The OHIO Senate approves SB 127, which would bar doctors from performing an abortion after a woman has reached 20 weeks of her pregnancy. The measure moves to the House (COLUMBUS DISPATCH).
The U.S. Supreme Court agrees to allow clinics in TEXAS that perform abortions to remain open while justices consider whether to hear an appeal of a decision effectively ordering them to close. At issue is whether the High Court will hear an appeal of a June 9 ruling from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that upheld a law requiring all Lone Star State abortion clinics to meet the standards for ambulatory surgical centers, including requiring doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital (NEW YORK TIMES).
A FLORIDA judge blocks a new state law requiring women seeking an abortion to wait 24 hours before having the procedure done. State Attorney General Pam Bondi (R) has appealed the ruling (ASSOCIATED PRESS).
The OKLAHOMA Supreme Court rules that a monument of the 10 Commandments at the state Capitol must be removed because it indirectly benefits the Jewish and Christian faiths in violation of the state’s constitution. The court noted that the Sooner State constitution bans using public property to benefit a religion, and said the Ten Commandments are “obviously religious in nature.” Supporters of the monument are expected to appeal the ruling (KOCO.COM [OKLAHOMA CITY]).
A PENNSYLVANIA court strikes down a 2014 law that allowed gun supporters to sue local governments that imposed gun prohibitions or laws stricter than statewide measures. The law’s supporters, including the National Rifle Association, say they will appeal to the state Supreme Court (MORNING CALL [ALLENTOWN]).
-- Compiled by RICH EHISEN
Recently, we were pleased to sponsor the AMA Webinar, “Using Media Analytics to Determine Marketing Effectiveness.” Led by digital marketing expert Jason Burby, the Webinar focused on the common problems marketers face, how media intelligence can help and the importance of clear business goals. [Watch the recording below if you missed it.]
The Obstacles to Optimized Marketing
Jason certainly understands the challenges that today’s marketers face. As President of the Americas at Possible, he has helped some of the world’s biggest brands overcome those obstacles, advocating the use of data analytics to inform marketing plans. The top five concerns for marketers?
Clearly, marketers have some BIG challenges – but the potential for gaining valuable insights into what marketing efforts are most effective at attracting, winning and retaining customers is also enormous.
During the Webinar, Jason noted that understanding what’s being said in the news and media offers critical insights into brands, companies, individuals, markets or industries to help formulate and refine marketing plans. With right tools, marketers can can:
Before marketers can effectively track and share media intelligence, they need to set the right parameters for what needs to be tracked. Clearly defining data needs helps to keep research focused on what’s most important. Marketers need to:
In the Webinar, Jason emphasized the importance of defining goals, quoting Andrew Connell, CMO at Huawei Technologies who said, “The setting of concise business goals at the beginning of an initiative often isn’t given enough time. This is really how you create your hypothesis about what you want the whole campaign to do.”
Yet, given the demands marketers face every day, it can be tempting to allow what is easy or readily available shape what is measured. When asked how organizations determine what to measure, respondents offered answers ranging from “No idea!” to “Basic industry standards” to “All aspects around our customers/targets.” Where would your response fall?
The best part of attending conferences are the many opportunities for networking with colleagues. At the Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals 30th Anniversary International Conference & Exhibition a few weeks ago, we sat down to an open discussion with fellow attendees to talk about the opportunities and challenges in gleaning competitive insights from news stories and social media. The ideas that were ‘circulated’ certainly got everyone thinking. Here are some of the top of mind issues for competitive intelligence professionals.
When this question was introduced, there were plenty of responses. While everyone acknowledges that our data-rich world is a boon for competitive intelligence professionals, they also recognize some significant barriers to leveraging data effectively. The top eight challenges that came up in the discussion include:
Most users are leveraging technology, but to varying degrees. Many are using Google Alerts, but lack confidence in whether these searches are pulling all the relevant content. Most, however, are looking to innovative technologies—already available or still highly anticipated—to meet the big data challenges. The focus is on data aggregation solutions that bring together relevant content, an effective search methodology, analytics and sharing tools to optimize time spent on research and the quality of insights gathered. The key types of technology that competitive intelligence need include:
As the writer Louis L’Amour once said, “Knowledge is like money: to be of value it must circulate.” After the great roundtable discussion we had during SCIP, we’re convinced that circulating with our competitive intelligence colleagues left everyone richer.
Editor: Rich Ehisen Associate Editor: Korey Clark Contributing Editor: Mary Peck, David Giusti Editorial Advisor: Lou Cannon Correspondents: Richard Cox (CA), Lauren Davis (MA), Steve Karas (CA) and Ben Livingood (PA), Cathy Santsche (CA), Dena Blodgett (CA) Graphic Design: Vanessa Perez Design
We’ve all witnessed elected officials in recent years who have compounded blunders by performing them on social media. But one California pol recently proved one doesn’t have to actually be on Facebook or Twitter for those sites to cause you misery. As the Associated Press reports, California Assemblymember Scott Wilk was the only Republican in the Legislature to vote in support of the budget put together by majority Democrats. No, Wilk has not developed a sudden affinity toward bipartisanship. Rather, he says he voted for the bill by accident. And how, pray tell, did that happen? Wilk says he cast the vote while distracted because he was also on Facebook, where he was posting his disagreement with the proposal. He later offered a mea culpa via Twitter, saying “My wife is right — I can’t multitask!” Presumably that’s what he meant to do this time.
The COLORADO Supreme Court upholds a lower court’s ruling that employers can fire workers for using medical marijuana even if they do it during off hours. The plaintiff, a quadriplegic medical weed card holder who was fired from his job for failing a drug test, said he will not appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court (DENVER POST).
The DELAWARE Senate endorses HB 5, legislation that would add electronic cigarettes to the state’s ban on smoking indoors. It heads to Gov. Jack Markell (D), who has said he will sign it into law (NEWS JOURNAL {WILMINGTON]).
The MAINE House approves HB 206, which would allow farmers to sell unpasteurized milk directly to customers. It moves to the Senate (LEXISNEXIS STATE NET, ASSOCIATED PRESS). The MAINE House and Senate each reject HB 328, which would have made the Pine Tree State the 26th so-called “right-to-work” state (BANGOR DAILY NEWS).\
The NEW YORK Assembly and Senate approve SB 4327, which would allow companion dogs to accompany their owners at restaurants as long as the seating is outside and the establishment’s ownership allows it. The measure moves to Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) for consideration (ALBANY TIMES UNION). Also in NEW YORK, the Assembly approves SB 1757, which would bar the sale of powdered or crystalline alcohol in the Empire State. It also moves to Gov. Cuomo (LEXISNEXIS STATE NET).
The OREGON Senate approves HB 2960, a bill that would require businesses that don’t offer a retirement plan to automatically enroll employees in a state-sponsored retirement savings program and deduct a portion of their wages for it. Employers would not be required to contribute and employees would also have the option to opt out. The measure moves to Gov. Kate Brown (D) for consideration (STATESMAN JOURNAL [SALEM]).
The ‘60s saw the Summer of Love in San Francisco. But according to the political news website Utah Policy, we are on the verge of a “Summer of Power” in Utah, with Beehive State leaders enjoying a “vortex of power nationally” that is unprecedented in the state.
The article goes on to list exemplars of the state’s growing political muscle, including: U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R), chair of the Senate Finance Committee; U.S. Reps. Jason Chaffetz (R) and Rob Bishop (R) chairs of the House Oversight Committee and the House Natural Resource Committee, respectively; Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker (D) president of the National League of Cities; Gov. Gary Herbert (R), soon to become chair of the National Governors Association; state Sen. Curt Bramble (R), who will soon become president of the National Conference of State Legislatures; state Sen. Wayne Niederhauser (R), treasurer of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC); and state Rep. Ken Ivory (R), chair of ALEC’s Federalism Committee, which promotes states’ rights initiatives.
“Our national leaders in Congress possess more opportunity to impact legislation than their peers, and our state leaders affiliated with ALEC, the National League of Cities, and the National Conference of State Legislatures, have a preeminent voice in crafting legislation and policy positions from those groups,” the article states, concluding, “We look forward to seeing what comes from all this influence.” (STANDARD EXAMINER [OGDEN], UTAH POLICY)
It seems like just about every Republican in the free world is running for president, but don’t expect any of them to get an endorsement from Massachusetts Governor and fellow Republican Charlie Baker. As Statehouse News reports, Baker took note last week of the small GOP army in neighboring New Hampshire, but emphatically avoided giving anyone his highly coveted seal of approval. When asked directly if he would support former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Baker said, “I’m not supporting anybody.” But, as if to prove the former health care executive is now fully a politician, he added that “At the same time, I am supporting everybody.” Of course, he said that before Donald Trump got into the race.
After Republicans swept into control of 29 governor’s offices and 25 state legislatures in the 2010 elections, they moved aggressively to cut spending and taxes. The cuts continued the next few years in the wake of the Great Recession. But with revenue growth still only tepid and some Republicans feeling the limits of austerity have been reached, a few have even been willing to break the oath they took at the behest of anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist to oppose any tax increase.
“There’s a threshold, even for Republicans, where they don’t want to cut spending any further,” said Scott Pattison, executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers in Washington.
Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) and the state’s GOP-controlled legislature approved the largest onetime spending increase in the state’s history this year - $1.1 billion - to provide funding for initiatives such as expanding full-day kindergarten.
Republican-dominated Kansas and Alabama have also enacted or are debating increases in sales, cigarette and other taxes, while six other GOP-led states have passed higher gas taxes. In Louisiana, meanwhile, Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) and Republican lawmakers, facing a $1.6 billion budget shortfall, engaged in what Bloomberg described as “a near-theological debate about what constitutes a tax increase.”
Some have approved of the tax hikes. In a June 8 report, Moody’s Investors Service called Nevada’s action “credit-positive” and said it would “stabilize the finances of the state and its school districts.”
But Norquist said states that increase taxes are “outliers” whose leaders aren’t capable of avoiding overspending.
“Raising taxes is what people do when they can’t govern,” he said. (BLOOMBERG, COLUMBUS DISPATCH)
Twenty-three states enacted 51 bills last year dealing with sentencing and criminal penalties, according to the State Sentencing and Corrections Legislation database provided by the National Conference of State Legislatures and the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Public Safety Performance Project. At least seven of those bills -- Hawaii’s HB 1926 and HB 2205, Kansas’s HB 2490, Louisiana’s HB 732, Rhode Island’s HB 7599 and SB 2754, and Tennessee’s SB 2021 -- concerned mandatory minimum sentences.
Source: National Conference of State Legislatures, Pew Charitable Trusts
Legend:
Enacted criminal sentencing measures in 2014: Alabama, Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Utah, Wisconsin, Wyoming
Enacted mandatory minimum sentencing measures: Hawaii, Kansas, Louisiana, Rhode Island, Tennessee
In rare displays of bipartisanship, state legislative coalitions of liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans are overhauling sentencing procedures and making other important changes in criminal justice laws.
Legislatures in Alabama and Maryland last month passed laws that will shorten many prison terms, while the Massachusetts legislature is mulling a measure that would abolish mandatory minimum sentences.
The Alabama law reduces sentences for non-violent property and drug crimes, and was hailed by Gov. Robert Bentley (R) as “a significant step forward to address reform of Alabama’s criminal justice system.” The Maryland law allows courts in most cases to depart from mandatory minimum sentences, a practice favored by many judges. Gov. Larry Hogan (R), who had vetoed a more far-reaching bill, let it become law without his signature.
These new laws continue a trend that began several years ago, partly in response to prison overcrowding. Democrats and Republicans in 29 states have cooperated on legislation easing mandatory minimum sentences. In some states they’ve also increased use of parole and halfway houses and limited civil asset forfeiture. Colorado, Kentucky, New Mexico, and the District of Columbia have made it easier to obtain bail, which disproportionally burdens the poorest defendants.
On occasion the left-right alliance extends to the emotional issue of capital punishment. Staunchly conservative Nebraska last month became the 19th state to abolish the death penalty. Although Nebraska’s unicameral legislature is nominally non-partisan, a majority of legislators are Republicans. One of them, Colby Coash, said to the Economist: “We would have ended any other government programs that inefficient and costly a long time ago.”
The Nebraska legislature repealed the death penalty over the veto of Pete Ricketts, the Republican governor, who said it should be kept as a matter of public safety. He claimed, probably accurately, that a majority of Nebraskans agreed with him. According to the Gallup polling organization, six in 10 Americans favor the death penalty, a support level largely unchanged in the last 20 years. But states use it less and less. In addition to Nebraska, five states – Maryland, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey and New Mexico – have abolished the death penalty since 2007. Only seven states conducted executions in 2014.
The situation in California, where 850 inmates are on death row and no executions have occurred in nine years, frustrates those on both sides of the death penalty debate. Opponents of capital punishment have failed repeatedly in attempts to abolish it – voters last rejected such an attempt in 2012 by a 52-48 percent margin – while advocates worry that the death penalty has lost deterrent value because executions are so infrequent. Because of protracted appeals and the difficulty of finding drugs for lethal injection that can pass legal muster, California has executed only 13 persons since 1978. During that time another 101 persons have perished on death row, most of them from natural causes.
While capital punishment remains ideologically divisive in many states, there is growing consensus across the political spectrum that lengthy prison sentences for drug users and other non-violent offenders are of dubious value. Such sentences are particularly a concern in African American communities. Thirty-seven percent of those in state or federal prisons are non-Hispanic blacks, according to the Department of Justice. Blacks are six times as likely as whites to be imprisoned.
With more than 2.2 million inmates in federal and state prisons and county jails, the United States has the largest prison population of any developed country. But for much of the 20th century, U.S. imprisonment rates were comparable to the rest of the world, according to Michael Stoll, a UCLA professor of public policy. The U.S. prison population exploded in the 1970s, fueled by politicians who exploited public fear of crime by passing “two strikes” and “three strikes” laws to keep repeat offenders behind bars. Congress also encouraged longer incarcerations by giving states financial incentives to pass “truth-in-sentencing” laws requiring those convicted to serve at least 80 percent of their sentences. Most significantly, the federal government and many states replaced indeterminate sentences, in which judges could consider mitigating factors, with mandatory minimums that eliminate judicial discretion.
States began to have second thoughts, however, as overcrowded prisons required the building of expensive new facilities. The U.S. Supreme Court found in a 2011 case, Brown v. Plata, that inadequate health care in severely crowded California prisons was constitutionally impermissible. The decision forced the state to come up with a plan that released some prisoners and transferred thousands of others into county jails already bursting at the seams.
Longer prison sentences have at best a tenuous relationship to public safety. Crime rates rose in some states with longer sentences and fell in some states with shorter ones. A recent report by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University found that the effect on the crime rate of increased incarceration during the last 15 years “has been effectively zero.”
Starting in the late 1990s, falling crime rates made the public more receptive to prison reform. The reasons for the falloff are inconclusive, but the data is dramatic. Between 1994 and 2012 violent crime in the United States dropped from 713 per 100,000 persons to 387. The murder rate was more than halved. The homicide decline was especially notable in some of the nation’s largest cities: New York City murders fell from 2,397 in 1992 to 328 in 2014, while Los Angeles murders declined from 1,092 to 260.
The tidy narrative of bipartisanship on prison reform is that Republican legislators became alarmed by soaring prison costs while their Democratic counterparts responded to the damage being wreaked on minority communities by long imprisonments. This is a stereotypical view. Many Republicans as well as Democrats expressed humane concerns about the plight of minor offenders, especially substance abusers who received little help in prison. Members of both parties were troubled that rising prison costs impinged on funding for education.
Leadership on prison reform sometimes came from unlikely places. “South Carolina is usually the first of everything bad and last in everything good,” State Sen. Gerald Malloy (D) declared in 2010 after a Republican governor signed into law a prison-reform bill introduced by Malloy and passed by a GOP-controlled legislature. Not in this instance. The law reduced sentences for many crimes and cut South Carolina’s prison population so much that the state in February announced the closure of its second maximum-security prison in a year.
Other southern and border states followed suit. In 2011 Kentucky lessened penalties for drug crimes and steered users to rehabilitation programs. Georgia reformed its adult and juvenile prisons systems in 2012 and 2013, giving judges leeway in sentencing and increasing prison oversight. Mississippi passed a law in 2014 providing alternatives to prison for drug offenders.
The biggest falloffs in prison populations occurred in California, New Jersey and New York, states in which violent crime rates also declined more than the national average. According to The Sentencing Project, a Washington-based think tank, prison populations in both New York and New Jersey fell 26 percent from 2006 through 2012. California’s prison population declined 23 percent. Six other states – Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Michigan, Rhode Island and Vermont — posted double-digit reductions in prison populations during these years.
But it’s too early for reformers to engage in self-congratulation. Prison populations in many states remain higher than they were two decades ago when crime was rampant. The data on federal inmates — updated online weekly by the Federal Bureau of Prisons — is particularly instructive. As of June 11, there were 208,388 federal inmates, down slightly from a year ago but nearly nine times more than the 24,060 inmates that were in federal prisons in 1980 when this database began.
In most states, despite improvements, there are still limited resources for treating substance abusers and even less help for the mentally ill. A May report by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that “many jails across the country hold more mentally ill people than hospitals do.” The plight of the mentally ill is the topic for another essay; suffice here to say that it’s deeply entwined with criminal justice issues, including prison reform.
Under the headline, “Being Smart on Crime and Safety,” a new UCLA publication called Blueprint, edited by Jim Newton, former editorial page editor at the Los Angeles Times, sounded a clarion call for an enlightened approach to sentencing. “Policymakers are understandably skittish about being seen as coddling criminals,” Newton wrote, “but if the cost of sounding tough is a society that is less safe and more racially divided, then it seems like a high and foolish price to pay.”
-- By Lou Cannon
The DELAWARE Senate endorses HB 115, legislation that would allow transgender inmates in First State prisons to seek a name change based on their gender identity. It heads to Gov. Jack Markell (D), who is expected to sign it into law (NEWS JOURNAL [WILMINGTON]).
After a months-long campaign in which he turned to celebrities like Whoopi Goldberg and Lady Gaga to foster support, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) reached a deal with lawmakers last week on his proposal to change how Empire State colleges and universities handle campus sexual assault cases. The so-called “Enough is Enough” legislation, SB 5965, establishes a statewide standard for “affirmative consent,” defined as “knowing, voluntary and mutual decision among all participants to engage in sexual activity.” The law would apply to both public and private institutions.
Cuomo had made adopting new campus sexual assault policies one of his top agenda items for the year. Cuomo lauded the agreement in a message on Twitter, saying, “As Governor & as a father, proud that with #EnoughisEnough legislation, NY will be a national leader in fight against campus sexual assault.” The New York measure is based on similar legislation adopted earlier this year in California, which billed its law as “Yes Means Yes.”
Both are responses to growing scrutiny of how schools handle sexual assault claims, including intense criticism from many that schools do little to deter assaults, provide proper care for victims or adequately punish perpetrators.
Under the bill, which the Assembly and Senate each endorsed last Wednesday, the State Police will open a new unit designed to work with schools on sexual assault cases. The law will also require all campuses to distribute a so-called bill of rights to students that informs them not only of what does and does not constitute proper sexual behavior but also that they can report sexual assaults either to campus police or outside law enforcement. Students will also be granted immunity for drug or alcohol use, or other campus rules violations that might have occurred during the alleged incident. The measure cleared both chambers unanimously. (CAPITAL NEW YORK, NEW YORK TIMES, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, LEXISNEXIS STATE NET)
A Texas rebate program for electric vehicles is ending on June 26 – only about a year after it began. Not because state leaders think green rebates are a waste of money or threaten the free market. In fact, a House committee unanimously passed a plan to extend the EV incentives until 2023 and double the rebate for natural gas vehicles to $5,000. And many expected that plan to sail through the Legislature. But after the plan was attached to a bill in the Senate calling for $30 million to convert government vehicles to natural gas, House members balked and the plan died without a floor vote.
“This is good policy that became a victim of bad politics,” said Sen. Kirk Watson (D). “There was no controversy over the EV program. It was collateral damage – and it was ridiculous.” (DALLAS MORNING NEWS)
Tax increases generally aren’t welcomed by taxpayers anywhere in the country, deterring lawmakers from passing them. But there’s one category of taxes that gets increased pretty regularly: traveler taxes, levied on everything from hotel rooms and rental cars to restaurant meals. They were already approved this year in Georgia and Mississippi and are being discussed in Maine, Ohio and Rhode Island.
“I think a big part of it is tourists don’t vote [where they visit],” said Mandy Rafool, a tax policy analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures. “There’s a little more appetite for passing those types of taxes. You can make the case that tourists do put pressure on the infrastructure and that’s one way of making them pay for the resources they use.”
In his proposed budget for 2016, Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) has called for a reduction in state income taxes and other taxes on state residents, and an increase in sales taxes.
“Only Mainers pay income taxes. But tourists pay sales taxes on almost every purchase they make,” he said in a pamphlet outlining his proposal. “By modernizing the sales tax and lowering the income tax, while cutting spending, we ensure tourists pick up more of the tab.”
But Joseph Bates, vice president of research for the Global Business Travel Association, said traveler taxes penalize those who are boosting local economies, and the taxes are also deceptive.
“When you have a daily fee on a rental car or a resort tax, it’s absolutely not fair,” he said “These travelers ... are helping the local economy and paying local sales tax. These are hidden taxes, and in many cases they are not advertised up front.” (STATELINE.ORG)
The head of the Orlando-based group People United for Medical Marijuana announced a “massive, statewide paid petition effort” to get a constitutional amendment allowing medical pot on FLORIDA’s 2016 ballot. A medical pot amendment fell just three percentage points shy of the 60 percent voter support it needed for passage last year (TAMPA TRIBUNE, TAMPA BAY TIMES). * NEW JERSEY Democrats are backing a set of measures aimed at increasing voter registration and expanding voter access. The measures were prompted by new lows in voter turnout at recent elections in the state (PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER).
-- Compiled by KOREY CLARK
Speaking of presidential aspirants, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker took a little trip to Europe recently, ostensibly to try to make himself look more presidential by gaining some foreign policy cred. As Time magazine reports, Walker later tried to pump up his bona fides after the fact by telling a group of big money donors that British Prime Minister David Cameron had confided to him that he and many other world leaders question President Barack Obama’s leadership. One problem – a Cameron spokesperson said his boss uttered no such thing. Specifically, he said, “The Prime Minister did not say that and does not think that.” Oops! Bummer for Walker, who can’t even blame this one on a language barrier. Or can he? After all, Cameron definitely speaks English better than Walker does.
-- By RICH EHISEN
California Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. (D) reached a budget agreement with legislative leaders last week. Consistent with Brown’s May budget revision, the deal includes $1.9 billion in Rainy Day Fund savings, as required by Proposition 2; billions in debt payments; $14.3 billion for K-12 schools and community colleges; and a new Earned Income Tax Credit for the state’s poorest working families.
With the budget taken care of, the governor immediately moved on to other matters, announcing that he was calling two special sessions to fix how the state funds transportation and its core health program, Medi-Cal.
“This is a sound, well thought-out budget,” said Brown. “Yet, the work never ends and in the coming months we’ll have to manage our resources with the utmost prudence and find more adequate funding for our roads and health care programs.” (GOVERNOR’S PRESS OFFICE)
The NEW YORK Assembly and Senate each endorse SB 5965, which would create a statewide definition of what constitutes consensual sexual activity at Empire State public and private colleges and universities, and protocols for how those institutions handle sexual assault cases. It is now with Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), who is expected to sign it into law (CAPITALNEWYORK.COM)
TEXAS Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signs SB 11, which bars Lone Star State universities and colleges from banning guns on campuses or in dorms (TEXAS GOVERNOR’S OFFICE).
This article was written by senior business analyst, Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Johann Lohrmann, learn more about the author after below.
Your boss doesn't want to see all your research. But, if he asks you'd better be ready.
Information isn't research. Yes, research is informative. But, good research answers a particular need or problem.
There's a danger in conducting bad research. Research without a purpose gives you false information. You’ll base decisions on incorrect or irrelevant information. Part of the problem is that you won’t know your information is bad.
Imagine your next-door neighbor decides to add a new room addition to his new house. He’s a wing it kind of guy. He doesn't feel the need to follow a blueprint. What do you think the result will be? Do you think this will be a solid addition?
Here’s a formula for answering the “why” you’re conducting the research.
As a _____ I want to ____ by researching _____ so that I can _____.
As a business analyst I want to solve the marketing department’s best practices question by researching news articles, whitepapers, and current trends so that I can present a list of best practices to the marketing director.
See the breakdown of this formula in the Research With a Purpose worksheet.
Research by itself won’t help you. Your goal with research is to inform and to act on that information. Here's what you want to do in order to conduct solid and action-oriented research:
One way to do this is to map your solutions to the problem in a spreadsheet.
Problem
Research Findings
Actionable Solutions
Fill out the columns. You'll present the findings in the third column to your boss. Be patient. Don't worry if you don't find the solution the first time. Keep digging. Be persistent.
Johann Lohrmann is a senior business analyst for an international parking solutions company based in Atlanta, GA. His background includes creating digital and media strategies for startups and marketing teams, improving media related work processes, and developing marketing outreach programs for marketing agencies and their clients. He has a BA in Communications from Ashford University and a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt from Purdue University.
OHIO, MICHIGAN and the Canadian province of ONTARIO announce an agreement to reduce the amount of phosphorus entering Lake Erie’s western basin. Phosphorus is a key cause of algal blooms known to cause fish die-offs and other serious problems in the lake. Under the deal, the three governments agree to work toward a 40 percent reduction in phosphorus in runoff by 2025, with an interim goal of 20 percent by 2020. (CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER).
Talks over a $15 billion transportation package in WASHINGTON have been suspended because talks over the state’s operating budget haven’t been going well, two thirds of the way through a second special legislative session. Lawmakers are hopeful they’ll be able to resume negotiations if the budget situation improves (SEATTLE TIMES).
NEW MEXICO Gov. Susana Martinez (R) signed legislation last week that will increase tax incentives to investors, local high-tech businesses and corporations with headquarters in the state. Martinez said the legislation would help the state “compete for new jobs, new inventions and new businesses in the tech industry” (ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL). * Gov. Martinez also signed a $294 million infrastructure bill that will pave the way for about 1,000 construction projects to move forward in NEW MEXICO once bonds are sold to finance the projects (ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL).
ALASKA Gov. Bill Walker (I) signed a bill ending the state’s film and TV production tax credit program. The program was established in 2008 and has provided about $50 million in credits (ALASKA PUBLIC MEDIA).
FLORDIA Gov. Rick Scott (R) signed a $400 million package of tax cuts, including a 1.73 percent reduction in the 6.65 percent communications services tax charged on cell phone and cable TV services (TAMPA BAY TIMES).
The MICHIGAN House passed a package of bills (HBs 4605-4616) that would raise about $1 billion a year for transportation by shifting existing state funds, eliminating a tax credit for the working poor, and raising the tax on diesel fuel and some vehicle registration fees (DETROIT FREE PRESS, LEXISNEXIS STATE NET).
A Sacramento County Superior Court judge ruled that CALIFORNIA Gov. Jerry Brown (D) and state lawmakers acted illegally when they used $331 million from a state fund created to help distressed homeowners in order to balance the state budget (SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE).
After two months of discussion and debate, LOUISIANA lawmakers passed a $24 billion budget on the final day of the session. Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) said he would sign the fiscal package, which included a controversial tax credit known as the SAVE fund that will allow the governor and lawmakers to claim they passed a budget that didn’t include a net tax increase (ADVOCATE [BATON ROUGE]).
- Compiled by KOREY CLARK
The NEW YORK Senate approves AB 7060, legislation that would allow emergency access to medical marijuana for patients with illnesses like epilepsy. It moves to Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) for consideration (LEXISNEXIS STATE NET, USA TODAY). * Also in NEW YORK, the Assembly approves SB 1789, a bill that would require the medical certificate portion of death certificates to include a determination of whether the deceased suffered a sudden, unexpected death in epilepsy. It moves to Gov. Cuomo (LEXISNEXIS STATE NET).
Federal officials give conditional approval for PENNSYLVANIA, ARKANSAS and DELAWARE to take a greater role in their health benefits exchanges beginning in 2016. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services granted Pennsylvania and Delaware approval to run marketplaces for individual and small business coverage plans beginning in 2016, while Arkansas received conditional approval to run the small business marketplace in 2016 and the individual marketplace in 2017. The decision comes in advance of a highly anticipated ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court on the legality of federal subsidies for people enrolled in health care plans through federally-managed health benefits exchanges. In all, 37 states depend entirely or in part on exchanges of that design (KANSAS CITY STAR).
The MAINE Senate approves HB 310, which would require parents seeking a philosophical exemption to consult with a doctor and get a signed form in order to opt out of the required vaccines for school. The bill moves to Gov. Paul LePage (R) for consideration (BANGOR DAILY NEWS).
Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signs AB 60, which bars lawyers and law professionals from accepting advanced payment before applications for federal immigration relief under President Obama’s 2014 executive order become available (LEXISNEXIS STATE NET)).