communications

Our Digital Communications: 4th Anniversary

© Can Stock Photo / iqoncept

As we complete four years in the world of digital communications, it makes sense to take stock. What have we gotten done, where are we headed?

We began with three thoughts. We had the intent to be able to communicate at the speed of light when events demanded – sort of a civil defense system for times of stress. And we wanted to communicate with all of you each week about our current thinking on a wide variety of topics. Finally, make available a complete archive of our philosophy and strategies, for you to find and read on your schedule, available 24/7.

We worked out a way to deliver these things with a combination of three methods. Nobody needs to access all three, but we can reach more of you by being more places.

228Main.com hosts our blogs, nearly 400 already published, one or two new ones each week. Daily posts in social media offer additional features, plus links to the blog articles, comments about developments in our thinking, and weekly short videos. And weekly email newsletters provide links to the new blog posts and videos, along with schedule notes.

We love the way you forward emails or like or share our Facebook or Twitter posts. Some of your friends and relatives have gotten to know us this way, at their leisure, with no threat of us bothering them with unwanted approaches (as if we ever would!) The 21st century is a great place to live if you like to communicate.

We are working on consolidating selected blog posts into books, thinking about a YouTube channel to make our video library more searchable, and continuing to explore new ways to communicate.

21st century communications played a key role as we met the challenges of the last few years. But instead of being a pale substitute for the way we had done business before, we learned that more communication is just plain good for you and good for us.

If you would like to talk about this or anything else, please email us or call.

About Cathy and Me, and the Path Ahead

© Can Stock Photo / Geleol

Some of you have known me since childhood, or for a very long time. Others, we’ve met more recently. Not all of you know this story in full. But circumstances have made it pertinent to all.

It’s personal. But in my integrated life, personal things have business ramifications.

First, some history. In the eighth grade I was Charlie Brown to Cathy as the little red-haired girl – I was totally infatuated, but she didn’t even know my name. That changed the morning of the first day of freshman year in high school. Looking for my assigned locker, there she was: the magic of alphabetical order put Cathy Livingston’s locker right next to mine.

By the following 4th of July, when I was 15 and she almost was, our long romance began. We married four summers later, and built a life over the next four-plus decades.

Ten years ago Cathy developed troubling symptoms. Seven years ago she was diagnosed with four kinds of lung crud and pulmonary artery disease. These things are big trouble. Dr. Internet gave her 2-5 years to live; he didn’t know how tough she is. However, recently things became critical.

During an emergency admission to the Mayo Hospital ICU, the lung transplant evaluation team roared into action. After a seven day whirlwind of consultations with six kinds of specialists, they listed her for transplant with a very high priority, based on her dire condition.

With a commitment to communications via every means and an able, growing staff, I have been able to serve as caregiver these past several years AND take care of business. Cathy has gotten what she needed from me, and business adapted – it did not suffer. I have been able to work a full schedule, with the time flexibility afforded by 21st century communications and the best clients in the world.

You need to know what the path ahead looks like. For perhaps four months after transplant, I’ll be able to work much as I have in recent years. This means I need the scheduling flexibility we’ve already figured out. For those four months, I may not spend any time in the shop. Cathy will be my top priority, and the role of a transplant caregiver is quite demanding during this phase.

Thereafter, I’ll have more flexibility than I’ve had at any time in the past five years. With new lungs, Cathy will be able to walk on the beach again, and drive, and go to the store, and live with a lot more independence.

I still want to work to age 92. And the business is still the source of the health insurance and other resources to do what we need and want to do on the home front. I feel my obligations to you very deeply, and I will be there for you.

Clients, if you would like to talk about this or anything else, please email us or call.

Making Sense of the Data Flood

© Can Stock Photo / SergeyNivens

In the 21st century, information seems to be a thousand times more abundant than we could have dreamed of just a few decades ago. An insight into the olden days may be the best way to illustrate this.

When I first became qualified to work with investment securities, I would maintain a list of topics to research. It might be a specific company or an investment product, or some aspect of the economy. Day by day, new items would go on the list.

Every other week, I spent a morning in the library. Stock reports from S&P Marketscope and ValueLine were available there, in large binders. The financial newspapers and other reference works were available, too. I would chew through the items on my list all morning, then make telephone calls that afternoon and evening to report my findings.

No internet, no email, no cell phones.

Now, of course, we interact with economists and research analysts and portfolio managers in real time via webinars, Twitter, and conference calls. Research on thousands of companies is at our fingertips. Data and analysis subscriptions supplement the expert resources made available by LPL Financial and our other institutional partners.

Instead of writing research topics down in a notebook to be studied in the library days later, we often can respond to client inquiries almost instantly, and always quickly.

The key element in our approach is not the flood of information available. By itself, that flood would drown anybody. Instead, it is in the experience and knowledge we bring, in order to understand the narratives and themes lurking in the data. Context and perspective is vital.

When you have read thousands of pages of research, annual reports, and SEC filings, you develop an understanding of what is pertinent, and what may be disregarded. Greg Leibman, in his ninth year here, does a lot of the heavy lifting.

We are fortunate to be alive in this day and age, able to take advantage of the opportunities to operate more effectively on your behalf. Clients, if you would like to talk about this or anything else, please email us or call.

Everything’s Connected, Chapter 137

© Can Stock Photo / punpleng

The world is both numbers and ideas, math and language, money and art, computers and nature. A lot goes into connecting your money to your life and ambitions. We were reminded of this in learning about the life and work of Ada Lovelace.

The world’s first computer programmer was not working out of a garage in California in the 1970s—but like the computing pioneers of Silicon Valley, the 19th century thinker Ada Lovelace saw possibility where others didn’t.

Born in London, Lovelace’s education started at age four. She was a young adult when she began work with other early computing minds on an analytical computing machine: a giant engine that could process numbers mechanically.

Although their genius wasn’t recognized at the time, Lovelace’s notes about this machine have helped lift her from history: she was one of the first people to suggest that if a machine could process numbers, it could process other forms of information, like text and images and other symbols.

The insight that resonates with us is, math is “the language through which alone we can adequately express the great facts of the natural world.” Certainly arithmetic is key to working out the money ends of your goals.

We owe a lot to Ada Lovelace, her contemporaries, and succeeding generations of pioneers of the modern age. We are all beneficiaries of their breakthroughs, and wiser for understanding the philosophy behind their achievements.

Clients, if you would like to discuss this or anything else, please email us or call.

The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual.

  1. Ben Rabinovich, “Ada Lovelace Day 2018: When is it and who was Ada Lovelace?” The Daily Mail: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6256519/Ada-Lovelace-Day-2018-Ada-Lovelace.html
  1. Julia Markus, Lady Byron and Her Daughters: https://books.google.com/books?id=nOtwBgAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=ada%20lovelace%20education%20insanity&pg=PT131#v=onepage&q=translation&f=false.

 

Hello, Our Name Is 228Main.com

© Can Stock Photo / magann

A long time ago, we had a vision of what we wanted the business to be when it grew up. The kinds of things we do for you today are pretty much what we had in mind when we first got into business.

Naming the enterprise Leibman Financial Services was just good sense. That told who we are, and what we do. At first, there really was no ‘us,’ it was a one-man band. And people in the local market knew the name. When we moved to 228 Main Street in beautiful downtown Louisville, we started to grow a staff.

Then there were two people in shop, both named Leibman. My oldest brother Paul, a retired firefighter, helped me get the office ready for occupancy and became my first assistant. After that, my partner Cathy came in, and son Greg came in when Cathy retired. All named Leibman.

Now we have clients in twenty states. Many do business strictly from afar, by phone and email. Regardless of location, most of our clients receive most of their communications from us via http://www.228Main.com. Key members of our team have other last names.

As students of history, we do not seek change for the sake of change. Unchanging principles are a key part of what we are about. But we believe the name 228Main.com is a better reflection of the enterprise than Leibman Financial Services.

We are available 24/7 with a complete archive of our beliefs, principles, strategies, methods and aims. We put out daily commentary and features at the speed of light in various venues, available on your phones and screens at your convenience. We believe in the power of 21st century media to make us a straightforward source of better information on a more timely basis.

There are many ‘My Name’ Financial Services firms. There is only one 228Main.com.

Our top priority is the work we do with you and for you. Administrative tasks, if not pressing, are lower on the list. It will take us some time to fully convert to 228Main.com. We want you to be up on our plans.

Clients, if you would like to discuss this or anything else, please email us or call.

The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual.