Yesterday we made it out to Gastonia, N.C to meet with 3-time Cup Champion David Pearson and make for certain that there wasn’t any issues with the seat we had for him. The seat had been mounted in the car and equipped with Mitigator to help against the vibrations and impacts that come with racing at Bristol Motor Speedway. Only small changes were needed to the seats location. The steering column is a little closer to him then he would like. So we need to make a few small adjustments to make him as comfortable in the car as possible. Otherwise the car is pretty well ready for the SCOTT’s EZ Seed Showdown on march 20th. Pearson will be piloting the Mitigator Ford Fusion against NASCAR greats like Cale Yarborough, Harry Gant, Jack Ingram, Dave Marcis, and Tommy Houston to just name a few. The action kicks off March 20th at 5:30 on ESPN. Make sure you tune in and root on David Pearson in the Mitigator Ford Fusion!
by Acura Tustin, CA, March 10, 2010 – DCH Tustin Acura Sales Consultant Sean Lee was recently honored by the Acura division of American Honda Motor Co., Inc., for achieving Gold Level status in the 2009 Council of Sales Excellence recognition program. In addition, Kalolo Toafa and Wolos Safi of the same dealership were awarded Silver Level status. These prestigious designations are bestowed only on Acura Sales Consultants who exemplifies professionalism in all aspects of their sales performance. The Acura Council of Sales Excellence program is an annual effort to promote the development of Sales Consultants throughout Acura dealerships nationwide. The program recognizes Sales Consultants who excel at enhancing the client buying experience. Sales volume, client satisfaction, and professional knowledge are the program measures used to judge Sales Consultants’ ability to best serve their Acura clients. The 2009 Gold and Silver Level members exceeded their given objectives in all three categories and serve as tested leaders at their dealerships. This is the fifth year Sean Lee has been named a Gold member of the council of Sales Excellence. He was one of the 189 out of nearly 2,000 Acura Sales Consultants to achieve Gold level membership in 2009. Sean Lee has been a part of the sales staff at DCH Tustin Acura in Tustin, CA for nine years. “Sean and his teammates Kalolo and Wolos have earned many repeat and referral business from their current clients because of their courteous and professional services. Many of them have become their trusted friends who would not buy cars from anyone else,” said Dick Hsu, General Manager of DCH Tustin Acura. The dealership itself is a repeat winner of Dealer of Excellence from J.D. Power, and Dealership of Distinction from the Acura franchise.
Just finished reading an AP article written by Elliot Spagat about the Toyota Prius that James Sikes claimed had suffered from unintended acceleration on a California highway. It was an interesting read to say the least!
According to the report investigators from Toyota and the federal government could not replicate the problem. Also reported was that the back up system that is supposed to return the engine to idle speed when the brake and gas pedals are pressed at the same time worked as designed.
Wonder how Sikes could drive with the gas and brake pedals depressed and hit over 90 miles an hour with the engine at idle speeds? Seems kind of fishy to me!
Another interesting item in the article was not that the front brake pads had been worn away, but looked like they had worn away from being appied intermittently. Would it have taken Mr. Sikes 20 minutes of highway driving and intermittent brake application to wear out the front brakes? Sounds plausible to me. Once the trooper showed up he put the car in neutral and shut the engine off. Yep, it took a whole 20 minutes to do something the 911 operator told him to do 20 minutes earlier. IMHO this guy was out to capitalize on Toyota’s recall and planned the entire event.
If you have time to do some additional research on the web you might come across a story about Mr. James Sikes is behind on payments to Toyota for the lease of his Prius. I don’t know if these stories are true or not, or if they are the same gentleman, but if they are, they open up a whole new can of worms. Did Mr. Sikes want to get out from under the lease payments by staging the runaway Prius event? Who really knows what the truth is except Mr. Sikes. If he did stage this event he should be prosecuted to the maximum extent provided by the law. Endangering other drivers and the trooper that responded to his call is not something to be taken lightly. I only hope that this was not a publicity stunt, but have my doubts.
The first winner in this year’s Porsche Mobil1 Supercup is René Rast from Germany. Competing for Al Faisal Lechner Racing, the vice-champion of 2009 claimed honours in a fiercely-contested season-opener with the new 911 GT3 Cup, and was handed the winner’s trophy from Dr. Wolfgang Porsche, Chairman of the Supervisory Board at Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG. Stefan Rosina (Lechner Racing) from Slovakia was awarded the trophy for second place by Wolfgang Dürheimer, Porsche Member of the Executive Board for Research and Development. Third place went to Jan Seyffarth (Germany) driving for VELTINS MRS Racing.
On the Bahrain International Circuit, pole-sitter René Rast edged clear of the field and controlled the race to the flag. Behind him, Stefan Rosina won the start sprint over Britain’s Nicholas Tandy (Konrad Motorsport) and caught the front-runner in the final laps to put him under pressure. Jan Seyffarth put in a spirited drive over many laps in a duel with the Dutch title defender Jeroen Bleekemolen (Al Faisal Lechner Racing), and after overtaking the double Supercup champion in a breathtaking manoeuvre Seyffarth then proceeded to pass the Supercup newcomer Nicholas Tandy.
With the 911 GT3 Cup fielded by SANITEC/GILTRAP Racing, Christian Engelhart (Germany) occupied sixth place behind Nicholas Tandy and Jeroen Bleekemolen. Driving for the new Abu Dhabi by tolimit squad, Sascha Maassen (Germany), who has won many long distance races as Porsche works driver, saw the flag in seventh. The Porsche specialist’s younger teammate Sean Edwards from Great Britain followed him over the finish line in eighth. Rounding of the top ten was Supercup winner of 2005, Alessandro Zampedri from Italy competing for Lechner Racing, and Robert Lukas (V Racing Team) from Poland.
Drivers’ comments
René Rast (winner): “I’m naturally very happy to win the season-opener. I got away very well at the start and could pull away somewhat in the first two laps. Towards the end things got tight again because I had several problems with the car. We’ll have to do something about this before tomorrow’s race, but we’re making good strides.”
Stefan Rosina (second): “Second place is a great success that the team deserves. We worked very hard for this having tested a great deal and heading into the season very well prepared. I hope this start gives us even more motivation for a successful year.”
Jan Seyffarth (third): “My start wasn’t too bad, but I still lost a position. Nevertheless, I managed to achieve third place and I’m very pleased with this result. I had a similar duel with Jeroen Bleekemolen here two years ago when I didn’t manage to pass him, this time it worked. I hope that’s a good omen for Sunday.”
Statistics
Race result
1. René Rast (GER), Al Faisal Lechner Racing, 25:52.419 minutes
2. Stefan Rosina (SVK), Lechner Racing, + 0.331 seconds
3. Jan Seyffarth (GER), VELTINS MRS Racing, + 2.536
4. Nicholas Tandy (GBR), Konrad Motorsport, + 4.623
5. Jeroen Bleekemolen (NED), Al Faisal Lechner Racing, + 7.788
6. Christian Engelhart (GER), SANITEC/GILTRAP Racing, + 12.089
Drivers’ classification after 1 of 10 rounds 1. René Rast (GER), 22 points
2. Stefan Rosina (SVK), 18
3. Jan Seyffarth (GER), 16
4. Nicholas Tandy (GBR), 14
5. Jeroen Bleekemolen (NED), 12
6. Christian Engelhart (GER), 10
Round 2 of the Porsche Mobil1 Supercup takes place on 14th March also as support to the Bahrain Grand Prix.
252 Ferry Porsche Prize Winners Honored at the Weissach Development Center
Stuttgart/Weissach. The Dr. Ing. h. c. F. Porsche AG, Stuttgart, and the Baden-Wurttemberg Ministry for Culture, Youth and Sport jointly honored the 252 Ferry Porsche Prize winners at the Weissach Development Center yesterday evening. This prize has been awarded to the best students graduating from high school with majors in mathematics and physics/technology at general and vocational high schools in Baden-
Wurttemberg since 2001. The objective of the Ferry Porsche Prize is to increase the attractiveness of mathematics and natural sciences and to fill future university students with enthusiasm for studying engineering.
Michael Macht, CEO of Porsche AG, emphasized the importance of education, knowledge and qualification in his talk to the young women and men who graduated high school in 2009. “The raw material of ‘knowledge’ is the thing that drives the German economy, keeps the companies based in Germany competitive internationally and consequently ensures the prosperity of our society. This is the reason why it is imperative that young people prepare for the challenges of professional life with the best qualifications possible.” Mr. Macht emphasized that the technological and scientific knowledge is especially in high demand on the job market today.
Baden-Wurttemberg’s Culture Minister, Prof. Dr. Marion Schick, corroborated the significance of sciences and technology for German companies. “I am especially pleased to be able to honor young people for their interest and performance in the area of mathematics and science. Ideas and inventions are very important for the future of our country. Innovative and motivating science and technology lessons in schools are an important prerequisite for ensuring that we also have sufficient engineers in our country in the future,” the Minister stated. The Ferry Porsche Prize is a positive example for the joint efforts of educational policy and the business world: “Schools and companies do not stand separately alongside one another, but instead approach one another,” Professor Schick emphasized.
The Ferry Porsche Prize is named after the founder of Porsche Sports Cars, who died in 1998. Dr. Wolfgang Porsche, youngest son of Ferry Porsche and Chairman of the Supervisory Board, again congratulated the prize winners personally this year. In his speech, he appealed to the high school graduates: “We need young people who are willing to study engineering, so that we in Germany are also able to build internationally competitive cars in the future. And by “we” I do not mean Porsche alone, but instead the entire German automotive industry, including the innovative, small and medium-sized component supplier companies.”
The highlight of the ceremony in Weissach was the raffling of five scholarships for internships abroad. The lucky winners are: Susanne Hirsch (Erasmus Widmann Gymnasium, Schwäbisch Hall), Lara Angelika Gayer (Königin-Katharina-Stift, Stuttgart), Tamara Buck (Gymnasium Ebingen, Albstadt), Maximilian Ruhland (Kurfürst-Friedrich-Gymnasium, Heidelberg), Marcel Menner (Jörg-Zürn-Gewerbeschule, Überlingen) und Daniel Möhrle (Kreisgymnasium, Riedlingen). They have the chance in the summer of 2010 to complete a four-week internship at a sales subsidiary of Porsche in a foreign country.
Renato has posted another rare and interesting Porsche living in Brazil. This one is a 993 GT2 that was heavily modified for track use. The body has been lightened to 2,646 lbs and the twin turbo flat 6 has been increased to 3.8 liters and is putting out 669 hp. I’ll bet this thing is a hand full to drive.
To see more pictures and a couple of videos please visit: Garagen do Bellote
At this point, those of us with any knowledge at all of social media probably agree that it’s not going away. Therefore, ignoring social media is not sensible option. So for prudent insurers, the focus must be on how to make use of the information vortex swelling from social media networks. For now, it’s just a really loud, mixed conversation—a bit like standing in the middle of a large, outdoor concert crowd. How can insurers sort the wheat from the chaff in the cloud of noise resounding from social networks?
Early examples of insurers’ attempts to “listen” to the crowd appear to be haphazard, if not accidental. In 2009, a Canadian woman was denied future disability payments after her insurer found evidence on Facebook contradicting her disability. We will probably see more and more examples of insurers using information found on social media sites in claims investigations, and those that are dishonest will either find life harder or get more innovative.
Indeed, claims investigations and even underwriting, which are both information-collecting exercises will likely find valuable uses for information volunteered by individuals on the Web. Much like employers now do informal background checks on potential employees by looking at their social media profiles, insurers can be expected to do the same sort of reconnaissance on their current and potential and insureds. But will social medial information only be useful on an individual, case-by-case basis? Can we learn more about the crowd too?
Learning from the Crowd Today
The price of an insurance product (often referred to as the “premium”) is the result of many things. It reflects market conditions, the insurer’s expense scale, profit expectation, and information about the target market of insureds. The core part of the “information” component is based on the probability of outcomes. For a term life product, the probabilities are in the form of mortality rates, which are simply probabilities of death. For a health insurance product, morbidity rates reflecting the probability of illness or disability are used.
Conventionally, these probabilities have been determined by a combination of industry studies and the company’s own experience. Rates are developed based on patterns of outcomes. For example, by observing how many of their insureds have died year by year, a company can develop an idea of the future likelihood of death for various groups of insureds (males, females, smokers, nonsmokers, etc.). The higher the expected mortality rate, the higher the premium.
As you might have guessed, companies with the best information about their insureds make the best guesses about future outcomes, and consequently, price their premiums the most effectively. Good information is important not only to the financial success and solvency of the insurance company, but also necessary to provide sufficient benefits to claimants at a fair and competitive price.
Learning from the Crowd Tomorrow
A common joke describes an insurance company as a car: “the president is driving, marketing has its foot on the gas, underwriting has its foot on the brakes, and the actuary is looking out the rear view mirror screaming directions.”
While we’ll never be able to tell the future, we can try to tilt the rear view mirror closer to the present. This is where social media will be helpful. In fact auto insurers are just beginning to tilt their rear view mirrors by using crowd-listening tools like Telematics, a technology that allows the insurer to harvest valuable information about driving habits as well as provide customers with additional services on-the-go.
It’s not unreasonable to imagine a day when macro studies of human online social behavior might aid insurers in their quest for the best probabilities available. Social media profiles and interaction patterns among people online will provide an unprecedented view of human behavior at both low and high levels.
The “market information” component I mentioned above can also be augmented by social media information. Imagine if Company ABC notices that the customers of Company XYZ, ABC’s key competitor, are not very happy about some product feature or level of customer services. (People can be very vocal online if things aren’t going their way.) Services like Twitter make it possible to broadcast rants quickly and cheaply. ABC would be able to adjust their marketing efforts to capitalize on the opportunity.
It will be interesting to see if—or rather how quickly—insurers are able to glean information from the crowd that can be used to more effectively price insurance products and aid competitive strategies. It’s a data mining exercise of finding patterns and connecting the dots. For better or worse, technology will eventually arrive that makes the dot connecting easy, though it’s a seemingly impossible task today. A company called Narus is already working on an technology that will aid government in catching criminals who are operating anonymously online. It’s conceivable that the same technology could be used to data mine social networks for insurance and other intelligence uses.
From the Customer’s View
If you’re not an insurance company, but rather the customer of one, this may seem unsettling. The idea that insurance companies are “spying” on you is not comforting. I have two main thoughts to offer on this. First, more consumer education is needed to make people aware of the consequences of broadcasting their lives online. Insurance is the least of your worries if you tell the world everything about yourself. Second, the era we’re entering will not only shed more light on your behavior as a customer but also that of insurance companies.
Web 2.0 is not a one-way mirror. Increased transparency will reward the most ethical companies and be punitive for those that that the public perceives as exploitative.
One thing is certain to me: as the public becomes more aware of the economic consequences of publicizing their lives, habits will change. And this is by no means a bad thing. Much like people are incentivized today to adopt healthier life styles to qualify for more affordable health or life insurance, the Web 2.0 era could accelerate this even more.
For example, people who frequently discuss their exercise habits online can be expected to have better health than those that talk about eating cookies. People that like to update public social media sites while on vacation are probably more likely to be robbed.
By putting more of an economic spotlight on people’s behaviors, they may find more reason to change bad habits.
Insurance is very much a social necessity, and is arguably as old as humanity. Before we fully judge the era we’re entering, we should ask the question: is too much information a bad thing? Yes, it’s a loaded question and depends entirely on context, but with insurance, information can have powerful, positive effects: Companies are able to provide fairer, higher quality, more customized products and consumers are better informed on the choices.
Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cosmosfan/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
At this point, those of us with any knowledge at all of social media probably agree that it’s not going away. Therefore, ignoring social media is not sensible option. So for prudent insurers, the focus must be on how to make use of the information vortex swelling from social media networks. For now, it’s just a really loud, mixed conversation—a bit like standing in the middle of a large, outdoor concert crowd. How can insurers sort the wheat from the chaff in the cloud of noise resounding from social networks?