You know – it would not be the first time ….  A sneaking suspicion

….So I just did a Nexis search trying to find out when Paulson and Bernanke started talking about price discovery, which we’re now told are at the core of the plan’s logic. And the answer is …Yesterday.

“…..One possible explanation. It wasn’t until yesterday that they realized that it would actually be necessary to explain themselves.

But there’s another possible explanation, which I find terrifyingly plausible: the plan came first, and all this stuff about price discovery is an after-the-fact rationalization, invented when people started asking questions.

It has seemed very strange to me that such a supposedly crucial economic program would be based on such an exotic argument. My sneaking suspicion is that they started with a determination to throw money at the financial industry, and everything else is just an excuse.

Is Paul Krugman saying that Bush planned to give his friends of Wall Street $700 Billion dollars of TaxPayer Money all along ….?

That’s the way  I’m reading his post – and honestly, there’s enough reason for some kind of bailout – but that’s what makes it so tricky – it’s almost like “reality” became so distorted, you step away, and examine everything a lot more closely, and Administration doesn’t want you to do that.

One thing is different about the $700 Billion Bailout Bush is proposing and the buildup to the Iraq War, The WireTapping Issue, and a bunch other things  – in this case, the Administration doesn’t control most of the sources of information – they can’t totally obscure and re manufacture information, like they have about the War, and other stuff they’ve tried to manipulate.

It still may that something will Pass this week in Congress – but you have to wonder – we didn’t get to this point of almost total collapse of the financial system overnight – why will $700 Billion Dollar bailout fix it all?

Any intelligent person can ask that question – and the answer is – it probably won’t.

And now, McCain wants to suspend his campaign this week, and the first Presidential Debate – so he can do some on Washington, at the Senate Floor.   However, the consensus seems to be that McCain’s presence is actually polarizing things more – and slowing them down.

But lets face it, what can McCain say – every thing he’s about is continuance of the problems brought this country and the world to the state it’s in today.    How is going to explain that away – I guess he can go on the offensive, or just try to avoid a confrontation – like he wants to do this week.

The funny thing is, Washington doesn’t need McCain or Obama in the Senate to do anything this week – at least, not till a vote is taken, and that probably won’t affect any scheduled debate.  So there, avoiding a debate on Friday is just a ploy.

If I were Obama, I’d go ahead anyway, do the debate right from the floor of the Senate, and take questions from anyone – if McCain doesn’t want to show up, that’s his problem.

I guess it makes sense to have a personal web analytics blog along with an industry analytics blog – while I have mixed them both up at times, my comments about Stocks Fall as Rescue Plan Is Negotiated are  best done here.

President Bush on Monday morning urged legislators to resist the temptation to add provisions that, he said, “would undermine the effectiveness of the plan.” Still, Treasury officials indicated a willingness to negotiate.

Here’s what I think – a bailout of this magnitude, using public money, needs to be examined closely – rushing it though, and perhaps, making it seem like anyone that has doubts about the $700 Billion Economic Bailout is putting the entire world economy on the brink, is bullshit.

And it looks like there’s been a lot of push back – which is good .

One thing my readers might want to consider – is there a good reason for me to keep The Analytics Guru blog seporate from WebMetricsGuru blog that am writing to more regularly?

I think there’s a reason to keep a personal Web Analytics blog that’s different than the main blog I write to about Web Analytics, but in reality, I haven’t kept up the discipline and have put a lot of the content I might have written here over at Webmetricsguru.com – as I want to build it up, etc.

And I did a lot of posting in the last week at Webmetricsguru.com – stuff my readers here might want to check out (see below).

Personally, I’m torn about it – I am running out of the ability to post to 4 blogs every day – but that goes in waves too – sometimes I can, and sometimes I can’t.

SocialAdSummit Part 1 – branded experiences on Social Networks.

Social Ad Network Solutions – SocialAdSummit part 2

Social Media Metrics – Social Ad Summit part 3

Widget Optimization – SocialAdSummit

ative Social Advertising – SocialAdSummit part 5

OMMA day 2, Disintermedia panel

OMMA day 2 – Marketer’s Dilemma: finding and managing digital resources

Measurement 3.0 (in the next 5 years) OMMA Global – day 2

SpinScape – most exciting platform/product I saw this week

Ha, Paul Krugman, in a post today says that Lehman Brothers is on the way to the Gutter – probably it’s going to happen on Monday.  Will we call it “Black Monday“?    I bet no way is found, even short term – and Krugman remarks:

They still haven’t chosen a Pope found a way to rescue Lehman.

Why should anyone bail out Lehman – Wall Street,  I think, is calling the Federal Reserve and Treasury Deptment’s bluff – they when push comes to shove, the Federal Goverment won’t intervene.

But to my way of thinking, a line is drawn in the sand, and Lehman is on the other side of it – meaning that more banks will fail soon, bring down the economy even further.

Why has the line been drawn here – why was Bear Sterns bailed out but Lehman isn’t going to be?  Where do you draw the line in the first place?

The overarching goal of the weekend talks was to prevent a quick liquidation of Lehman, a bank that is so big and so interconnected with others that its abrupt failure would send shock waves through the financial world. Of deep concern is what impact a Lehman failure would have on other securities firms, insurance companies and banks, notably Merrill Lynch and the American International Group, both of which have come under mounting pressure in the markets.

I think, given the way things are going, one or two large financial institutions will be left to fail in order to spur the others to rescue themselves – but it’s far fetched to see how any of this is going to help, even in the shortrun.

Yes, Monday is going to be a interesting day on Wall Street, won’t it?

Been thinking of what effectiveness is based on, especially in work and interpersonal relationships and I wrote a few posts on the subject in 2006 at webmetricsguru.com focusing on the size and structure of small teams (I said when a small team has more than 6 people, being managed by one person, of needs to be split up or else you can’t effectively manage every member. Also, the Roman Army had as it’s base, small teams of 7 or 8 members, and leagions were made up of many of these).

My belief so far is “effectiveness” of a team member, and of the team, is partly made up of trust; but not as much in the actual amount of work performed, or even it’s quality, because, being seen as effective is a value judgement.

I think the real measure of effectiveness is learning how to create and nuture conversations that, ultimately, move the stakeholder, business unit, or company, forward in some tangible way.

Tying effectiveness to specific deliverables is often not realistic. In many cases, perhaps all cases, what can be achieved is circumscribed by how far those your working with or for are willing to go, the dynamics of your organization.

I am more for hiring individuals and forming teams based on roles, responsibilities and conversations the foster.

I had a bunch of thoughts, ideas and goals over the last week or so and thought I would briefly mention them.

1. The IPhone is just about “there” as a blogging tool and replaced the laptop as the tool of choice for liveblogging at conferences. I did most of my posts using my 3G IPhone while at Virtual Worlds Hollywood and expect to do the same at the Web 2.0 conference, OMNA, Emetrics Summit DC and SocialAdSummit (and who knows, perhaps BlogWorld, if I can swing it, and LeWeb3 08 in Paris, if Loic and Cathy invite me).

2. In order to move up the food chain in one’s work, being a thought leader is important, maybe vital; I wrote a post today at The BlogSpeedway.com about how blogging done in the right way and for the right reasons, can be one method to achieve that goal.

Intact, I know a lot of people who work very hard, too hard, but they lost sight of what they need got themselves.

If my insight rings a bell for you, consider writing for blogspeedway.com; we’ll help you and you’ll be part of larger research projects where you can be seen by the world for your intrinsic worth.

Just go to blogspeedway.com and fill out the online form after reading our Terms Of Service.

3. Virtual Worlds Hollywood 08 was a good show, and I am glad I went, but not so much to learn anything new as to support my friend Jared Freedman, at this important industry tradeshow.

Code4Software.com did very well; I saw many IBM people, some I used to interact with, and by being there, helped Code4Software.com cement it’s position as leader and main driver of metrics for the 3D Internet. I also assumed an advisory analytics role for Code4Software.

I see the 3D Web, now often referred to as Virtual Worlds, while still ahead of it’s time, as a vital technology platform, and by attending, I was where I needed to be at the exact moment of a major shift, as yet, invisible, but subtlly felt, just as the feather that drops from a certain birdsnest can be felt across the world.

On a related note, the Web Analytics Association is preparing draft releases of Social Media Metrics Standards, including a set of Standards for Virtual Reality.

The first set of draft standards are going to be released soon, perhaps within a few months. Stay Tuned.

4. Engagement Metrics, I wrote about what I learned from Virtual Worlds Hollywood over at www.webmetricsguru.com today.

I got to see that engagement will be measured differently depending on being a site owner/publisher vs an advertiser.

If anything, what we need is some type of Rosseta Stone to translate one set of engagement to another, to figure out how and where to use one type of metric vs another.

For example, using Bounce Rate as a metric to apply against blogs is a whaste of time, as the bounce rate will be very high in almost all cases.

Well, that is about it for now, approaching Boston and it will be time to land soon.

And I used my 3G IPhone to write several posts while in flight. Ha!

Posted all of my Online Videos from Virtual Worlds Hollywood 08 at Webmetricsguru.com tonight.  I’m pretty exhausted from the last two days and I’m flying out to Boston early Friday morning – where I’ll attend a Web Analytics Association Board of Directors Meeting for the weekend.

Then, I’m speaking at the PMA Digital Conference on Monday morning, at 11AM, in lower Manhattan.

There’s also a small change that in two weeks I may attend Blogworld in Las Vegas – and also attend Buzzlogic.com exclusive Influencers party at the Hard Rock Cafe – but that’s really still up in the air.  I also have a few other conferences to attend in NYC (Web 2.0), Social Ad Summit and OMNA – all within two weeks.

Exhausted just thinking about it.

Been a long, long day and it is not over yet, by far. In LA today for Virtual Worlds 2008 in Hollywood.

I posted about it at webmetricsguru.com bit here is a photo I just took this evening.

Feel like I am ready to collapse, but won’t.

Yesterday I wrote how all of us, I believe, surround our life with meanings based on what narrative we wrap around our life events and activities; perhaps, a value judgement is made and we feel good or bad, as a result.

That process I described, of self nariation, reminds me of painting. How so?

As artists knew, or discovered, there is no light and shadow in nature, these effects are created by our senses. We create meanings and patterns from the motifs nature presents much as the web analyst creates meaning from mountains of data by using ideation and segmentation capabilities built into analytics platforms.

But…what if nariation is also imposed upon us from the outside? For example, the recent developments with the Presidential race are “painted” differently depending on the point of view of the writers and reporters.

For example, to Evanglists, Sarah Palin has a lot of experience where to many others, her views could be described as disgusting.

What is the reality? It may be from within the strength of the narritive, checked against the results.

If anything, in my own life, in web analytics work I do, in art and on the political stage unfolding before us, I find a pattern of narritive that serves us to move forward or narritives that hold us back.

In this context, the narritive created by neocons on the far right has served to paralyze the country and, in many ways, set us back by 50 or more years.

Weather a point of view is right or not, isn’t really that important, I believe.

What is important, is the narritive we choose to describe our realities shapes those realities.

What we need to choose is the right narritive in everything (art, politics, analytics, etc).

Thinking about how the events of our lives, my life, specifically, gets represented in the conscious mind.

For example, I haven’t painted much this summer, been occupied with other things, important, but, perhaps self absorbed, too.

Now, in my own mind I can play that story to myself in a few ways, and either feel bad (I am slacking), impartial (I am re evaluating the next steps in my art) or good (I needed a vacation to recharge my creative juices and I had fun).

At times, it’s important to be clear about what story, what way you represent yourself to your own consciousness.

I also believe my advice to myself also applies to analytics, as we need to look at data and tell a story.

What story do we want to tell?