Michael and Ian Win Gold! or Gold for the Fish!
- Wednesday, 16 May 2012 10:24
- Published in The Irregular Newsletter of Z/Yen Group Ltd.
- Written by Now&ZYen
| Olympic fever is mounting in London and Z/Yen has been getting more into the Olympic Gold spirit than most. The Price of Fish, Michael and Ian’s latest book, has been awarded the Gold Medal in the Finance, Investment and Economics category of the 2012 Independent Publisher Book Awards. Conducted annually to honour the year's best independently published books, the IPPY awards recognize excellence in a broad range of subjects and reward authors and publishers who "take chances and break new ground." The IPPY Awards include 74 national, 22 regional, and five e-book categories. Medallists in this year’s awards were chosen from over 5,000 entries. Much like events at the Olympic games, each category has just one gold, one silver and one bronze medal winner. On learning that The Price of Fish had won gold, Now and Z/Yen is reliably informed that Michael and Ian looked as chuffed as little boys who’d won goldfish at the fair. |
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If by chance you are a Now and Z/Yen reader who has yet to read The Price of Fish, or if you now want to buy a copy for a friend, you can buy The Price of Fish here If you would like to order a specially dedicated and/or signed copy, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Follow the fortunes of The Price of Fish on Twitter |
In The Price of Fish Michael and Ian examine the world’s most abiding and wicked problems – sustainability, global warming, over-fishing, overpopulation, the pensions crisis - all of which are characterized by a set of messy, circular, aggressive and peculiarly long-term problems. Yet it is not that the circumstances that lead to such problems are too complex, but rather that our way of reading them is too simple. Too simple and often wrong. Just as physicists strive towards a unifying theory that makes sense of the universe as it actually is, Michael and Ian are taking steps towards understanding the knotty world we live in. It’s not a simple exercise in chess-players’ logic but an approach which addresses the complex, the cyclical, the hostile and the protracted – helping communities large and small to make better decisions. If we’re ever going to solve the unsolvable, the first steps start here. |
Mercers' and Z/Yen Finance and Business Day in the City
- Thursday, 26 April 2012 10:37
- Published in The Irregular Newsletter of Z/Yen Group Ltd.
- Written by Ben Morris
On Wednesday 7 March The Mercers’ Company and Z/Yen Group hosted a finance and business day in the City for 55 A-Level students from 10 schools across the Midlands and South East England. Almost all the students were studying either economics, business, science or a combination of all three.
The objective of the day was to introduce the students to some of the City’s institutions and activities. With that in mind, the day was planned around an investment game in the morning, followed by a visit to the Bank of England Museum and a tour of Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML).
Z/Yen has run its investment games for Prince Charles at St James’s Palace, The Home Office and every spring and summer during our river trips on the Lady Daphne with clients and associates. This time we were in the opulent surroundings of Mercers’ Hall and created two markets, A and B, with 6 investment teams in each made up of A level students from a mixture of schools.
From the off, collusion and rumour spreading were tactics adopted by all, with team members roaming the room each round to try to work out how the others were playing it. Michael’s introduction, which touched on “market sentiment” had hit home, and by round 4 two teams in market B had streaked ahead. The leading team managed to hold on to the top spot in the final round, after some epic agonising over what their final investment should be.
Short presentations from Michael and Mark Yeandle at Z/Yen were interspersed between rounds, including a talk on the history of the City of London, the role of global financial centres and London’s prospects for the future and ExtZy and trading.
Read more: Mercers' and Z/Yen Finance and Business Day in the City
The Road To Geneva
- Friday, 03 February 2012 10:23
- Published in The Irregular Newsletter of Z/Yen Group Ltd.
- Written by Now&ZYen
Towards the end of 2011 Z/Yen decided to strengthen its international presence by establishing a Swiss office in Geneva. Switzerland is not a new territory to Z/Yen – having worked with several Swiss-based clients over the years, mostly in the financial services and NGO sectors. The ideal choice for Z/Yen’s Swiss office, Geneva is:
- one of the top 15 global financial centres in the world according to GFCI 10,
- an international city with many UN Agencies, international NGOs and other International Organisations,
- home to Chiara von Gunten, who has returned to her home town (after 18 months in Z/Yen’s London office) to lead Z/Yen’s activities in Switzerland.
Michael and Ian joined Chiara in January where, after fondue and wine in the Old City, followed by mysterious, caption-competition fodder dodgy-looking extra-curricular activity after Chiara went home, …
…they nevertheless somehow managed to present themselves in good order the following morning at the Registry of Commerce in order to submit all required papers and legalise the signatures.
Smurfing, Surfing and Smoking
- Wednesday, 14 March 2012 09:36
- Published in The Irregular Newsletter of Z/Yen Group Ltd.
- Written by Now&ZYen
To paraphrase the Bard: “Glendower: I can call avatars from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them?” (Henry IV). If you’re feeling blue, don’t try calling Z/Yen’s avatars; they come in more natural tones. In 2011 we announced a technology research project with the Technology Strategy Board and the London Film Museum to produce avatars which would help people comprehend large, complex data sets. Our objective was to create artificial ‘personalities’ that would react to data and thus help orient real personalities (the likes of you and me). We thought our avatars project might help people navigate financial services, gambling, health or security datasets.
The avatar personalities were provided by Z/Yen’s predictive system, PropheZy The large, complex dataset came from trading patterns in our prediction market, ExtZy . The avatars have been successfully interacting with ExtZy players for several months. For those readers who have missed ExtZy since its early 2009 launch, you play free for significant prizes while Z/Yen gain a laboratory for work on exchanges and trading. Basically, have fun while being a paid lab rat.
CSFI report - Young people and financial services
- Tuesday, 10 January 2012 15:39
- Published in The Irregular Newsletter of Z/Yen Group Ltd.
- Written by Now&ZYen
One of the Long Finance questions we frequently pose is, "can a 20-year-old responsibly enter into a financial structure for his or her retirement?” Our friends at the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation (CSFI) are taking a daring, some might say foolhardy, step by actually asking 20 year olds (actually 18 to 25 year olds is the target range) what they think about financial services. While we recognize that not too many of our regulars meet that target demographic, we suspect that many of our readers have some influence over those who do, especially over the seasonal break.
Read more: CSFI report - Young people and financial services
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