Like Hires Like: Why Women Should Run Agencies

By Rebecca Bedrossian, Global Content Director, POSSIBLE

Imagine, for a moment, that you’re at an agency founded by two women, where the executive leadership team is 50% women, and 60% of 140 employees are women. Add to that, a growing list of clients, an impressive body of work, leaders who value their people, transparency that goes a long way in retaining talent, and this seems too good to be true, right?

Wrong. It’s real. I go there every day.

Don’t beat yourself up for thinking it’s a dream. We all know gender inequality runs rampant in this industry. The 3% Conference was founded because of it. While the number of female creative directors is up to 11%, we’ve got a long way to go.

That’s why I want you to see what I see.

I want to shine a light on how a women-founded agency is thriving, as a counterpoint to all the stories we read that highlight too many white males at the top, the gender wage gap, and sexual harassment (Elephant on Mad Ave.).

Full disclosure, I am global content director of the agency that acquired this agency two years ago, and I sit there on most days. I must admit, it's an odd place to be; I'm there, somewhat related but mostly not. But what this proximity affords me is a front row seat. And every day I see many women with a place at the table. So much so, it’s the norm. It’s not a bubble. It just is. And now that I’ve seen the culture and the work firsthand, I want others to know it too. Because once you see it, you can’t un-see it—and that’s the first step in making this the norm everywhere.

Don’t just take it from me, a fellow female. According to a new Pew Research Center survey on women and leadership, “Most Americans find women indistinguishable from men on key leadership traits such as intelligence and capacity for innovation, with many saying they’re stronger than men in terms of being compassionate and organized leaders.” There are countless articles touting the benefits of working for women, who are typically more engaged than their male counterparts. And more engagement leads to a more productive workforce.

It makes business sense. And this is what I see.

I’ve learned a lot simply by watching my surroundings. While Swift doesn’t like to play the “woman” card, in this industry I feel they are a stellar example of what does work—and works well. So I’m playing it for them.

I believe in “if you cannot see it, you cannot be it.” Let’s urge trade publications to feature more women-founded companies, women-focused stories, and demand that juries and speaker panels have equal numbers of men and women. We are 50% of the population, we need 50% representation.

In Cindy Gallop's closing keynote at The 3% Conference last week, she presented a 10-point plan to start your own 'agency'. And she gave shout-outs to women-founded agencies that had started in the past year, like New York-based Joan and Wolf & Wilhelmine. It only then that I truly realized what an anomaly a women-founded agency is—because Swift is not celebrating its first anniversary, but rather its tenth.

I’ve seen the future of advertising. I want you to see it too.

3 Reasons Entrepreneurs Need Better Self-Care

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The challenge of being an entrepreneur is enormous and it has emotional and physical effects. As a consequence, you are at a health risk by virtue of being an entrepreneur. The stress and workload is capable of wearing and breaking you down health-wise. It does not mean entrepreneurs should be lax in productivity, but it calls for a smarter approach to ensure you stay healthy as an entrepreneur.

There is a common cliché that health is wealth. I am an ardent believer of that statement, and I believe you do too. Since the job of an entrepreneur is to create wealth, then staying healthy is a critical part of the entrepreneur's plans. To this end, constant self care is good business practice. The misconceptions about constant checkups are numerous. For instance, if you are between the ages of 20 and 45 years, it is generally 'ok' to see your doctor every year or two. Not a very healthy arrangement. Also, similar recommendations advise you check your cholesterol level every 5 years, blood pressure level every 2 years until you are 65 years old. This is much less frequent than most people assume, the frequency should be more and I will tell you why:

1.It Costs Less To Prevent Than To Cure
Frequent check ups save you a lot of money in the long run. Most of the tests that you need to run on a regular basis will cost you little amount of money compared to what you will spend if your health condition deteriorates. A case in question is glaucoma. While many will say it's not the worst case, it sure is a bad case to record. As often as you can, check yourself so whatever is abnormally present can be fixed before they get the chance to reel out huge medical bills that'll hurt your business in the long run.

With the global warming and the climate change that has bedeviled the world today, human health is now a high-risk issue. This has reduced life expectancy in great proportions globally. And for entrepreneurs who are exposed to harsh weather conditions in trying to make birth their dreams, they stand a higher chance of being health challenged. The business trips, the site inspections, the sleepless nights for strategics and planning, all contribute to the health risks the entrepreneur is exposed to. The earlier you detect a health challenge, the less complicated it is to deal with it. You need to be healthy to be wealthy.

2.Your Health Is An Important Asset
So many entrepreneurs are not giving their health the attention it deserves. This is chiefly because they do not see it as worth a high position in their order of preference. Well, despite what others might say, I think your most valuable asset is not your car or your home, and not even your career. "Health is not valued till sickness comes", these are the words of the British physician and scholar Dr. Thomas Fuller in 1732.

I could not agree any less with him. Too often, we take good health for granted and assume it will last forever. It is, perhaps, the greatest of all illusions. However, if it is prudent to insure our houses, our cars and other possessions, surely it is also prudent to make sensible provision for our own health. Let us, therefore, take a lesson from Dr. Fuller and value our health before sickness comes. Constant self care should form part of the entrepreneur's routine.

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3.How Long Your Business Lives Could Be Dependent On How Long You Live.
I have seen great and thriving businesses collapse soon after the demise of the entrepreneur who founded it. It could live on digitally, with the presence of some loyal staff, social media and functional web presence, but most times it fails. This is a worrisome trend and one that every living entrepreneur should look out for. Whether or not there is a recognized succession plan, the probability of businesses failing after the death of the founder is high.

So at least, make plans to secure your health so as to put up strong structures that will help your business survive after you are gone. Whenever you feel a pain or a discomfort, get it checked. A number of people have died of some complications from a knee injury after neglecting the pains felt during a simple workout session. Check yourself regularly so that you can be around for as long as you possibly can.

Elections Are Won by Votes, Not Likes and Shares

"Politics is just like show business." - Ronald Reagan

It's hard to argue with that sentiment after the recent US election. However, my interest is more on the side of how the show-business effect impacted Millennial voter turnout than in the antics and theater of any particular candidate.

To that end, it is important to note that in the US only about 50% of the eligible Millennial population actually cast a vote, versus an average of about 57% for the general population, a figure that, in and of itself, is sadly and pathetically low and, in fact, a few points lower than the last US presidential election.

Now, contrast this with the rest of the world, and by world I don't mean the countries where voting is compulsory. I mean the world where voting is mandatory as a public service. In October, The Guardian reported,

In Belgium's most recent election, 87% of the voting-age population turned out. In Turkey 84% voted and in South Korea it was 80%. But in the US, in 2012, just 54% of the voting-age population exercised their right to vote. That is one of the lowest turnouts in any developed country.

If you are interested, I recommend you read the Pew Research Center on this. It's fascinating to see how voter registration varies country to country, and I'm sure you will have, like me, your own take on why.

But back to Millennials.

While I usually hate writing about labels and have never believed the "experts'" view on the monolithic "movement" status of this generation (once again proven by this election), the ganging together of an age group as an aggregated audience is a convenient way to knock off some sacred cows.

To begin with, a critical numerical line has been crossed. According to Pew Research Center from May,

As of April 2016, an estimated 69.2 million Millennials (adults ages 18-35 in 2016) were voting-age U.S. citizens - a number almost equal to the 69.7 million Baby Boomers (ages 52-70) in the nation's electorate.

Yet, here is the critical piece of data...while many were counting on that youth vote to propel a different outcome, the truth is that:

...the high-water mark for Millennials was the 2008 election, when 50% of eligible Millennials voted. By comparison, 61% of the Generation X electorate reported voting that year, as did even larger percentages of older eligible voters. In 2008 Millennials comprised 18% of the electorate, but as a result of their relatively low turnout they were only 14% of those who said they actually voted.

But wait...it gets worse according to Pew:

Millennial turnout was less impressive in 2012, when 46% of eligible Millennials said they had voted. Since the oldest Millennials were 31 years of age in 2012 (as opposed to 27 in 2008), the expectation might have been that turnout would have edged higher. After all, an older, more mature, more "settled" age group presumably should turn out at higher rates. This underscores the fact that young-adult turnout depends on factors besides demographics: the candidates, the success of voter mobilization efforts, as well as satisfaction with the economy and direction of the country.

Depends on more than demographics? My starting point...obvious, no?

And according to the US Census,

Overall, America's youngest voters have moved towards less engagement over time, as 18- through 24-year-olds' voting rates dropped from 50.9 percent in 1964 to 38.0 percent in 2012.

Maybe not so obvious.

Look at the recent Brexit vote in the UK. The data - not surprisingly - seems all over the place. Some sources claim a very low Millennial turnout and others peg the number much higher. VICE reports the numbers at the highest.

I've just got the figures back from our other survey, which is from a fresh sample, and what we found is that turnout among voters eighteen to twenty-four was sixty-four percent. Now that is an estimate, because it's always an estimation, but it comes from an actual survey where people were asked whether they voted or not, and whether they registered or not. We also controlled for over-reporting of electoral participation, because people always have a tendency to tell you that they voted even if they did not. So even when you account for all of that, we find is that turnout among eighteen- to twenty-four-year-olds was about sixty-four percent. That would be the highest turnout among eighteen- to twenty-four-year-olds for the past twenty-five years.

But every other source had it far lower. The Guardian reported,

We cannot know for certain the demographic turnouts on 23 June, because there was no exit poll. So don't let any figure thrown around under pretence of being cast-iron fool you. That figure does not exist. But we have some guidance. Sky Data put 18-24 turnout at 36% and 25-34 turnout (also millennials) at 58%: but it was projected - representing those who said they were certain to vote and had done so in the past. Data crunched by the FT found that "on a general basis, areas with younger populations had lower turnout" and the Guardian, Telegraph and BBC data all back this up.

Clearly, given the poor performance of polls, none of these numbers, either in the UK or in the US, fill me with deep conviction...yet based on all that I have read, heard, and seen I would say we do have a problem of an engaged younger electorate, but I don't believe it has anything to do with the candidates, the issues, the economy or the general direction of anything.

For one, I give this generation some credit for caring...in fact, for caring deeply about the world. The problem I believe is a lack of understanding of how the levers of power actually work and, as a result, in how to actually make a difference in the world.

For one, we are living in a glut of uncurated, unverified, highly questionable information or maybe better put words...as it's often unclear what's real and not.

Just take a look at how we use Facebook - and not just Millennials. More than a billion people log in to Facebook every day, with most users admitting to more than once-a-day use. millennials are the least likely to share political content (4% or less) and more likely to share memes (6% or more). Baby Boomers are most likely to share political content (7% or more), according to a Fractl study from April 2016.

Although Millennials may not be sharing political content, Facebook remains a major source of news. According to a June 2015 Pew Research Center study:

About six-in-ten online Millennials (61%) report getting political news on Facebook in a given week, a much larger percentage than turn to any other news source. This stands in stark contrast to internet-using Baby Boomers, for whom local TV tops the list of sources for political news at nearly the same reach (60%).

Roughly a quarter (24%) of Millennials who use Facebook say at least half of the posts they see on the site relate to government and politics, higher than both Gen Xers (18%) and Baby Boomers (16%) who use the social networking site.

And Twitter seems to be no less a source of news for many. As reported by California Magazine:

It's the year Twitter catapulted billionaire Donald Trump from being a long shot to being the GOP nominee, in part thanks to his uncanny penchant for newsmaking in 140-character posts, which reaped millions of dollars in free publicity for his campaign during the crowded GOP primaries. The stunningly effective strategy sparked veteran journalist Tom Brokaw to wonder if the billionaire businessman may become the first "to tweet his way to the White House". [emphasis mine]

On the Democratic side, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, boosted by Millennial voters, churned effective social media outreach into a fundraising bonanza - the average donation was $27 dollars - along with mega-rallies, which threatened to upend the campaign of frontrunner Hillary Clinton. Meanwhile, the former Secretary of State, who introduced her 2016 campaign on Facebook, fully graduated to Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter - this time in Spanish - and celebrated her historic nomination with social media emojis celebrating "The Woman Card," among other things.

Now, to be clear, I do believe that news channels actually amplified the social message, and that is where Trump triumphed as he wasn't bound by the Digibabble that, in my opinion, limited some of the Democratic Party operatives. And, I'd also posit that Trump and Bernie shared the mega-rally strategy, a decidedly analog way to make news and spread the word.

It seems to me there is a critical missing link, a crucial disconnect, an essential gap between what we think we know about millennials, their pursuit of causes, their consumption of news, and their compulsion to share.

The Guardian speculated as follows:

[T]ech can be helpful when encouraging engagement -Facebook's voter status initiative, for instance - and I see that changing your profile picture to a French flag, or a Rainbow flag helps you to feel better and does contribute to a nicer, supportive tone of discourse - it has its place - but when it comes to affecting policy change, it's as good as hovering a pencil over the box and crossing the air.

Bottom line? We have lost touch with reality. People no longer understand how elections work.

John Oliver of HBO's Last Week Tonight said it best:

The one theme that seemed to emerge in the chaos and confusion of the RNC was, feelings were king, and viewers experienced a "four-day exercise in exercising feelings over facts".

We even experienced the following, as reported by Wired and many others:

America's electoral system is already kind of a mess. Now, Twitter trolls are doing their best to make it even more confusing by spreading disinformation about how to cast a ballot on election day. The latest example: Donald Trump supporters are spreading memes on Twitter in both English and Spanish, trying to trick Hillary Clinton supporters into thinking they can vote by text.

Have we become so confused that anyone would take such misinformation seriously?

Why not? When such a large percentage of the so-called news being shared online was laughably false. And let us not forget the increasingly narrow silos of information which, true or not, are skewed one way or another. Vox reported,

Reddit is a popular news aggregator in which users vote about which stories to promote to the front page. And by March of this year, the politics section of the site had become dominated by Bernie Sanders supporters. As a result, if you relied on Reddit for your political news this spring, you basically only saw stories that praised Sanders and criticized Clinton and the Republican candidates.

We live in a world where Reality and Reality TV are often confused with each other, where sharing and liking are considered action, and where our skills at discerning the truth are being challenged, to say the least.

Summing it all up I turn to a statement made by Jennifer Lawrence - not because I think she is an influencer, (next week I will tackle that topic) but because it speaks volumes to the problem we all face:

We're all allowed to be sad that the present isn't what we thought it was. But we mustn't be defeated. We will keep educating ourselves and working twice as hard as the man next to us because we know now that it is not fair. It is not fair in the workplace, so you make it impossible to fail. And like Hillary, it might not work.

But like Hillary, you can still be an inspiration and get important things done. Do not let this defeat you--let this enrage you! Let it motivate you! Let this be the fire you didn't have before. If you are an immigrant, if you are a person of color, if you are LGBTQ+, if you are a woman--don't be afraid, be loud!

Where is the admonition to go out and vote? To get involved in the process. To make a difference by actually making a difference.

Being loud just doesn't cut it...nor does mere sharing, liking, sending disappearing messages, posting, and certainly not whining and whinging.

Perhaps the great poet Robert Frost said it best...Listen:

"Thinking isn't agreeing or disagreeing. That's voting."

So, no matter where you live, voting, taking real action, is the only way to effect serious change.... until the revolution, and we all know where that can lead.

What do you think?

Read more at The Weekly Ramble

Follow David Sable on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DavidSable

“Her Face Is Half Gone!” Why Baby Turkeys Are Starving On The President's Farm

“My god, what happened to her face?”

It’s the middle of the night, and I’m with a team of activists from the Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) Open Rescue Network on the White House’s turkey farm. And we’re all in shock at what we’re seeing. The top half of the little bird’s face is flattened, as if pounded in with a sledge hammer. Her beak, which birds use the way we use our hands, is a shriveled stump covered in scars.

“How has she survived?” I whisper. “Can she even eat?”

She is a midget, just one fourth the size of the other birds. Her slow movements show the toll of malnutrition. This baby bird is starving to death. And it’s all happening at a “free range” Whole Foods turkey farm.

Disturbed by what you’ve read? Sign the petition asking President Obama to pardon all the White House turkeys!

Mass mutilation and starvation are the dark secrets of our Thanksgiving turkey. And these practices occur, not just at Walmart or Costco, but at Jaindl Farms, supplier to the White House and Whole Foods. President Obama has sung Jaindl’s praises. Whole Foods touts Jaindl’s turkeys as “free range” and “global animal partnership certified.” Even major animal welfare organizations have been duped into applauding Jaindl’s supposed commitment to animal welfare.

But here’s the truth.

Every baby turkey born at Jaindl is greeted into this Earth the same way, by burning her face. The industry must do this because the alternative is even worse: birds with intact beaks tearing each other to pieces as they go insane from confinement. (Even on so-called free-range farms, 25 pound birds typically get less than 2.5 square feet of space each, about the size of a small floor mat.) Around ten percent of the birds die before they reach slaughter, often starving to death because they are in too much pain from debeaking. But, to the industry, this is better than losing 100% from the birds cannibalizing one another. Indeed, death from starvation is so common that the industry has a term for it: “starveout.”

How is this possible at a supposedly “humane” farm? Quite simply, because no one bothers to check that anything the industry says is true.

This is partly a self-inflicted injury. Influenced by corporate grants from giants such as Whole Foods, animal advocates have moved towards self-regulation -- i.e. voluntary corporate commitments to implement more “humane” practices, such as cage-free eggs -- despite compelling evidence that, well, self-regulation doesn’t work. To the contrary, from finance to coffee, corporations have used self-regulation as a tool to ward off real regulation and co-opt progressive movements. “We’ve got the problem solved,” the CEOs say. “No need for you to worry any longer.” But with no accountability, progress is just an illusion. A prior DxE open rescue found that a certified humane Costco farm was, in fact, filled with rotting animals and cannibalism. And deceptive “humane” marketing has been accompanied by the largest increases in per capita meat consumption in 40 years.

Fraud in animal welfare is also a failure of government. Voters do not want animals tortured, or to be deceived when they are shopping. Yet the rules of the game have been set up to ensure those outcomes. Turkeys, for example, are not even considered “animals” under federal animal cruelty law. (One wonders how USDA officials passed first grade biology.) And the Meat Inspection Act bars consumers from taking action to stop fraud at stores like Whole Foods. (Courts have held that ‘misbranding’ of meat products is the exclusive domain of the federal USDA, pre-empting other parties, even governmental bodies, from taking action.) Government, in short, is not just asleep at the wheel but complicit in the fraud.

But most of all, the failure of animal welfare is one of our culture. We all look at violence against animals with disgust. And we look at the Thanksgiving turkey feast with joy. Yet those two scenes are flip sides of exactly the same coin. We cannot have one without the other. Only years of socialization under bizarre cultural norms -- norms that abhor violence against animals… unless it’s for dinner -- allow this tension to be ignored.

But a house built on a weak foundation will eventually fall. Philosophers have found that inconsistent moral beliefs are almost always resolved, over the long run, in the direction of truth -- what John Rawls called “reflective equilibrium.” And as more pressure and attention is placed on animal agriculture, people are reconciling their conflicting beliefs on animals by showing increasing support for animal rights. Indeed, a remarkable 32% of Americans now say that animals should have “the same rights as people.” That is higher than support for marriage equality just 20 years ago.

A generation from now, then, perhaps activists will no longer have to sneak on farms to save a handful of dying animals from the President’s turkey farm. Because, as a movement for animal rights grows, and truly effective legal protections (including a constitutional bill of rights for animals) are passed, all the slaughterhouses in the nation will have disappeared. And our nation will finally have a truly “humane” Thanksgiving feast -- one where no animals are killed at all.

Want to take action? Sign the petition asking President Obama to cut ties with Jaindl and spare all the White House turkeys!

3 Ways Millennials Can Take Control of Their Destiny

With the launch of Robinhood just a few years back, millennials have become more involved in stock investing than ever before. With a desire to increase net worth, be fiscally responsible, and also take a little risk while utilizing personal knowledge, these people demonstrate how stocks and Robinhood are allowing millennials to access their dreams all through their cell phones.

The only problem with stocks is that not only are the returns extremely variable and risky, but realistically lay-men do not know how to do them successfully. So if a millennial is trying to establish an investment portfolio with safe large returns, where should they turn?

If you ask Ross Alex, the obvious answer is real estate.

Ross was a typical rowdy high schooler and dropped out of community college twice. During this time, he bounced between jobs at his local mall, bars, etc. in New York. Eventually, Ross knew he had enough, he wanted to be successful and take his life by the reigns. Reaching out to his uncle who was an established investor in Texas, Ross borrowed money and found himself in Las Vegas at a life changing conference and one week later in Houston, Texas pursuing a real estate business.

Real estate is a stable asset. While markets vary, a house has a fairly standard value and when rented can give fixed income each month. These qualities are what make the industry a much better alternative to stocks which can easily go up or down and sometimes both 10%+ during a year. However, most people view real estate as an unobtainable desire, since houses all cost over $100,000 typically right? Wrong.

After sitting down to talk with Ross, he shed light on his investment strategies, which focuses on real estate wholesaling, rehabbing, and owner financing. The wholesale practice means that before you close escrow on a house (the time between signing a contract and actually transferring ownership, you find a buyer to pay more than what you need to pay to the seller. For example, if I contract a house for $100k I then find a cash buyer for let's say $110k within my option period days. The fee you make after assigning your interest in the deal is called an assignment fee. He started making 10-20K per deal with just a few hours of work.

Over the course of a couple years Ross used this methodology in addition to rehabbing (fixing and flipping) to make generate multiple six figures in real estate in his first year and is now focusing on teaching others how to find the same level of success as he has. His advice to all aspiring entrepreneurs, dreamers, and people who know they could be making more with their life is as follows.

1) Take Massive Action

Sitting in College one day before he had dropped out, rather than crafting out a resume and joining corporate America, he talked to the one man he knew had the right mindset and later that week found himself flying to Vegas to go to a seminar with that man, his Uncle Alan. A few weeks later he packed up his life into a single bag and moved from New York to Houston. Within two months he closed his first real estate deal and launched his company ChristianRoss Property Solutions, LLC.

While massive action takes massive commitment and risk, the only way to pick yourself up from a bad situation and completely change your life is to ditch your old mentality and adopt a winning mindset. It is easy to succumb to the pressures and belief that you will always be in the same tax bracket, that rich people get rich and poor people get poor, and that you have to play with the cards you are dealt, but if you take the time to say "No" you no longer need to abide by these rules.

The second you acknowledge that you can act and perform at the same caliber or higher than the people making a million bucks is the second you grab your life and make of it what you want. Look to those who are succeeding and follow in their footsteps. Ross chose real estate and has never looked back, whether you do the same or use a different industry, figure out what needs to be done to make your life better and do it.

2) Never Quit

Whether due to an increase in laziness, the effects of video games and social media, or some other force of nature, people just do not have the attention spans that they used to have. But as the old adage goes 'Rome was not built in a day'. If you ever want to see a substantial change in your life you need to focus so hard on making that change a reality that you are willing to commit 5, 10, 20 years towards that goal even if you do not start seeing immediate results. How would the world be different if Steve Jobs spent 6-12 months trying to launch Apple and then since it did not blow up instantly he just dropped it and moved onto something else? Never take no for answer and never let doubt get in the way of your success.

The truth is massive success comes with massive responsibility. The life of an entrepreneur will be a challenging one. It will come with failure. Learn to embrace it and learn from it. Quitting won't solve anything. As the quote from "Three Feet From Gold" goes "Every adversity, every failure and every heartache carries with it the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit." Ross says he sees far too many aspiring entrepreneurs quit and give up before they have given it enough time and put in enough work. "There is no such thing as overnight success" he says. It just doesn't work like that. Success takes time and it loves preparation. 80% of your success is simply showing up. Make sure you are showing up every day and giving it your all. It is either all or nothing.

3) Align Yourself with the Right People

Throughout my lengthy talk with Alex, one phrase stuck with me, "You are an average of the five people who you associate with." Since humans naturally pick up the mannerisms, actions, mentalities, ambitions, etc. of those around them, it is your most important mission to only associate with people who will help you achieve your goals and make a better life for yourself. Sometimes confuse networking with simply getting to 500+ on LinkedIn, but real networking requires you to be prolific in your connections and deep in relationships. Your network is only as good as its usefulness to you, which comes from providing real value to those around you.

As Ross put it to me, "a baseball team has lots of players, but only a few are starters that impact the team's performance regularly." Rather than worrying about filling up your network with benchwarmers who will maybe catch a pop-fly or hit a homer once in a blue moon, focus on those starters that will directly translate to a better life for you. Similarly, to a baseball team, you need diversity in your main group. The Cubs would not have won if they only had pitchers or second-basemen. Understand the people you need in your life and the different skillsets they need to have, then go out and find them!

What the Trump Effect Means for Mortgage Rates Next Year and 5 Years From Now

By Hal Bundrick, CFP

In the week following the election, mortgage rates soared nearly half a percentage point. Average weekly 30-year fixed home loan rates are back above 4% for the first time since July 2015.

Here's a three-minute read on the Trump Effect -- past, present and future -- on mortgage rates.

What happened to mortgage rates right after the election
Investors sold bonds on President-elect Donald Trump's stated goals to lower taxes, boost deregulation and make massive infrastructure investments. A growing economy fueled by government spending could trigger higher inflation, which is a concern for the bond market.

As bond prices fell from the sell-off, yields rose. Higher bond yields equal higher mortgage rates.

What is happening with mortgage rates now
Rates are already taking a breath. After a quick run-up following the election, 30-year mortgage rates are generally holding steady, near 4%.

What will happen to mortgage rates in 2017
The Federal Reserve this week reaffirmed its intention to begin raising short-term interest rates, most likely beginning in December. Following that hike, if it happens, the U.S. central bank's policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee is looking to manage a slow climb in rates.

"The FOMC continues to expect that the evolution of the economy will warrant only gradual increases in the federal funds rate over time to achieve and maintain maximum employment and price stability," Fed Chair Janet Yellen told Congress on Nov. 17. Those moves will influence longer-term rates such as on mortgages to rise as well.

And there's another potential trigger for mortgage rates to move higher.

While Trump hasn't taken a stance yet, Republican party leaders have been vocal about getting the government out of the mortgage business. That could mean redefining the role of the Federal Housing Administration and moving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the private sector.

David Reiss, a professor at Brooklyn Law School, concentrates on real estate finance and community development. He sees the Republican agenda to "reduce the government's footprint in the mortgage market" as a possible catalyst to higher mortgage rates in the future.
"You put the government's stamp of approval on companies like Fannie and Freddie, and it lowers interest rates because they can borrow at a lower rate -- but then the taxpayers are on the hook if things go south, and that was the case in 2008," Reiss tells NerdWallet. "If you reduce the federal government's role in the housing markets, you're going to reduce the likelihood of future bailouts by taxpayers. That's the trade-off."

How high will rates go in the coming year?

"I think you could see rates a half a percent higher from where they are now," says Brian Koss, executive vice president of Mortgage Network in Danvers, Massachusetts. "There's potential for three-quarters to a full point higher."

"We're not jumping to rapid conclusions in our forecast scenario," Douglas Duncan, chief economist of Fannie Mae, tells NerdWallet. "Right now, we've got mortgage rates for 2017 averaging below what the actual numbers are today."

Duncan says Fannie Mae's November forecast is for 30-year rates to average 3.6% in 2017.

Mortgage rates in 5 years
Ten-year Treasury yields, a commonly used benchmark for mortgage rate trends, have soared in the past week, currently yielding about 2.25%. Mortgage rates have mirrored that rise.

Noted bond investor Jeffrey Gundlach, founder and chief investment officer of DoubleLine Capital, predicted Trump's victory in January. In a conference call with investors on Nov. 15, Gundlach made another bold forecast: 10-year Treasury yields could be 6% within five years.

In July 2000 -- the last time 10-year Treasury yields were at 6% -- 30-year mortgage rates were just above 8%.

Perhaps it's a worse-case scenario, but 8% would put us back to the average mortgage rate for the past 44 years.

Hal Bundrick is a staff writer at NerdWallet, a personal finance website. Email: hal@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @halmbundrick.

Quality in Digital Advertising: Why We Need A Better User Experience Now

John Murphy, VP of Marketplace Quality, OpenX

Think back, way back, to the early 2000s. Odds are you remember the home page takeovers and painfully irrelevant pop-ups that interfered with your browsing incessantly. We've made a lot of progress over the last decade and a half but even as we succeed at finding new ways to improve digital advertising, new threats have emerged. Malware. Forced redirects. Auto-play audio and video. All of these threats weaken the consumer experience, and ultimately drive them away from publishers.

At many of the biggest advertising events this year, including Cannes and Advertising Week NY, industry players expressed concerns about ad quality and performance. To create an improved user experience that leads to a better ROI, publishers, brands, and technology partners in the middle must all deliver better ads — ones that aren't intrusive and disruptive, but engaging and highly relevant to consumers' current wants and needs.

Zero In On Ad Quality

To some extent, ad quality is subjective; good ads are in the eye of the beholder (or in this case, the consumer). But clearly there are forms of advertising that are objectively bad for the user experience. Display ads that block content or are unsafe (like malware) are plainly unacceptable. They interfere with the publisher-user value exchange, and that can create negative feelings toward both the site and brand.

Another aspect of online advertising that consumers tend to scrutinize is speed. Thanks to fast-loading apps, consumers’ expectations for online and mobile ad experience are constantly rising. It's one of the reasons why many users have resorted to employing ad blockers. To your audience, ads that slow down their experience can be as objectionable as those that might put them at risk. The ultimate goal for sellers and buyers should be to create engaging messaging while also improving ad performance: delivering relevant ads fast. Publishers and technology platforms can help indirectly by educating advertisers on the importance of knowing the weight of an ad and how it could impact load times and user experience.

Mitigate the Effects of Malware

Malicious software is a blight on the digital marketing landscape that continues to spread. Converting publishers from passive players to active participants in improving ad quality and getting full industry buy-in will help to incapacitate malware, but it isn't enough. For example, if a publisher is using the latest browser and operating system, the risk of an attack is much lower, but with programmatic now representing more than two-thirds of all US digital display ad spending, malware can target systems that aren't up to date.

The solution? Many premium publishers are now working with monitoring companies like The Media Trust, on both security and user experience. After that, sites should align themselves with a trustworthy monetization partner for their targeted programmatic campaigns, as this approach protects publishers and brands alike.

The Future of Advertising is Bright

Many wonder what the future has in store. Can we really do enough to effect change? The fact is that today countless publishers aren't fully aware of the types of ads that are running on their sites, how these ads affect page load times, and how they might be degrading the user experience. This lack of insight dramatically reduces their ability to improve the advertising experience, and will continue to do so in the months and years to come.

It's important, therefore, that publishers become active, informed participants in improving ad quality. Take a closer look at what you're putting out into the online world, and prioritize quality assurance and optimization to create a better ad experience for all. The adtech industry can help this along by empowering publishers with better controls and greater visibility into ads that are running to ensure that users are satisfied and that the integrity of the ad marketplace is preserved.

Since the early days of digital publishing, publishers have grappled with the issue of trust. In order to build a loyal audience that's of value to their advertisers, publishers must deliver appealing, informative content that consumers can rely on. At the same time, to maintain their user base and keep consumers coming back, publishers have to serve ads that accurately reflect audience preferences and behavior.

The common thread that ties these two efforts together is quality: quality content, quality ads, and a high-quality user experience. Achieving this doesn't fall to individual publishers, brands, or ad exchanges. Rather, it's a mission for the industry as a whole.

So let's get started.

9 Types of People Who Never Succeed At Work

Experience and knowledge are rapidly losing their relevance to success in the workplace. Harvard economist David Deming studied workplace tasks from 1980 to the present day and found that those that emphasize social skills grew by a whopping 24%, while tasks requiring technical know-how and intelligence experienced little growth. Deming also found that salaries increased the most for jobs that place extra emphasis on social skills.

With the increasing emphasis on social skills, those who lack them stand out like a zebra in a field of horses. We all know the types: the person who won't stop talking when you're trying to meet a deadline, the one who blatantly takes credit for your ideas, or the one who callously leaves you to pull an all-nighter to fix their mistake. The list goes on.

There are a lot of otherwise intelligent people out there who can't stop shooting themselves in the foot. Sadly, their lack of self-awareness and social skills are massive detriments to their careers.

Social skills and self-awareness are matters of emotional intelligence (EQ), and TalentSmart's research with over a million people has shown that emotional intelligence is responsible for 58% of job performance. Those who lack emotional intelligence are at a significant disadvantage.

"Failure isn't fatal, but failure to change might be" - John Wooden

There are certain types of people whose lack of emotional intelligence harms their careers more than others. By studying them, you can avoid becoming one of them, and, if your reading experience is anything like my writing experience, you'll see bits of yourself in some of these profiles. Use that knowledge to build your self-awareness, make adjustments, and grow as a person.

1. The coward. Fear is an extremely powerful motivator. This is why presidential candidates tell people that their opponent will "destroy the economy" and advertisements warn that "smoking kills." In the workplace, people overcome by fear resort to irrational and damaging behavior. Cowardly colleagues are quick to blame others and to cover up important mistakes, and they fail to stand up for what is right.

2. The Dementor. In J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, Dementors are evil creatures that suck people's souls out of their bodies, leaving them merely as shells of humans. Whenever a Dementor enters the room, it goes dark and cold and people begin to recall their worst memories. Rowling said that she developed the concept for Dementors based on highly negative people--the kind of people who have the ability to walk into a room and instantly suck the life out of it. Dementors suck the life out of the room by imposing their negativity and pessimism upon everyone they encounter. Their viewpoints are always glass half empty, and they can inject fear and concern into even the most benign situations.

3. The arrogant. Arrogant people are a waste of your time because they see everything you do as a personal challenge. Arrogance is false confidence, and it always masks major insecurities. A University of Akron study found that arrogance is correlated with a slew of problems in the workplace. Arrogant people tend to be lower performers and more disagreeable and to have more cognitive problems than the average person.

4. The group-thinker. Group-thinkers choose the path of least resistance and are famous for propagating the "this is how we've always done it" mentality. If you find yourself getting brainwashed with what everyone else believes, be careful; the status quo never leads to greatness.

5. The short-changed. The short-changed are quick to blame their lack of accomplishment on a lack of opportunity. While a lucky break may put a little wind in a successful person's sails, they got where they are through hard work. What the short-changed don't realize is that their attitude is what's short-changing them, not their circumstances.

6. The temperamental. Some people have absolutely no control over their emotions. They will lash out at you and project their feelings onto you, all the while thinking that you're the one causing their malaise. Temperamental people perform poorly because their emotions cloud their judgment and their lack of self-control destroys their relationships. Be wary of temperamental people; when push comes to shove they will use you as their emotional toilet.

7. The victim. Victims are tough to identify because you initially empathize with their problems. But, as time passes, you begin to realize that their "time of need" is all the time. Victims actively push away any personal responsibility by making every speed bump they encounter into an uncrossable mountain. They don't see tough times as opportunities to learn and grow from; instead, they see them as an out.

8. The gullible. You can't help but feel sorry for the gullible type. They're the ones who find themselves babysitting the boss's kids the morning after pulling a late night of work . . . on a Sunday! For whatever reason, gullible people (often newbies) go with the flow until the gentle river becomes a tumultuous ocean. It's okay to negotiate your salary, it's okay to say no, and it's okay to question the way things are done. You'll earn a lot more respect if you stand up for yourself when the time is right.

9. The apologizer. For every person out there who owes an apology, there's another who apologizes too often. People who lack confidence are always apologizing for their ideas and actions. They fear failure and believe that apologizing will act as a safety net. Instead, unnecessary apologies cheapen their ideas and make them less likely to stick. It's important that your tone of voice and body language reflect the importance of your ideas. Stating an idea or opinion as a question is just as bad as apologizing. If you really believe something is worth sharing, then own it and share it with confidence.

Bringing It All Together

None of these behaviors are a career death sentence because they can be eradicated through improved emotional intelligence. All it takes is a little self-awareness and a strong desire to change.

What other types of people belong on this list? Please share in the comments section below, as I learn just as much from you as you do from me.