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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sea Otter who wrote (155601)	12/9/2008 8:47:25 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 362920

Good points...many of the big LPs (pension funds, endowments, etc) are having their own liquidity issues and are trying to rebalance their portfolios -- just look how much money the legendary Harvard Endowment has lost so far in 2008.

To: Sea Otter who wrote (155601)	12/10/2008 5:56:34 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 362920

Built with the crowdsourced model before there was a name for it ______________________________________________________________ by Ryan Graff Medill Reports Dec 04, 2008 Somewhere along the way, the idea of people thinking as a group got a bad rap. There is, after all, the word “groupthink,” which has a sour reputation. And then there’s the phrase about taking care to not underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups. But the truth is a group can be a powerful thing. Look, after all, at Wikipedia, or the open-source Linux software. Look also at two Chicago entrepreneurs who put the power of the group to great use in 2000 when they founded a t-shirt company called Threadless.com. The idea dreamed up by Jake Nickell and Jacob DeHart was to start a t-shirt company whose designs were created by the customers themselves. So Nickell and DeHart started a Web site on which anyone could submit a t-shirt design. Other designers and customers then vote on their favorites and at the end of each week Threadless designers look at the top rated designs and choose the ones they’d like to print. The winning designer gets $2,000. Threadless prints 1,200 of each winning design to sell on the Internet and in the retail store at Wellington and Broadway in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood. The idea took off. Threadless has sold every shirt it’s ever printed – thanks to printing only the top-rated and therefore very-likely-to-sell shirts. “If you have the opportunity to pick the brains of thousands of people, one of them is bound to come up with something good,” said Louis W. Stern, a marketing professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. “Most great things are invented in garages,” Stern said. “If I can go into everybody’s garage and pick the best ideas, then I’m gang-busters.” And it has been gang-busters for Threadless. The company has revenue that’s in “the healthy double digit millions,” said Tom Ryan, the company’s CEO. In 2006 founders Nickell and DeHart gave two interviews in which they said revenue at the company grew by three to four times each year and they expected it to rise to $16 million to $20 million. The company employs about 60 people at its headquarters in Ravenswood and in its store. The idea of using a crowd to develop a product, while not commonplace, may be catching on. In 2006 Wired magazine editor Jeff Howe coined the word crowdsourcing to describe it. “Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call,” Howe wrote on his blog, crowdsourcing.com. Crowdsourcing has indeed been good for Threadless, but it’s not an easy thing to do. Many companies have tried to apply the Threadless model to different products – from shoes to greeting cards to jackets. But these companies have seen mediocre results. The biggest problem is that companies start with the idea of making money fail to develop a community that is devoted to the idea, wrote Howe in an e-mail message. The successful ones “grow out of communities first, and have a certain community-sensitivity bred into their DNA,” declared Howe, who wrote the book “Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd is Driving the Future of Business.” The idea of community is something that Threadless is very attuned to. “People literally live on the Web site to learn about design, and talk about design and get feedback on their own designs,” Ryan said. “It’s turned into a vibrant place where people can exchange ideas and we can help bring products to market and help designers get their products in front of a mass market.” Yes, Threadless has been unusually successful. Why, exactly, is anybody’s guess. “It’s 80 percent first-mover advantage and 20 percent secret sauce,” Howe said. “The imitators are, pretty much, all imitators … Threadless does what they do very, very intelligently.” Even Threadless hasn’t been able to successfully replicate its success. The company has tried to apply the same business model to typetees.com – which asks readers not for the best design, but the best slogan. Winners so far: “The art of conversation is kinda, like, dead and stuff,” “Being Vague is almost as fun as doing this other thing.” That idea has had some success, but the company has a host of wallowing projects – which includes everything from crowdsourced pattern design to crowdsourced cocktails. Threadless’s t-shirt business remains its biggest business by far. That success is likely due to the fact that the original idea was born out of an already strong community, said Howe – a fact that Threadless is well aware of. “The core mission is to create the best online experience and product possible for our customers and be the number one place for designers around the world to come and submit their work and get really helpful feedback from others in the community,” Ryan said. ©Medill Reports - Chicago, Northwestern University. A publication of the Medill School.

To: Sea Otter who wrote (155601)	12/10/2008 8:55:01 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 362920

Hedge Funds Shrink by $64 Billion in November, Eurekahedge Says By Tomoko Yamazaki Dec. 11 (Bloomberg) -- The global hedge-fund industry lost $64 billion of assets in November, with an index tracking its performance declining for a sixth month as economies in Asia and Europe joined the U.S. in recession, Eurekahedge Pte said. Market declines contributed to $18 billion in net losses, while investor redemptions made up $46 billion, Singapore-based Eurekahedge said, based on preliminary figures taken from 41 percent of the funds it surveys. Funds fell 0.4 percent on average, as measured by the Eurekahedge Hedge Fund Index, which tracks the performance of more than 2,000 funds that invest globally. The final figure for November may be a 2 percent decline, said Eurekahedge, which typically receives data from poorer performing funds later. The drop takes declines to 13 percent this year as hedge funds accelerate job cuts and brace for the biggest annual losses and investor withdrawals since at least 2000, according to Eurekahedge data. Investment losses and client redemptions have forced funds including Chicago-based Citadel Investment Group LLC, run by Kenneth Griffin, to liquidate funds, limit withdrawals and eliminate positions. Distressed selling and deleveraging continued to pull down funds as the credit crisis sent the U.S., Europe and Japan into the first simultaneous recession since World War II. The MSCI World Index slumped 6.7 percent last month. Japan Outperforms In terms of regional mandates, the Eurekahedge Japan Hedge Fund Index was the best performer, gaining 0.8 percent last month, followed by the index measuring Latin America funds, which rose 0.7 percent. The Eurekahedge Eastern Europe & Russia Hedge Fund Index was the worst performer, dropping 3.7 percent, while the North American and European indexes declined 2.1 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively. Managers that trade fixed income were the best performers in November, gaining 2.4 percent. Those trading futures, or CTAs, and so-called macro-fund managers, who wager on trends in stocks, bonds and currencies worldwide, advanced 2 percent and 1.1 percent. The index measuring hedge funds investing in distressed debt was the worst performer, sliding 3.3 percent. To contact the reporter on this story: Tomoko Yamazaki in Tokyo at tyamazaki@bloomberg.net Last Updated: December 10, 2008 19:50 EST