Gun ownership rate by country

Against the backdrop of the horrific Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting the US Vice President Joe Biden has set down with the National Rifle Association saying "There has got to be some common ground, to not solve every problem, but diminish the probability" of future shootings.

New gun control recommendations include universal background checks, a national firearms registration database, and magazine round restrictions.

I was curious to find out just how many guns are held by civilians in the USA and gun ownership rate among Americans. Below is a table (courtesy of Wikipedia) presenting the top 6 countries based on the number of guns per capita.

It doesn’t surprise us the U.S. ranks first in this list – however, what is interesting is that the U.S. is almost half again the next two highest nations, Serbia and Yemen.

It should be noted that for some countries such as Yemen, this margin of error is considerable and it may rank anywhere between 2nd and 18^th. Switzerland anywhere between 2nd and16th.

Looking into a murky crystal ball - social media

I’m finding myself more and more using the murky crystal ball as a metaphor for trying to peek into the [foreseeable] future – to predict breakout social-media names that might pose some sort of a threat to Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram. I think for many, particular those who own and/or are responsible for managing the marketing over the social media.

I think what is becoming obvious is the threat to companies that don’t fully commit to using the better known social-media platform and holdout for the next next new thing.

It doesn’t matter if we are running a restaurant, a recruitment company, or a law firm; we have to become good at [using] the platforms our customers are using, our employees are using, and what other people in related sectors are using. For restaurants for example, I think Twitter is probably the best platform positioned to drive traffic to their website and other social channels.  It’s much more timely and good for current events and conversations.

Potential guests are broadcasting their thoughts and crowd-sourcing their dining decisions more than ever before. 
Paul Barron, founder and chief executive of the Miami-based DigitalCoCo agency, which produces the Restaurant Social Media Index says Twitter is getting better at verticals and can potentially become more real-time for restaurants, like chatter boards, feedback systems and maybe even reservations. So restaurant brands are still figuring out how to leverage Twitter to its fullest.

And according to BTC Revolutions, a social-media consultancy restaurateurs are looking at the ratio of followers they have on Twitter versus fans they have on Facebook and see Facebook as the stronger tool to reach their audience when, in most cases, the reality is there are more people ‘Talking About’ or mentioning their brand on Twitter that they can directly reach in real time than they can on Facebook.”



As an example, on Facebook a brand can only “tag” or reply back to someone who has come to the page and left a comment. However, the brand can search Twitter for comments and engage any Twitter poster that has mentioned the brand.

Twitter allows you to have a two-way conversation with anyone, not just those that reach out to you.

Money disorders

Now that Christmas is well and truly behind us for another year and the Amex Card bill not too far away in the mail; I was curious to know what Google search volumes are like for both “Money” and “Psychology” See below, the money trend is in red.

To my surprise there indeed is a correlation, a negative correlation in overall trends. Don’t forget this is just Google’s search volume index – not a deeper analysis of money and psychology, for which much has and can be said.

The other thing that caught my eye is the term “Money disorders” which is a persistent pattern of self-destructive and self-limiting financial behaviors. It seems these may result from distorted beliefs about money that we develop from our financial flashpoint experiences.

Financial flashpoints being painful, distressing, and/or dramatic life events associated with money that are so emotionally powerful, they leave an imprint that lasts into adulthood. Financial flashpoints become the foundation of our financial struggles.

And of course we know that money is the no. 1 reason for divorce in the early years of marriage and a common area of conflict for couples. Even before the recession, 3 out of 4 Americans identified money as the no. 1 source of stress in their lives. Financial strain has been found to reduce relationship satisfaction, worsen depression, and lead to emotional problems, health difficulties, and poor work performance.