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Weather Brings Retailers a GOLDEN Egg this Easter Weekend!

From Bill Kirk, Weather Trends International:

After three very disappointing Easter periods the past few years with record cold and snow, retailers are about to lay a golden egg this holiday weekend (the most important period in Q1).

The weather will be nothing short of exceptional with the NORTHEAST having the most ideal conditions – warmest and driest in 20+ years for the Easter weekend. The last time Easter weather was this ideal was in middle April 2006 when 1,543 record high temperatures were set across the country – this year is even better in the Northeast! In 2006, Easter weekend temperatures in the Northeast averaged 73°F, 2007 38°F, 2008 46°F, last year 57°F and this year near 80°F! This will result in strong double and even triple digit sales gains over last year for Spring seasonal items like Easter seasonal categories/candy, fans, garden items, grills, deck stains, car wash/wax, bug sprays, allergy medications, suncare, apparel, sandals, cold beer and beverages, outdoor BBQ grilling food categories, ice cream snacks and more.

Across the rest of the country the holiday weekend (Friday – Sunday) conditions are still favorable for the Eastern half of the U.S., but a bit colder/wetter in the West. Here’s the regional summary:

SOUTHEAST: Warmest in 4 years (average high temperatures 81°F) and 57% drier than last year.

SOUTH CENTRAL: Warmest in 4 years (average high temperatures 75°F) but on the damp side with the threat for widespread thunderstorms.

NORTH CENTRAL: Warmest in 4 years (average high temperatures 62F) with some rain South.

NORTH ROCKY MOUNTAINS: 11 degrees colder than last year but a little drier than last year – Sunday is the nicest day.

SOUTH ROCKY MOUNTAINS: Cold start but warmer finish by Sunday.

SOUTHWEST: Coldest in several years but a warm up by Sunday.

NORTHWEST: 6 degrees colder than last year and the wettest in 5 years so this is the least favorable region this weekend.

Nationally, the 5-week retail calendar March is on pace to be the warmest and driest in 3 years with the least snowfall in 20+ years (snowfall down 61% vs last year). Retailers are coming off the worst March ever last year when retail same-store-sales (SSS) were down 5.1% according to ICSC’s tally of retailers, so the combination of easy sales comparisons and exceptional Easter weather will bring a lot of golden eggs when retail sales are announced April 8^th! Expectations on Wall Street are +3.0% to +3.5% while WTI expects retail industry SSS gains to be much stronger at +4.5% to +6%. The 4^th straight better than expected month for retailers!

There's a market for anything!

Florida's special python hunting season has begun...which proves the point, economically speaking, that a market can be established for just about anything.

Click here for the full story.

If you want a good laugh from a snake story well told, click on his link at the bottom (r.e. his irrational view of snakes).

Say Goodbye to the McMansion

Times have changed, and the square footage of new American homes is dropping. Super-sized homes are out, and efficiency and versatility are in. MarketWatch's Amy Hoak reports on the latest building trends.

Who said economists aren't funny?

From the PBS News Hour...click here.

The Bullwhip Supply Chain is Beginning

Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal has a noteworthy front-page article about the “bullwhip” effect, as it is starting to play out in businesses as the economy recuperates. What’s the bullwhip effect? The WSJ article explains:

“This phenomenon occurs when companies significantly cut or add inventories. Economists call it a bullwhip because even small increases in demand can cause a big snap in the need for parts and materials further down the supply chain.”

For more details about “the bullwhip effect” — and what causes it — see the classic 1997 MIT Sloan Management Review article on the topic, “The Bullwhip Effect in Supply Chains.”

In that article, Hau L. Lee, V. Padmanabhan and Seungjin Whang argue that the bullwhip effect results from rational behavior by companies within the existing structure of supply chains. As a result, companies that want to mitigate the impact of the bullwhip effect need to think about modifying structures and processes within the supply chain – in order to change incentives. The authors explain four major causes of the bullwhip effect — as well as ways to counteract it.

Living beyond our means

The federal budget picture, including a quote from the CBO Director:
For more of the Director's comments, click here.
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Bus trip to "Pack Trials" planned

The January 29 deadline to register for a Greenhouse Grower’s trip to this year’s California Spring Trials (this used to be called the Pack Trials) is fast approaching.

An intense, educational and entertaining trip is planned to several of the key Spring Trial locations from April 10 -12, 2010. The trip is designed specifically for greenhouse growers and other floriculture professionals.

The trip itinerary is jam-packed; the days begin early and continue at a fast pace late into the evening. Attendees should plan to arrive on Friday, April 9 and will stay at a designated hotel near the San Jose Airport. The journey begins at 7 a.m. on Saturday, April 10, when the bus departs from the hotel. That first day, the group will visit Pacific Plug & Liner and Agrexco in Watsonville, followed by Syngenta Flowers and Goldsmith Seeds in Gilroy, Speedling in San Juan Batista (along with exhibitors HEM Genetics, GreeNex USA, Schoneveld Twello, Thomson and Morgan, MasterTag, and Plant Source International and finally ending the day at American Takii in Salinas, with an optional stop at Matsui Nursery. Participants will stay in Salinas on Saturday night.

On Sunday, April 11, the day will begin with a bus drive to San Luis Obispo, where the first stop will be Dummen USA. After a short drive to Arroyo Grande, the group will visit Greenheart Farms to celebrate their 30th anniversary. The last stop of the day will be in Santa Barbara where the participants will visit Jiffy Products along with their exhibitors Northern Innovators Inc., Skagit Gardens, Florist de Kwakel, and GGG-international.

Monday, April 12, will be a busy day beginning with the bus departing at 7 a.m. and driving to Carpinteria to visit PlantHaven, HIP Labels, and Westflowers. Following this stop, the group will arrive at Santa Paula to visit Ball Horticultural Co. along with Ball FloraPlant, Selecta First Class, PanAmerican Seed Co., and Kieft Seeds. Lunch will be hosted by Ball. In the afternoon, Green Fuse Botanicals will be visited along with GroLink in Oxnard. The last stop of the day will be in Somis, CA to visit Suntory. Participants will spend Monday night at a hotel in West Hollywood, CA. This hotel is conveniently located midway between the Los Angeles (LAX) airport and the Burbank Airport. There is a shuttle service and taxi service to both of these airports from the hotel.

This package trip includes the cost of first class hotel accommodations for four nights from April 9-12, bus transportation from the first day to on the last day, lunches for 3 days, and experienced guides. Participants need to arrange their own transportation into San Jose on April 9 and out of West Hollywood on April 12, and cover their own dinner costs. A travel agency is available to assist with plane reservations (go to the website listed below). The cost of the trip will be $450 per person in a double room or $720 per person for a single room. These rates are based on 47 participants and will be adjusted slightly if minimum capacity is not met. The trip is subject to change.

**Space is limited** Register by January 29, 2010 to reserve a seat on this trip. For on-line reservation, go to www.concepts.us.com and click on Event Registration at the bottom left of the site. Be sure to go to the site labeled: Greenhouse Growers Spring Trials 2010. If you have questions, contact Dr. Mark Bridgen at mpb27@cornell.edu or at 631-727-3595.

This group trip to the 2010 California Spring Pack Trials is a new, one-of-a-kind venture for growers! All greenhouse growers and floriculture professionals are invited to attend. It is an opportunity to meet fellow growers, breeders, and other plant company representatives to share ideas, update your understanding of what's happening in our industry, and travel with trained professionals.

The view from 30,000 feet

Click here to read my latest article published in GrowerTalks regarding the stage being set for 2010.

In the aftermath of the Great Recession

Today's column by Robert Samuelson emphasizes the role of trade and entrepreneurs in shaping the economic growth of the next decade. He specifically mentions florists as an example. See below.

One insistent question at the start of a new decade involves the lingering effects of the old: What scars will the Great Recession leave? We are already seeing some. Americans are moving less than at any time since World War II, reports demographer William Frey of the Brookings Institution. People are tied to existing homes, can't get loans for new ones and won't move without job commitments, Frey says. Only 1.6 percent of Americans are now moving across state lines, half the rate of a decade ago.

With a grim job market, the young also seem more cautious. A new survey by Fidelity Investments found that a quarter of workers ages 22 to 33 want to stay with their present employer until retirement; in 2008, that was only 14 percent. John Irons of the liberal Economic Policy Institute worries that many young Americans, lacking tuition funding, will delay or abandon attending college, lowering their long-term earning power.

So the Great Recession's nastiest scar could be an era of economic frustration, characterized by slower growth and contentious competition for scarce resources. Stunned by huge wealth losses in stocks and real estate, Americans save more and spend less. Businesses suffer from weak demand. Hiring remains sluggish. Worse, the slowdown coincides with an aging population, which could compound the effect. In 2020, the projected number of Americans 55 and older will reach almost 100 million, 29 percent of the total population. That's up from 59 million, or 21 percent, in 2000.

"Younger people . . . tend to be more innovative, more willing to take risks, more willing to do things differently," Stanford University economist Paul Romer says in an interview for the book "From Poverty to Prosperity" by Arnold Kling and Nick Schulz. As noted, today's turmoil could make even the young more risk-averse. Or older and middle-aged people could increasingly dominate corporate hierarchies and university research grants, as Romer worries. An aging society could become a stand-pat society, protective of the status quo and resistant to change.

Against this glum prospect, the standard rebuttal evokes history. The U.S. economy is amazingly resilient, the argument goes. It has been a consistent job creator: 21 million in the 1970s, 18 million in the 1980s, 17 million in the 1990s, 12 million in the past decade through 2007. (Lower gains reflect slower labor-force growth, not less dynamism.)

A "can-do" culture -- combining intense ambition with a flexibility to adapt and an instinct for innovation -- ensures that the economy will ultimately rebound strongly. The harsh recession may have actually improved the long-term outlook by purging high-cost firms and forcing efficiencies. Productivity (output per hour worked) has risen 4 percent in the past year. Profits are already up 21 percent from their low; surviving firms will soon expand.

Which vision will prevail?

The answer may hinge on two things: trade and entrepreneurship. Most economists see stronger exports as a substitute for weaker consumer spending. Unfortunately, that depends heavily on economic growth and trade policies abroad. By contrast, entrepreneurship is a sleeper issue that depends on what Americans do.

If you doubt its importance, consider this: All net job creation from 1980 to 2005 came from firms that were five years old or less, according to a study by economists John Haltiwanger of the University of Maryland and Ron Jarmin and Javier Miranda of the Census Bureau. In any one year, that may not be true; but over time, mature firms lose more jobs than they create. "It's not small firms but young firms that count," says economist Robert Litan of the Kauffman Foundation, which sponsored the study.

If Americans don't continue to create firms -- not just high-tech start-ups such as Facebook but construction companies, florists, restaurants, dry cleaners, engineering firms -- the economy may languish. Beginning a business is a risky, exhausting, chaotic process. Every year, there are roughly 500,000 to 600,000 company "births" and almost as many "deaths." Half of new firms don't make it to year five, says Litan.

Some harbingers of growth look unpromising. In 2009, disbursements by "venture capital" firms -- investors in start-ups -- to first-time recipients hit an all-time low since statistics were begun in 1995. True, VCs support only a tiny fraction of new firms, mostly high-tech start-ups. But "angel investors" -- friends and family of entrepreneurs who support many more -- have also suffered huge losses in stocks and homes. They, too, have less to invest.

There's a warning here for the Obama administration: Complex regulations or high taxes may discourage start-ups and job creation. As for broader questions, the answers may remain murky for years. Has the mix of economic trauma and aging made us prudent -- or merely fearful? Has economic resilience survived -- or given way to a stand-pat society?

Source: Click here

U.S. population over 308 million

From the WSJ -- As the first decade of the 21st century comes to a close, the Census Bureau projects that on Jan. 1, 2010, the total U.S. population will be 308,400,408. This would represent an increase of 2,606,181, or 0.9%, from New Year’s Day 2009. In January 2010, one birth is expected to occur every eight seconds in the United States and one death every 12 seconds. Meanwhile, net international migration is expected to add one person every 37 seconds to the U.S. population in January 2010. Combined with births and deaths, that means an increase in the total U.S. population of one person every 14 seconds. Close to the end of the new decade, in July 2019, the Census Bureau projects the U.S. head count will have risen to 338,190,000.

That's a lot of potential green industry consumers.

American Consumption and the New Normal

American consumer attitudes about how we think about and spend our hard-earned dollars are undergoing the biggest change since the end of the Great Depression and World War II. As in the 1940s, we now find ourselves in a moment of turbulence, confusion, and new beginnings. Heading into a new year and a new decade, we're starting to get an idea of what our "new normal" may look like for consumers. At the end of... more, click here

All you need to know about economics

Here's a reprint of an article that summarizes all you need to know about economics in 10 easy steps. They come courtesy of the best-selling introductory economics textbook by Gregory Mankiw of Harvard University.

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Economics is the study of how society manages its scarce resources, where ''scarce'' means there are fewer resources than we'd like to be able to use.

The first four of Mankiw's 10 principles concern the way people make decisions, and the first is: people face trade-offs. That is, to get one thing we like we usually have to give up another thing we like. Economics is about the trade-offs people - and societies - have to make, and about helping people improve the trade-offs they're making. One common trade-off society faces is between efficiency and equity. Efficiency in the allocation of resources means society getting the most it can from its scarce resources. Equity means the benefits from those resources are distributed fairly among the members of society. Often, the things we could do to make the cake bigger (efficiency) make the slices of the cake more unequal (equity) and vice versa.

The second principle is: the cost of something is what you give up to get it. That is, its ''opportunity cost''. Economics is about comparing the costs and benefits of alternative courses of action. The benefits of doing something or buying something are usually pretty obvious, but they need to be weighed against the costs involved to see whether option A is superior to other options. The cost of going to university full time is not the cost of accommodation and food (because you'd face those even if you didn't go to uni), nor even just the cost of the uni fees and textbooks. The biggest cost is the income you lose by not being able to work full-time - a classic opportunity cost.

Third, rational people think at the margin. Marginal changes are incremental adjustments to a plan of action. Say you're running a short course for 10 students at a total cost of $10,000 - that is, an average cost of $1000 per student. Now say an extra student wants to join the course. How much should you charge him - $1000? No. The first question is: what's the marginal cost of adding an extra student? It's probably quite small - say, $50 for the extra set of course notes. This means that any price you charge above the marginal cost of $50 will leave you ahead on the deal. But if you name a price that's too high and the student decides not to pay it, you're worse off to the extent that the amount he would have been willing to pay (marginal revenue) exceeded $50.

Fourth, people respond to incentives. Because people are assumed to make decisions by comparing costs and benefits, their choices may change when the costs and benefits change. If so, they're responding to incentives. When Cyclone Larry caused the price of bananas to skyrocket in 2006, most people ate fewer bananas and more apples and pears. They were responding to changed incentives.

The next three principles concern the way people interact. The fifth is: trade can make everyone better off. Trade between Australia and China is not like a sporting contest where one side wins and the other loses. Rather, trade makes both sides better off (though not necessarily equally better off), which is why it happens. Trade between countries is merely an extension of all the trade that goes on within countries between businesses and households.

Sixth, markets are usually a good way to organize economic activity. A market economy is ''an economy that allocated resources through the decentralized decisions of many firms and households as they interact in markets for goods and services''. The other main way to organize economic activity is to have central planners make all the decisions about what goods and services are produced, how many are produced, who does the producing and who gets to buy what's produced. It doesn't work.

Seventh, governments can sometimes improve market outcomes. Government intervention in markets may be justified in cases of ''market failure'' - ''a situation in which a market, left on its own, fails to allocate resources efficiently''. One common cause of market failure is the existence of an ''externality'', where a transaction between a buyer and a seller affects - whether favorably or unfavorably - the well-being of third parties. Another cause is ''market power,'' where one or a small group of firms is able to substantially influence market prices (and thus make profits well in excess of the opportunity cost of the capital they have put up and the risks they are taking).

The last three principles concern how the economy as a whole works. The eighth is: a country's standard of living depends on its ability to produce goods and services. The value of a country's production of goods and services during a period is measured by gross domestic product. A simple measure of its material standard of living is its GDP divided by the size of its population. Income per person is very much higher in the developed countries than the developing countries. Why? Mainly because the rich countries have higher productivity - each hour of a worker's time produces more goods and services. Why? Because the rich countries' workers are better educated and trained (''human capital'') and have better equipment to work with (''physical capital'').

Ninth, prices rise when the government prints too much money. This proposition is usually true, but it doesn't apply when - as now in the United States and Britain - the demand for goods and services is falling far short of the available supply of goods and services.

Tenth, society faces a short-run trade-off between inflation and unemployment. Usually, the things governments do to reduce inflation have the effect of increasing unemployment and the things they do to reduce unemployment have the effect of increasing inflation. This relationship is known as the ''Phillips curve'' after the Kiwi who invented it, but in the long run the trade-off breaks down and if you push it too hard you can end up with high inflation and high unemployment. If you can get people's inflation expectations down, however, you can enjoy the best of both worlds.

If you've followed me this far you've passed the course. Your reward: look up the economics professor and stand-up comedian Yoram Bauman on YouTube and watch his send-up of these 10 principle

s.

Making Cents Word Cloud for 2009

Click on the word cloud below to enlarge.
Thank you for following Making Cents during 2009. Perhaps it was not the best year the Green Industry has ever seen, but it sure wasn't dull. Looking forward to sharing 2010 with you!

FYI -- try www.wordle.net to make your own word cloud -- a great marketing/navigational tool for your website.

ANLA webinar now online

Click here to watch the recording of my latest webinar sponsored by ANLA. Here is the webinar description:

Got Recovery?

In the aftermath of arguably the worst downturn in recent economic history, the economic climate continues to feel sluggish. Though we are in the midst of what the media refers to as a “jobless recovery,” many green industry firms continue to struggle to survive. In this webinar, Dr. Charlie Hall will provide an overview of where do we stand in terms of today’s economy, how far down the path of recovery are we, what is the near-term economic outlook for 2010, and more importantly, what do we do NOW to position ourselves for spring and beyond?

Not so normal "new normal"

Interesting commentary from Grant McCracken from his article entitled "Why Zmerican Consumers Will Spend Lavishly Again"
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The "new normal" — the idea that when income, credit and confidence return, Americans will not return to our free-spending ways — is an idea on the march, recruiting everyone from PIMCO CEO Mohamed El-Erian to Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke. It's spreading so fast it threatens to become the new orthodoxy.

I believe the argument is flawed. When Mike Duke says, "[P]eople are saving more, consuming less, and being more frugal and thoughtful in their purchases," he is right in the short term, but wrong in the long term. When income, credit, and confidence return, consumers will party like its 1999.

We've never had a good explanation for why consumers consume. So when they stop consuming, it's easy to think they will never start again. If pressed, we say consumption is about vanity, status, greed, cheap money and the consumers' own brand of irrational exuberance. Even in good times, we keep expecting consumers to come to their senses. In tough times, we think, but of course they will. A new normal is inevitable.

But it's wrong. As a classically trained anthropologist, I have spent many years doing ethnographic research in American homes. This represents hundreds and hundreds of hours of careful listening, two hours at a time. I know the American consumer as few do.

Let me introduce you to Susan Householder.* Here she is, standing in the entrance of her garage in a middle class suburb of Ridgefield, New York. She is surveying a mountain of stuff: bicycles, toboggans, a work bench, exercise equipment, canned goods, Christmas decorations, a picnic hamper, board games, lots of wrapping paper, several boxes of stem ware, and lots and lots of containers, contents unknown. There's so much stuff here, this ceased to be a garage a long time ago. It's now a storage locker, Susan's very own U-Store-It. (Cars are consigned to the drive way.) If we wanted a monument to all the spending Susan did in the 00s, this is it.

What created this mountain of stuff? Was it irrational exuberance and cheap money? It was not. This crowded garage springs from cultural motives. These things were not purchased to express vanity or pursue status. They were purchased to help Susan build a life.

Susan's been listening to Martha Stewart, so she now celebrates Christmas, Thanksgiving and birthdays with more formality, and yes, more stuff. Like everyone, she is cultivating new ideas of childhood for her kids and this requires another great wave of stuff. In the 18th century, the average American child had a wooden toy and an iron hoop. Susan's kids need many more things, including soccer boots, Karate outfits, paint kits, building blocks, skateboards, Xboxes, iPods, cell phones, and a ton of games and books.

Susan's biggest recent expenditure is the "great room" she and her husband installed a couple of years ago. Like millions of other Americans, Susan created one large, sumptuous room by combining her living room, dining room, and kitchen. It cost $45,000, a princely sum for this household, but it caused Susan not a flicker of remorse. After all, she has a new idea of entertainment. Susan had tired of being a "servant in my own home." When entertaining friends, she was forced to ferry food to and from the dining room, missing half the conversation, working as her own household staff. Now her guests sit at around the island in the great room, glass of wine in hand, looking on while Susan cooks brilliantly beneath halogen lighting. From 2005 to 2007, expenditures on interior renovation in American homes rose about 40 percent to $13 billion. Much of this was driven by Martha and the great room.

We could say this is irrational consumption, but actually it has a deeper, culture motive. Susan is fashioning her social life. To be sure, there is status seeking here. But there is also something richer and more cultural, as Susan works out new ideas of the "host," "guest" and "entertainment."

Susan has her eye on a purse by the designer Kate Spade. It's called the Cornelia Street Noel Blair and it costs $425. Susan has many purses, around 20 of them. So she doesn't need this bag...at all. This must be all about vanity, status and greed.

Not really. Susan loves this bag because it captures a concept of the person she thinks she might be becoming. Kate Spade has a positive genius for plucking new signals out of the noise of culture and turning them into something a woman can own, wear, and become. This is a luxury purchase in so far as it costs vastly more than a container needs to. But what makes it valuable for Susan is that it contains the idea of who she wants to be.

Right now Susan is hunkered down. She and her husband have scaled back expenditure. But this much is clear: The cultural motives of Susan's consumption have not changed. When circumstances allow, she will return to spending enthusiastically to fashion her children, her family, and herself. The "new normalists" missed one thing. Susan has real and substantial motives for spending. When income, credit, and confidence return, she's going to start spending again.

*Susan is a compilation of several consumers I have interviewed.

Click here for original post.

Grant McCracken holds a PhD from the University of Chicago in cultural anthropology. He is the author of Culture and Consumption, Culture and Consumption II, Plenitude, The Long Interview, Flock and Flow, and Transformation. He has been the director of the Institute of Contemporary Culture at the Royal Ontario Museum, a senior lecturer at the Harvard Business School, and a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge, and he is now a research affiliate at C3 at MIT. He has consulted widely in the corporate world, including the Coca-Cola Company, Diageo, IBM, IKEA, Chrysler, Kraft, and Kimberly Clark. He has served on marketing advisory boards for IBM and the Boston Beer Company. Basic Books will publish his new book, Chief Culture Officer, on December 1 this year.

MarketWatch for the Week Ahead

Getting better SLOWLY

The latest from Bill Conerly, www.ConerlyConsulting.com. Click on each graph below to enlarge.
Charts are in PDF at: http://www.ConerlyConsulting.com

Lean flow workshops scheduled

Another topic that I have worked into a number of presentations lately is the need for growers [when looking to reduce costs during the downturn] to implement a lean flow event at their operation. I am sure that you have seen the articles in the trade press citing various nurseries and greenhouse firms who have gone down that path, but I too can vouch for the fact that I have yet to talk to a single operation that has not benefited greatly from a lean flow analysis. In fact, most growers become lean flow disciples (of sorts) after seeing the results.

So a recent email blast by FlowVision caught my attention and I thought I share the learning opportunity with you. If you are interested in learning more about lean flow, check out these November workshop offerings by clicking here. No, I am not receiving a kick-back but I am a believer given all of the success stories I have heard. Here are some of the documented benefits:

Lead time reduction as high as 50%	Creation of working capital dollars	Floor-space reduction Greater than 50%
Productivity improvement From 20% to 50%	Less Stressful Peak Seasons	Shrink and dump reduction as high as 50%
Increased Growing Capacity as high as 25%	Defined and Predictable Processes	Highest ROI in Shortest time (4:1 to as high as 10:1)

Identify Your Employee's Hidden Talents

Today's Management Tip of the Day from Harvard Business was pretty good, so I thought I'd share:

In today's economy, finding external talent to fill your company's needs isn't always possible. Nor is it always necessary. By paying attention and asking the right questions, you will likely discover many hidden talents among your existing employees:

1. Turn a compliment into an interview. When congratulating an employee on a job well done, ask exactly what helped her succeed. By better understanding her process, you may uncover an unseen strength.
2. Ask why employees prefer certain tasks or projects. Preferences can be a view into someone's talents. An employee might enjoy a project because it involves a product she cares about or because it gave her a chance to design surveys. Knowing which will possibly uncover talents.
3. Inquire about dreams. Ask your employees what they would do if they had their career to do over again. Peoples' dreams often include an aspect of themselves they don't regularly share.