A Birthday Resolution

It’s been a week since A Birthday Juxtaposition. In past years I would still be celebrating my birthday. But I’m older. I only celebrated for four days.

Anyway, the juxtaposition put Lady Gaga, ROI, and Generation Flux against one another in an epic (not really) mind map. Mind mapping is a good way to make sense of disconnected thoughts fighting for attention while you’re trying to focus.

I started with Gaga. March 28^th was her birthday so I used mine, the 29^th, to salute her. I explained her use of fame as a medium like painting or music. I confessed I love her.

Then I wrote on ROI. I am still working on the project to show exactly what impact our team is having on reducing financial leakage. I wrote a formula into which we could plug various measurements to deduce the definitive sum that would be ROI. It looks something like this:

L= T[I_s + L]

No, I won’t explain it. And yes, I do apologize to all the legitimate math people who will be offended by my abuse of their symbols.

Come, Gypsy, tell us how much we'll make

ROI models are a lot like fortune telling. Intuition, experience, and observation are the tools used to predict the future. And yet, like any forecast, an ROI (return on investment) model is subject to change.

Getting my husband to agree to anything is like getting legislation through Congress. So I presented an ROI model to Cuk when I wanted to convince him to support my PhD program.

I estimated how much the degree would cost in student loans ($4000/qtr), then I multiplied that over a conservative estimate of how long it would take (5 years). I then researched how much I could expect to earn after completing the PhD (80% more than 2006’s salary) and multiplied that over how long I would be working afterwards (30 years).

The purpose of an ROI model is to convince people that an idea’s payoff is worth the costs associated. Cuk agreed the investment was sound. I enrolled in Capella University’s curriculum for achievement of a PhD in Organizational Management in the fall of 2006.

Take a Chance

What I have learned about an ROI model since that initial attempt is that a complete model must include peripheral costs associated with potential interruptions. These are risks in the ROI model. These risks adjust figures and change the model, rendering it at best inaccurate and at worst a terrible misrepresentation of reality.

For example, the earnings piece of my PhD ROI model is affected by several factors that, in 2006, were unforeseen: 1) the economy tanked in 2008 and employers adjusted their pay grades downward because the market was flooded with talent and 2) unemployed workers flooded universities pursuing degrees, creating a highly-educated talent pool.

See the Unforeseen

Other interruptions include cultural and personal change. For example, from 2008 until 2011, in resounding chorus, workers sang, “just be glad you have a job!”