Maybe it’s one of those serendipitous crossings on a calendar, but it’s interesting to see the results of the Consumer Debt Stress Index for January popping up in my e-mail box about the same time as a sweeping credit-card reform law takes effect.

The debt stress index is based on a rolling three-month national survey conducted by economists at Ohio State University. Started in January 2006, it asks consumers to talk about how much stress they’re feeling because of household debt.

According to the recent announcement, consumers were feeling a little better in January than they did at year’s end. The index fell from 119.8 in December to 117.4. The initial survey, in January 2006, sets the baseline.

That doesn’t sound like a lot, but think about what you might have been feeling in July when the index was at its peak of 155.3 — a statistical way of saying people felt more than 50 percent greater stress about household debt than they did in January 2006.

The survey tries to look at how debt-related stress affects family life, job performance and health.

Findings for January state that while the negative effects on family life and in the workplace have been stabilizing in recent months, about 23 percent of the respondents said their health was being affected to some degree by worries about paying bills. A year ago, only 20.6 percent of the respondents felt that way.

That number may improve further as card-carrying consumers begin to see the effects of the new credit-card rules.

It would be easy to get every bit as knee-jerky as the Rockettes at Radio City, complaining about government being on the backs of business. Take a look at some of the practices being reversed or limited, however, and the rules taking effect Monday aren’t at all bad.

For example, in the last few years, credit-card issues have adopted a practice called “universal default.” Credit-card issuers monitor their customers’ credit reports carefully. On the one hand, if your score is good, they’ll increase your credit limit without your asking. On the other, they want to know if they should worry about you going delinquent or defaulting.

Under “universal default,” the credit-card company claims the right to boost your interest rate if you’re late or in arrears even to an unrelated creditor, including your utilities.

The new rules don’t eliminate the practice, but they do require credit-card issuers to give you 45 days’ notice before imposing “universal default.” Under new “opt out” regulations, you can cancel the card in that situation and avoid paying the higher interest rate. And you have up to five years to pay off. There’s a lot less movement for due dates. Under the new rules, credit-card bill due dates must be at least 21 days after the bill is mailed or delivered, and absurd “delivery time” deadlines are ruled out.

At least one credit card in my past said payments received after 8 a.m. would be credited to my account on the next business day. If I paid early, that 8 a.m. deadline — and what business is opening mail at that time of morning, anyway? — bought the bank one more day at a higher balance for interest calculations. And if it was 8 a.m. on the due date, you were late.

Now, the deadline is 5 p.m. or later, and if the due date falls on a weekend or some other day the bank is closed, you wouldn’t be subject to late fees.

You’ll also see that one of the most insulting rules, “double-cycle billing,” is being wiped out. That was a practice that enabled banks to squeeze a few dollars out of their most responsible credit customers — the folks who paid their bill in full every month. Under double-cycle billing, banks were going back a month and charging interest, even though there was no balance carried over.

The new rules also take a big bite out of another credit-card profit category — over-limit fees.

When I first had credit cards, back in the late ’70s, transactions were verified by telephone. If you tried to charge something over the limit, the store clerk would primly say, “You’ve been declined” and that was it.

But for some reason (like we wouldn’t figure this out), issuers started letting customers slide over the line. Not only did they pick up money on the over-limit charge, they used that as a contractual reason to raise your interest rates.

The new rules now give the consumer the choice. You can opt in, and agree to pay over-limit fees. If you don’t accept, the credit-card company must tell the merchant to refuse any transaction when your card is maxed out.

Probably the best thing for all of us are some new rules requiring banks to explain how long it will take to pay off the balance if we make only the minimum monthly payment.

The new laws didn’t go as far as some folks would have liked. There’s no usury cap, which would set a ceiling on interest rates, and some issuers have already launched fees to get around the rules.

Those new fees include monthly inactivity, which some banks are trying to apply to people who’ve opted out to a change in terms and are no longer entitled to use the card.

[lubbok]

As more and more devices –- phones, netbooks and tablets –- come to the market, the demand for Wi-Fi-based connectivity is only going to rise. The question is, how much are you willing to pay for it? For despite its ubiquity, Wi-Fi is still an expensive proposition — especially while on the go. The other option, of course, is to get ad-supported free Wi-Fi access.

According to San Bruno, Calif.-based startup Devicescape, nearly 68 percent of 3,000 people surveyed said they’d watch ads in exchange for free Wi-Fi. About 16 percent, however, want nothing to do with ads and are happy to pay for their access. Nearly 25 percent said that they are willing to pay up to $3 an hour for Wi-Fi.






[gigaom]

We all know that young folks use the social Web for personal purposes, from keeping tabs on family members to sharing party pics with friends. And yes, as we reported more than a year ago, they even use the social Web - gasp! - while at their places of employment. But they're also using more tech for work-related tasks, including interacting with customers and vendors and forming or strengthening new and existing partnerships.

According to a 5,595-person, 13-country survey from tech consultancy Accenture, since this generation has grown up with daily doses of technology in one form or another, "They don't see bright lines between work
and personal, virtual and physical, sanctioned and prohibited. It's not, 'Would you approve this, boss?' but, 'Whatever gets the job done.'"

Millenials may not be completely aware of their company's IT policies, including those on social media use. For example, only 40 percent of U.S. citizens ages 14-27 know what their company's IT policy is. That percentage dips to 38 percent in the U.K., 36 percent in Australia and a laid-back 25 percent in France. And even if millenials are aware of these policies, many choose to ignore them and bypass restrictions.

IT managers often see these behaviors as weaknesses - loopholes that allow for security breaches and loss of productivity due to distractions and heavy multitasking. But they might also be allowing millenials to work smarter, not harder.

For example, more young people are using real-time communication methods such as IM, thus reducing the amount of time checking email and waiting for an asynchronous response. In fact, 10 percent of respondents said supervisors used SMS and chat to communicate with them, and 20 percent more said they wished their bosses would use these media more.

Web apps are also gaining favor in the young workplace. Around 75 percent of respondents said they used online collaboration tools and applications for work purposes; many of these millenials also thought that workplaces should be improving their use of emerging technologies. "Globally," states the report, "about one-half of millennials have accessed online collaborative tools, online applications and open-source technologies from free public websites when those technologies are not available at work or when the versions offered at work don't meet millennials' expectations."

Young people's expectations are also high when it comes to selecting their next employer. Not only did 37 percent of respondents say they want to see state-of-the-art technology being used in their prospective workplace; just as recruiters and hiring managers often snoop around search and social sites to investigate a potential hire's character, the millenial job-hunter will check up on prospective companies, peers and bosses, as well.

To hear some respondents explaining their attitudes and behaviors in their own words, check out this video from Accenture:

Although these attitudes and work styles can clash with older managers' expectations, they can also provide great benefits to a workplace and team. "Millennials are more intimate with technology than any previous generation," the report states. "Even high school interns can now add value. Companies that figure out how to tap younger workers' tech savvy and listen to their ideas in a productive way will likely enjoy an increasingly strong innovation-based competitive advantage.


"Listen and learn. Millenials are a resource to be tapped, not a problem to be solved.:

What do you think of these results? Do they line up with your experiences using tech in the workplace and the attitudes and behaviors of your colleagues? Let us know in the comments.

[readwriteweb]

They may not quite be grateful for advertising. But consumers realize it pays the bills for much of the content they enjoy -- and, for that matter, that it helps the economy to function. Those are among the significant findings of a newly released global survey by Nielsen, AdweekMedia's parent company.

Conducted in some 50 markets in March and April, the polling found 67 percent of respondents agreeing (including 14 percent agreeing "strongly") that "Advertising funds low-cost and free content on the Internet, TV, newspapers and other media." Likewise, 81 percent agreed (22 percent strongly) that "Advertising and sponsorship are important to fund sporting events, art exhibitions and cultural events." (Download the survey.)

More broadly, the survey found 71 percent of global respondents agreeing (13 percent strongly) that "Advertising contributes to growth of the economy." Sixty-eight percent agreed (16 percent strongly) that "Advertising stimulates competition, which leads to better products and lower prices."

Respondents also acknowledged that advertising is useful to them personally as they navigate the marketplace. For example, 67 percent agreed (14 percent strongly) that "By providing me with information, advertising allows me to make better consumer choices." Respondents even confessed to enjoying advertising, at least some of the time, with 66 percent agreeing (13 percent strongly) that "Advertising often gets my attention and is entertaining."

There was some regional variation in the incidence of agreement that advertising enables consumers to make better choices by providing them with information. Among respondents in Latin America, 82 percent subscribed to that statement, as did 72 percent of those in North America. In Europe, though, just 50 percent of respondents endorsed that view.

The survey also detected regional variation in the degree to which consumers trust various forms of advertising. TV advertising is a conspicuous example. On average, 62 percent of global respondents said they trust TV advertising at least "somewhat." But the figure ranged from 74 percent in Latin America down to 49 percent in Europe, with North America splitting the difference, at 61 percent.

[click to enlarge]

The regional pattern was similar when the survey measured trust in online advertising. Among respondents in Latin America, 53 percent said they trust that sort of advertising at least somewhat, as did 42 percent in North America and 36 percent in Europe. As for newspaper advertising, 75 percent in Latin America said they trust it at least somewhat, vs. 66 percent in North America and 50 percent in Europe.

The survey's global findings belied the notion that consumers trust advertising in traditional media more than ads in new media -- or vice versa. Brands' Web sites outscored other ad media in the numbers of respondents saying they trust them "completely" (13 percent) or "somewhat" (57 percent). On the other hand, text ads on mobile phones were at the very bottom of the trust rankings, with just 2 percent saying they trust these completely and 22 percent saying they trust them somewhat.

And there was a lackluster rating for "ads served in search-engine results," with 4 percent trusting these completely and 37 percent somewhat. Ratings for old media were closely bunched, with TV getting a typical rating for these of 8 percent "trust completely" and 53 percent "trust somewhat."

You'd expect the economic turmoil of the past year to have eroded consumer trust in markets and marketing. As such, there's a counterintuitive aspect to the findings that trust in advertising of all sorts of media was higher in the new survey than it was in a similar 2007 sounding. For instance, the proportion of respondents saying they trust brand Web sites at least somewhat rose from 60 percent in 2007 to 70 percent this time around. There was a particularly large gain for "ads before movies" -- from 38 percent then to 52 percent now -- which suggests that objections to such ads are fading as people become more accustomed to them.





[adweek]