Looking for Opportunity

Economic Trend Opportunity: Another Day, Another Hack (found at LA Times)
"Another day, another security breach. They'v almost become routine to many of us." "If you are online at all, you can assume you've been hacked."

Opportunity: The obvious opportunities are (1) selling security products to companies who of course don't want to get hacked and (2) selling a password keeper product for consumers to remember harder-to-hack passwords. However, this article provides a new perspective. The professor interviewed had his students do a risk assessment of themselves. Selling a risk assessment product for your data would be a good opportunity, much how people these days like to check their own credit score with an independent product.

Difficulty/Why Me: The easiest opportunities to exploit are selling security products to companies and selling a password keeper to consumers. The self risk-assessment product is moderately difficult to exploit because it would probably require providing some information to the system, which means that system might be hacked for your data. If it was packaged with a credit report as a dual self-assessment product it would be much easier to sell to customers. The professor is using this idea to teach his students important lessons, but I think its a great product to take outside the classroom.

Economic Trend Opportunity: Another Day, Another VR Announcement (found at WSJ)
There is so much media hype around the big companies (Google, Facebook, etc.) who are investing big amount to create the next big thing: Virtual Reality. 

Opportunity: We've been hearing about it and hearing about it, so when will these products finally come out? (at affordable prices at the mass-consumer scale) And once they do, who will win? The market leaders creates opportunity them it because of all the accessories and content that will need created to apply the VR technology to use. (Think Nintendo, Playstation and Xbox console wars) We just don't know if we should make that content for the Google platform, Oculus code, etc.
Difficulty/Why Me: This should not be difficult at all to exploit, there's a long-standing relationship of platform companies relying on other companies to make engaging content that keeps their product popular. I see the same opportunities everyone else does. The hardest part is waiting!


Regulatory Opportunity: "White Collar Overtime Exemption (found at Department of Labor)
On May 18, 2016, President Obama and Secretary Perez announced the publication of the Department of Labor’s final rule updating the overtime regulations: (1) Sets the standard salary level at the 40th percentile of earnings of full-time salaried workers in the lowest-wage Census Region, currently the South ($913 per week; $47,476 annually for a full-year worker); (2) Sets the total annual compensation requirement for highly compensated employees (HCE) subject to a minimal duties test to the annual equivalent of the 90th percentile of full-time salaried workers nationally ($134,004); and (3) Establishes a mechanism for automatically updating the salary and compensation levels every three years to maintain the levels at the above percentiles and to ensure that they continue to provide useful and effective tests for exemption. Additionally, the Final Rule amends the salary basis test to allow employers to use nondiscretionary bonuses and incentive payments (including commissions) to satisfy up to 10 percent of the new standard salary level. The effective date of the final rule is December 1, 2016.

Opportunity: Employment lawyers and Human resources consultants will be getting plenty of hours working with their clients to determine the steps to take to be in compliance. Corporations will be the prototypical customer. Most of the work will fall on the company's Human Resources department, but ultimately, HR will submit their proposed changes to legal counsel or outside consulting for final review before submitting it to the board for approval.

Difficulty/Why Me: I think any person already in a capacity for evaluating HR practices or compliance knows this change is going to generate a lot of work. It's been updated 36 other times since it was initially made a law in 1938 and we've had the heads up since 2014 that this change is on the horizon. It should be relatively easy to exploit since running the proposal by legal is a standard best practice for HR.

Regulatory Opportunity: Florida Senate passed bill for Competency-Based Education (read in Sun-Sentinel and reviewed on Florida Senate website)
Sets up a five-year pilot program starting in 2016-17 for Pinellas, Palm Beach, Lake and Seminole counties to let students advance through school if they can prove they've mastered lessons. (HB 1365)

Opportunity: Graduating early from high school and attending college before 18 carries with it a certain level of prestige in our society. I think this new program will create a lot of business for the tutoring companies. Parents of means will likely be the prototypical customers who pay to have their children's education supplemented by private tutoring ($) for the reward of an early graduation and a head-start in life.

Difficulty/Why Me: I grew up attending private school, so our parents were already encouraged by the school itself to pay for private tutoring especially for the SAT exams. Nearly all my classmates were enrolled in private tutoring and those who were not did not score as high, so not getting private tutoring held you back from success. Because I am familiar with this environment, I think this exactly the group that would pay to get their kids through school faster, especially because even one year less of private high school tuition could pretty much cover the costs of all that private tutoring. This is a moderately difficult opportunity to exploit because it is a pilot program. Getting the success and appeal of the program out there for parents to buy into require a successful marketing campaign.