A New Look for IA

As you've probably divined by now, I just launched a new web design. After all these months of taking a bunch of crap about my black background and other design issues, I decided to take a fresh approach and introduce a totally new look and feel. I've also included a tab for my investment entity, IA Capital Partners, which shows all of my personal holdings as well as a little thumbnail on each company. You can also quickly shoot out to my LinkedIn profile or my Facebook profile as well.

As I am always on the lookout for interesting companies in which to invest, advise or both, please feel free to drop me a note, a business plan, or any interesting ideas you'd like to knock around. I hope you like the new IA design, because I'm not changing it anytime soon. But feel free to send comments anyway, as my kind friend Howard Lindzon has in my Buddy Media post.

Top Talent Sought: Buddy Media

My pal Mike Lazerow, CEO and Founder of Buddy Media, is looking to fill two important positions with super-talented, ambitious people ready to join his nimble, high-performance team:

Director of Business Development

Buddy Media, Inc., a NYC-based start-up that is building the AceBucks underground currency on Facebook, is currently seeking a Director of Business Development. The position is based in Buddy Media’s Columbus Circle office and reports to the CEO of Buddy Media, serial entrepreneur Michael Lazerow (U-Wire, GOLF.com, Lazerow Consulting).

We are looking for a motivated, self-starter who is comfortable working in a fast-paced start-up atmosphere. The ideal candidate is sick of making money for others and wants to create value for him or herself as an owner of Buddy Media.

Primary Responsibilities:

* Create partnerships with media companies, marketers, advertisers, sponsors and other organizations that want to reach the Facebook crowd.
* Form relationships with other Facebook application developers to use AceBucks as their currency or loyalty marketing program.
* Lock down distribution with large media companies and start ups for the AceBucks currency.
* Lead all aspects of deal development, prospecting, sourcing, negotiating and closing. This will include strategic partnerships, distribution deals, and corporate development.

Requirements:

* Minimum five years experience in the internet business or technology company focusing on digital business development.
* Background in loyalty marketing and membership marketing is a plus.
* Excellent negotiating and people skills.
* Must be able to develop Powerpoint presentations that convey complex issues clearly and concisely.
* Strong analytical and financial skills.
* Ability to work independently and as part of a team in a fast paced environment.
* Strong personal interest in and knowledge of social networking and Facebook.

Compensation & Benefits:

Salary based on experience. Equity in Buddy Media is a major part of the compensation package. Full benefits provided

Software Engineer

General Description:

We are looking for a candidate who has experience working with large amounts of data. The position calls for a candidate who is skilled with algorithms, optimization, and efficiency.

Requirements:

• Core competencies are Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, and HTML, CSS (emphasis on PHP & MySQL)
• Working knowledge of AJAX
• Strong quantitative and analytical skills
• Must have an interest in excellence
• Enthusiasm for learning our system and for working as part of our team is important
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, ability to communicate effectively
• Looking for a self starter with the “general get it factor”
• Must have a “whatever it takes” attitude
• Meticulous thinker who can develop effectively by our coding standards
• Must be a quick study and enjoy learning new technique daily
• Must check your ego at the door and be able to work well in a tight group of enthusiastic engineers. Must be able to work collaboratively, listen, and incorporate new ideas into your designs

The Ideal Candidate will have:

• 3+ years of SQL and PHP experience
• familiarity with Linux as a user
• experience with Memcache
• experience with Javascript
• an easy-going attitude, yet are ambitious, tenacious and enjoy solving problems

Preferred Qualifications:

• familiarity with Facebook development API
• linux and mysql system administration experience
• ability to pass

Apply for this position by sending us the following:

• Your resume and cover letter.
• Examples of any projects you’ve worked on.
• Recommend a good book or two you’ve read.
• Work References

So if you've got the goods, run, don't walk, and get your information into jobs@buddymedia.com.

The Integrative Pediatrics Council: Looking at the Whole Child

I have a close friend named Dr. Lawrence Rosen. Larry happens to be a very bright guy, an MIT educated, Mount Sinai-trained pediatrician. He also happens to have a heart too big to describe. Ever since I have known him (which now is frighteningly approaching 20 years) he has questioned traditional protocols for pediatric care. Not that they were necessarily bad, but that they didn't take into account all of the factors or all of the impacts on the child. Emotional issues. Family issues. Environmental issues. The benefits of non-traditional and Eastern therapies. Nearly two decades ago Larry envisioned a model based around the "whole child," a perspective rooted in viewing the child as a complex being in need of an integrated approach to care taking into account the mind, body and spirit. Further, Larry felt that Western medicine didn't corner the market on knowledge or know-how, seeking an amalgam of therapies, protocols and treatments unbounded by culture, geography or discipline, in an effort to deliver the best care that the world has to offer.

Larry took this passion and jumped into the world of integrative medicine. He went to conferences. He presented papers. He lead discussion groups. And he networked his butt off. What he found was a group of very accomplished, like-minded practitioners from across the globe, each of whom shared the same passion and the same goals as he did. I am proud to say that Larry was one of the driving forces behind the newly-formed Integrative Pediatrics Council:

The IPC is a non-profit dedicated to transforming children's health care. Our mission is to enhance the health and development of children, families and communities by leading the evolution of pediatric healthcare toward integrative, high-quality, accessible care.

Larry also folded his blog, The Whole Child, into IPC, and is moderating the site and taking in commentary, views and approaches from leading integrative medicine practitioners to share with the larger community. I couldn't be more proud of my friend for his leadership in organizing a group of such importance and merit, and for providing the community with a resource for learning, growing and collaborating. Regardless of whether or not you have kids you should check it out. I think what we're seeing here is the future of medicine - not just pediatric medicine, but the way in which we approach care. I can't wait to see their progress and for their vision to become more closely linked to "mainstream" practice.

Buddy Media: Virtually Everything

Congratulations to Mike Lazerow on putting Buddy Media together with a great team and a powerful vision. I am proud to be part of the investor syndicate and a member of the Board. I believe in the power of social networks. I believe in the power of virtual currency as a vehicle for creating excitement, revenues and customer value in both online and offline worlds. And I believe in the power of great people. Mike, joined by investors including Peter Thiel, Mark Pincus, Howard Lindzon, James Altucher, and Bay Partners' Salil Deshpande, has attracted a group of smart, super-connected entrepreneurs and visionaries to help Buddy Media and its AceBucks application rock. And I am confident they will.

Austin City Limits ROCKS (and Interpol Ain't so Bad, Either)

I admit it, I like to FEST. Music festivals in general, and ACL in particular, are one of humankind's greatest creations. Where else can you hang out with your 65,000 closest friends while wallowing in the dust, sweating bullets in 95 degrees, looking like something that got the crap kicked out of it in the desert and come out LOVING IT? This was my second ACL, having attended the (in)famous fest of 2005 that was plagued by fears of Hurricane Rita, 105 degrees with some serious humidity yet with a lineup that was second to none? Bottom line: you go down to Austin, connect with some friends, hear a wide variety of amazing tunes, learn about some new bands, swim in a spring for self-preservation, drink gallons of water (to augment the Makers Mark, Patron and whatever else you might have on hand) and make your reservations for next year before even leaving town. And this is without all the other stuff that Austin has to offer like 6th Street, Stubbs, SoCo and everything else. In short, a sublime experience that transports you from your work-a-day existence into another dimension. A dimension of happiness. Of grooviness. Of peace. Of fun. Run, don't walk, to ACL 2008. I'll be there.

Now I happened to take the first day off because one of my favorite bands, Interpol, was making their Madison Square Garden debut. My wife Carin and I got great tickets and decided to defer our trip, and to fly down crack of dawn Saturday to take in the last two days of the fest. They were in fine, fine form. Paul's voice has never been better, Daniel played the shit out of his axe, Sam played his pulsating and energetic drums and Carlos was, well, Carlos. They played a set evenly distributed among Bright Lights, Antics and Our Love to Admire. It was a great show and more than compensated for our being bummed at missing Day 1 of ACL.

Down at ACL on Saturday we took in Augustana, Cold War Kids, Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah, the Arctic Monkeys and Arcade Fire. In the words of Larry David, "Pretty good. Pretty, pretty good." No, Larry was wrong. They ROCKED. I wasn't familiar with Augustana, had heard of but never seen Cold War Kids, and have long loved CYHASY, Arctic Monkeys and Arcade Fire. They all stepped up and played to appreciative and knowledgeable ACL audiences. The only crappy part was that part of the sound system blew during Arcade Fire's set, so the fidelity was not so high. But anyway, it didn't materially detract from the experience. It was enjoyment, pure and simple.

And now for some pics:

Hanging in the Grove: my friends Mary-Gail, David, Patti and yours truly swilling a cool one. Notice the cowboy hats - truly self-preservation. Tried a baseball hat and it really didn't do the job given searing heat and intense sun. I don't look too much like Billy Crystal, do I?

Cooling off in Barton Springs: a short walk from the fest, this was the late afternoon way of dropping your body temperature by 5 degrees and getting prepped for an evening of music and coolness.

   
Me and my fest-babe. Loving the cute pig-tails.

My friend Dave spent some time during undergrad and grad school at Vanderbilt, where he honed his taste for Makers Mark. And what better place to enjoy than at ACL?

Me with my friends Ed and Dave. It just so happens that two of my music friends also happen to be my counsel, Ed (Intellectual Property) and Dave (Corporate and Securities Law). How lucky am I that I actually like my lawyers - and want to spend time with them off the clock?!

Sunday at ACL didn't disappoint, either, as we took in Ben Kweller, Midlake, Bloc Party, Wilco, Ziggy Marley and the Decemberists. Ben was sweet, Midlake cool, Bloc Party rocked, Wilco rolled, Ziggy bopped and the Decemberists grooved. It was a fitting end to a spectacular few days. I could get all critical of the artists but that's not what this post is about. It is about the experience of being at ACL. An experience I highly recommend you take in one of these years.

Bridging the Gap Between Economic Models and Reality

As a student of economics, I have long marveled at the intricacy and mathematical beauty of microeconomic models. They seem to explain so much about the world in which we live and why we do what we do - except when they don't. And a stark reminder of these limitations was on stage in an article titled A Reality Check for Home Sellers in today's New York Times. At the end of the day, the story offered a prescriptive for seller behavior grounded in economic rationality without consideration of an even more powerful forces - psychology and utility.

While discussions of utility in neoclassical economics are generally absent of behavioral impacts, and merely seek to quantify rational trade-offs among economic goods, utilitarian explanations take into account consumer psychology and offer a more robust framework for understanding motivations and their implications for policy-making. Preference utilitarianism, as put forth by Peter Singer, seems to be the most useful model for understanding the behavior described in today's article than more classical economic frameworks. It takes into account the uniqueness of each individual's perspective and validates their actions as being rational - for them. And this happens to describe the world in which we live, a world that is perceived differently by each economic actor.

Their study, “Loss Aversion and Seller Behavior: Evidence From the Housing Market,” appeared in The Quarterly Journal of Economics in November 2001. The professors gathered data on almost 6,000 Boston condominium listings from 1991 to 1997 and showed that for essentially identical condominiums, people who had bought at the peak and were facing a loss generally listed their properties for significantly more than those who had bought at a time when prices were lower.

Properties listed above the market price just sat there. In the Boston market over all, sellers listed their properties for an average of 35 percent above the expected sale price, and less than 30 percent of the properties sold in fewer than 180 days. In other words, much of the market went into a deep freeze as many people held out for market prices that no one would reasonably pay.

In classical economics, that’s not supposed to happen, but the episode did comport with the behavioral economics theory of loss aversion: people have a visceral — some might say “irrational” — hatred of losing money. They try to avoid doing so, even when it goes against their own best interests.

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So by being hung up about whether your condominium will sell for what you paid for it, you aren’t just driving yourself crazy trying to get a buyer. You may be threatening the very performance of the economy and driving up the unemployment rate — provided that many others behave in a similar way.

What is to be done? Well, if you are holding out for an above-market price to recoup your losses, perhaps you would do well to hear the advice that Professor Mayer gives his own family members.

“If you want to sell your house then you list it at the market price and you sell it,” he said. “If you don’t really want to sell then don’t put it on the market. But don’t say you want to sell and then set the price so high that you spend the year cleaning up every morning, having people walk through your living room and look in your medicine cabinets and reject you. That’s just painful — and expensive.”

His research offers a simple lesson for everyone out there waiting for a high price to push them back into the black: Get real.

You know what struck me when reading this article - one could replace the word "condominium" with "stocks" and you'd have the exact same effect. In general, retail investors hate selling losers. There is a psychological barrier to taking a loss, admitting a mistake, even if it is economically prudent to do so. How many people do you know that held on to stocks from $60 down to $1, even when they really thought they should get out at $30? I personally know dozens. The concept of sunk costs gets thrown out the window when emotions get involved. As I've written previously, humans are not wired to everywhere and always make rational economic decisions, though they are wired to always seek to maximize their utility. A discussion of consumer behavior in the absence of psychology and utility is almost valueless, IMHO.

In the case of the Boston condo market, while it might not be economically rational to hold on in a depressed market, it would clearly cause greater emotional costs to sell than the economic benefits it would generate. And economists themselves just need to "get real" - people don't want rational economic explanations as a prescriptive for their behavior. They want to feel good. And if feeling good means holding on to losers, then this is what they'll do, regardless of what big-brained economists may say. Therefore, policy-making needs to take into account consumers' inevitable "irrational" behavior, as this is a constraint that is very real, time-tested and one of the few immutable certainties of life.

Single-Manager Platforms: Opportunities and Challenges

I've spent a lot of time thinking about single-manager platforms, their optimal structure and operation. I ran a big one while at Deutsche Bank called DB Advisors. Goldman Sachs recently announced the building of a similar platform in its asset management division. Most Wall Street firms have some kind of single-manager platform as I define it, and these operations are frequently characterized by:

• Legal, operating and risk management environments that are separate from the broker-dealer;

• Teams that are initially seeded with proprietary capital, but after establishing strong track records often are marketed and attract client capital as well;

• Managers who are paid better than position traders in broker-dealer Sales & Trading operations, but not as well as external hedge fund managers;

• Managers who are often either quant-driven or socially challenged, and either lack the desire or ability to run an independent hedge fund operation on their own;

• Teams that are paid off of a percentage of net profits (realized and unrealized gains less direct and indirect costs of running the business) on an annual basis and begin each year at -0-, meaning they generally don't get the benefit of compounding capital over time;  and

• Top talent from the broker-dealer clamoring to get in, sometimes causing tension between the best broker-dealer traders and senior management.

These groups can be fantastically profitable ways of deploying firm trading capital while creating valuable third-party product for distribution. This is the good news. The bad news is that these businesses are hard to run and, by their nature, are subject to massive volatility due to internal and external factors. Consider these three real-world scenarios:

1. Say that one day you wake up and your top performing manager has grown some personality and wants to leave. Well, what do you do?
2. Imagine that the market gets crushed (as it did in August) and that hedge fund returns across most strategies are poor. This results in huge mark-to-market losses for the firm and potentially a whole lot of pissed off asset management clients. Then what?
3. What about the very real possibility of some marquee traders in S&T getting angry about their comp because they are getting 10-12% of net on smaller capital amounts than their pals on the single-manager platform getting 15% on both proprietary and client capital. How do you preserve firm talent without either cherry-picking top S&T talent and putting them on the platform or paying them off the curve relative to the colleagues with whom they sit, collaborate and trade?

There are no easy answers to any of these questions, but they are questions that need to be considered if a firm is to be successful in building and operating a successful single-manager platform. Given these headaches, is it worth it? Quite simply, the answer is yes subject to a few important caveats:

Management needs the right mind-set when establishing these businesses. This means:

• Setting aside a pool of risk capital upon which it is willing to accept hedge fund-like levels of volatility in stressed environments. Because the worst thing you can do is set up a business, communicate a vision, a mission and a risk tolerance, and get cold feet right when your traders and clients need you to suck it up, keep cool and stay in the game.

• Establishing a strong, holistic risk management culture. A firm running one of these platforms will have a lot of prop capital at risk and position-level detail across all of its books. This information needs to be aggregated, analyzed and disseminated in an accurate, fluid manner, and used for managerial decision-making when viewed in context with the firm's aggregate risk position.

• Accepting the fact that successful teams will eventually want to leave and providing a mechanism for creating a win-win between firm and team. This could mean the firm getting an option on a share of the newly-established GP, guaranteed capacity, reduced fees, continued prime brokerage business, etc. In exchange, a team will get to keep its name, its audited track record, and receive assistance in moving parts of its book to other prime brokers and in setting up the new business.

• Creating open communication and understanding among business leaders in the single-manager operation and S&T. This will be required to handle situations where top traders want to move from the broker-dealer to the single-manager operation. This will inevitably come up and create discomfort among all parties, and this situation needs to be anticipated with rules of engagement defined beforehand to guard against fractious, destructive behaviors.

There are so many interconnected factors to be considered when building and operating a single-manager platform that a book could be written on the topic. But I have hopefully provided an interested party with a primer on the key issues that need to be considered.

Living Life the Right Way?

This time of year is a time filled with much introspection and reflection. The Jewish New Year. Yom Kippur. The new school year. And more than in years past, I find my thoughts turning towards my own mortality, the way I've chosen to live my life and to question and ponder if I've made, and continue to make, sound choices for myself, my family and those whose lives I touch. Because, quite frankly, I am about one of the luckiest people on earth yet find stress, angst and frustration plentiful parts of my day-to-day life. Trying to do too much. Trying to take on everything that comes my way. Yet sometimes forgetting to dig the process and the people and instead getting locked-in to a task-oriented, execute, execute, execute mind-set. Not good.

This year I've had a friend, a peer, die from an awful strain of cancer. I've had another friend, a peer, diagnosed with early-stage Parkinson's. Both with wonderful, loving spouses. Both with beautiful, happy, healthy children. And then I look at my blessed life, my stresses, my angst, and weigh it against the lot of my two close friends, and I feel like I need a wake-up call, or some healthy dose of perspective given the whirlwind of life. Speaking for myself, I find it so easy to get caught up in the intensity and complexity of New York living. It's great much of the time, don't get me wrong. But it plays into the "gotta do this/gotta do that/gotta rush/gotta hop/drop off kids/go to meeting/make phone calls/do 300 emails" nutso routine, especially if you are a Type A freak like me.  If I let it. This is the time of year to take a big step back, assess, and figure out what changes you want to make and make them. And make them stick. Because while I can make resolutions and atone for crappy stuff I've said or done, the proof is in how I live my life. And some changes need to be made.

I read one of the most touching and instructive stories I've seen in this vein in today's Wall Street Journal. The story was based on a speech titled How to Achieve Your Childhood Dreams given two days ago by a beloved Computer Science professor at Carnegie-Mellon University. The speech happened to be part of a "Last Lecture" series, where top professors give talks as if it is the last lecture they are going to give, ever. The strange thing about this particular speech is that the speaker, 46-year old Randy Pausch, is going to die of pancreatic cancer within the next two months. A loving wife. Three young children. And an outlook so positive it makes me embarrassed to even contemplate the kind of bullshit that irks me day in, day out. There is a four-minute video with highlights of his talk that is a must-watch. Professor Pausch is an extremely dynamic, engaging speaker, and his subject matter couldn't be more relevant to what has been on my mind that past few weeks:

Flashing his rejection letters on the screen, he talked about setbacks in his career, repeating: "Brick walls are there for a reason. They let us prove how badly we want things." He encouraged us to be patient with others. "Wait long enough, and people will surprise and impress you." After showing photos of his childhood bedroom, decorated with mathematical notations he'd drawn on the walls, he said: "If your kids want to paint their bedrooms, as a favor to me, let 'em do it."

A few other notable quotes from his talk:

• "Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want"

• "What would you say if it was your last chance to say it?" [This would be instructive and informative not only for those whom you are speaking to but for yourself]

• "This is not about how to achieve your dreams, but how to live your life"

From reading the WSJ story and listening to Professor Pausch's words, I take away some key nuggets that I will attempt to imprint on my brain in order to adopt a better, healthier, more peaceful outlook on life:

• Be patient with others

• Be persistent in pursuing your goals

• Dig creativity in yourself and in others

• Turn the struggle into a positive learning experience

• Maintain perspective by testing your mind-set

And tomorrow I pray and I atone. This was some pretty good prep work, to be sure.

Putting the Current Market Turmoil in Context

It is easy to get swept away by the drama of the credit crisis as portrayed in newspapers and other media outlets each day, every day, over and over again. Are the problems real? Absolutely. Do they pose a risk to the US economy and those of other Western nations if not taken seriously? Without a doubt. But are we heading into the abyss of depression and stagnation arising from inflated real estate values and a debt bubble of historic proportions? Unlikely, IMHO.

But regardless of how I might portray today's circumstance in rational, thoughtful, pragmatic terms, Robert Steel (Undersecretary of Domestic Finance) and David McCormick (Undersecretary of International Affairs) over at the US Treasury have already done so in an editorial carried in last week's Financial Times. And they have somewhat more credibility and influence than yours truly. Here are some particularly interesting excerpts:

Despite understandable anxiety over current market turmoil, recent events are unfolding against the backdrop of very robust economic fundamentals. The global economy continues to grow at about 5 per cent annually; overall worldwide growth in recent years has been the strongest in three decades, with emerging markets as a key driver. US economic fundamentals remain strong: unemployment is low, wages are rising, core inflation is contained and our financial system remains well-capitalised.

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Benign market conditions bred complacency and credit discipline deteriorated, particularly in leveraged loans, US subprime mortgages and other, related asset classes. Recent volatility in the credit and mortgage markets reflects a reassessment and a re-pricing of risk, as well as retrenchment from lower-quality and less-liquid assets. This readjustment is a painful reminder of the importance of robust risk management and of the need for investors to properly understand, evaluate and examine risk.

We have also been reminded that when capital markets are globally integrated, disturbances and uncertainty, like capital, also flow across borders. We have seen some improvement in recent weeks, but it will take more time for the impact of these financial market dislocations to play out and for their impact on the global economy to be completely clear.

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...Mr Paulson and his counterparts in the Group of Seven leading industrial nations will ask the Financial Stability Forum (FSF) – a body of finance ministries, central banks and regulatory bodies from leading financial centres created after the Asian financial crisis – for a timely examination of four issues.

First is financial institutions’ liquidity, market and credit risk practices, including treatment of complex credit products and conduits. The second is accounting and valuation procedures for financial derivative instruments, particularly for complex, narrowly traded products that become difficult to price in times of stress. Third is basic supervisory oversight principles for regulated financial entities, especially given exposures to off-balance sheet, contingent claims. And fourth is the role of credit rating agencies in evaluating structured finance products.

From my perspective, Messrs. Steel and McCormick, together with their boss Mr. Paulson, have got it right. Situation is serious. Must act with clear and decisive action. Must coordinate with other major market participants. But don't panic because the underlying backdrop is fundamentally sound. Maybe I'm being a pollyana, but I think this is the right path and the correct interpretation of the facts. Painful, yes. But we'll come out the other end hopefully just a little bit smarter than before.

Hedge Funds as Software Companies? Nah. And You Don't Need a Ph.D to Rock It

My Infectiously Greedy friend Paul Kedrosky, major domo of the upcoming Money:Tech conference, ripped out a little ditty where he implied that developers were becoming even more important and prevalent at hedge funds than at software companies. Now Paul knows that I agree with him much of the time, but this does not happen to be one of those times. I think Mr. Greed is mixing up two separate and distinct concepts: models and data. Sure, one can benefit from multi-lettered, Ph.D-laden development teams to design new statistical arbitrage models supported by ultra-low latency execution platforms. This is the province of Renaissance, the quant part of DE Shaw (which is now a multi-strategy mega-firm), AQR and other like-minded nerdos. But this is not - repeat NOT - what makes Web 2.0/3.0 so exciting. It's the data, stupid.

And you don't need an army of topologists or theoretical physicists to either get the data or extract value from it. Depending upon how wide one wants to cast the net or how specialized one's needs might be, there are lots of free tools out there to harvest and aggregate Internet data that can add real value to an investment process. Tools that didn't exist even 12 months ago. Sure, if you want a customized, tickerized feed of alternative data, stitching together memes across multiple data types, neat, tidy, spam-free and delivered exactly how you want it, that's different. But plenty of folks are just scratching the surface of all the data that's out there on the Internet and don't need this level of customization and service level to extract value and meaning.

I think the other big thing besides the data itself is how to extract meaning from the data given your perspective on trading and investment. Long-term investor looking to fill in the investment mosaic around a specific idea or theme? Trader looking for indications of when it is best to exit a position in light of volatile market conditions? Quant seeking to develop an analytical framework for a data type around which they've got a theory for extracting statistically-significant levels of alpha? The potential uses of data and related analytics are virtually limitless. And it's not about hard-core coding, it really isn't. It is about the way to incorporate alternative data into one's investment process. Broadening one's horizons, and being forced to use new tools and techniques for tapping into this new river of data and meaning is hard. But ultimately, the payoff will be new perspectives, tools and approaches for making money that didn't exist before. And this, my friends, is what investing is all about.