Square, Inc. is a financial services, merchant services aggregat.docx

Square, Inc. is a financial services, merchant services
aggregator and mobile payment company based in San
Francisco, California. The company markets several software
and hardware payments products, including Square Register and
Square Reader, and has expanded into small business services
such as Square Capital, a financing program, and Square
Payroll. The company was founded in 2009 by Jack Dorsey and
Jim McKelvey and launched its first app and service in 2010.
• Square Register allows individuals and merchants in the
United States, Canada, and Japan to accept offline debit and
credit cards on their iOS or Android smartphone or tablet
computer. The application software("app") supports manually
entering the card details or swiping the card through the Square
Reader, a small plastic device that plugs into the audio jack of a
supported smartphone or tablet and reads the magnetic stripe.
On the iPad version of the Square Register app, the interface
resembles a traditional cash register.
Download and read the documents in Edgar.
– http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml
– And find the all files that are filed (especially S1)
• Find the information relevant to future sales.
• Construct the Pro‐forma income statement.
• Estimate future free cash flows for the next five years
(account for investments, change in working capital,
depreciation and taxes)
• Make a reasonable assumption about the growth rate of cash
flows until infinity.
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Information and society
Since the advent of easy access to the internet and the World
Wide Web, society has a different attitude towards information
and access to information. The technology changes – from slow
desk-tops with dial-up access to smartphones – have also
changed our interaction with information.
This is also an area in which generational differences show up.
Those of us born before the mid1980s or 1990s have followed
all of these changes and have had to adapt to it. For those born
in the 1990s (the millennials or digital natives), these methods
of getting information have always existed. The millenials have
seen some of the technology changes but don’t remember the
“old” way. Keep this in mind as you read these notes.
An information society
At the beginning of the semester we talked about the many
different ways we get information and the definitions of
information. Now we’re going to look more at how information
and information technologies have changed society.
Lester and Koehler talk about defining an information society in
economic sense. While this is important, I don’t think we need
to look at the percentage of our GNP to see that we do live in an
information society. Think of all the companies that are based
on information – computer technologies, web based businesses,
cell phone and technologies, GPS, etc. There are also jobs that
rely on information – customer service, stock markets, etc.
Our relationship with information also shows that we live in an

information society. The ability to have constant and almost
instant news (of any sort) from Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo!, or
any other internet or social networking sites. The ability to
easily have phone calls with several people at once, easily have
video phone calls, inexpensive calls around the world, are also
examples of the impact of information (and technologies) on our
lives.
I feel at a loss when the internet goes down at work. I can’t look
for information; I can’t find examples for my classes. Think of
what it is like for you when you can’t get to information you
want. Many people think that the next attack on the U.S. will be
technological to shut down the internet. Just think of all the
everyday things you wouldn’t be able to do anymore!
Access to information
Another indication of the influence of information on society is
the access to information. Not just web-based information, but
think of the access to television and movies on any number of
devices. I remember growing up that if you missed an episode
of a TV show you had to wait until summer reruns to see it.
Today you can watch the episode on your phone, tablet, or
computer very soon after it aired.
News travels so much faster than it ever did. News about the
Vietnam War took days to get to us on television; written mail
took longer. Now we can get news from the Middle East in just
minutes, if that long.
Because of this ease of access people expect to have instant
information. Even if it is just what kind of coffee a friend is
having. Since the book has been written the level of privacy,
especially for public figures, has become almost nonexistent.
Everyone has a cellphone camera to take pictures or videos of
people in “compromising” situations – think Michael Phelps and
the bong photo or political candidates saying something when

they don’t think the microphones were on. We have come to
expect this type of information.
Much of our own personal information is easily available
without needing to be a hacker. Search yourself or someone you
know on the internet; you’ll be surprised at what you find for
free. And, if you know how to work government information,
you can find even more. I worry about all of the multiple logons
from Facebook, Yahoo!, or Google. That provides people a lot
of information about me that I’m not sure I want them to have.
Digital divide
In the developed nations (U.S., Canada, Europe, many of the
Asian nations) information is widely and easily available. We
have the infrastructure and discretionary income to buy this
easy access. However, in the less developed and third-world
nations access to technology and information is not available to
everyone. This digital divide seems to be growing wider.
Examples of the divide can also be seen in ways in which
societies try to control information. For example, China tries to
censor much information within the country. They will block
access to websites (Google is a good example). Political parties
in charge in other countries will not allow opposing views to be
heard. Russia continues to be a good example of this.
People have been discussing this digital divide for the last 15
years or so; but there has not been any resolution as to ways to
overcome it or the impact on developing societies. There is even
a divide in the U.S. between the wealthy and the poor. Given
the economy I’m sure that some people have to make decisions
to cut information based “luxuries”.
Generations
At the beginning of these notes, I mentioned generational
differences. While the following discussion does have

generalizations, the basics have been shown to be accurate.
Digital natives – those born after about 1990 – have grown up
in a world with easy access to information via the internet and
WWW. For digital natives it seems to those of us from “older”
generations (GenX, Baby Boomers, Pre-WWII) that phones and
technologies are a physical part of them – always on and always
needing to know what everyone is doing. This Toyota
commercial gets to this in a way:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUGmcb3mhLM
The differences between generations can show up not just in
what technologies are adopted and when (bleeding edge versus
established), but it what they are used for. I see groups of young
people talking to each other and texting (to probably different
individuals) at the same time. Facebook or Twitter updates on
the phone. For “older” generations, the internet is a source of
information, used more and more for news, and to keep up with
family. The desire to be constantly connected isn’t “native” to
us because we grew up in ages in which technology was not a
constant in our lives.
Information needs and information seeking
This week we’ll talk about information seeking and information
needs. All of you have sought out information done this
although you may not have thought about it in a professional
manner. Or, if you thought about it, it may have been in the
context of doing school work or personal research on the web.
In actuality we are always seeking information; we may not
recognize the need or may not think of it as a need but we are
looking for information. Think about basic examples: weather,
movie times, hunger and what information will satisfy those
needs.
The theorists that Lester and Koehler discuss are explaining
information needs and seeking in very broad, theoretical terms.
There has been much research on the ideas of at least two of the
theorists, Brenda Dervin and Carol Kuhlthau. This work has
shown that Dervin’s and Kuhlthau’s basic models do describe

information seeking in particular settings. This research has
also examined how information seeking changes with needs and
how needs and seeking change as we get more information on
the specific topic.
Lester and Koehler also question whether we have instinctual
information needs or whether these information needs (shelter,
food, etc.) represent other more basic, primal needs. Can we say
that a wolf’s hunting is really an information need and seeking
behavior? Or is it “just” a need for food? Can these same
questions be asked of humans?
Why do you need this?
As an information professional it is your job to be aware of
information needs, getting people to be clear about their
information needs, and then helping the person find the correct
information. You also need to be aware of different types of
information seeking. This will apply in any job setting because
you’ll have a boss or someone who will ask you to do something
or find something. You will likely have to determine what it is
they really want or need. It is not uncommon for the actual need
to be something different from what is originally stated.
Here is an example. You’re working at the reference desk and a
young person comes up and says “I need stuff about suicide.”
You should be asking questions such as “what type of
information?” or “what do you need this for?” Now the trick is
to be sure to ask these questions in a way that won’t frighten
the person. If they are truly suicidal you don’t want them
walking away without some sort of resource. If they are
working on a paper you would probably ask what class it was
for, the requirements, etc. and then lead them to some different
resources.
You also need this for your own searching. Being aware of what
you need and different ways to look for it will help you find
more and sometimes better information. Here is an example. I’m
working on a research project about how people with

fibromyalgia get information about the syndrome on a social
networking site. I started with the library literature – nothing
that specific. Then I tried the allied health literatures (nursing,
social work, etc.) and again didn’t find anything specific to this
topic. Then I thought “Psychology. People with FMS may need
some counseling on how to deal with it.” So, I searched in the
psychology literature and there is was, a dissertation on this
exact topic that I can build upon.
Sometimes not finding information is a good thing. If you are
doing research or inventions you don’t want to find something
that is exactly what you’re doing. Sometimes though you need
to think of different terms to search – part of that
interdisciplinary thing again. I learned in psychology the term is
“health information seeking behavior”.
Organization of information
Lester and Koehler briefly talk about the organization of
libraries, databases, personal collections and their effect on
information seeking. When you think about it, everything is
organized in some way. Have you ever gone into a store where
items are intermingled on the racks? Gone to a bookstore where
books are piled on the floor?
To be effective at information seeking you should be aware how
the thing you are looking for is described and then organized
within that collection. The example Lester and Koehler use is a
video store (soon to be an obsolete reference). Typically these
are arranged by broad categories (drama, thriller, children, etc.)
and then by title. But what if it was organized by director or
producer? That would be very difficult for most people to use
and they would have to rely on some additional information
resource.
Organized information also allows people to find similar items
that they may not have known existed but are important to their
topic. When you go into the stacks of a library you probably

won’t find just one book on children’s psychology, there will be
nearby books on the shelves on the same topic. This allows the
user to find more information by browsing. To librarians, the
numbers on the spine of the book have meaning; some patrons
will figure them out, many will not.
Databases also have organization. There will be some sort of
thesaurus to indicate what the preferred term is. When you
search for the preferred term you will likely find more relevant
items. If you just do a keyword search, you’ll get everything
with those words. Both searches work, but one may be more
efficient than the other.
Next time you’re in a library or searching a database pay
attention to this. You’ll be surprised how much you know.
Precision/recall/relevance/pertinence
These can be difficult concepts to grasp, but you are probably
aware of them. You run into these ideas every time you do a
search on the internet. Google, Bing, Yahoo! and all other
search engines have different algorithms that they use to
determine where an item will come up on the results page. It
may be that a company paid to be the first listing or that it is
the most frequently linked site.
With Google you will get high recall (millions of hits), but
probably not very high precision/relevance/pertinence. The
information you need may be buried several pages into the
results and most of us will probably only look at what is on the
first, or maybe second page. Typically high recall means low
precision, relevance, or pertinence. For example, I have a friend
whose name is very similar to a movie star. When I Google her
name, I get millions of hits for the movie star; the story about
my friend is buried several pages in the Google results. But, if I
change how I search, for example excluding a part of the star’s

name, my precision improves.
Libraries and the databases they provide do have set means of
organizing information so that it can be found (Dewey Decimal
System for example) or thesauri of terms to look for items
(“Stupidity” instead of “Inefficiency, intellectual” – that is a
real example.) Keyword searching in these databases is much
like doing a Google search – you may have high recall but not
very many relevant results. If you use the correct search terms
you will, in theory, come up with a few, very relevant results.
In information seeking you may sometimes want high recall –
where to buy my textbook. Other times you may want something
very precise – the side effects of a new drug prescription. Other
times something pertinent - the dates of the Battle of
Gettysburg. Understanding the information need behind these
questions will help you determine the best way to seek the
information and know whether the results are what is needed.
Technology
Although we haven’t reached the discussion of technology, we
do need to talk about it briefly in relation to information
seeking and needs. Just 15 or 20 years ago we did not have
smart phones, Twitter, tablets, Facebook, etc. that kept us
connected to the internet all the time. Not too long ago, if I
wanted to know the weather I would have to read a paper, watch
the local news, or tune into the Weather Channel at the right
time to get my weather. Now, I can ask Siri on my iPhone what
today’s weather will be and “she” brings it right up.
Social networking and widespread access has also greatly
changed news reporting. I remember that I was on Twitter when
the news about Michael Jackson’s death started breaking. It was
an hour or more before the major news outlets even started
reporting it because they did not have enough confirmed sources
to go live with it. To them, TMZ wasn’t a reliable source. The
idea of what is a good resource and how many you need has
changed.

People also now think that everything is available on the
internet. Yes, a lot of information is there, but not everything.
Information on the internet does disappear; think of the broken
links you run into or 404 error messages. Once something is on
the internet it is unlikely that it will completely disappear.
That’s why one picture you regret posting can never really be
removed. The internet can make things hard to find, but the
information is probably out there somewhere. In information
seeking you need to balance the good and bad of what is on the
internet. Don’t overlook the analog technology – books,
magazines – that can be used with the internet connection goes
down or electricity goes off.
Information
Using information
I think the important point from chapter one is that information
is all around us and that we use it all the time, whether or not
we’re aware of that. I also think it is interesting to see how
much the technology has changed in just the last five years
since the book was published. Phones are much “smarter” than
they were in 2007, tablet computers are much more common,
etc. The time to get information is much faster now. Twitter,
Facebook, and other communication apps mean we learn about
things much faster than through the traditional media. This is
also changing how news reporting works.
So, thinking about the list of technologies on page 3, what is
obsolete to you? Some of this is very generation specific. For
example, those of us who are baby boomers (1946-64) probably
listen to the radio and watch more TV (on TV) than those of you
in your early 20s. Reading newspapers in print is also a very
rapidly dying form of information sharing.
Information is all around us. We also take it in using all of our
senses, whether we realize it or not. We also process of lot of

information in unconscious ways. We may be aware that it is
hot outside, but we don’t have to tell our bodies how to keep us
cool. Our brains process that information and “make it so.”
Lester and Koehler talk about the three main ways that we use
information. First is in decision making. This seems to be
obvious when you read it, but it may not be something that
you’ve thought about before. These decisions can be small,
what movie will I see tonight, or big, what car to buy or which
college to attend.
Next is resolving uncertainty. We may not always recognize
there is an uncertainty, but it is there. In this case we’re trying
to resolve that uncertainty. You need awareness of your need
and how to go about fulfilling that need. As they mention, we
make many of these decisions each day. Some require help from
other people or information professionals. The more uncertain
you are about a topic or the harder the information is to find the
higher the likelihood you will need to use an expert to help
resolve your uncertainty.
Third is influencing decisions. This can be as basic as talking
your friend into seeing the movie you want or as complicated as
trying to influence someone to vote for you. This is probably a
form of information that we’re aware of, particularly in election
years. However, a question to think about is how influential is
that information. If a Facebook friend posts something to vote
for a candidate is that really likely to change your mind? What
about a campaign ad? Influence doesn’t always have to be in
your face. It can be a movie trying to change your mind about
how to view the Viet Nam war. A song may influence you in
some way.
At the end of the first chapter they talk about “ownership” of
information. A question for discussion is can you really trade or
own information. Is our idea of ownership of information

changing with the World Wide Web?
What is information?
I don’t expect you to memorize the information models in the
textbook. Be aware that there are different types of information
models and discussions of how information moves.
Information is made up of smaller parts; for some these smaller
parts are data, for others they are symbols. Information itself
doesn’t come into being until we make sense of the data or
symbols. Information stored in data or symbols can change with
time. For example, the swastika didn’t mean much to people
until the Germans used it as a symbol of the Third Reich. Now
it carries information of “evil” to most people. The cave
paintings in France carried some sort of meaning to the people
who painted them. Now we’re not sure what they mean because
we don’t know how cave people communicated or thought about
the world. We add our current-day interpretation to these
paintings to see what information they hold.
Information is then transformed into some sort of knowledge. I
have 2 five dollar bills (data), I add them to get 10
(information), then I know how much money I have to spend.
Some people take this one step further – that knowledge can be
transformed into wisdom. We all have some sort of knowledge,
but do we all have wisdom?
We also need to be aware that information can, and does, exist
apart from the representation of that information. But can
information really exist without some sort of representation?
For example, I have the information that it is 78 degrees in my
office right now. But how do I know that without some sort of
representation of the information on my clock? I can’t put my
hands around 78 degrees, so that information is different than
the information in the textbook. I can hold the textbook, but am
I holding the information it contains, or is it in my head? If I
have it on my Nook, is the information the same? Can I hold the

representation of the 1s and 0s of the file? (See, this can get to
be really fun!)
Information can also degrade as it is transmitted; think of the
game “telephone”. As the sentence is passed on the information
being transmitted is changed. As I mentioned above,
information can change its meaning over time. If we can’t
understand the representation of information, does that mean
that the representation doesn’t carry any meaning or
information?
For those of us in information professions we have to be aware
of the many ways that information is transmitted. We may not
be interested in how information degrades during a phone call,
but we need to be aware of how information can change when
someone asks us for “Books about suicide”. Is the person
thinking about committing suicide, know someone who is, or
are they just writing a paper? The information professional
needs to be aware of ways to clarify the information in the
message of “Books about suicide”.
Page 8 of 8

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