|
About Z/Yen
History
Clients
People
Testimonials
Z/EALOUS
FAQ
Services
Strategy
Intelligence
Systems
SpecialiZm
Change management
Outsourcing
Sectors
Financial services
Technology
Not-for-Profit
Commercial
Public sector
Activities
GFCI
The London Accord
Events
On-line surveys
c
Products
Compliance workstation
Benchmarking
Investment games
PPRISM
PropheZy
VizZy
Knowledge
Books
Articles
Research &
Presentations
Press
Now & Z/Yen
Media coverage
Press releases
Z/Yen imagery
Fun
Photo gallery
Caption competition
Humour
ExtZy
Links
Reading list
Risk/Reward surfing
© The Z/Yen Group of Companies 2008
| |
|
Volume Four, Number Thirty six
"Zest for Enlightenment"
The Irregular Newsletter of Z/Yen Limited
July 2006 |
Z/Yen Takes Nothing For Granted
 Z/Yen, together with Cass Business School Centre for Charity Effectiveness, has
just completed a research study to trial PropheZy as an anomalous grant
detector. The study used grants from The New Opportunities Fund (now part
of the Big Lottery Fund) and City Parochial Foundation. Over 1800 grants
were included in the study.
Three post-hoc evaluation questions were used; all questions that can reasonably
be asked of any funded project and organisation:
♦ Did the funded work mostly achieve its objectives?
♦ With the benefit of hindsight, was it the right decision to have funded
that work?
♦ Did you fund that organisation again or would you recommend funding it
again?
The study proved that PropheZy demonstrated statistically significant
predictive capability on The New Opportunities Fund data but not on the City
Parochial Foundation data, indicating that these predictive techniques are
mostly applicable to relatively large, structured grant-makers such as
Government bodies and large philanthropic foundations.
The research has just been published in Strategic Change [15: (2006)]:
“Predicting the Effectiveness of Grant-Making”, by Ian Harris, Michael Mainelli,
Peter Grant, and Jenny Harrow.
For more information on this groundbreaking study, please contact Ian Harris
http://www.zyen.com/Press
Release/grant_making_bodies.htm
Financial Myopia versus Farsighted Investment
 People constantly complain that the financial community (“the City”) is too
short term, busy analysing day-to-day investment decisions with little thought
to the future. Au contraire! To counter the over-emphasis on the short
term, a group of investment managers formed the Enhanced Analytics Initiative to
promote long-term, extra-financial research –
www.enhanced-analytics.com.
The 16 members manage over $1trillion (sic) and are a powerful force for change.
The largest UK member, the Universities Superannuation Scheme, and Z/Yen’s own
Michael Mainelli, in his role as Mercers’ School Memorial Professor of Commerce
at Gresham College, have launched the Farsight Award, a “Man Booker Prize” for
the best single investment research report that looks to long-term issues such
as climate change, human capital, corporate governance or intellectual capital.
Sir Paul Judge will present The Farsight Award on 21 September at 18:00 in Cabot
Hall in the Docklands, London E14, preceding a lecture by Professor Werner
Seifert, ex CEO of Deutsche Börse on globalization. More information and
tickets (free) are available at
http://www.gresham.ac.uk/event.asp?PageId=45&EventId=480 (once you’ve
clicked through, see bottom of page to book).
Don’t Be Vague
As in 2005, the 2006 Z/Yen award for Operational Performance was presented to
Credit Suisse on June 21st at this year’s Thomson Extel Survey Awards, by the Rt
Hon William Hague MP on June 21st. Having been prepped by Jeremy Smith
and James Pitcher, William Hague excelled himself by himself by pronouncing
Z/Yen correctly. The 2006 round of Operational Performance Surveys are now
underway and three new banks have already signed up to take part this year.
The Z/Yen survey team has now increased to 10 with new associates, Martyn Howell
in London and Peter Cardosa in Asia.
|
Z/Yen Is The News
Devoted readers will know that
Z/Yen
loves making news, but being the news? Well, now Z/Yen can be an
RSS feed for your favourite newsreader - up-to-date Z/Yen news in
convenient, straight-to-your-desktop RSS format! By dragging and
dropping the RSS logo on the left hand side of the Z/Yen website into
your favourite RSS news reader (so far we know it works on Awasu,
NewsCrawler, FeedDemon, Thunderbird, RSS-News, EffNews and others), you
will receive updated news from Z/Yen, just as you already do from lesser
sources such as the Daily Mail, the Financial Times, the Wall Street
Journal or even the editor’s favourite, “The Snail Painting Annual”
(gotcha!).
If all this means nothing to you, another minor feeder service, the BBC,
explains all at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/rss/default.stm. We look
forward to readers’ stories of how their cornflakes were enhanced by
up-to-the-minute Z/Yinfo. |
Running Out of Steam
 The Z/Yen running team was again in action on two of the hottest days in June.
Jeremy Smith and Francesca Birch ran the British 10K and Jeremy (again), Giles
Wright and Ellie Rochford ran the JP Morgan Corporate Challenge in 32 degrees.
Next stop is the Great North Run for Jeremy and Francesca.
Steaming Out of Runs
 The annual Z/Yen and The Children’s Society cricket match took place on 21 June.
We came a good second this year, responding to the 112 runs set with a noble 97.
John Davies was our star player this year, with James Pitcher pitching in with a
surprising number of runs and good fielding plays. Ian Harris managed an
early top edge that went so high a reception committee of three met the
ice-covered ball when it returned and (this really is true) two of the three
caught the ball! George Wright once again provided copious amounts of beer
(courtesy of Youngs) and another fun evening was had by all concerned.
|
