The real reason manufacturing jobs are disappearing. The chart above by Richard Florida depicts the change in growth and decline of different sectors of the job market. Clearly we see the decline of farming and manufacturing jobs, we also see the increase in creative work and low wage service sector jobs. The media consistently voices concern over the decline of manufacturing jobs which is perceived to be hindering job growth and stiffing the middle class.  Additionally China is blamed for the reduction in manufacturing jobs as production is shipped overseas. The media typically doesn’t provide alternative reasons for the decrease in manufacturing jobs, but I believe there is a correlation between the decrease in manufacturing and increase in creative jobs. Perhaps the increasing number of creative workers are designing ways to improve the efficiency of manufacturing which has reduced the number of jobs required. Ford has developed robots which can provide a majority of development of car on an assembly line which was probably developed by the creative workers of Ford.

If you build it they will come…..A new catalyst for economic development in depressed regions has been the investment in a museum, specifically a modern art museum. The Dia: Beacon museum revitalized Beacon, NY, Mass MoCa attracted art enthusiasts to North Adams, MA and the Bilbao Guggenheim  changed Bilbao, the northern Spanish port. Why have these infusions of capital and culture revitalized former blue collar communities? The development of a museum attracts tourists who are willing to spend their money, but more importantly the museums attract artists to setup nearby. The artists are attracted by the culture surrounding the museum and the low costs of living. Artists tend to live in areas where there is a low cost of living in order to reduce overhead while they  work on their art. The cost of living doesn’t stay low for long as a wealthier class is drawn to the new artist enclave and increase the living costs because of insufficient demand. Why do we visit museums? The curiosity and creativity of artists provide unique works of art which can be an outlet from our commercialized society. Each of these communities has capitalized on this theory and have populations which have either increased or stabilized since the development of a museum.  The creativity and uniqueness attracts others and slowly artists are driven from their homes because of increasing costs. This pattern has been repeated in cities many times throughout history, and I believe the pattern will be repeated in  the suburbs as artists are priced out of cities.

Trackr, Rdio, Scvngr, Producteev, Buump . What do these names have in common? They are all  recent internet startups. All the names are derivations of the words which describe their company’s function (Tracker, Radio, Scavenger, Productive, Buump). Most likely the young entrepreneurs chose their company name based on domain names which were available due limited financial resources, and that may have meant a word with removed vowels in order to remain didactic. Perhaps the next Google, or Facebook will be named Beggr, Drver, Wlthy…………..

    What happens when I’m bored………..

    A few days ago I happened to be watching TV which isn’t too often, but I did see a preview for the upcoming season of the Bachelorette. The Bachelor/Bachelorette is reality TV series which has been on TV for a combined 22 seasons. The premise of the show is for a Bachelor(ette) to find a wife/husband among 25-30 contestants who jockey for the attention to be selected to continue on the show for another week as the Bachelor(ette) reduces the pool of contestants down to a single person whom they will propose to during the final episode. In following with the standard Reality TV format the show encourages extreme behavior as well as provocative and sexually suggestive situations. After watching the preview I questioned how the show continues to attract an audience and how each season is differentiated in order to reduce predictability. My prediction was that the show uses a younger pool of contestants each subsequent season in order to target a larger younger generation or increase specific behaviors to attract viewers.

To analyze my prediction I collected data of contestant ages from Wikipedia; however a few of the seasons were not available and due to time constraints I worked with what I was able to collect. The results may be skewed due to the gaps in data, but I was still able to prove a theory with what I was able to collect. Below you’ll see the statistics of the seasons I analyzed. From the data collected it was found that each subsequent season of the show experiences a younger pool of contestants which can be attributed to the decreasing standard deviation that signifies a pool of contestants closer to the mode therefore fewer older contestants because the average age tends to decrease as well and below the mode. Additionally I extrapolated that Bachelorettes were more likely to choose a contestant whose age was closer to their own while bacehlorettes age continued to decrease each subsequent season. The Bachelor was more likely to select a woman much younger than themselves regardless of the Bacehlor’s age. In order to strengthen my assumptions, I should analyze season ratings to determine if they increased or decreased depending on the age of contestants or Bachelors or Bachelorettes. Most likely I will not be watching this season, but my prediction for the upcoming season of the bacehlorette……she will select a contestant within 1.5 years of her own age and the pool of contestants will most likely have an average age of 28 with a standard deviation of 2.5.

If you remember from my earlier post (http://bit.ly/jtO1AI) about QR codes placed next to “No Smoking Sings” connected to the sales of Nicotine Gum. Well, I reviewed the performance of the QR codes, and surprisingly I managed a handful of code scans; however there have been no sales. The lack of sales is most likely due to the high price of the gum, but the main reason for this experiment was to challenge the prediction of whether individuals would bother to scan the code. As you can see in the performance report I have managed code scans which results in a successful prediction.

I would think Twitter would be a great channel for ski areas to provide ski conditions for their customers. Individuals who plan to travel to a ski area are influenced by conditions at a specific resort and the travel time, and then they combine the information to generate a cost benefit analysis of which ski area will provide the most return (fun on the slopes). Perhaps ski areas could Tweet a form message that is consistent day to day in order to allow individuals to easily understand what the conditions are like, Keep it Simple! Additionally a link in the tweet would direct users to a website viewable on a mobile device with key stats and a few pictures of the current weather/mountain conditions. A barrage of superfluous tweets by a resort can cause someone to be overwhelmed and annoyed by the constant flow of unnecessary information. Obviously the ski area is trying to promote itself and create a dialog with customers, but I stopped following specific ski areas because of the constant stream of Tweets it was sending. See the image below for the various Tweets, and notice that there is no consistency between condition reports, so I have to analyze each report to ensure the conditions are what I am looking for which is opposed to a consistent message which can easily be deciphered. Its great that they are streaming all the information and actively promoting social media, but sometimes its too much and unnecessary.  All I want are the facts.

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Best Buy understands that its future is smaller. The slow demise of the Big Box store will encourage the retail giants to pare down their store size and accommodate a store format that will fit in smaller urban locations and sell fewer SKUs. Additionally Best Buy has experienced a reduced demand for floor space due to the digitization of music and now computer software as well as an increasing propensity for consumers to shop online. Perhaps RadioShack will experience a revival of its once ubiquitous electronics goto shop, but I think a resurgence would require a re-branding effort on their part.

“The dispute is also a reminder that free services such as Facebook and Google come with a price. Consumers need to keep a truism in mind: If you’re not paying for the product, then you’re not the customer—you’re the product being sold. Social media services such as Facebook take advantage of data that consumers disclose about themselves to enable advertisers to deliver ever more targeted marketing to them.” – WSJ

Thank you, Wall Street Journal for reminding consumers not to complain when Facebook changes the user interface because the service provided is FREE and an individual is not required to use the site. Users can and should provide feedback, but should not complain about information privacy which was willingly provided.

Does LinkedIn have a future? Todays Wall Street Journal had an article outlining LinkedIn’s public listing and whether the company’s IPO is overvalued. I personally think that LinkedIn does not have potential for expontential revnue growth to justify 200 times earnings valuation. The service provided is differentiated in that it provides a professional networking platform for the workplace which is something that Facebook does do a good job of; however I think that LinkedIn is just a tool for networking opposed to Facebook which serves as a complete social networking platform and could eventually overtake LinkedIn as future generations grow up using Facebook. LinkedIn’s investors are heading to the exit because they see the writing on the wall that the LinkedIn’s future is limited. If LinkedIn anticipates future revenue growth, I have a hard time seeing what avenue they will take. I don’t think they will succeed by placing more advertising or superfluous gimmicks since most of its users view it simply as a utility.

LinkedIn – Wall Street Journal Article