Question re Ch 18 Essentials

When is the Chapter 18 essentials assignment due?

TURNING IN ASSIGNMENTS - PROFESSIONAL OVERVIEW

In the business, government and non-profit world, management expects deliverables to be carefully reviewed and referenced. As you are being graded for Team assignments, all of you were asked to break them deliverables into "manageable" parts to enable me to know who was assigned what assignment. That is what is reflected on your Grade Status Reports.

These are Teams, not Groups. This means that you should be using the Google Doc and Google Spreadsheet collaborative tool to "share" your document with your Team-mates before submitting. Being on a team means taking the time for reviewing the document before it is submitted. And many Teams still must provide me with a copy of the "Revisions".

There are 18 Chapter Essentials, and referencing "what" your document is will get it graded. Not referencing it could result in a zero as I will not grade a "document" where the author has not taken the time to entitle it, and reference what assignment on the syllabus it is for. Perhaps if more "sharing" was done within Google Docs with SUBJECT identifying the Assignment and the MESSAGE explaining what it for would help the Team in its review, and would let me know what exactly it is.

Please use the tools mentioned above. By the way, for those reading the Blog. After tomorrow, I am no longer accepting any Professional Overviews and people who have missed it will receive no point. Three weeks is more than enough time.

Professional profile

Professor:

Do you want a copy of what we have posted in a professional site, or do you want us to prepare a CV type overview and make you a viewer?

Questions About Chapter Essential Articles

I am in the process of uploading the articles that go along with my chapter overviews(1 & 2) for my group. I am having a hard time trying upload multiple pages. Can I just turn in a hard copy of the articles?

Those #*!+?"/ Assignments ----

Q1. About the assignments... particularly the professional reviews...

Q1.1 Is it a document or a PowerPoint or both?

A1.1 It could be a MS Word to Google Document or a MS PowerPoint to Google Presentation. There is no need to do both.

Q1.2 Is there supposed to be a cover letter to accompany it or not?

A.1.2 No. This is not an application, rather a Professional Overview is something that you would find on Professional-Networking Sites {yes, as this is a finance course I am exposing students to web tools on presenting their Professional Overviews -- if you visit one of these sites then you will see there is no one way of doing}. Professional Overviews on these online networking communities as a company or as an individual will help you take advantage of recruiting opportunities, cross-promotional events and more. Here are a few of them:

1. LinkedIn: LinkedIn is a popular networking site where alumni, business associates, recent graduates and other professionals connect online.

2. Ecademy: Ecademy prides itself on "connecting business people" through its online network, blog and message-board chats, as well as its premier BlackStar membership program, which awards exclusive benefits.

3. Focus: Focus is a business destination where business professionals can help each other with their purchase and other business decisions by accessing research and peer expertise. Most importantly, Focus provides open, quality information for all businesses that is freely available, easily accessible, and community powered.

4. YorZ: This networking site doubles as a job site. Members can post openings for free to attract quality candidates.

5. Xing: An account with networking site Xing can "open doors to thousands of companies." Use the professional contact manager to organize your new friends and colleagues, and take advantage of the Business Accelerator application to "find experts at the click of a button, market yourself in a professional context [and] open up new sales channels."

6. Facebook: Facebook is no longer just for college kids who want to post their party pics. Businesses vie for advertising opportunities, event promotion and more on this social-networking site.

7. Care2: Care2 is not just a networking community for professionals: It is touted as "the global network for organizations and people who Care2 make a difference." If your business is making efforts to go green, let others know by becoming a presence on this site.

8. Gather: This networking community is made up of members who think. Browse categories concerning books, health, money, news and more to ignite discussions on politics, business and entertainment. This will help your company tap into its target audience and find out what they want.

9. MEETin.org: Once you have acquired a group of contacts in your city by networking on MEETin.org, organize an event so that you can meet face-to-face.

10. Tribe: Cities like Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco, New York and Chicago have unique online communities on tribe. Users can search for favorite restaurants, events, clubs and more.

11. Ziggs: Ziggs is "organizing and connecting people in a professional way." Join groups and make contacts through your Ziggs account to increase your company's presence online and further your own personal career.

12. Plaxo: Join Plaxo to organize your contacts and stay updated with feeds from Digg, Amazon.com, del.icio.us and more.

13. NetParty: If you want to attract young professionals in cities like Boston, Dallas, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Orlando Fla., create an account with the networking site NetParty. You will be able to connect with qualified, up-and-coming professionals online, and then meet them at a real-life happy-hour event where you can pass out business cards, pitch new job openings and more.

14. Networking For Professionals: Networking For Professionals is another online community that combines the Internet with special events in the real world. Post photos, videos, résumés and clips on your online profile while you meet new business contacts.

15. http://www.govloop.com/ GovLoop is the premier social network connecting the government community.

Q2. All this internet stuff is so time consuming. I cannot afford to be managing countless emails on the sites above -- or can I? How do business, government and non-profit managers keep up with all this stuff?

A2. By Utilizing Social-Media/Social-Bookmarking Sites. The following explains what these are. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x66lV7GOcNU In addition to your Professional overview, you can share your favorite sites on the Web with potential clients and business partners by commenting on, uploading and ranking different newsworthy articles. You can also create a member profile that directs traffic back to your company's Web site on some of the following:

Reddit: Upload stories and articles on Reddit to drive traffic to your site or blog. Submit items often so that you will gain a more loyal following and increase your presence on the site.

Digg: Digg has a huge following online because of its optimum usability. Visitors can submit and browse articles in categories like technology, business, entertainment, sports and more.

Del.icio.us: Social bookmark your way to better business with sites like del.icio.us, which invite users to organize and publicize interesting items through tagging and networking.

StumbleUpon: You will open your online presence up to a completely new audience just by adding the StumbleUpon toolbar to your browser and "channel surf[ing] the Web. You will "connect with friends and share your discoveries," as well as "meet people that have similar interests."

Technorati: If you want to increase your blog's readership, consider registering it with Technorati, a network of blogs and writers that lists top stories in categories like Business, Entertainment and Technology.

Ning: After hanging around the same social networks for a while, you may feel inspired to create your own, where you can bring together clients, vendors, customers and co-workers in a confidential, secure corner of the Web. Ning lets users design free social networks that they can share with anyone.

Squidoo: According to Squidoo, "everyone's an expert on something. Share your knowledge!" Share your industry's secrets by answering questions and designing a profile page to help other members.

Furl: Make Furl "your personal Web file" by bookmarking great sites and sharing them with other users by recommending links, commenting on articles and utilizing other fantastic features.

Tubearoo: This video network works like other social-bookmarking sites, except that it focuses on uploaded videos. Businesses can create and upload tutorials, commentaries and interviews with industry insiders to promote their own services.

WikiHow: Create a how-to guide or tutorial on WikiHow to share your company's services with the public for free.

YouTube: From the fashion industry to Capitol Hill, everyone has a video floating around on YouTube. Shoot a behind-the-scenes video from your company's latest commercial or event to give customers and clients an idea of what you do each day.

Ma.gnolia: Share your favorite sites with friends, colleagues and clients by organizing your bookmarks with Ma.gnolia. Clients will appreciate both your Internet-savviness and your ability to stay current and organized.

Spreadsheets

When you refer to "those spreadsheets", you are referring to the ones we create on Excel as supposed to ones already existing, correct?

question re: assignments

I am trying to complete the chapter assignment list. However, I did not see Chapter 18 listed in pages 5-8 that provides us the due date for each chapter overview. Would you like for us to include Chapter 18 as one of our assignments due? If so, when would you like it due?

What Do I Do With Those Spreadheets?

1. If any of the questions in the textbook require you to manipulate them (change any of the numbers), then you will change the numbers in the spreadsheet.

2. Upload them into Google Spreadsheet.

3. Invite the Professor as a Viewer.

4. Note that the spreadsheets are intended to get you some experience examining an automated tool in the use of financial analysis. When you leave the class, you should be able to "know" from your brief experience how a spreadsheet can be used in financial management.

Ok, What Is Meant By Industry Financial Ratios?

Financial ratio analysis reports are broken down into the various ratio categories:

1. Predictor Ratios indicate the potential for growth or failure.
2. Profitability Ratios which use margin analysis and show the return on sales and capital employed.
3. Asset Management Ratios which use turnover measures to show how efficient a company is in its operations and use of assets.
4. Liquidity Ratios which give a picture of a company's short term financial situation or solvency.
5. Debt Management Ratios which show the extent that debt is used in a company's capital structure.

In assessing the significance of various industry financial data, experts engage in financial ratio analysis, the process of determining and evaluating financial ratios.

A financial ratio is a relationship that indicates something about an industry's activities, such as the ratio between the industry's current assets and current liabilities or between its accounts receivable and its annual sales.

The basic source for these ratios are the company financial statements within the industry that contain figures on assets, liabilities, profits, and losses. Industry ratios are only meaningful when compared with other information.

Since individual companies are most often compared with industry data, ratios help an individual understand a company's performance relative to that of competitors and are often used to trace performance over time.

Ratio analysis can reveal much about an industry. However, there are several points to keep in mind about ratios.

First, financial ratios are "flags" indicating areas of strength or weakness. One or even several ratios might be misleading, but when combined with other knowledge of an industry, ratio analysis can tell much about that industry.

Second, there is no single correct value for a ratio. The observation that the value of a particular ratio is too high, too low, or just right depends on the perspective of the analyst.

Third, a financial ratio is meaningful only when it is compared with some standard, such as another industry trend, ratio trend, a ratio trend for the specific industry being analyzed.

In trend analysis, industry ratios are compared over time, typically years. Year-to-year comparisons can highlight trends and point up the need for action. Trend analysis works best with five years of ratios.

Significance of "Fixed Charge Ratio" Analysis

The amount of debt of a company affects its profitability and its ability to grow. Debt also incurs risk for both creditors and stockholders because of the potential for default, especially in hard economic times, since the interest on the debt must be paid regardless of hardships.

A high debt load can also increase the future cost of credit for the company since it will be less creditworthy. Since many companies refinance maturing short- and long-term debt by issuing more debt, a worse scenario can occur if the availability of credit declines because of economic turmoil, such as during the credit crisis of 2007 and 2008, when even short-term debt couldn’t even be refinanced. Indeed, the credit crisis has forced many companies into bankruptcy.

Of course, the amount of debt by itself is not a useful guide in selecting companies, since it must be compared to the company’s profit and stockholders’ equity to be a meaningful gauge of a company’s solvency.

Fixed-Charge Coverage Ratio (aka Times Interest Earned)

A company must have enough earnings to pay its interest expense; otherwise it will eventually fail. Because earnings rise and fall depending on market and economic conditions, it would be preferable if the company’s earnings were much higher than interest expense in most years; otherwise, investing in the company would incur significant risk when the economy falters, as it always does eventually. The amount of safety desired depends on the stability of the company’s earnings, and how cyclical the company’s sector is. A company whose earnings rise and fall significantly with economic cycles should have a greater margin of earnings over interest payments.

The fixed-charge coverage ratio (aka times interest earned) is earnings before interest (EBIT) plus taxes divided by the interest expense of long-term debt and other liabilities.

Fixed-Charge Coverage Ratio =

Earnings before Interest and Taxes ─────────────────────────── Interest Expense of Long-Term Debt

Since interest is a tax-deductible expense, the full amount of earnings can be used to pay interest.

Some firms, in reporting their results, use earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA), because it makes the company's financial picture look better than using EBIT, especially if it is a capital-intensive business. This is because depreciation and amortization are accrual charges that reduce earnings, but are not actually paid during the period. Companies argue that this gives a better picture of their cash flow. The problem with using EBITDA is that although depreciation and amortization are not actual expenses during the reporting period, the company will eventually need money to replace their capital goods eventually, so it shouldn't really be considered as money that can be used to cover interest payments except for the short term. Even intangible assets, such as goodwill, can be problematic in ascertaining a company's ability to pay its interest expense. Hence, it is better to stick with using EBIT rather than EBITDA in calculating fixed-charge coverage ratio.

Example—Calculating the Fixed-Charge Coverage Ratio for Wal-Mart

For its fiscal year ending in January, 2008, Wal-Mart earned $22,301,000,000 before interest and taxes, and had an interest expense of $2,103,000,000. Therefore:

Fixed-Charge Coverage Ratio = 22,301 / 2,103 ≈ 10.6

Question on The Use of the Spreadheet

Q1. For chapter overviews do students answer the questions on the spreadsheet that was provided?

A2. No. It is preferable that you develop a reusable business tool that will enable you to view your answers. I suggest you consider creating a MS PowerPoint presentation with your responses and converting it to a Google Presentation. That way, you and your Team-mates will have a tool to "read" and "remember" as they move up in their professional careers.

Team Responsibilities for the Course

Chapter Essentials Question on Key Words

Q1 Are students to select one of the key words and use current events such as newspaper articles, magazines etc showing the relevance between the word and the current event?

A1. Yes. Students are to:

1. select one of the key words, and define it
   
2. apply the word to a current event posted in a business related posting on the world wide web (e.g. Business Week, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, or any other relevant publisher of financial news). In other words, briefly state how this is an actual example of the word.
   

What the Heck is a Blog and Why Should I be Bothered?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN2I1pWXjXI

What exactly is a blog?

Blog, blogs is the shortened form of weblog ("web" as in internet-"log" as in journal). This is an internet term for a personal web site/ sites set up to be regularly updated as a diary or journal for public viewing. This diary can come in a form of written text, pictures, photographs, audio and video or in a combination of all.

What is a blog used for?

Blogs are written by professionals in all disciplines to share ideas, thoughts, concepts, expertise, art, music, stories, beauty, knowledge, experience, help, support to even their life story. What is great about the internet, is the room for everyone to share from the amateur blogs to stay at home moms using blogs to market products, chronicle events, share recipes or just how they feel.

Successful blogs.

The most successful blogs are normally written in a humorous, honest and personal way by celebrities right through to the terminally ill. Success in blogs knows no boundaries as to the audience they capture. Of course fame, writing skills, search engine optimization, blog layout and content all play a role in creating successful blogs but not always. Perhaps you could spell bind the world and dazzle us with your blog, go on show us how it is done and share your thoughts with the world.

How do I start a blog?

For an amateur blogger two easy options to consider would be signing up with either Blogger.com (blog.com) or WordPress.com and start a free blog with them. There you can post your comments, ideas, thoughts and share with the rest of the world.

What the Heck is a "Blog"?

What is a blog?

Not only that, but what are blogs used for?

If you don’t know the answer to that, where have you been for the last three or four years?

The word blog is short for web log, and is strictly a record of the changing content of your website. People who were interested in the content of your site would register to receive your blog, and would be informed whenever a page on your site was updated.

However, although that is still a prime use for blogs, they are now also used for advertising and passing on information. Many use blogs as a type of article site, wherein there are no restrictions on their content or on the degree of advertising they include in the article body. If blogs are nothing but blatant adverts, however, they will tend to have very few subscribers.

Blogs can also allow comments to be posted by readers, although this is an option that not all bloggers allow. It is a good way to allow interaction on your website, and is something like a low key forum. However, blogs that allow this interaction tend to be more popular than those that do not, unless they are specifically known for their useful content.

There are two easy ways for the beginner to start blogging, and these are through Blogger and Wordpress.

Blogger belongs to Google, and strictly the content on your blogs on the Blogger site also belongs to Google. Blogger is not run from your own website, but from a site provided to you by Google, although you can provide a link from your website to your blog page. This, however, bleeds PageRank from your web page containing the link to your blog.

Wordpress is a more advanced blogging option, and you can either have it hosted by Wordpress, in the same way that Google hosts Blogger, or you can host your Wordpress blog yourself. The latter is preferable because there are many Wordpress plugins you can use to personalize or customize your blog. Once you get the hang of how Wordpress works from your own website, then that is by far the better method. Links to your blog are then from one page of your site to another, and can be used as part of your internal linking strategy.

Blogs are used by many people to make money, and if you know how to use blogs for profit, then they can be a very good source of income. Some need no other since they make many thousands of dollars monthly only from their blogs. What is a blog to some is that it is their entire living. To reach that standard, however, you have a lot of learning to do, but it can be done. There are no secrets about blogs, and all it takes is the knowledge of how to use them and a bit of intelligence and common sense.

Another aspect of blogs that can be used to your advantage in marketing your website is Blog and Ping. This refers to the use of social bookmarking sites and others such as Technorati, where you can register your blog and ping them, or let them know when your blog content has been changed. Other such sites are del.icio.us. blinklist and spurl among others. There are techniques that can be used to help you get useful one-way links back to your website, and also exposure of your blog, and hence the adverts on it, to users of these very popular web2 sites.

So the answer to the question What is a Blog, is that it is a very useful means of communicating with others and a good way to keep your email list informed of new material on your website that could be useful to them. What are blogs used for? To market your site and your products, but also to keep people in touch with what is happening on your web site.

Team Responsibilities for the Course

Now that you have formed Teams, not to be confused with Groups, you need to develop an operating structure for the responsibilities for each member.

First, there are two Team projects:

1. TEAM OVERVIEWS (there are 18 of them). If you are asking questions as to "what" should be included in these Team Overviews of each of the 18 Chapters, and "the length" of them, then you are advised to read the "Google Doc" that was sent to you. In this information age, you must learn how to manage and read information.
2. SPREADSHEETS. You are to use the spreadsheets, and your text book, to prepare both a response to the assigned questions and provide a copy of the spreadsheet (including the graph).
   

Second, pick the appropriate tool for each assignment. Note that a in Google Docs you can create: a Document (uploaded MS Word file that is Word 2003 or an earlier version; a Spreadsheet (an uploaded MS Excel Spreadsheet that is Excel 2003 or an earlier version); a Presentation (an uploaded MS PowerPoint presentation that is PowerPoint 2003 or earlier version). There is a "form" option that you might consider for work or research but not for this course.


Third, learn the concept of "collaboration", what it means and what it requires. Teams use collaborative tools.

Fourth, remember that in Financial Management we work in a virtual rather than physical world. You do not have "to be" in the same location to interact, collaborate, and get assignment done. With collaborative tools like Google Docs, one of your Team members can input changes in a document from another location and you can see it being updated. As a Manager, how will that approach your approach to managing projects and deliverables? How will that affect your work process? How will that affect your current communications tools?

Fifth, who will be the creators of documents to be posted in Google Docs. The person who creates the document will assign the ability "to edit" the document to Team members, and "to view" the document for the instructor (me). Manage that. Put your schedule on Google Calendar.

Sixth, consider doing all of this with a GMail account. That will make this project easier.

Seventh, post comments, questions, ideas, innovations on this blog to enable your classmates to see them. Yes, I am also teaching you how to use a Blog. Rather than sending me a question in an email, consider posting it here on the ADMN 607 BLOG.