Regular Post: Useful Tools For Investors

Here at Covestor we are frequently being approached by companies who have valuable offerings for self-directed investors. As such we thought we would start a series of blog posts highlighting these.

We are not able to partner with all of these organizations and so hopefully these posts are of value in highlighting tools you may not be aware of. For full disclosure we are not compensated in any way for mentioning them (and are not offering direct endorsement).

Useful tools w/c 02/25/08:

• Portfolio123 - Quantitative Portfolio Modelling: Portfolio123 allows you to create, backtest and put into production quantitative strategies. You can screen stocks by applying your trading system to a model portfolio - avoiding the need to constantly monitor individual stocks.
• TickerHound - Question/Answering community: TickerHound.com provides a community built around questions and answers relating to the stock market. If you have a question about finance or investing, you can search through the questions that have been asked or put your issue directly to the community.
• Tickermine - Filtered consumer news: Tickermine generates stories on a daily basis about sales trends, consumer preferences and buying patterns which can help inform your stock selection and valuation.

Let us know if there are any websites you have been using, or even work for, that you think it would be valuable to share with the community and we will review for inclusion in this regular feature.

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Tired of tools talk?

Geez I’m tired of all this techy tools’ talk. A large portion of the e-learning industry has decided to become experts on DIY tools rather than experts on learning. Hundreds of the damn things are being showered upon us, discussed, and of course, mostly ignored and discarded. A huge amount of energy is being diverted towards techy tools, which are largely toys for the boys, the trainspotters of the e-learning industry.

There are many reasons for calling time on this stuff, but here are four for starters:

1. De-accelerating progress

If we devoted more time to actually delivery, rather than endless speculation about the means of delivery, we may accelerate progress. There’s definitely room for experts in this area, such as the excellent Jane Hart, but we don’t need to dominate discussion with tools talk. It’s mostly a diversion.

2. Distracts from mainstream tools

What’s worse is the fact that this obsession distracts many from looking at, and using, the tools that have already become de facto standards. Word, PowerPoint, Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, YouTube, iTUNES, Google Docs, Email, Messenger, Skype – these are tools with hundreds of millions of users. Remember, we’re in the stone-age technically in learning. We don’t even record lectures for Christ’s sake!

3. Tools need skills

Most tools offer only the 'promise of productivity' as they ignore the time taken to become proficient. While recommending this never-ending torrent of tools, few discuss the need to learn how to use them, the actual skills base and the distracting effect this can have on actual delivery. We’re like those people who’re always fiddling around with cameras, tripods and lenses, but never really get round to being a photographer.

4. Diminishes e-learning

Tool up by all means but don’t get obsessed or worse, addicted to techy tools. It makes us look like learning geeks, and places us in a dark corner where we’re more likely to be by-passed and ignored.

Let’s get back to the business of learning, the psychology of learning, performance, change management and the real business issues in education and training, before we bore everyone to death with these ‘tools of a tired trade’. Turning e-learning into a giant B&Q or Wal-Mart is to caricature the industry.

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