegetarian and if you took out the egg, I could eat your cinnamon rolls." He crossed off the egg and said, "I will see you at eight."
A little later he passed an old friend and asked, "I'm having some friends over this evening at eight to have some fresh cinnamon rolls, could you come?" His friend said: "Thank you, but because of my heart condition I am on a restricted diet and can not have any margarine." The future baker said: "Not a problem, see you at eight." And he crossed off margarine from the recipe.
Soon he spotted another potential guest and offered the friend a place at the roll fest. The friend said: "I'm diabetic and can not have any sugar." "Not a problem" was the response and the sugar and brown sugar were crossed off the list.
At noon he had lunch with another friend and offered the eight o'clock repast. The friend said: "If you have raisins in the rolls, I can't come for I am allergic to raisins." "Not a problem" and another item was Xed out.
At afternoon break he saw two more friends and gave them the invitation. The first said: "I'm on a salt restricted diet" and the other said: "I'm a strict vegetarian." "No problem" said the willing host as he crossed milk and salt from the recipe.
As the day drew to a close, he found another friend and offered the invitation. She said: "I'm can't eat gluten." The response was predictably: "Not a problem." The future guest then said: "Can I bring a friend?" Without hesitation the compliant baker said," Sure, why not." The guest added: "But, he doesn't like cinnamon." "Not a problem" echoed as the pencil struck flour and cinnamon from the recipe.
As work ended, the man went by the store to pick up the supplies for baking and discovered that there was no yeast in supply. "Not a problem" he thought to himself as he went home. He prepared and set the table for the feast and his guests; who, all promptly arrived at eight.
His eight guests with anticipation noticed that there was no aroma of fresh baked bread in the house. All there was on the table was a quarter cup of water. The man thought that his skeptical guests would want to know where the cinnamon rolls were. And the first question came: "Is this European mineral water? I can only drink European mineral water." Quickly others chimed in about the quality and type of water.
The man pulled the recipe from his pocket and began to rewrite it again. His complaining guests soon realized that the host was writing something and they quieted and then asked: "What is it that you write?"
SET aside offending ingredients. MIX eight friends in a large room. Catch HEAT from guests for not pleasing. STIR water for impending doom.
MIX friends. MIX ingredients. TURN and possibly run. COVER all bets and please no one.
MIX protesting friends. ROLL to cover all ends. SPREAD one's self too thin. ROLL and try to blend.
CUT out all offending ingredients. PLACE compliance ahead of contents. COVER all bets and please no one. BAKEd water is no fun.
The man closed the door behind him as his guests begin to point fingers. He walked to a nearby Starbuck's Coffee and had two cinnamon rolls.
Fables should have morals as some mushrooms do. What would Aesop say as we are now through? Nothing, if you don't want to offend As we come to this end. But if you want to have a fresh baked cinnamon roll You have to make some dough.
I certainly do not advocate bringing back anything like the Borgia regime to stimulate creativity. Nor am I providing recipes for cinnamon rolls. However, my point is that, in the grand scheme of things, strife and hardships are more important to creativity and progress due to complacency that often accompanies prosperity.
In the profession of accountancy, we are entering the next century embroiled in strife over such immense problems as:
In all this strife and complexity, however, we take comfort in the above "Recipe for Cinnamon Rolls" that indirectly suggests there is more "dough" for creative global solutions and better lives everywhere on earth than ever before in the history of human life on this strange and seemingly unique planet. If there is to be Y2K terror, fraud, and information warfare, there may also be a Y2K Renaissance that lifts the next generations into ever higher plateaus. Us old timers in the U.S. may prefer to set the clock back to the 1950s at midnight on December 31, but we won't have the "dough" for my Glimpse of Heaven described at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/max01.htm.
A surprising number of retail firms have resisted selling products online or are
pulling the plug on their existing online ordering systems. Examples cited
below are from The Wall Street Journal Online at
http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB945647211680668431.htm
Levi Strauss & Co. recently said it will pull the plug on its year-old e-commerce venture, despite being ahead of plan with sales of jeans, khakis and shirts online. "Selling on the Internet is a complex proposition," says Jeff Beckman, a spokesman for the San Francisco jeans maker. "We decided it wasn't the best use of our funds."
Most of the firms that might be termed either "holdouts" or "retreaters" have web sites that use a variety of ploys to encourage customers to visit their stores, use 800 numbers, or shop from their catalogs. Another class of firms might be called "reluctants," because they reluctantly offer merchandise online but strongly encourage customers to not order online. One example is cited below:
Last month, Tiffany & Co. began offering engagement rings, pens and other items on its Web site. But the site came complete with a discouraging warning to Web shoppers: "Because selecting an engagement ring is such an important event, Tiffany encourages our customers to visit a Tiffany store in person."
But there are reasons to be nervous in light of the competition that is building up online:
Of course, many of the biggest traditional retailers -- including Macy's and Bloomingdale's -- have jumped on the e-commerce bandwagon. Online shopping is expected to account for as much as 3% of holiday shopping this year, up from the 1% blip of last year. Any holdouts at this point, some analysts say, are making a costly decision since they are ceding market share to competitors.
"There are an awful lot of innings left to play when it comes to e-commerce, but it's no longer the first inning," says Jonathan Cohen, director of research at Wit Capital Corp. in New York.
Colleges and universities face some of the main dilemmas.
I will repeat the point that I have made repeatedly in previous documents. Bad communication exists between employees (especially faculty) and online education program planners. Many administrators and faculty think that the only justifications for any newer education technologies and networked courses is to either improve learning or save money. Hence, we see repeated debates about whether this or that really improves learning and motivation to learn. And we grow weary of debates over whether this or that will ever save money in the long run while maintaining the same or improved effectiveness of the service.
Certainly the above "micro" tests of efficiency and effectiveness are very important, but I think they tend to detract from the larger "macro" considerations that are closer to the discipline of marketing than they are to accounting. Universities like Columbia and Duke are seeking new markets and exploiting their brand names. Many other universities are simply trying to protect their existing markets in an effort to avoid getting left in the dust by emerging alternatives for students in their geographic regions.
One myth that should be dispelled is that everyone who ventures into new markets will be successful. The failure of Western Governors University to achieve even 10% of its targeted enrollments demonstrates how a massive state-supported venture faces enormous hazards in developing new "markets." Another myth is that online ventures are more economical if investments are made to upgrade existing campus technologies. The upfront investments and ongoing funding for online degree programs are enormous. Perhaps this is why many colleges and universities are outsourcing to corporations like eCollege, UNext, Pensare, CyberClass, and other alternatives mentioned at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245soft1.htm.
My prediction is that technology outsourcing will be the growth industry of the next decade. There are immense economies of scale leading to outsourcing of both e-Commerce and e-Education. Retail firms like Levi Strauss & Co. expect short payback periods for investment returns, and most retailers in eCommerce are not hitting breakeven targets. Hence, I predict that many online firms will retreat until outsourcing becomes a more viable alternative with lower investment risk. This same prediction applies to distributed higher education. Distributed education, however, has one advantage over online retailing. Outsourcing firms like eCollege, UNext, Pensare, and others have an advantage in that they can justify their tremendous investments in technologies with exploding revenues from training contracts (e.g., from corporations, banks, government agencies, military agencies, etc.). These training revenues enable those outsourcing firms to enter into distributed education contracts that would probably not be profitable as stand-alone markets. But outsourcing is now fiercely competitive and will become even more competitive in the next decade. Thus we will probably see the typical pattern of an enormous number of startup operations followed by an intense shakeout of all but a few giant firms with typical oligopoly powers that branch out to all parts of the world.
The 21st Century's paradigm shift means that shopping and education alternatives are going global. As with anything new in life, there will be controversies over whether these are good things to spread around the world. For example, shopping in stores is a social and entertainment process as well as an economic activity. Going to class is a social and maturing process as well as an educational process. Economists focus on that which is "economic" but keep a wary eye on what they call the "externalities" or "non-convexities" of economic behavior. Computer networking and wireless communications are entirely new paradigm shifts with newer forms of economic behavior and looming externalities.
Another part of the 21st Century's paradigm shift is that "learning" and "education" are not synonyms any more than a "library" means the same thing as a "school" in the 20th Century. One of the externalities of a networked world is the multimedia archiving of knowledge that can be accessed at low cost. For example, art museums typically have much larger collections that can be displayed on web servers than can be physically displayed (along with detailed commentaries) in their buildings. There is a penchant to share on the Internet in ways that defy economic assumptions of economic utility and wealth maximization behavior. This penchant for sharing combined with efficiencies of access and search make it much more difficult for oligopolies to control learning. Anyone can become an expert on most anything without having to go to school.
Still another part of the above 21st Century's paradigm shift is that
computers are going to be drastically different that computers of the 20th
Century. Computers today are calculating machines. Computers of
tomorrow will be thinking machines. I especially recommend that you print
and read the document at
http://www.kurzweiltech.com/WIRED/#THE GROWTH OF COMPUTING
The above ingredients (outsourcing, online shopping and education, multimedia knowledge bases, and thinking machines) combined with the externalities of imploding of communication, entertainment, learning, and socialization are what I think comprise the "Dough" for a monumental "Renaissance" in the next millennium. The 20th Century will be viewed as a global dark age in spite of the seeds of invention that sprouted just before or during our lives.
From Doug Engelbart,
Please join me in a Colloquium hosted by Stanford University as we discuss the challenges of coping with the increasing urgency and complexity which face modern organizations.
Thirty years ago, when I led the team that developed NLS, the first hypertext system, and pioneered collaborative computing, I had a vision of computing that was to augment human intellect by following a comprehensive strategy. While many of the aspects of the information revolution are now improving the way we learn, live, and work, the unprecedented rate and scale of global change is also leading to major problems that will not be solved through technological solutions alone.
I would like to use this Stanford Colloquium -- *An In-Depth Look At The Unfinished Revolution*-- as an opportunity to share with you a comprehensive strategy that will enable individuals and organizations to begin to cope with the increasingly more rapid pace and constant state of change in modern society. More specifically, the Colloquium will give us a forum to engage in lively dialogue on how we can improve our abilities to leverage our collective IQ. In my view, the concept of collective IQ and its improvement needs to become a core focus and challenge for society. Although much attention is now given to the challenges and opportunities of e-business, the organizations, regions and countries that adopt the most effective, large-scale strategy for becoming collectively smarter, will enable broad improvements throughout society and commerce, including e-business. The concept of high collective IQ will, therefore, vitally affect every aspect of governance, security, economy, education, health, business and other societal services.
The colloquium is designed to generate awareness of large-scope issues and opportunities, to present a framework that can evolve a coherent improvement infrastructure, and to examine scaling such an infrastructure for sectoral, regional, national, and global applications. Such concepts have been the objective and focus of my work in collaborative technology and strategy since 1951.
The Colloquium begins on January 6th and will convene for 10 consecutive Thursday evenings from 4 to 7 P.M. PST. The colloquium will be webcast live at < http://scpd.stanford.edu/pd/engelbart/engelbart.html >. Archival replays will be available shortly after the live sessions. A very limited number of seats are also available on site at Stanford to registered participants on a first-come-first-served basis.
For additional information please feel free to visit the colloquium websites < http://www.bootstrap.org/colloquium > at the Bootstrap Institute, the organization I founded to strategically map a course for the future. The colloquium is open to the public and is free of charge. Registration is advised, as that will enable full access to all the interactions that will be featured.
I hope you can join us as we start an organized dialogue on the problems and opportunities that face us collectively.
Sincerely,
Douglas Engelbart, Ph.D.
P.S. If there is someone who might be interested, I would appreciate your passing this message on.
The following message from a friend in Nigeria indicates how global the world is becoming (I would never have had this friend or a visit from him at my home had it not been for my postings to the Internet. If any of you would like to help him further his cause, it would be a good thing to do for some students badly in need of all the help they can get.
Dear Bob,
We had a very interesting three days seminar this year: "Marketing in the Internet" It had some theory and some practical. There were several presenters of the theory. The main one was a Nigerian Professor (Ifeanyi Nzegwu) at the University of Wisconsin. Marquette Campus. In the practical aspect they worked on Web Sites design using FrontPage 98. We will repeat the seminar in March next year.
The School outsourced the design of their web that has just been launched in early December. We are at http://www.lbs.edu.ng . It is still very primitive but it is the beginning. I am working on the school Intranet where all the members of staff could place their contributions for internal consumption before putting them in our site. It will be a kind of a training for them.
We are about to start the development of the new Lagos Business School site. It may eventually develop into a University. We are planning very carefully the communications infrastructure. We are changing the cabling in the present site to improve connectivity.
Merry Christmas for you, your family and everybody at Trinity. I wish I could go back one day...
All the best
Eduard F. Schmitter
Kuramo House [kuramo@linkserve.com.ng ]
What university has the most online courses in engineering and computer science
--- would you believe Stanford University's listing in excess of 250 courses
reaching over 6,000 professionals? You can read about it in "Stanford
Learning: Worldwide Availablility On-Demand at Stanford Online," T.H.E
Journal, December 1999, pp. 16-18. The online version is at http://www.thejournal.com/magazine/vault/A2519.cfm
Until now, the growth of online education has been hampered in part because video (and other types of content) consumes so much bandwidth. This problem has kept many educational institutions from expanding beyond the more traditional distance learning delivery methods such as videotapes and satellite broadcasts. However, Stanford Online has made live and on-demand distance learning a practical reality by using video compression technology running on Compaq hardware and Microsoft’s Media Server (formerly Microsoft NetShow) to stream video, audio, text and graphics over the Internet to a variety of computer platforms.
Stanford Online courses are streamed directly to the student’s computer at home, at work or while traveling and are viewed via an Internet browser. Lectures and seminars are broadcast live on the Internet, or are made available within one or two hours of each class. When students log on to the Internet to view courses, they see a video window on their computer screen, inside of a standard Internet browser. Adjacent to the video window, the Web page houses a larger window displaying complementary graphics and text. This includes course outlines, notes, slides, simulations and other presentation materials used in each lecture. When a student chooses a specific topic in the table of contents, the appropriate video segment and supporting graphics are presented. In addition to delivering courseware live or on-demand, Stanford Online offers a variety of services that allow, for example, students to receive tutoring by live interaction over the Internet with professors or teaching assistants.
A Data-Intensive Process
While Stanford Online uses powerful compression technology to allow for the deployment of video over the Internet and corporate intranets, dealing with video remains an extremely data-intensive task. With an ever-expanding 85 gigabytes of digitized video and other data such as course outlines and slides, Stanford Online requires a robust solution for storing and managing huge volumes of information. To back up its video servers, back-end systems and growing library of video and multimedia content, the Stanford Online program uses a high-performance Quantum DLT 7000 half-inch cartridge tape drive. In addition to conducting incremental backups nightly and full backups weekly, Stanford Online uses the tape drive to archive courseware. Course lectures remain online for the duration of the quarter and many for the entire academic year, giving students more control over their own viewing patterns. Courseware slated for re-use at a later date is archived longer-term to the Quantum drive.
Convenience is critical to the success of Stanford Online. Students around the world need access to the system at all times of the day and night. As a result, the school must perform rapid backups to avoid long delays in delivering courseware to students. Stanford Online considered using a DAT drive for backup, but the Quantum tape drive offers a faster solution with higher capacity. With hundreds of large video files being integrated into the network each day, DAT’s two gigabyte per cartridge data limitations didn’t have the capacity to meet Stanford Online’s expanding storage needs.
Extending Education to the World
By using state-of-the-art server technology, software for streaming video and DLT backup and archiving, Stanford Online can deliver education on-demand in a reliable, timely fashion. This new delivery technology is particularly exciting, because it literally enables us to extend Stanford to the world. It opens up new educational markets and enables us to reach beyond our historical distance learning base, much of which is in Silicon Valley. Now, Stanford Online can offer courses to talented students who are also professionals in industry wherever they are located, while adhering to the same rigorous coursework and admission standards that apply to students on campus. And with the convenience of Internet delivery, Stanford Online can also attract students who normally might be too busy to take a class.
ETIQUETTE
IN SOCIETY, IN BUSINESS, IN POLITICS AND AT HOME By EMILY POST http://www.bartleby.com/95/
(I don't find new categories for newer technologies such as network etiquette,
although many of the recommendations (e.g., "think before you speak")
can be translated to the modern age (e.g, "think
before you hit the SEND button" --- Bob Jensen needs more training along such lines.)
To the extent that I can thank you for really bad news Norman --- Thank you for letting me know about this!
SECTION: Business; Part C; Page 1; Financial Desk, New York Times
HEADLINE: ERNST & YOUNG TO PAY $335 MILLION IN AUDIT LAWSUIT; ACCOUNTING: FIRM AGREES TO SETTLE WITH CENDANT SHAREHOLDERS TO RESOLVE DISPUTE OVER ALLEGED ERRORS IN FINANCIAL STATEMENTS OF PREDECESSOR COMPANY.
BYLINE: VIVIEN LOU CHEN, BLOOMBERG NEWS
BODY: Ernst & Young will pay $335 million to Cendant Corp. shareholders to settle charges that the accounting firm's audits of a predecessor company were inaccurate, the California Public Employees' Retirement System said Friday.
Analysts said the payout is the largest an accounting firm has had to make outside of the settlements with the government in the early 1990s over alleged malfeasance in audits of failed savings and loan institutions.
CalPERS, the nation's largest pension fund, owned 3.1 million shares of Cendant as of September.
"In the realm of settlements by auditors, this may be No. 1 with a bullet," said Joseph Grundfest, a Stanford University law professor and former commissioner with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Ernst & Young's settlement comes after Cendant on Dec. 7 said it would pay $ 2.83 billion to shareholders to settle claims that it inflated earnings at CUC International Inc., which combined with HFS Inc. in 1997 to form Cendant. The combined company is the franchiser of such businesses as Century 21 and Coldwell Banker real estate agents and the Days Inn motel chain.
CalPERS said it and the New York state and city pension funds lost about $ 89 million after Cendant's stock plunged following revelations in 1998 that it overstated earnings.
CalPERS said Friday's settlement, together with Cendant's $ 2.8-billion payment, resolves all its claims against Cendant. It said Cendant had agreed to pay shareholders half of any funds it may recover from Ernst & Young.
The Ernst & Young accord "sends a strong message that corporate responsibility goes beyond the corporation and extends to accounting firms upon whom pension funds and other investors rely in making investment decisions," said Charles Valdes, chairman of the CalPERS Investment Committee.
Ernst & Young spokesman Larry Parnell said the settlement was "well within the firm's capacity, given our substantial insurance coverage and overall financial strength." He said the firm will continue to "aggressively prosecute" its claims against Cendant "for defrauding us."
Accounting firms generally settle lawsuits regarding audit work to avoid the expense of prolonged trials and the possibility of large jury awards.
Analysts say it is difficult for accounting firms to win lawsuits because they have to argue complicated auditing issues before juries that typically aren't familiar with auditing rules.
The case that led to Friday's settlement stems from irregularities in financial statements at CUC International and the CMS division of Cendant, which were audited by Ernst & Young. The accounting firm was the outside auditor for CUC from 1995 to 1997 and for CMS in 1997, CalPERS said.
"Ernst & Young provided 'clean' audit and review letters in connection with three annual reports, seven quarterly reports and as many as 20 registration statements," CalPERS said. "Each of these documents have subsequently been found to include or incorporate grossly overstated financial statements."
CalPERS said, for example, that Cendant admitted that CUC's operating income was overstated by approximately $ 500 million--more than one-third of its reported operating income--from 1995 to 1997. Cendant also admitted that CUC's quarterly operating income was inflated by $ 31 million in 1995, by $ 87 million in 1996 and by $ 176 million in 1997, CalPERS said.
Cendant shares tumbled 46% on April 16, 1998, erasing $ 14 billion in market value, when the company said it would restate earnings because of accounting irregularities.
On Friday, Cendant shares rose $ 1.50 to close at $ 24.50 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Cendant shares rose nearly 40% on Thursday after the company said it would get a $ 400-million investment from Liberty Media Corp. as part of a venture to develop television and Internet programming linked to Cendant's businesses.
LANGUAGE: English
LOAD-DATE: December 18, 1999
I would like to call the attention of
accounting researchers to the article entitled "A Dearth of FASB Comment
Letters and Applicable Research from Academe," by Dwoght Owsen in the Fall
1999 issue of the Public Interest Section of the American Accounting
Association. Once again I am reminded of Pogo's comment: "I
have found the enemy, he is us." See
http://www.rutgers.edu/Accounting/raw/aaa/pi/newsletr/fall99/item04.htm
I encourage our readers, if they have not already done so, to read and subscribe to the biweekly Accounting Today published by Faulkner & Gray, Inc., phone: (800) 535-8403. It is the best accounting policy journal at a reasonable price (some of the industry newsletters are interesting but expensive). While reporting current developments in the accounting profession, it publishes editorial articles and letters, often from the public interest perspective. This might be because Accounting Today’s 30,000 readers are often small independent practitioners and its advertisers include the many software companies that cater to these practices. Thus, it can afford to be more independent than the association practitioner journals. Independent and controversial pieces by Abe Briloff, Ed Ketz, Paul Miller, Eli Mason, and Wanda Wallace are found in its pages.
In addition, Accounting Today has a prolific and critical editor, Rick Telberg, who writes an outstanding weekly editorial section. Telberg, our colleagues at the FASB, and many articles in the last five years in Accounting Horizons have suggested that accounting educators contribute more effectively to the FASB process. They have further suggested that educators write comment letters or conduct research that more directly and timely addresses FASB standard setting. An example is the recent contentious debate over SFAS 123. Here the FASB was forced to retrench and compromise when the preparer community threatened the existence of the FASB with an appeal to Congress. While one of the FASB’s staunchest allies in accounting regulation has been the accounting academic community, many of these articles and editorials seem to be requests for more active and effective support from the academic community.
The Accounting Today 1999 Top
100 Software Products --- http://www.mbsol.com/at981214.htm
Also see http://www.electronicaccountant.com/
The new Falkner and Gray Accountant's Guide to Internet Sites --- http://www.electronicaccountant.com/html/gap/index.htm
Also see http://www.women.com/
From "Partnerships Provide New Online Courses," T.H.E. Journal, December 1999, pg. 25.
Hungry Minds.com has announced partnerships with Business2.0, The History Channel, PBS and Women.com. These companies will develop stimulating and fun online courses for the post-college market that focus on a wide variety of topics. For example, Business2.0 will co-develop a class on conducting business in the Internet economy. PBS’s "Excellence in Non-Profit Leadership and Management," developed by the Learning Institute for Nonprofit Organizations, is a certificate program consisting of eight live satellite broadcasts delivered by PBS’s Adult Learning Service.
A one-stop learning marketplace, Hungry Minds.com provides students an array of online courses and resources through discussion groups, online communities and knowledge databases. Through its partnerships with over 30 companies and universities, it can offer students a diverse and extensive listing of online learning products. Hungry Minds.com, San Francisco, CA, www.hungryminds.com .
From Bob Colson
You are receiving this e-mail because as an academic member of FEI you may have a special interest in a research project that the Financial Executives Research Foundation is interested in pursuing on an urgent time line. You can access a description of the project, which deals with measuring the quality of financial reporting, at http://www.ferf.org/reportingresearchqual.doc . If you're not personnally interested in this topic, but know of someone who might be, please forward them the link.
Thanks!
Bob Colson rcolson@fei.org
Financial Executives Research Foundation
New free long-distance telephone service and free
Internet Access.
From Tech Briefs on the Wall Street Journal Interactive on December 16,
1999:
IDT Corp. is expected Thursday to announce it will offer a free Internet-access service for consumers. The Hackensack, N.J., telecommunications company plans to profit from the service, called ZeroDinero, through advertisements. The service is the latest entry into an increasingly crowded category that includes NetZero Inc., Westlake Village, Calif, and 1stUp.com, a unit of Andover, Mass., Internet conglomerate CMGI Inc. Howard Jonas, IDT's chief executive, said ZeroDinero hopes to distinguish itself by showing fewer ads than its competitors. He also said the service will include free domestic telephone calls and faxing on the Web. IDT plans to make ZeroDinero available in 11 U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, beginning in January. The Innovative Data Technologies Corporation home rate is at
http://www.idtc.com/.
Recall Norman's review of other free
long distance service providers at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book99q4.htm#FreePhone
Deep discounts can be had for international calls at http://www.sayhello.cc/ , However, two users who like free U.S. long distance options report that they are not satisfied with options for making long distance calls from their computer.
Fraud flows in both directions on the web.
"Cutting out e-fraud As holiday
shopping escalates, so does online fraud; small e-com companies are most
vulnerable,"
By Maria Seminerio, PC Week Online, December 13, 1999 ---
http://www.zdnet.com/pcweek/stories/news/0,4153,2405184,00.html
Seeing only the monetary sparkle of the holiday buying season, many companies have accelerated their e-commerce efforts without preparing for the threat posed by increasing levels of online fraud.
The most vulnerable enterprises are small and medium-size businesses, particularly if they sell big-ticket items or items such as software than can be delivered over the Internet. Such companies often can't afford expensive fraud detection products and services any more than they can big losses due to fraud. Therefore, like Reeves, they should develop an anti-fraud strategy before they launch, experts say. Fortunately, there are techniques that can help cut losses.
Meanwhile, vendors of anti-fraud services are beginning to market lower-priced products specifically for smaller e-commerce companies.
Update on speech technologies --- http://www.zdnet.com/pcweek/stories/news/0,4153,2409293,00.html
Dragon Systems Inc. has begun previewing its new AudioMining speech technology, which will enable users to search and retrieve audio and streaming media content on the Web.
The AudioMining technology converts audio data into text, which can then be accessed by keyword searches, company officials said. That saves time and helps users be more productive because they don't need to listen to entire recordings to find information, they added.
Dragon demonstrated the technology for the first time at the Giga Showcase for Innovative IT Solutions earlier this month (December 1999) in Palm Desert, Calif., and conference participants voted it Best Overall Winner, Most Innovative Product, Best Business Application Potential and Highest-Quality Demonstration.
For a review of speech recognition technologies see http://www.trinity.edu/~rjensen/245glosf.htm#Speech1
The FASB's new exposure draft on
fair value accounting for financial instruments ---
http://www.rutgers.edu/Accounting/raw/fasb/news/nr121499.html
The Financial Accounting Standards Board today published its preliminary views on measuring financial instruments at fair value. The document is the next step in a wide-ranging Board project related to financial instrument issues. Comments on the preliminary views are requested by May 31, 2000.
The preliminary views cover three core issues:
What would be reported at fair value? What is fair value? How would changes in fair value be reported? According to the Board’s preliminary views, financial instruments, as defined in the document, would be measured and recorded at fair value. Financial instruments are defined as:
Cash Ownership interest in an entity
Contractual obligations to deliver financial instruments to another entity and that entity’s contractual rights to receive them
Contractual obligations for one entity to exchange financial instruments with another and the second entity’s contractual rights to require the exchange
Fair value of a financial instrument would be its estimated market exit price.The issue of where to report changes in fair value may become moot if the Board decides that enhanced disclosure alone is sufficient. However, if the Board decides to require reporting changes in fair value, those changes would be reported in net income.
According to Ron Lott, an FASB project manager, the Board is "committed to working toward resolving the conceptual and practical issues related to determining the fair value of financial instruments, an effort discussed in FASB Statement 133 on derivatives. Although Board members see conceptual reasons to measure financial instruments at fair value, they have not decided when, if ever, it will be feasible to require them to be reported at fair value in the basic financial statements.
"Although it has made preliminary decisions about the definitions of financial instruments and fair value and general guidance for determining fair value," Mr. Lott said, "the Board needs more information about the potential problems and solutions for reporting financial instruments at fair value. Publishing the Board’s preliminary views at this time is intended to solicit that information."
Copies of the preliminary views are available at this website under Exposure Drafts or from the FASB Order Department at 800-748-0659.
America Online's Netscape division acknowledged that a security flaw can allow a hacker to break the password code in the e-mail component of the Communicator Web browser --- http://www.pcweek.com/a/pcwt9912164/2410285/
There was quite a debate on the AECM regarding the appropriate use of PowerPoint in class. There were too many messages to repeat here. One that I especially liked was from Uday.
I too have been following the Powerpoint "for" and "against" discussion with some interest. The key question, for me, is "what is the most appropriate use of class time?" Is it (a) to convey information or (b) to demonstrate *application* of concepts (read "problem solving"). Powerpoint probably works well for (a) but that too seems debatable. However, I contend that class time should be aimed largely at (b). For the most part, whether you use a blackboard, overhead slides, or Powerpoint, (a) is quite uninteresting (boring?). On the other hand, (b) engages students and makes them want to attend class.
Concept application / problem solving can take several forms and means different things for different courses (e.g., cases, discussion of current topics, "war stories" etc . I hate to generalize, but I find it hard to believe that there are courses where (a) works better than (b).
Just my .02
Uday Murthy Associate Professor of Accounting Coeditor, Journal of Information Systems Texas A&M University College Station TX 77843-4353 409-845-5017 http://acct.tamu.edu/murthy
History
and Photography
This is a neat photographic and animation page from Kodak --- http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/features/endurance/
The Endurance sailed from England in 1914 to take 28 men to Antarctica. The Endurance did not return. But Frank Hurley did, along with his hard-earned photos. His unprecedented chronicle of an expedition focused on both Antarctica’s harsh beauty and the courage of the Endurance’s men. His story unfolds in Frank Hurley: Hero of Expedition Photography.
Science and History
When I was on the faculty at the University of Maine, there was a sign over the
door of the Physics Department that read "Physics is Good for
You." My Grandmother Dourte always said the same thing about Caster
Oil.
A Century of Physics http://timeline.aps.org/APS/home_HighRes.html
PricewaterhouseCoopers goes its own
way by initiating its own web seal security service
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-1488698.html?tag=st
Geology, Geography, Free Maps, and Travel --- TopoZone --- http://www.topozone.com/
Dell rolls out wireless networking kit --- http://www.pcweek.com/a/pcwt9912174/2410785/
I don't always agree or even like some of the web sites that Yahoo chooses to honor, but in many cases I would never have discovered some great sites if it were not for Yahoo. Between now and the end of the year, Yahoo's Picks of the Year will be listed in weekly installments. You can find the Week 1 listings at http://www.yahoo.com/picks/
I especially like IBM's Gallery of Obscure Patents at http://www.patents.ibm.com/gallery
The Many Dimensions of Humor
I think humor is an important means of communication and is becoming a bigger
thing on the web. As many editors know, humor is also a means of
attracting subscribers --- some people subscribe to The New Yorker just
for the wonderful cartoons. Humor depends a great deal upon context.
However, in searching for humor I did find some truly offensive web sites that
are malicious in any context (vulgar, racist, etc.) other than research on what
is wrong with society. I also found some web sites that in the right
context are less offensive (at least to me). I do not believe
in banning most any category of humor in a free speech society. I do find
that sick humor is a lot like pornography --- very difficult to define and censor, but you
generally know it instantly when you are confronted with it. I hope the following
illustrations will not offend any reader.
An enormous database of jokes, stories, poems, quotes, etc. --- http://www.jokes2go.com/dbmenu.html
Making fun of the Swedes: A Norwegian Tradition (an example of context versus content) --- http://www.geocities.com/WallStreet/Floor/4220/Swede.html
The international travels of a Norwegian --- http://www.pvv.org/~bct/backpack/index.html
Jewish humor (another example of context versus content) --- http://members.tripod.com/~jewishjokes/
Jokes for sermons --- http://www.help4sunday.com/
Lawyer jokes (the list is endless) --- http://www.counselquest.com/jokes.htm
Bumper Stickers --- http://people.csnet.net/spartan5/bumper.htm
Accountant jokes (I thought these would be more of a rare find --- wrong!)
http://www.cpadvantage.com/misc/jokes.asp
http://www.counselquest.com/jokes.htm
http://www.net.big-river.sk.ca/lkm-cga/jokes.htm
http://www.hangoutplace.com/dilbert/humor43.html
http://hamilton99.execmba.com/humour.htm
http://cust2.iamerica.net/lenzyh/jokes/accountant.html
Humor for assorted professions --- http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/4661/projoke.htm
Femine humor at HerSalon: The Cyber Themepark for Women --- http://hersalon.com/ (This site is controversial. They seem use the word "babe" whenever they like. This is another example of context versus content.)
The Shrine --- http://hersalon.com/shrine/shrine.htm
These women make us laugh, cry, lust, hope and dream... and many of them helped shape our childhoods - showing us the core strength and spirit of women, giving us choices and alternatives and ideas we were not presented with in our immediate worlds...We thank them for their contributions to our lives. In their honor, we have built these altars, and stocked them chock full with the finest in pics, sounds, movie clips, screensavers, and commentary...
Feminine humor at Just Smile and Act Nice --- http://www.smileandactnice.com/
Computer related humor --- http://www.geocities.com/WallStreet/Floor/4220/indexhumor.html
Redneck humor :
http://www.fortogden.com/foredneck.html (These break me up!)
http://www.pvv.org/~bct/backpack/index.html
Blonde jokes (no comment) --- http://www.vip.fi/~flax/joke/blond/index.html
The AccountingWEB Friday Wrap-Up Newswire - Issue 21 December 17, 1999 http://www.accountingweb.com
1. Consulting and Venture Capitalist Role Blurred at Andersen
2. Keep Poaching Out Of The Firm
3. PWC Starts Its Own Web Seal Program
4. CPA Patricia Gilbreath Elected Mayor of Redlands, California
5. Do Your Clients Need an Angel?
6. Tips for Timely Collections
7. FASB Outlines Fair Value Derivative Accounting
8. Website Acid Test: Can Visitors Find Your Phone Number?
9. IRS Prepares Taxpayers For Paperless Tax Filing
10. New Search Engine To Try: www.alltheweb.com
AccountingNet Update http://www.accountingnet.com For the Week of December 20, 1999
1. This Week's Accounting-Specific News Headlines
2. Win a Palm Pilot V
3. Online Wiley GAAP 2000 Now Available
4. In the Forum: What's the best company gift you've received?
5. Pull a CPE All-Nighter!
6. Our Tip of the Week: Reporting Tips for Internet Companies
The December 19th Internet Essentials '99 Newsletter http://www.tiac.net/users/nhannon/news.html
1. Free Phone Calls Around the World
2. The Free $20 Account Update ... Success!
3. Radio Windham Hill on the PC Airwaves
4. Computers Will Soon Exceed Human Intelligence
5. E-Mail Help Page From ZDnet
6. AccountingClassifieds.com, For Your Career
7. Cisco CIO: Layering Glitz Atop Old Infrastructure Won't Cut It
8. Need One More Christmas Gift? Don't Do It At Work. 9. FASB: Preliminary Views on Fair Value
Out of all the places we lived, our son Marshall and daughter Lisl both chose to return to Maine to live. This is for them and any others who want to better understand Yankees. (Slightly modified from the anonymous author's original)
Maine Temperature Conversion Chart (in Fahrenheit) --- to appreciate this you have to work all the way to the bottom
60 above
New Yorkers try to turn on the heat.
Lisl's husband, Chuck, plants a garden.
50 above
Californians shiver uncontrollably.
People in Maine sunbathe.40 above
Italian cars won't start.
People in Maine drive with the windows down.32 above
Distilled water freezes.
Moosehead Lake's water at long last becomes invigorating.20 above
Floridians wear coats, gloves and woolly hats.
Marshall looks for his long-lost tank top.15 above
New York landlords finally turn up the heat.
Lisl and Chuck have the last cook-out before it gets cold.*0 -
People in Miami cease to exist.
Mainers lick their flagpoles.20 below
Californians fly away to Mexico.
Marshall digs through boxes trying to find his sweat suit.40 below
Hollywood disintegrates.
My Granddaughter, Hilary, begins selling Girl Scout cookies door to door.60 below
Polar bears begin to evacuate Antarctica.
Marshall postpones "Winter Survival" classes until it gets cold enough.80 below
Mt. St. Helen's freezes.
People in Maine rent some videos.100 below
Santa Claus abandons the North Pole.
Maine-iacs get frustrated when they can't thaw the keg.297 below
Microbial life survives on dairy products.
Cows in Maine complain of farmers with cold hands.460 below
ALL atomic motion stops.
People in Maine start saying...."Cold 'nuff for ya?"500 below
Hell freezes over.
The New England Patriots win the Super Bowl
Reverse logic: The New England Patriots will never win the Super Bowl until Hell freezes over.
And
that's the way it was on December 22, 1999 with a little help from my friends.
Professor
Robert E. Jensen (Bob) http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134 Email: rjensen@trinity.edu
At last Richard has answered a question that has puzzled me as well as Amy. It is a "dirty little secret" about Microsoft software.
-----Original Message----- From: Amy Dunbar
I created a file in Word and saved it as an HTML file. I put the file on the web. I decide to edit the file and ftp it back to my machine. When I open Frontpage and try to open the html file, the file opens in Word. Why can't I open the file in Frontpage?
-----Response from Richard Campbell
Amy:
One of the dirty little secrets of Microsoft is that there are these little incompatibilities between various Office programs. MS Word has some unique ways of handling HTML tags - so unique that the new version of Dreamweaver (3.0) has a utility to strip these tags away. Another unrelated issue is that you can't do formatting pages in Publisher and convert into Word format.Richard J. Campbell RJ Interactive www.rj-int.com mailto:campbell@rj-int.com
But Larry Gindler replied as follows:
From: Gindler, Lawrence
Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 1999 11:31 AM
To: Jensen, Robert
Subject: RE: New Bookmarks for December 16, 1999In Front page, under Options, configure editors, you will find the following dialogue box. Note the check box that says "open web pages in the office application that created them." This feature can be turned on or off.
Also, if you click on a file in front page with the right mouse button, you have the option to "Open with...". This brings up a dialogue box that allows you open the file with any of the applications listed in this dialogue box.
--larry
Tax: Explore the New Rules for Tax Exempt Organizations http://www.accountingnet.com/research/solutions/public/taxation
More on the Ernst and Young Center for Business Innovation http://www.businessinnovation.ey.com/main.html
Dear Prof Jensen
Thank you for your e-mail on the work done by the Ernst and Young Center for Business Innovation. You may be interested in the research that I am currently involved in as this appears to compliment the nature of your research.
I have in the past four years done research into the role of flexibility in the business organisation in a rapidly business environment. The emphasis of my research has been what flexibility is ( the different types of flexibility) and how flexibility can be measured so that organisations can measure their levels of flexibility, identify potential sources of flexibility, set goals for improved flexibility and monitor the levels of flexibility of competitors.
You are most welcome to contact me if this research may be of interest to you.
Kind regards
Prof Carolina Koornhof Department of Accounting University of Pretoria Pretoria South Africa Faks 27 12 362 5142
Free financial calculator --- http://homepage.swissonline.ch/FinCalc/
This site provides you with the tools to build advanced financial functions under Excel. FinCalc covers bonds, money market instruments, futures, options, interest rate swaps, caps & floors and swaptions.
Key points are:
calendar with business holidays for the major financial centers. analytics: valuation functions and sensitivity measures; construction of a discount curve based on money market rates, short term futures and swap rates; interest rates derivatives. user friendliness: meaningful function and parameter names, user's manual, numerous examples and applications. Visual Basic code to build your own Excel add-in, compiled add-in and example to download.
From Norman Meonske [nmeonske@kent.edu]
Free Phone Calls Around the World --- (make sure you go to www.hottelephone.com
(with two t's) and not www.hotelephone.com
)
Free phone calls from the Internet just went international. Starting Friday, HotTelephone raises the bar in the bustling world of Internet telephony by offering a free global PC-to-telephone calling plan. The service is not unique, but Hot Telephone is the first to offer free calling anywhere on the planet. All you need is a Net-enabled PC, speakers, and a microphone, and tolerance for less-than-perfect sound quality. Here's the catch: You must choose from three advertising-supported tiers of service. HotTelephone competes with pay voice-over-Internet protocol firms like Net2Phone, WebPhone.com, and deltathree.com, which each charge about three cents per minute. HotTelephone also competes with free services, including dialpad.com, Innofone's Hot Caller service, Callrewards.com, and CallMeFree.com. All support their services with advertisements. http://flashcommerce.com/articles/99/12/09/185421680.shtml?e=1
I added this on December 16.
New free long-distance telephone service and free
Internet Access.
From Tech Briefs on the Wall Street Journal Interactive on December 16,
1999:
IDT Corp. is expected Thursday to announce it will offer a free Internet-access service for consumers. The Hackensack, N.J., telecommunications company plans to profit from the service, called ZeroDinero, through advertisements. The service is the latest entry into an increasingly crowded category that includes NetZero Inc., Westlake Village, Calif, and 1stUp.com, a unit of Andover, Mass., Internet conglomerate CMGI Inc. Howard Jonas, IDT's chief executive, said ZeroDinero hopes to distinguish itself by showing fewer ads than its competitors. He also said the service will include free domestic telephone calls and faxing on the Web. IDT plans to make ZeroDinero available in 11 U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, beginning in January. The Innovative Data Technologies Corporation home pate is at
http://www.idtc.com/.
Before the end of this year, the Derivatives Instruments Implementation Group (DIG) will probably be issuing some of its most important pronouncements on accounting for derivative financial instruments under SFAS 133. Accountants should carefully watch http://www.rutgers.edu/Accounting/raw/fasb/derivatives/digmain.html . New pronouncements will deal with some of the more controversial issues in SFAS 133. The November 23 meeting of the FASB is also interesting in this regard. See http://www.rutgers.edu/Accounting/raw/fasb/derivatives/bdmtg112399.html
I try to keep current DIG pronouncements woven into my glossary (in red boxes) at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5341/speakers/133glosf.htm
New dimensions on the independence of auditors controversy.
From a former student
Dr. Jensen:
Here's more grist for the mill....
Multi-billion dollar consulting firm Andersen Consulting today announced that it has formed a venture unit. Andersen Consulting Ventures will fund Internet companies in its drive to become a major internet player. http://2.digital.cnet.com/cgi-bin2/flo?x=doEguhhogwEghuuo
Jake
JACOB T. GRAY GRAY MATTER Business & Capital Management 4040 Broadway, Suite 420 San Antonio, TX 78209 (SE HABLA ESPANOL) (210) 828-3722 (office) (210) 828-0805 (fax) (210) 862-1092 (mobile) jgray@eGRAYMATTER.com (email)
Also see "Consulting Solutions: Sales is Not
a Four-Letter Word at http://www.accountingnet.com/research/solutions/public/consulting/socn991206.asp
Jensen is not so sure on this one.
It's time to openly accept the word "sales" in the accounting profession. For too long, too many accountants have associated this word with some type of unprofessional behavior and in some circles, it is even considered unethical.
The word "sales" is not a four-letter word. It is a professional activity and one that accountants should well embrace. Selling is an activity that we must learn if we are to succeed. People who sell services or products make a promise of some future deliverable.
Here is an easy way for you to overcome your fears when you think about selling. Think of this definition. "Selling is problem solving." I doubt anyone would have a problem with that. And that is what good accountants and consultants do all the time.
Every time you help out a client you are solving a problem that they are facing. The secret is not to become this selling machine, but to understand how to solve problems for your clients and prospects and how to generate more new business opportunities.
The
Online Consumer Shopping Survey from Deloitte and Touche
http://www.usdeloitte.com/us/news/99oct/happe.htm
This holiday season, the mouse that’s likely to be stirring throughout the house will be connected to a computer. An Internet survey conducted by Deloitte & Touche indicates that most online consumers are extremely satisfied with their e-commerce experiences to date and plan to include a combination of bricks and clicks to meet their holiday shopping needs. The findings show that online consumers expect to spend an average of $219 buying holiday gifts via the Internet this year. This represents one-fifth of the $1,067 they expect to spend overall.
Deloitte
and Touche also has an eCommerce study devoted to the insurance industry at
http://www.us.deloitte.com/pub/ecommerce/default.htm
This study also provides additional facts on related industries.
E*Trade, the online securities brokerage firm ranked as the second largest online broker with a 13.3% market share as of April 1999, has deeply penetrated its market in a very short period of time. E*Trade has more than a million customer accounts and recently announced a $1.8 billion acquisition of Telebanc, an Internet bank which manages over $2.6 billion in assets and has nearly 60,000 customer accounts. E*Trade’s success is clearly tied to the shift in individual stock trading; the Internet now accounts for 30% to 35% of all stock trades by individuals.
In response to the loss of market share to the online securities brokerage firms, Merrill Lynch, the largest U.S. brokerage firm, has decided to offer trading online. The magnitude of this change can best be summarized by a quote from the Wall Street Journal: “Indeed, Merrill’s decision—one that every full-service Wall Street brokerage firm will have to respond to—shows just how profoundly the Internet is transforming the competitive landscape in the U.S. economy. Rarely in history has the leader in an industry felt compelled to do an about-face and, virtually overnight, adopt what is essentially a new business model.”
Developments in the PC manufacturing industry tell a similar story. In fours years, PC sales at Dell Computer have sky-rocketed from $3.4 billion to $18.3 billion, its return on equity ranks in the top ten of the Fortune 500, and its market cap stands at $94.6 billion. Compare this with Compaq, the world’s largest computer maker, whose market cap has fallen from $100 billion in January 1999 to $42.4 billion (see Dell vs. Compaq chart). First quarter results show that Dell’s sales rose by 52% against an industry average of 19%, while Compaq lost market share with sales only growing by 16%.
Why compare insurance enterprises to PC manufacturers? It wasn’t that long ago that the computer industry supported its model of retail sales distribution over direct distribution for the same reasons that insurance executives currently believe they are not threatened by direct insurance sales. The cost of Compaq retaining its retail agents shows up in its SG&A expense, which is 15.7% of revenue compared with Dell’s 9.5%. Both Dell and Compaq have gross margins in excess of 20%— Dell’s net income is 8.2% of sales, while Compaq’s is 3.0%.
While these developments may not be a foreshadowing of future events in the insurance industry, they do raise some compelling questions as to how insurers will integrate existing distribution channels with potential E-commerce opportunities.
Common denominators for success in eCommerce http://www.pcweek.com/a/pcwt9912071/2403840/
The top 100 financial services e-business innovators
Financial services are transforming, funneling more and more innovation capital into e-business By Jeff Moad and Anne Chen, PC Week Online December 13, 1999 9:00 AM ET http://www.zdnet.com/pcweek/stories/news/0,4153,2405179,00.html
AltaVista launches financial portal --- Users gain access to 25 news sources, real-time quotes, and live Webcam shots from the AMEX trading floor. http://www.pcweek.com/a/pcwt9912073/1018307/
A credit card comparison tool from
Quicken (free)
http://www.quicken.com/small_business/finance/bankrates/?SUBRATES=CC&pindex=0&sindex=0&cindex=0&posted=1&psindex=0&STATE=0&CITY=0&RATES=c1.var
Some helpers for running a small
business from Quicken (free)
http://www.quicken.com/small_business/answers/?topic=2&subtopic=1&question=0
New revenue recognition guidelines from the Securities and Exchange Commission
See http://www.sec.gov/news/presindx.htm
Commission Staff Issues Accounting Bulletin on Revenue Recognition" –
December 3, 1999. (File name:
99-162.txt) (Additional materials are available: Fact Sheet on Staff
Accounting Bulletin No. 101: sab101f.htm;
complete text of Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 101: sab101.htm)
Quote from The Wall Street Journal, December 6, 1999, pg C17:
The SEC says "dot-com" companies have increasingly created clever ways to pump up their revenue with questionable items, such as booking as revenue the entire sale price for a product or service, when all they are really entitled to is a commission on the sale.
The new guidelines say if Internet companies merely act as "an agent" for a sale, they must only book the commission fee as revenue. They also stipulate that companies can book revenue if they have satisfied all of these criteria: They have an agreement to deliver products or services; they have actually delivered the products or services; they have fixed a price for the products or services; and they can collect the specified price.
While the guideline also reiterates existing standards, the SEC for the first time has knit together disparate revenue-accounting rules together into one package, making it easier to crack down on abusive companies, said Lynn Turner, SEC chief accountant. Having revenue-accounting rules all over the map allowed companies to take advantage of this disarray.
From InformationWeek Online, December 14, 1999
IBM To Unveil Knowledge Management Tool --- http://www.internetwk.com/story/INW19991214S0008
New York -- IBM next year plans to unveil a knowledge management portal that will make it easier for business executives to quickly get the information they need from the Web.
The new portal will mark an "evolution of personal productivity applications," said Irving Wladawsky-Berger, general manager of IBM's Internet Division, who spoke about the new portal in a keynote address at the E-Business Expo here.
"Within IBM this is a big part of what Lotus [Development Corp.] is doing, moving up the value chain and bringing in all these tools to help organize information," said Wladawsky-Berger.
The knowledge management portal will first be made available as an application for IBM employees and then later be sold to customers, Wladawsky-Berger said. He would not be more specific on when the portal will be available to businesses.
A financial industry executive, for example, could use the portal to weed through huge amounts of financial information. "What this application can do is search, classify, do a lot of analysis and decide based on the 10 parameters you put in what are the most interesting articles, the most useful," said Wladawsky-Berger.
Unlike a traditional Internet portal such as Yahoo or Altavista, the IBM knowledge management portal is more of an "office productivity application," said Wladawsky-Berger. -- Steven Burke, Computer Reseller News
From the Scout Report
ADAM: the Art, Design, Architecture & Media Information Gateway http://adam.ac.uk/index.html
This searchable catalog of 2,500 Internet sites has "been carefully selected and catalogued by professional librarians for the benefit of the Higher Education community." The site offers extensive annotations of resources in the Fine Arts, Design, Architecture, Applied Arts, Media, Theory, Museum Studies and conservation, and professional practices in these fields. ADAM features several options for both searching and browsing. Search options include a keyword search with the ability to specify proximity of words. Users can also search specified fields, perform an advanced search using booleans and various truncations, or search "recent additions." Resources are browseable by ADAM subject headings, historical period, resource type, geographical area, and terminology from an Art and Architecture Thesaurus. Users can nominate a site for review by the ADAM consortium -- a group of librarians whose standards for inclusion and cataloging are professional, detailed, and available on-site. The site is supported by the Surrey Institute of Art and Design in the UK. Caveat: We were unable to determine the source of ADAM's funding beyond December of 1998; and the site seems to have begun updating only recently after a substantial hiatus.
The choice of the ADAM acronym is somewhat unfortunate since ADAM over the past decade refers to the famous anatomy multimedia learning modules that are used in virtually all medical schools and many biological science courses in colleges and universities. This ADAM web site can be viewed at http://www.adam.com/ (This ADAM is one of the most successful technology projects ever launched in the history of educational technologies.)
From the Scout Report
My History is America's History http://www.myhistory.org/
This interactive Website presented by the National Endowment for the Humanity's Millennium Project encourages Americans to find their family's place in American history. The site shows users how to research their genealogical past, construct a family tree, place their family in a timeline of American history, write their own family history, and publish it online at this Website. Visitors can read selected family or community stories or search the developing database of family stories maintained in partnership with genealogy.com. (Unfortunately, only a small selection of these stories is browseable.) Special sections are designed for use with children and in the classroom. The site also offers an opportunity to join a history discussion list and provides additional resources for those interested in pursuing issues of American history and genealogy.
Janet Flatley sent me a link to "It's cheaper, faster, and easier to distribute than live classes. But is it effective?" by Kris Froeswick at http://www.cfonet.com/html/Articles/CFO/1999/99DEtheo.html (Thank you for the link Janet):
The main attraction of online education, however, is clear: it saves big bucks. Almost three years ago, Al Gordon, program manager at Siemens Virtual University, at Siemens Information and Communication Networks Inc., faced a daunting task: train 600 high-level engineers on data/voice convergence technology, do it as quickly as possible, and keep engineers updated on new developments. If he went the typical route--face-to-face classes, delivered at special training locations--Gordon estimated it would take three years and more than $4 million in travel and lost productivity time to train all 600 people. And that didn't include the cost of the training itself.
Counter-reasoning from Bob Jensen
Online education controversy: Lowered Costs vs. Expanded Markets for Luxury
Education
I disagree with Froeswick on the point that "it saves big
bucks." Among the prestige schools, the purpose is more to tap into
new and lucrative markets rather than save money. Consider the following
quotations from "Ivy Online: Elite universities and professional
schools are scrambling to "leverage their brands" and make extra money
through online education" by Todd Woody at http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,7122,00.html
Last year Harvard Business School Publishing created a simple intranet version of its CD-ROM courses. But the cost of developing a full-blown online multimedia course can exceed $1 million, so the school went in search of a partner. The agreement Harvard signed this year with Pensare calls for the company to create up to six Internet courses with Harvard professors. The school will receive royalties on the courses Pensare sells as well as warrants for stock in the company.
Some of the newly targeted markets are described below:
UNext is betting that when a Sony (SNE) or a Siemens (SMAWY) needs its marketing managers in Kuala Lumpur to take a finance course, it'll be more likely to turn to a company that offers an Ivy League curriculum than to a local university. According to the company, students will be able to take multimedia classes at their own pace or collaborate with other students in real time. (UNext will offer its first course next year.) Nobel-winning professors may contribute to the courses and may deliver lectures online, but they won't actually be teaching the courses in the conventional sense. UNext will hire a staff of online mentors to answer students' questions and provide guidance.
For more on distance education partnerings of prestige universities, see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book99.htm#prestige
A subsequent message from Janet on the same topic.
Professor,
Thought you'd be interested in another series the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is running on the use of technology in higher education. In case the article is no longer at http://www.seattlep-i.com/local/farr09.shtml
I've copied it below.An interesting point from the article: While other state universities and colleges offer courses and programs in rural areas, none has reached out as aggressively as has [Washington State University]. "There is a segment of the population that is asking for assistance in getting an education that does not fit in our traditional system," WSU President Sam Smith said in a recent interview. "The real choice is: do you want to educate this whole new segment of the population?" For the 15 years Smith has led WSU, the answer has been a resounding "yes."
Though the article does not mention faculty reaction to the WSU program, this is certainly a different response to distance education than the previous article by this reporter concerning University of Washington faculty opposition to high-tech intrusion into higher learning.
Hope your holiday preparations are on schedule - I have fond memories of Christmas in the Hill Country, though I would have wished for a somewhat more seasonal climate instead of the shorts & t-shirt weather I remember, at least for the holiday!
Janet Flatley AVP-Controller 1st Fed S&L Assn Pt Angeles, WA (360) 417-3104
From: Carolyn A. Strand, Assistant Professor, Seattle Pacific University, Chair of the Teaching and Curriculum Research in Accounting Education Committee of the American Accounting Association --- http://www.rutgers.edu/Accounting/raw/aaa/tccomm/Fall99/item07.htm (only portions of Carolyn's reviews are quoted below):
Electronic books --- from InformationWeek Daily on December 12
Barnes & Noble Inc. said Thursday that IBM will provide technology and management for a new process that prints books on demand for customers at its retail stores and Web site.
IBM will provide Barnes & Noble with printing and workflow technologies, scalable servers, and software for electronic- book management and distribution. It will also provide on- site management at a content-distribution center in Jamesburg, N.J., that will become operational in mid-2000. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
In January, Barnes & Noble will begin working with publishers to build a digital library. Books will be scanned into the print-on-demand system or provided in PDF format. Customers will be able to order books electronically via PCs, wireless handheld devices, and notebooks, Barnes & Noble says.
Barnes & Noble executives expect that print on demand will let them increase their selection by 500,000 titles within five years. The agreement for IBM's print-on-demand services extends to iUniverse.com, a publishing portal of which Barnes & Noble owns 49%.
Skeptic's Annotated Bible http://SkepticsAnnotatedBible.com/
Sociology Dictionary http://www.iversonsoftware.com/sociology/index.htm
I always find messages from Scott informative
I have been reading "Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the WWW" written by Tim Berners-Lee who is responsible for the original design and for guiding its execution. At Amazon.com it is:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0062515861/o/qid=945181937/sr=2-1/002 -2359596-1624222
This is a good read, especially seeing what is going on with AECM and similar groups. It certainly clarifies for me the inherent threat that an entity like Microsoft poses.
Scott Bonacker, CPA McCullough, Officer & Company, LLC Springfield, Missouri moccpa.com
Forwarded by Aaron Konstam.
Below is an article about a professor that really believes in the kind of academic integrity for the whole university that I support. ========================================================================
[The Chronicle of Higher Education] Thursday, December 9, 1999
Boston U. Professor Voluntarily Resigns His Chairmanship Over an [ Omitted Attribution
By COURTNEY LEATHERMAN
The head of Boston University's mass-communications department stepped down from that post last week after realizing that he had failed three days earlier to attribute a quote he had included in a guest lecture to 400 freshmen.
The announcement by John J. Schulz, a professor of international communication, surprised colleagues who thought he might be going too far by giving up his chairmanship for what they described as a simple mistake -- one that any of them could have made. But Mr. Schulz, who will remain on the faculty, said it was his duty to set an example. "Taking into account that this might even be considered an issue among students -- that there could be a standard for them that somehow professors don't have to live with -- made it seem right and proper that I step away from this leadership role." He said the decision was his alone. The dean of the college of communications, Brent Baker, said he accepted the resignation with regret.
"The lesson here is that when a good leader does something wrong, he immediately admits it, and takes personal responsibility for his actions," Mr. Baker said in a statement that praised Mr. Schulz's integrity as a teacher, scholar, and journalist. Before coming to Boston University, Mr. Schulz had worked for 21 years as a reporter and news executive for Voice of America.
Explaining the situation, Mr. Schulz said that he had been rushing to finish his lecture to the introductory communications class and, in doing so, overlooked the attribution for his concluding quotation. It was a long sentence from an article by Alexander Stille that ran in The Nation magazine. Mr. Schulz said that [Image] during the class, he had been roving around the room talking. But [ ] when he realized that he was almost out of time, he returned to the lectern, scrapping the planned ending to his talk and hurriedly reading the quote -- eager to get to a question-and-answer period. In his rush, he overlooked Mr. Stille's name, he said.
A student in the class recognized the quote and pointed it out in an on-line discussion section set up for the class. That prompted an on-line debate about what constituted plagiarism and whether or not the university had a double standard for students and professors. As it happened, the course was regularly taught by the college's dean, Brent Baker, who contacted Mr. Schulz after reading the students' comments. Yesterday, Mr. Schulz returned to the class where he had made the mistake and apologized to the students. Many applauded after he finished his comments.
Several of Mr. Schulz's colleagues say that he had made a mistake but had not committed plagiarism. "Many of us viewed what he did as a mere slip of the tongue or a minor oversight under time pressure and not as a deliberate attempt to misappropriate someone's idea," said Melvin L. DeFleur, a professor of mass communications and former chairman of the department.
But Mr. Schulz noted, "There's nothing in the definition of plagiarism that talks about intent." He added: "This is a case that involves having to take that desperately painful step of recognizing that, like with a car accident where you run into the rear end of an auto -- while it might have been accidental, you are the perpetrator. It's one of those horrifying moments that can affect a whole lifetime, and I'm very sad."
Aaron Konstam
Computer Science Trinity University 715 Stadium Dr. San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
telephone: (210)-999-7484 email:akonstam@trinity.edu
Forwarded from Bob Jensen. This relates indirectly to the above message recently forwarded by Aaron.
-----Original Message----- From: Janet Flatley [mailto:jflatley@ffpa.com] Sent: Thursday, December 09, 1999 10:40 AM To: 'rjensen@trinity.edu' Subject: 79% of young Americans believe that there are no absolute standar ds in ethics
Professor, I found this article especially relevant to discussion of CPA independence and the tension between attest function & MAS. As Ms. Calle states below, "As more traditional accounting firms become involved in consulting, which to some slightly grays the line of impartiality, it is more important than ever that the accounting profession operate according to the highest ethical standards." In a climate where "... there are no absolute standards in ethics," the lack of independence may be the least of our problems.
The last paragraph is aimed at college business students, but it's worth reading by all their role models, in academia & business.
Enjoyed your recent bookmarks ... it's the one of the few external emails I take the time to review when received.
Janet Flatley AVP-Controller 1st Fed S&L Assn Pt Angeles WA (360) 417-3104
PS Full disclosure - I am a KPMG alumni, having worked in MAS in RI & WA.
Ethics in Business By Jeri Calle Partner in Charge of University Relations, KPMG LLP
The national media have recently begun to lament the loss of ethics in today's business world. According to a recent survey cited in The Wall Street Journal --- Honesty in business dealings doesn't seem to be at the forefront of people's minds.
