I’m looking at another school now. My dad wasn’t too thrilled at the idea of me going to the Philippines just yet. (Actually, probably not ever, but we’ll see if I cross that bridge when I get there, right? )

This one is called Mercy in Action and it is a home learning program that spans over a year. The first 9 months is reading 17 books and writing reports and taking tests. In September you head up to Idaho for 3 months and do an intensive study there in a beautiful mountain mansion home. It’s about 5000.00 for the whole program. Then you can intern in the Philippines for 3 months for 700.00 a month. It’s a Christian program founded by a family who ministers in the Philippines as a midwife clinic that is free for the women of the Philippines.

Dad was more interested in this program.
I’m gonna pray about it a lot. And I’ve been journaling about this…trying to figure out my true feelings and God’s will.

Love you fellow baby lovers!

Etam – (Em, the aspiring midwife)

Enabling Financial Automation

The office of finance takes on a growing number of core business processes that can be automated through technology. Some of the benefits of incorporating BI/CPM technology is its often leveraged as a competitive weapon to improve efficiencies, reduce the time spent on low to non-value-added activities while enhancing an organization’s overall ability to make more informed decision.

By connecting technology to business processes software can help resources become more productive across all departments by helping:

• Improve accuracy, transparency and accountability
• Provide insight and forward facing analysis
• Manage uncertainty and mitigate risk through more effective scenario planning
• Enable self service agility and analysis to adapt to change
• Drive collaboration across business units and integrated functions
• Improve the integrity of planning, budgeting, forecasting and reporting processes

Technology: the Catalyst for Business Change

• Invest in technology that provides a foundation for growth and scenario planning to help bounce back from disruption
• Ensure structure and processes are in place so you can react with timely and accurate information, thereby competing more effectively
• Ensure you have the right processes and systems to manage the customer experience, which is critical for long-term success

Driving Change and Building Support

Consider how your organization is currently handling the following processes and what your team is currently using to help with decision management:

• Budgeting (spreadsheets?)
• Financial reporting and analysis
• Forecasting for operations and financials
• Financial and data consolidation
• Strategic and operational planning
• Statutory and compliance reporting
• Getting the right data to answer specific questions
• Managing various data sources and systems (ETL)
• Tracking key performance indicators (KPIs)

Listen for key phrases or common pains to drive business change:

• “Don’t trust the numbers”
• “Need to empower and align the organization”
• “We have tons of data and not enough information”
• “There are too many source systems to draw from”
• “It’s a manual and time consuming process”
• “We need to drive accountability and visibility”

Related:
What drives performance management?
Improving operational effectiveness: 1 of 3 investment priorities for CEOs
How to support business strategy with technology?
Want to change the BI status quo?
Improving Finance’s Increasingly Strategic Role

Jammu, March 1. Jammu and Kashmir Assembly will debate the issue of return of mortal remains of Parliament attack convict Mohammad Afzal Guru to the Valley and the situation arising out in the wake of his execution. Guru was executed and buried in Tihar Jail on February 9.

The issue rocked the House and after repeated disruptions it was ultimately adjourned for the day as Opposition parties demanded that Guru’s remains must be handed over to his family.

Cutting across party lines, a total of three adjournment motions were moved by the ruling National Conference, principal Opposition PDP and the CPM in the Assembly to bring back Guru’s mortal remains.

Speaker Mubarak Gul said he has decided to entertain all adjournment motions. “I have conveyed to the members of the House that I am ready to hold discussions on the issue,” Gul said.

“I wanted that discussions should be held after completion of the normal business but the Opposition was adamant on suspending the business of the House”, he said, adding that discussion on the issue would be held on March 4.

Earlier, amid unprecedented din and repeated disruptions, the Assembly was adjourned for the day as the PDP relentlessly raised its demand for suspending normal business of the House to discuss the issue.

The trouble erupted soon after the House proceedings began with PDP legislators pleading the Speaker to accept their adjournment motion and suspend the question hour. CPM’s Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami also stood up from his seat and said he had also moved the motion for holding a discussion on the issue.

Later, Tarigami and PDP’s Hakeem Mohammad Yaseen, who also demanded a discussion on the issue, staged a walkout from the House.

Senior NC legislator Nasir Aslam Wani surprised many when he said that five MLAs of the party had also moved an adjournment motion to suspend the business of the House to discuss Afzal issue.

Five NC members, who moved the motion, include Wani, Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehndi, Javed Ahmad Dar, Peer Afaq Ahmad and Mohammad Ashraf Ganie.

The Speaker, however, said he had received their adjournment motion and he had reserved the decision on it. It led to pandemonium in the House with the PDP legislators shouting slogans. Amid uproar, the Speaker adjourned the House for half-an-hour. As soon as the House reassembled, PDP members again trooped into the Well raising slogans.

Independent MLA from Langate, Engineer Abdul Rashid, also joined them and raised slogans against the government for its “failure to protect Guru, a J-K resident, and depriving him of his legal rights”. He also tried to snatch the mike and hurl the chair at the Speaker but the watch and ward staff prevented him from doing so. The Speaker again adjourned the House and later it was adjourned for the day.

Omar meets NC leaders

After holding a meeting with party leaders, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah flew to Srinagar on Friday evening. “The meeting decided that the adjournment motion moved by the NC should be discussed on the floor of the Lower House on Monday (March 4),” said party sources.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2013/20130302/main4.htm

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Giving groups the freedom, even the empowerment, to become new churches takes the limit off the budding movement. You could view yourself as the pastor of a large church. If you are a pastor, how much better to view yourself as a pastor of pastors and your church as a training base for a movement! Take the shackles off. This is what we mean by the counter-intuitive ways of the kingdom!

This accurately describes what we’ve been attempting to do.  I love that the Holy Spirit can speak to lots of people at once!  Our job is to make disciples.  It’s everything.  So we could be described as a D-church (“D” for discipleship).  In order for our members to make disciples we must equip them and release them from tending shop here so they can get out where wanderers live and hang out.  They must be “unshackled.”  So, I guess you could say that we are D-church Unshackled!

Thumbs up #1:
Even though this school is overseas, they still give you American degrees and credits. You can still go home to the States and have your schooling count. Which is pretty neat I think.

Thumbs up #2:
This school is a Christian-missions minded school, and being a Christian myself I find this thumbs up counts for about 2.5 points out of 5. The tuition you pay each semester goes directly to funding the clinic/school and so right away you’re a missionary .

Thumbs up #3: (Somehow I found another thumb…should I call it “Big Toe up #1″?)
Here’s info right off their website;

TUITION – $5595/semester (Associate Degree program is 4 semesters – 2 years.)

PRECEPTOR FEES – FREE

CLINICAL FEES – FREE

ROOM/BOARD – FREE

(In comparison to other schools we do not charge for room and board, nor are students required to secure their own housing. Single students live in one of our two dormitories with all meals and utilities provided free of charge for the duration of their schooling.)

So, right there is a good reason – the school hopefully wouldn’t drain me of cash for the rest of my life.

Thumbs up #4: (or Big Toe up #2 )
Here’s part of their vision statement:
“A big part of our vision is to train and equip interested students to start their own birthing centers in other third-world countries. Our midwifery program will provide each graduate with the necessary skills and knowledge to practice anywhere in the world. Being a midwife opens many doors to countless opportunities. Some of our students have gone into other countries such as Nigeria, Afghanistan, Nepal, India, China, Yemen, Sudan, Cambodia, Haiti and some have chosen to return to the Philippines to work alongside us.”

Pinky-toe down #1:
My dad isn’t too big on me leaving Iowa – much less the Country! So if this school is for me…well, we’ll just pray God will work things out to make my fam and God happy in the end!

Now, I have no surety of ever going overseas and living as a midwife missionary, but I’ve wanted to be an overseas missionary for a little while now and that would be something I would really be open to God setting up! If that goes anywhere we’ll wait and see!

Well, I’m kinda tired…it’s been a long day. Thanks for reading this friends! Thanks for any comments, subscriptions, followings and likes!

Love ya’ll!
Etam (Em, the aspiring midwife)

Over the last decades, marketers have been through a REAL transition. At the beginning it was all about fancy advertising campaigns, cool commercials and catchy taglines. Back then, marketers and admen didn’t know how exactly they could measure return on investment and probably it wasn’t their first concern.

In the world of digital marketing it’s all about the return on investment!

When digital marketing concept came into our lives it didn’t just brought a new and complicated jargon, new technologies and new forms of creativity in advertising solutions, it also brought a full clarity to the return on marketing investment question. With digital marketing every action you take in your campaign is measurable. You can track, monitor, evaluate and optimise your campaigns at every step,  monitor and analyse customer behaviour and make your cross marketing plans based on accurate and fresh data. Having all necessary metrics available in real-time, it’s no secret if your campaigns work or fail. So, digital marketing is a marketer’s HEAVEN where you could monitor response, measure success and diagnose troubles with your campaign immediately. However, if you can’t read and act upon the facts, it could easily turn into  a marketer’s true HELL. 

PPC, CPA, CPM, CPV, display ads, video ads, affiliate networks, search engine marketing, content marketing, mobile marketing, e-commerce, mobile commerce etc. Yes, you need to cope with the jargon, new technologies and new developments in the industry, but at the beginning you might want to start by understanding the basics and the brief history of digital marketing. There is a video called “This is Digital Marketing:  From Ad Men to Math Men” by Mediative, which I find very  useful to give a brief history of digital marketing in an entertaining way. I show this video at my lectures/presentations just to give a glimpse of  the short but intense history of digital marketing. 

Enjoy the video and your digital marketing journey!

An evangelical Protestant Baptism by submersion in a river (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 GOD’S WORD Translation (GW)  -  ¹⁸ When Jesus came near, he spoke to them. He said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ So wherever you go, make disciples of all nations: Baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. ²⁰ Teach them to do everything I have commanded you.  “And remember that I am always with you until the end of time.”

The “Great Commission” as spoken by Jesus.  This fundamental passage has to be at the core of all a Christian does and all any group of Christians do no matter if they are a church, a part of a church, a para-church organization or a group of Christian friends.  At all levels this is your mission statement, your calling and should becomes the basic foundational drive of all you do as a believer.

The message is very basic, but can often become lost in the systems and plans of groups and individuals in a way that many individuals feel this is not for them to do because it is not their job.  The fact is that the way this statement was made and how this passage reads it is clear that every individual is called by Jesus to do this by the power and the guidance of Christ Himself.

The first statement here is the fact that

What is this “authority” and how is it relevant.  Lets start with the word authority as defined in the dictionary:

Using this definition from the dictionary, Jesus has the responsibility for some area or areas of activity and has the power to control or demand obedience from some group.  What areas of activity and who He is controlling or demanding obedience from will be defined by whatever He says next and the context.

In context Jesus is speaking to the eleven disciples that were to be the catalysts of what would become the church.  The people to whom He is speaking directly are the fathers of every Christian church.

They are instructed to “go make disciples.”   In this translation the idea is also tied to being “wherever you go.”  The instruction here is for them to not only go to everywhere on the earth to make something called disciples, but to do that everywhere they go.

The area of responsibility that Jesus has been given can be seen as two distinct areas from what we have read so far:  the first is obvious because the passage said it:  all authority in heaven and earth” which includes the entire world.  The second is clearly and more directly to those who are His disciples (in this case the ones He is speaking to).

The responsibility that He is delegating is for each of them to do their part in making more disciples.  They are the instruments that He will use to exercise His authority as well as being subjects of His authority.

Then, these disciples are told to take the people that are willing to become disciples like them and have them make an outward expression of being under this authority by being baptized.  These disciples will not only learn new things will be washed of the old and brought into the new way of living that is voluntarily living under Christ’s authority.

Here we find the definition of what a disciple is and what it means to make one.  A disciple is a person who is taught TO DO everything that Jesus taught the Disciples He is talking to here to do.

The big teaching being the teaching given in the context of this statement:  The teaching to go and wherever you go make disciples that get baptized and do everything that Jesus has commanded those disciples because of his authority over the world and over each person in it.

For most people, there is some limiting factor to our ability to do this and for some of us this seems impossible or as if our job is to just give support to the others that do this.

While there is something to be said for that, the truth is that each person who is truly a disciple is to go and wherever you go you are to make disciples in the manner outlined here.  If that seems impossible, then that is awesome.  That simply means you understand the fact that you cannot do it.  If you could do it on your own power then what would you need God for.  It is His authority that you are exercising, not your own.  It is his power that you are exercising, not your own.

This is the core component of our relationship with Jesus is living this out.  This is to love Him and be a disciple of His.  Sitting in a building full of people who believe in Jesus, giving money or other support to others who do this, and such things are great and are amazing expressions of your belief, but are not what you are told here to do.   That is not the “go” or the “everywhere you go” that Jesus taught his disciples to teach their disciples of Him that they would teach.

There are places and people that you as an individual are the person Jesus has put in place to spread his “authority” over.

This actually is impossible for you and is outside of what you are wired to do.  That is why you need Jesus.  This is the point:

REMEMBER THAT JESUS IS ALWAYS WITH YOU UNTIL THE END OF TIME!

What is your product, service or company, and how did you get started in the field?

Jebbit’s pay-per-performance model benefits both brands and consumers, guaranteeing a brand that their message is comprehended while rewarding consumers with cash for actively answering questions that educate them on the brand.

Jebbit got its start by winning the 2011 Boston College Venture Competition and subsequently participated in the Summer@Highland Program with Highland Capital Partners in Boston. Jebbit then proceeded to raise it’s seed round of $500,000 from prominent angel investors including HubSpot Founder Dharmesh Shah, General Catalyst Co-Founder John Simon, and Boston Seed Capital.

Jebbit founders (from left to right): Chase McAleese, Tom Coburn, Jonathan Lacoste

How can individuals in the marketing/advertising industry (i.e. agencies, CMOs) use your product/service to create either more impactful end-results or enhance in-house performance?

Jebbit has been fortunate enough to have 100+ partners to date utilizing Jebbit to more effectively connect, advertise, and engage with consumers than any other online platform. Some of the partners that have learned first-hand the power of the Jebbit platform are BOSE, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, and Zipcar.

What is your view of where your product/service/company currently stands in the marketplace today? Where do you see your product/service/company in 3 years? What problem are you solving?

With the current state of online advertising, it is a very complex ecosystem of marketing options for brand managers and digital marketers to choose from. From our research we’ve found that despite the many options, these models fall short of what brands are looking to achieve. CPC ads are ineffective because there is no guarantee that a consumer views or engages with your content after clicking. At the same time, CPM ads are just as ineffective. A new study shows that 3 out of every 10 CPM views aren’t even seen!

http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/14/comscore-digital-future-2013/

We see Jebbit on the forefront of a new type of online advertising. Some call it Choice-Based-Impressions, others Pay-Per-Performance models. We call it CPCA, or Cost-Per-Correct-Answer. Our offerings currently includes a destination website, mobile app, and API; however, in 3 years I see Jebbit as a platform that a consumer could interact with on any website on any device.

As an entrepreneur, what impact has branding had on your venture’s success so far? How do you approach marketing? With whom do you collaborate to get your message out to your target audience?

Branded and targeted marketing is vital for any company and we consider it to be one of our top priorities as an online business. The way our business model operates, we have two different groups we need to market to; consumers and brands. Each approach is very unique and we’ve utilized different partners for both marketing mixes.

Ultimately, what we’ve discovered is that marketing becomes a lot easier when you have passionate brand ambassadors (as either a consumer or brand) that has had good experiences with your product and is willing to market for you. That’s why a majority of our user base has come from user referral and to a certain extent, viral effects.

What entrepreneurial ideas and start-up lessons can advertising professionals apply to creating breakthrough work?

Be nimble. Be adaptable. Be creative.

As a startup, we’ve been fortunate that we’ve had to keep these three ideas in mind since the beginning, but we’ve noticed that not all advertising professionals do. Clearly the digital world is constantly changing, and with social media and more advanced mobile devices, this trend is only bound to continue. At Jebbit, we want to be able to adapt and capitalize on every up and coming opportunity in the market as the industry changes.

Many advertising professionals find themselves interested in entrepreneurship. What advice would you give to someone with marketing skills interested in starting a new venture?

1) Find something you’re passionate about and 2) find others that share that same passion. Entrepreneurship and the life of a startup has its highs and lows, and its crucial to be working on an idea and with a team you’re super committed to. Otherwise, you’ll never survive the “lows” and become unfocused during the “highs”.

Thought leaders in marketing regularly reinforce the idea that agencies (and other marketing-oriented organizations, too) should collaborate with startups. Do you agree? Why? How would you like agencies to collaborate with your organization?

I’m definitely open and a firm believer of collaboration between agencies and startups. Agencies have the experience, network, and industry know-how to help many large brands. In my opinion, and I may be a little biased, startups can more quickly and effectively test new ideas and take advantage of market trends. Using startups to test new platforms and advertising ideas, agencies could effectively find the newest and most powerful marketing opportunities for their clients.

That’s the end of the interview, which will be posted sometime next week. I’ll be sure to share the link and any reactions/comments readers have once the story is published. Hopefully the interview gave a little more insight on Jebbit, the specific industry background I am focused on, and some of the visions I have for Jebbit.

CPMs are not YET legalized in the State of Iowa. This is sad because I currently live in Iowa. Being so young, I don’t know where I would be a midwife yet, but it upsets me to know that if I were a midwife right now, I wouldn’t be able to practice here. This website http://www.friendsofiowamidwives.org/index.html was helpful in giving me some info on this. But if you want to email them you should know that their website is currently inactive and their emails not frequently checked. Check out their facebook pages for more info here;

http://www.friendsofiowamidwives.org/links.html

https://www.facebook.com/friendsofiowamidwives

The Iowa Birth Activists group is another active group you may be
interested in contacting:
https://www.facebook.com/IowaBirthActivists .

I plan on researching how I can help to further this legalization in Iowa.

The second thing I found was an online Doula school that is a period of three weeks long and costs 350.00 for the entire program. Here’s the link;
http://avivacollege.org/index.php/extensions/icespeed I am thinking of doing this program. The only thing is, I would like to see some reviews on it before applying. If you’ve heard of it or know anything of online Doula schooling would you please let me know? I’d be forever in your debt!
This schooling seems simple enough. It has online videos and you interact with the other students thru the website. I’ll let you know how it goes – if you have ny information I’d be glad to hear!

Etam (Em, the aspiring midwife)

Thank you a thousand times for any comments, followings, subscriptions and likes! They are greatly appreciated!

With 74% of companies currently sharing data via spreadsheets compared to only 5% planning on continuing with this medium.  It’s evident why BI and CPM is the number one priority for CFOs.  The direct correlation between spreadsheets and BI/CPM is not a coincidence, but rather a result of external pressure to remain competitive and the requirement to make faster business decisions.  It’s the business reality of the day (increased competition and decreased consumer spending) forcing companies to look at applications to help streamline and automate processes:

Let’s change focus from how companies are currently sharing analytical insights and the shift from spreadsheets to BI/CPM applications.  To what barriers companies are most currently faced with.  The two challenges that stand out and share similar characteristics are “software licenses are too expensive” at 49% and “no clear ROI” at 30%.  In some cases these hurdles are real, but I suspect in most it’s subjective and often an excuse to continue with the status quo by doing more with less until its too late to implement change.  To help combat these two objections the screen shot below outlines three key strategies leading companies take in helping ensure performance management adoption.

Related:
Want to change the BI status quo
Improving finance’s increasingly strategic role
Is your company going beyond basic BI
When do companies outgrow spreadsheets
Improving operational effectiveness
How to support business strategy with technology
Capturing software ROI

Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF) extends its solidarity with the workers who are going on a two-day All India general strike on 20 and 21 February. While all the major trade union centres affiliated to various ruling class parties of the country have come together for giving a call for this strike due to the pressure from the working masses, the revolutionary and militant trade unions and workers’ organisations too have given a strike call for these two days. This strike is an opportunity for the workers across different sectors of the economy and regions to come together to highlight the burning problems of their common concern, which require urgent redressal. All the progressive, democratic and pro-people organisations and individuals of the country as well as the peasantry, the students, teachers, intellectuals, government and private employees, need to stand in solidarity with the striking workers in the struggle for achieving their just and genuine demands.

The strike call comes at a time when the imperialist world economy is going through its worst crisis after the Great Depression of the 1930s. The inherent contradiction of the capitalist economy between socialised production and privatised profit came into full force, leading to large-scale overproduction, unprecedented destruction of productive forces, high levels of unemployment, runaway inflation and mass impoverishment. The collapse of the imperialist economy was averted when monopoly finance capital resorted to Fascism in Europe and through massive militarisation and spending in the World War II, which was the direct result of the crisis in capitalism. During this period, achievements which the international working-class movement had won in the form of labour rights through decades of life and death struggles were virtually wiped out. In the post-war period, a resurgence of struggles by the working masses and the spectre of communism and national liberation movements forced the governments in imperialist, bourgeois and semi-colonial countries to recognise the rights of the workers under the garb of ‘welfare economics’.

The so-called Nehruvian Socialism adopted by the feudal and comprador ruling classes of India was nothing but an attempt to conceal their continued subservience to imperialism with a new mask. After transfer of power and declaration of sham independence in 1947, the Indian state merely carried forward the approach of the British colonial rulers towards to the workers – to nominally recognise some of their rights in response to militant working class movements – but in reality facilitating the unbridled exploitation of the labourers by domestic and foreign big capitalists. The comprador bourgeoisie and foreign capitalists preserve the prevailing semi-feudal and semi-colonial social relations for exploitation of cheap labour and plunder of natural resources of the country. They maintain wages at a below-subsistence level, depriving the working masses of even the basic necessities, keeping them dependent on agriculture and other land-related activities for survival, tying them in feudal bondage and perpetual debt trap, subjecting them to extra-economic coercion, and so on. Since the implementation of labour laws cut into their profits, the employers flout these laws with impunity in connivance with the state machinery. It is not surprising, therefore, that the dignity, social respect, political and legal rights, social security and political power – i.e., overall status and condition the workers experienced as individuals or as a class in the erstwhile socialist countries such as the USSR and China – are in sharp contrast to that of the workers of India. In the absence of even a bourgeois democratic transformation due to the colonial stranglehold followed by the persistence of a semi-feudal semi-colonial economy, the condition of the industrial workers in the country remains far worse than their counterparts of the capitalist countries as well.

Whether in urban or in rural areas, the predominance of pre-capitalist production relations has resulted in a vast mass of unorganised workers. Their occupation continues to be determined more by caste, religion or region, etc., and less by free choice. These fissures are cleverly used and manipulated by the employers to undermine working class consciousness or action even by the politically advanced 5 crore industrial workers – in itself a staggering number. In spite of such adverse factors, the industrial working class of India have fought heroic struggles including historic strikes for the betterment of their lives and for the country’s independence from colonial rule. But since the leadership of the working class movement in India has traditionally remained with the ruling classes (that includes the revisionist ‘Left’ parties such as CPI and CPM), the working people have often failed to protect their class interests against the relentless assault of the employers and the government. Nor could they play the role of the revolutionary vanguard in the class struggle by countering the Congress and the capitulationist line of the undivided Communist Party before and after the transfer of power. It was only in the Naxalbari Uprising and the subsequent formation of the CPI (ML) in the 1960s, that the workers of India finally found its correct ideological-political orientation and organizational form. However, even before the message of Naxalbari could reach the vast masses of workers in the whole country and they could reorganise themselves on the ideological foundation of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the movement was brutally crushed.

Nevertheless, it was primarily the workers along with the poor peasants who have carried forward the revolutionary movement in India from then on, protecting it for the last four decades from the twin dangers of the ruling classes and the revisionists.

A backward and regressive mode of production have ensured that the industrial sector in India remain marginal in the overall economy. In terms of its share in employment and GDP, the industrial sector has lagged behind agriculture and even the ‘service’ sector. Similar to the imperialist-dictated schemes like the Green Revolution in agriculture, efforts by the Indian state to boost up industrial production through PSUs have mostly ended in failure. In the global context of collapse of Soviet social imperialism and the ascendance of the US as the strongest imperialist power, the Indian ruling classes in the 1990s threw away even the fig-leaf of the ‘welfare’ state and opened the floodgates of Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization. World Bank employees, IMF consultants and other comprador agents are being installed by the imperialist powers in key government posts like the Prime Minister, Finance Minister, Planning Commission members, Chief Economic Advisor etc. to implement their policies. Contractualisation of work, outsourcing, sweatshops, SEZs, sale of PSUs, ‘Disinvestment’, unrestrained inflow and outflow of Foreign Institutional Investment (FII) and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in nearly all sectors of the economy, deregulation of the currency and fuel prices, withdrawal of subsidies and social security measures, etc. have followed in its wake. With the Indian economy swaying with the ebbs and tides of the worldwide economic upheavals, the rulers of the country seem totally incapable of controlling the spiralling inflation, skyrocketing price rice, or the growing unemployment and destitution of the people. Indeed, the Indian ruling classes have become the much-despised instruments of imperialist forces in extracting the labour and resources of the toiling masses of the country.

The close integration of the Indian economy with the imperialist global economy has darkened the menacing shadow of moribund finance capital, contributing not only to a brewing agrarian crisis but also a stagnant industrial sector, with serious implications for the country’s workers and peasants as well as the small and middle bourgeoisie. The global economic crisis which has paralysed the major imperialist countries has started to have a telling impact on the overall Indian economy – irrespective of the contrary claims made by the rulers – and the ‘10% growth story’ has already started to turn sour. Manufacturing has been badly hit by falling demands, and compared to the 6.9% growth shown by the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) in April-June 2011, the IIP for the same period in 2012 decelerated to -0.1% and is still hovering around the 1% mark. Hit by such a severe crisis, industries have lost much of their capacities to generate employment, and are resorting to drastic cost-cutting measures like retrenchment, hire-and-fire labour policy, artificial depression of real wages, denial of legally stipulated social security benefits like ESI-PF, bonus, pension, healthcare, prolonging of working hours, and so on.

Worsening working conditions and adverse terms of work have led to a series of militant workers’ struggles all across the country in the recent times. In the Auto industry alone, there have been a number of struggles – Maruti Suzuki, Manesar (2011), Allied Nippon, Sahibabad (2010), Mahindra, Nasik (2009), Hyndai, Chennai (2011-12), Pricol, Coimbatore (2009), Bosch Chasis, Pune (2009), Honda Motorcycles, Gurgaon (2009), Volvo, Hoskote (2010), MRF Tyres, Chennai (2010, 2011) General Motors, Halol (2011), Graziano, Noida (2008), and so on. In many instances, workers destroyed machinery, burnt down plants and even killed managers in expression of their discontentment and rage. Such militant protests are often preceded by denial of longstanding demands of the workers, their intimidation, humiliation, ill treatment and violent repression by the management, inaction of the authorities and collusion with the management, etc. Predictably, the state comes down heavily on the workers to crush their ‘indiscipline’ and ‘unrest’. The role of the trade unions affiliated to the ruling class parties and the renegade ‘communist’ parties like CPI and CPM is often of the middleman who tries to placate the management and the state by reigning in worker’s militant movements. It is not surprising that in most of the cases, militant protest actions have been led by independent workers’ unions which have refused to comply with the diktats of the central trade unions.

The anti-people and anti-worker policies pursued by the Indian state in the last two decades have led to an overall decline in the standard of living, forcing the toiling masses of the country into a situation of acute impoverishment, malnutrition and destitution which is worse than sub-Saharan countries. Economic disparity has touched new heights, with 77% of the population surviving on less than 20 rupees a day. The propertied classes and the government in the country are increasingly resorting to fascist methods to tackle this explosive situation. Not only the basic political and democratic rights, but the statutory legal rights of the working masses too have been denied or subverted. The right to strike as a legitimate weapon of struggle has itself come under unprecedented attack. For instance, the West Bengal government led by Mamata Banerjee brought out circulars in 2012 banning state government employees from calling or participating in strikes. The strike of the workers at Blue Star Company at Wada in Thane district which began on 7 February 2013 for higher wages has been declared illegal. The Karnataka government even threatened striking doctors and health workers last month of booking under the National Security Act after terming their strike as illegal. In the more than 1000 Special Economic Zones (SEZs) approved by the government – which are being touted as ‘engines of rapid industrial growth’ – the right of the workers to organise themselves in trade unions or to call strikes are completely done away with. Other forms of collective struggle by the workers too are being undermined. It is this worsening condition of the working people of the country – particularly the industrial workers – and their demand for a fight back against the anti-worker policies of the government that have forced the central trade unions to come together and give a call for a two-day all India strike on 20 and 21 February 2013.

Let’s identify our enemies and friends. All the demands cited by the trade unions for calling the two day strike are genuinely connected to the problems faced by the workers in the country today. However, it is ironic that these very trade unions are directly related to the ruling class political parties in power – be it the Congress, BJP, CPM, and so on. These parties are directly responsible for implementing a series of anti-worker policies in the last two decades. The strike for them is mere tokenism and a calculated move to befool the workers in the name of struggle. As it is necessary to fight the ruling classes and their policies, it is equally pertinent to expose and smash the machinations of the reactionary and revisionist trade unions. A strike is a weapon in the hands of the working people. Trade unions controlled by the ruling class parties should not be allowed to misuse or blunt this weapon. As the world economic crisis deepens and the imperialist powers push us once again to the brink of war and fascism, the ruling classes in India are going to step up their assault on the workers, peasants, religious and national minorities, Dalits, Adivasis and the other oppressed peoples of the country. Only a high-tide of revolutionary and democratic struggles by the popular masses will be able to counter this impending onslaught. RDF appeals to the workers and their militant unions to seize the initiative, intensify the struggle for immediate economic demands and compliment with the political struggle for a revolutionary social transformation by smashing the two shackles binding the people of India – feudalism and imperialism. A successful two-day strike on 20 and 21 February 2013 with the aim of raising the wages as per the basic needs of the workers, full implementation of labour laws, against contractualisation and other related demands will be a step in this direction.

Source:  http://www.icawpi.org

אבל היי, מי אמר שהתחום הזה קל;)?

אני אמשיך לנהל מפה את היומן האישי שלי, ומי יודע, אולי בעוד כמה שנים מהיום, כשאעבור על כל הרשמים, יהיה נחמד להיזכר בהתחלה הקשה- כי אז הסיפוק יהיה הרבה יותר גבוה!

ועכשיו, מה זה בדיוק eCPM?

בפוסט הקודם, נתתי הסבר כללי על סוגי התשלום השונים בתעשייה (כמובן שיש עוד כמה לא פחות חשובים, כמו- premium, PPV, וכו’ – אבל הפ חות מעניינים כרגע). כמו כן, הסברתי למה מפרסמים היו רוצים להימצא בצד אחד של הסקאלה, ואילו האתרים- בדיוק בצד השני.

המצב הזה, יוצר בעייתיות עבור שני הצדדים להגיע ל”עמק השווה”. בעצם, כל אחד מהם מדבר על התשלום עבור הגולשים באתר, אבל היות וצורת התשלום שונה- קשה לבצע את ההשוואה ביניהן עבור כל צד כדי לוודא שהוא נשאר רווחי.

לצורך כך, אנחנו נאלצים להשוות “תפוחים לתפוחים”. ובשביל זה נועד ה-eCPM.

לצורך השוואה, נבצע משחק מתמטי (מאוד פשוט ברגע שמבינים אותו).

ה-eCPM שווה ל- 1,000*(Revenue⁄Impressions).

פשוט, לא?

בעבור כל אחד מצורות התשלום, אנחנו צריכים לבצע את ההמרה הפשוטה הנ”ל, וכך נוכל להשוות ביניהן.

אז נתחיל:

eCPM of CPM= (Revenue/Impressions)*1,000–>

revenue= (Rate of 1,000 Impressions * Impressions amount)/1,000

so, eCPM of CPM= [({Rate*imps}/1,000)/imps]*1,000

or in other words:

The eCPM of CPM equals to the CPM Rate!

הסבר- ההכנסה של CPM שווה לתעריף אותו האתר מקבל בעבור אלף חשיפות, כפול מספר החשיפות שהיו בפועל, לחלק ל-1,000 (כיוון שהתשלום הוא עבור 1,000 חשיפות ולא עבור כל חשיפה וחשיפה).

ולכן, אם נכפול את ההכנסה בכמות החשיפות, נחלק את הסכום ב-1,000, נחלק שוב בכמות החשיפות ואת הכל נכפול ב-1,000, נוכל לצמצם את המכנים והמונים, ונגיע למסקנה המאוד פשוטה- בעבור צורת התשלום הנ”ל, ה-eCPM שווה תמיד לתעריף אותו נקבל בעבור 1,000 חשיפות!

באופן זהה, נוכל לחשב את ה-eCPM לכל אחד מצורות התשלום הבאות:

eCPM of CPC= (Rev/Imps)*1,000–>

Rev= Click amount*Click rate

so, eCPM of CPC= ({clicks*rate}/imps)*1,000

and the eCPM for CPA= ({Aquisition*rate}/imps)*1,000

אוקיי, זה הדבר הכי מסובך פה בכל התהליך. מכאן, הדרך פתוחה וקלה הרבה יותר להבנה:)

אז יאללה, בואו נתחיל!