DECEMBER 1, 2008

Last week, I read an article in Newsweek that was cleverly called “Change You Can Conceive In: Could Euphoric Obama Fans be Sparking a Baby Boom?”

The author writes, “In the hours and days since Obama’s victory, many of his exhilarated supporters have been, shall we say, in the mood for love.  And though it’s too soon to know for sure, experts aren’t ruling out the possibility of an Obama baby boom—the kind of blip in the national birth rate that often follows a seismic event, whether it’s scary (a terrorist attack) or celebratory (the end of World War II).”

Authors William Strauss and Neil Howe have actually co-written a number of books on the subject of generational baby booms, namely, “Generations: The History of America’s Future,” which tells the history of America through a succession of generational biographies circa 1584 to the present.  According to Strauss and Howe, just as history molds generations, so too do generations mold history.  They even claim to have identified a historical pattern in which each generation belongs to one of four archetypes, or ”Turnings,” that repeats sequentially:

Awakening.  During an Awakening, rising adults are driven by inner zeal to become philosophers, religious pundits, and hippies, as they alienate children (who see the adult world becoming more chaotic each day) and older generations alike.  A Nomad (or Reactive) is born during an Awakening.  Nomadic leaders are cunning, hard-to-fool realists, and taciturn warriors who prefer to meet problems and adversaries one-on-one.

Unraveling.  An Unraveling is an era of relative peace and prosperity between an Awakening and a Crisis.  A Hero (or Civic) is born during an Unraveling.  Heroic leaders are considered vigorous and rational institution-builders, entering midlife as aggressive advocates of technological progress, economic prosperity, social harmony, and public optimism.

Crisis.  A Crisis is a decisive era of secular upheaval in which a values regime propels the replacement of the old civic order with a new one.  Wars are waged with apocalyptic finality.  An Artist (or Adaptive) is born during a Crisis.  Artistic leaders are advocates of fairness and the politics of inclusion, and are irrepressible in the wake of failure.

High.  A High is an era between a Crisis and an Awakening.  A Prophet (or Idealist) is born during a High.  Prophetic leaders are cerebral and principled, summoners of human sacrifice, and wagers of righteous wars.  Early in life, few see combat in uniform; late in life, most come to be revered as much for their words as for their deeds.

What I want to know is whether you agree or disagree with Strauss and Howe’s dissection of generational archetypes.  If you agree with them, where do you believe your generation stands now?  If you disagree with them, what would you add or amend to make them more relevant?

Personally, I believe that an Obama baby boom would compose part of a New Adaptive Generation - a collection of “artists” who will be irrepressible in the wake of modern-day failures.  At least, that is what I hope.

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NOVEMBER 7, 2008

I am big fan of internet snooping. It never ceases to amaze me, what I can learn about people through a simple Google search. I’ve tracked down wayward college classmates for our alumni website. I once planned a reunion for a summer journalism program I attended in 1986 and tracked down, online, almost 75% of the people who attended.  And that was all before Facebook and LinkedIn, two sites that have made internet snooping even richer.  It’s no surprise that it has been over two years since Merriam-Webster added the verb “to google” to the dictionary. Googling has become a way of life.

This week I came across an interesting angle on the Google culture.  Buried underneath all of the election news was this article in The Washington Post (and printed in various other papers) about litigation consultants using the internet to get information about potential jurors. For example, a trial consultant working for a client involved in a patent case learned via a potential juror’s website that she “had spent a lifetime marketing exclusive sequined gowns for beauty contestants, only to have them copied without compensation.” Clearly, she was a good jury candidate for a client bringing a patent suit, given her sympathy for intellectual property holders alleging infringement.

According to the article:

Now, with a wealth of information online - newspaper letters to the editor, petition signatures, club memberships, campaign contributions - retrievable with a couple of keystrokes, Internet surfing can produce a detailed picture of how an individual votes, spends money and sounds off on controversial issues.

For some reason, this development doesn’t sit right with me. I don’t fault the lawyers for using these tools to learn all they can about jurors - I wouldn’t expect them to shy away from a free resource that offers significant insight into the minds of the individuals in whose hands their clients’ fate rests. But I can’t shake a nagging feeling that this is not what the jury system was supposed to be built on. Jurors are basically supposed to be anonymous and seemingly impartial, and the Google effect basically makes that impossible.  Lawyers can now practically custom design their ideal jurors, based not just on demographic data and courtroom demeanor, but also on the jurors’ own thoughts, history, and actions.

Just another byproduct of the Information Age? A troubling intrusion into personal privacy? Or a fundamental flaw in our judicial system?

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SEPTEMBER 5, 2008

Are you familiar with Stanley Milgram’s 1967 Small World Experiment?  What about the popular late 90s trivia game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon?”  Even if you aren’t, well, chances are you have a not-so-distant acquaintance in your social network who is.

According to an article in The Washington Post, Milgram’s famous experiment was recently corroborated by a massive study of electronic communication, loosely referred to as the “Microsoft Messenger Project.”  The study included every member of the Microsoft Messenger instant-messaging service from June 2006, or roughly half the world’s instant-messaging traffic at the time.

After reviewing 30 billion electronic conversations among 180 million people from around the world, Microsoft researchers found that “any two people on average are distanced by just 6.6 degrees of separation, meaning that they could be linked by a string of seven or fewer acquaintances.”  For the purposes of their experiment, two people were considered to be acquaintances if they had sent one another a text message.

In response to the study, lead researcher Eric Horvitz said, “It was pretty shocking . . . there may be a social connectivity constant for humanity . . . that this idea goes beyond folklore.”

That Mr. Horvitz would find this study “pretty shocking” is pretty shocking to me.  Has it not already become conventional wisdom that people are connected in such ways – perhaps in more ways than we could ever count or possibly even comprehend?  Take you and me, for instance.  I’d be willing to bet that we have hundreds if not thousands of ties among us, and I would be placing that bet on intuition alone.

There’s even a well-known mathematical law we can use to put the shock value of this social “phenomenon” into perspective.  Known as the Law of Truly Large Numbers, it states that, with a sample size large enough, any outrageous thing is likely to happen – including (you guessed it) meeting someone who “coincidentally” shares a mutual acquaintance or some other personal connection with you.

For example, did you know that more than 16 million other people on this planet celebrate the same birthday as you?  At a typical football game with 50,000 fans, it’s likely that you will share your birthday with approximately 135 of them (unless, of course, you were born on February 29 – in this case, you will share your birthday with an estimated 34 other fans).  Therefore, according to the Law of Truly Large Numbers, it’s not really that unlikely, on any given day, for you to be in close proximity to someone who was born on the same day as you.  Most of the time, you just don’t realize it.

The Law has previously been used to put into perspective the odds of a person winning the lottery twice in his/her lifetime.  You might think the odds are something like 1-in-17 trillion, but they are really closer to 1-in-30.  The same principle can be applied to miracles.  If you (1) define a miracle as an exceptional event occurring at a frequency of one-in-a-million, (2) experience one event per second (3) for no less than eight alert/waking hours of the day, then after 35 days, you will have experienced 1,008,000 things.  Therefore, in keeping with the Law of Truly Large Numbers, you should actually experience about one miracle every five weeks over the course of your life.

So, please, Mr. Horvitz, save us the whole dog and pony show.  It would be an understatement to say that we kind of already suspected it was a small world, after all.

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AUGUST 19, 2008

It’s obvious that times are changing– in many ways.  Too many to count, actually.  I know this makes me sound old, but I was born in the 80s, so I’m not that old…yet. 

One thing that I’ve always been fascinated with is people’s strong opinions about cohabitation by couples before marriage (this reminds me a bit of the stay-at-home mom vs. the working mom debate).  Most people I know find themselves leaning strongly towards one end of the spectrum or the other– for varying reasons.  Some think that it’s never appropriate for a couple to live together until marriage; others feel that if it makes sense financially and personally, they should go for it to “test out” the relationship before they leap into something a lot more serious. 

This doesn’t even take into account the barrage of images of celebrity couples (think Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt) who are choosing to live together before marriage and even start families with no feelings of obligation to wed.  The public may start thinking, if they can do it… why can’t I? 

A July USA Today article called “Living Together Isn’t Just ‘Playing House’ ” really delves into the issue and explains why living together no longer has the negative associations and stereotypes attached to it that it did in days of the past.  According to the article, the number of opposite-sex couples who live together has jumped from less than 1 million 30 years ago to 6.4 million in 2007. 

According to Jay Teachman, a sociology professor at Western Washington University in Bellingham, while old data showed an increased risk of divorce among cohabiting couples, that’s not necessarily true today:

Twenty or 25 years ago, if you were cohabiting and then married them, the marriage was more likely to dissolve and end in divorce…today that’s not the case.  You can cohabit with your spouse and not experience increased risk of divorce.  We’re making these finer distinctions that we didn’t make before.

I personally feel that cohabitation before marriage can be a good thing.  For me, it in part came down to a financial decision.  After I got engaged I realized it was pointless to keep my apartment because I was spending all of my free time at my fiance’s house.  Why continue to pay rent when I knew we’d be living together in a matter of months, anyway? 

My mom wasn’t exactly thrilled about this… but she got over it after she did the math and realized it would only be two months of living together before the date of our wedding.  She raised me with the mindset that cohabitation before marriage is a very bad thing.  Now that I am older and have formed opinions of my own, I stand somewhere in the middle of the cohabitation wars: I appreciate the idea in certain circumstances, but I also respect the perspective of my mother.

What do you think?  Is cohabitation less of a big deal today than it was in the past?  Does the new evidence make you think any differently about the concept?

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JULY 2, 2008

Is our country in danger of too much assimilation? As cities all around the U.S. diversify culturally, the process of becoming “American” becomes quicker and quicker. Not only are major cities diversifying, a growing number of immigrants are also settling in suburbia. As a result, growing up in a diverse environment, marrying outside of one’s race, and being more aware of other cultures is becoming the norm.  All of these sound like good changes, but as we become further removed from our ethnic roots, are we also becoming further removed from our individual heritages? Or are we simply breaking ties with the old and solidifying a new American culture?

According to a study using the latest Census Bureau figures, the percentage of Asian women born in the United States who marry Asian men has declined from 59 percent in 1994 to 37 percent today. The proportion of American-born Asian men who marry Asian women has also dropped, from 65 percent to 52 percent. According to this New York Times article, some Chinese-American parents are hoping to reverse these marriage trends by turning to cultural tours such as the Love Boat. These parents are sending their children on the four-week summer program, designed to strengthen young people’s connections with their Taiwanese roots, race, religion and language. The Love Boat – officially called the Expatriate Youth Summer Formosa Study Tour to Taiwan is sponsored and partly subsidized by the Taiwanese government. The tour got its nickname from the many romances that occur between the young participants.

As New Audiences rise in our country, will they long to rekindle their connections to their countries of origin? The success of the Love Boat suggests that more programs like this one will pop up as new Americans find it harder to meet others of the same descent.

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JUNE 30, 2008

It’s called “Reality Mining” and it works like this: by tracking aggregated non-personal G.P.S. data and running it through specialized software, information analysts are able to paint an interesting picture of how people live:

…Sense Networks, a software analytics company in New York, earlier this month released Macrosense, a tool that aims to do just that. Macrosense applies complex statistical algorithms to sift through the growing heaps of data about location and to make predictions or recommendations on various questions — where a company should put its next store, for example. Gregory Skibiski, 34, the chief executive and a co-founder of Sense, says the company has been testing its software with a major retailer, a major financial services firm and a large hedge fund.

Tony Jebara, also 34, the chief scientist and another co-founder of Sense, said, “We can predict tourism, we can tell you how confident consumers are, we can tell retailers about, say, their competitors, who’s coming in from particular neighborhoods.”

All this information can then be sold to businesses trying to capitalize on location trends and traffic patterns. It seems like a slam dunk, if it weren’t for the thorny issue of privacy. On the other hand, some reality prospectors seem to have an answer for that too:

Mr. Skibiski says that Sense is interested only in aggregate data and that it’s looking for broad patterns, not the specific behavior of individuals. But he recognizes the privacy issue. He says he believes that people should own their own data, control when it is disclosed and receive some remuneration for it. His original idea in 2002 was to pay people for their data, but a formula for doing so proved too complicated.

Instead, Sense decided to trade services for data. On the same day it released Macrosense, it announced a new software package called Citysense, which uses location data to show where people are going, say, for nightlife, and maps their activity. Consumers who have iPhones or BlackBerrys can sign up for the service, which does not ask for personal information. Over time, the software will learn their patterns and recommend places they might like to go, or show them where other people with similar patterns are going. If they want to purge their data, they can do so at any time.

We make these sort of trade-offs more often than we think. If we want to use certain tools, like PageRank on the Google Toolbar, we have to allow for anonymous usage statistics. A number of software packages ask permission to share anonymous data as part of the EULA process. And every time you scan your little keychain card to get a discount at the supermarket, you’re adding your info to the dataset.

With all the compromises we make to privacy, is there value in the kind of trade Sense Network is willing to provide - a version of its service that’s useful to you, in exchange for data that it can sell to others? My guess is that it’s the sort of thing we’ll have to evaluate on a case-by-case basis, but we’d better start thinking about it. We’ll only see more of this kind of thing, not less, as G.P.S. and location-specific services become more ubiquitous.

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JUNE 25, 2008

Did you read The Washington Post’s five-part series “Young Lives at Risk: Our Overweight Children or Time’s story, “How America’s Children Packed on the Pounds”? This recent media attention has me wondering: what is the connection between children’s weight and poverty?

On one hand, underweight births for U.S. infants are at a 40-year high. This is disconcerting because such babies (weighing less than 5.5 pounds) are at a greater risk of dying in infancy.  On the other hand, 30% of U.S. kids are overweight. Related to income and race, a 2006 study tracking 2,000 low-income children in 20 cities found that a third were overweight or obese before age 4; the most at-risk group was Hispanics. Specific to obesity, here are some of the staggering facts from Time:

In 1971 only 4% of 6-to-11-year-old kids were obese; by 2004, the figure had leaped to 18.8%. … Obese boys and girls are already starting to develop the illnesses of excess associated with people in their 40s and beyond: heart disease, liver disease, diabetes, gallstones, joint breakdown…. …Type 2 diabetes [previously known as adult-onset] is now being diagnosed in teens as young as 15. Health experts warn that the current generation of children may be the first in American history to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents’.

While all the statistics are stunning (heart disease in kids!?), the last one – the warning from health experts – takes my breath away. Despite all of our health education, we are shortening our kids’ lives due to our voluntary food choices?! Speaking of voluntary, a recent study found that on a yearly basis, the average mother of a child under 15 spends more money on fast food than on books, music, movies, and video games combined.

The good news is that child obesity levels have stopped increasing (notice: I didn’t use decreasing). The tough news is that “[T]he uneven distribution of the [childhood obesity epidemic] argues that who you are, where you are and how much your family has in the bank have a lot to do with whether your child will be claimed by the crisis or emerge unharmed.” More African- and Mexican-American children are overweight or obese than Caucasian children. The poorest states in the South and Appalachia have the heaviest children.

Living in this incredible age of knowledge, it also surprised me to learn that more people in the world are overweight than malnourished. In the 1950s, kids had three cups of milk for every cup of soda; today, that ratio is reversed – they are getting all of the calories of soda but none of the nutrients of milk.

Recognizing that there are many related causes when talking about childhood obesity, at its most basic level, we’re talking about what goes in the mouth and the level of activity of our kids. Do you think that income and/or geography are major players in childhood weight issues? Is it lack of parental guidance, knowledge, or responsibility? Since we know better, are we doing better? Or have we made the problem worse?

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MAY 20, 2008

It’s all the rage in England and it’s taking Australia by storm. No, I’m not talking about vegemite (never had it and I don’t think I ever will).  I’m talking about the latest game from Nintendo: Wii Fit. Yes, boys and girls, you no longer have to put down your video games to work out; working out IS the video game! The game is already selling out in Britain and in Australia it’s outselling the latest Grand Theft Auto release. Think about that: more people want to work out than steal cars. Wii Fit is set to be released in the U.S. this week and the media is buzzing about it.

We already love the Nintendo Wii, which has been lauded for changing the way we interact with video games. The way I see it however, Nintendo hasn’t just discovered new ways for its users to interact with a game machine; it’s also a company that has broken through to reach new audiences.

What will make Wii Fit a hit is not just that it’s a game that makes you sweat (Dance Dance Revolution and Wii Sports have already accomplished that.) What will make Wii Fit a hit is its ability to reach people beyond the average gamer.

The San Francisco Chronicle says the game will reach “a large mostly unreached population of potential gamers.” The article predicts that the game will be popular with women. Ricardo Torres of GameSpot offers more:

“Moms have the purchasing power in the house, and this is a game that will catch her attention. Look at the way they’re marketing it. They’re not reaching out to hardcore gamers, who they know will want to get it, too, for the mini-skill games. They’re showing off these other aspects like yoga and step aerobics that will hook a mom.”

This is in sharp contrast to the rest of the video game industry, who caters to its existing fan base by sticking with tried-and-true genres like sports and first person shooters. The latest Madden, Call of Duty, and Battlefield titles fly off the shelves year after year, bought by the typical 18-35 year old male.

Nintendo has broken from this model, instead challenging itself to reach new audiences rather than fight over existing audiences. With the Wii Fit, Nintendo has shown that it is moving forward to become the leader in this previously untouched segment of the population.

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MAY 13, 2008

All across the world, contestants are singing in contests to become the next “[insert organization name here] American Idol.” From churches to universities, organizations are using this kind of competition as a foolproof way to entertain a crowd. Whether the contestants sound like the Grammy award-winning Carrie Underwood or the cult icon William Hung, audiences love it.

My brother is competing in one of these contests this month (go Sky!) and although he isn’t a professionally trained singer, I think he’s pretty darn entertaining. Admittedly, Little Brother is probably a little more William than Carrie, but he got a lot of love from the crowd in the preliminary round where the contestants were narrowed down from about 30 to the top 10. There were some haters out there too — but it wasn’t his less-than-perfect vocals that brought on the negative commentary.

This particular contest is geared toward the Chinese-American community, so many of the songs sung were in Chinese. My brother and I are half Chinese (our other half is Italian). Little Brother sang a song entirely in Chinese and the crowd was shocked by his language proficiency. He probably got more attention than the others because of this, and sure, there were better singers than him, but hey – stage presence counts too!

So here’s where the haters come in. They argued that he shouldn’t have made it to the top 10 since the applause was generated more by his ethnicity rather than his singing ability, which they claimed was unfair to the other contestants. This got me thinking about our definition of New Audiences here at TMG Strategies:

The diversity of the world’s population, family structure, culture, and thought is greater, richer, and more dynamic today than ever before. In fact, the very definition of diversity, along with the concept of assimilation, has been completely revamped.

Our county’s demographics are changing. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 6,112,646 Americans identify themselves as being of two or more races. With so many multiracial people in the U.S., I was really surprised that people that were upset about a multiracial kid making it to the top 10 in an amateur singing contest. Seems kind of silly if you ask me. This situation begs the question: Does our melting pot culture help or hurt us when we try to unite? The way we do business is changing as companies target a new set of multicultural consumers, but socially can we learn to bond as Americans to create an American identity or will fear of losing our individual heritages hinder a true American spirit?

I’d like to think the uniqueness my brother brought to the contest was a good thing, and that his ethnic background did not “dilute the authenticity of the song.” For your viewing pleasure, here’s the video of the performance in question. You can judge for yourself! Hopefully the audience at the finals on May 19 will have fewer Negative Nancys and more William Hung fans!

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MAY 9, 2008

Because Mother’s Day is coming up this Sunday (and because we have a couple of expectant moms in our office now), I thought this would be a great opportunity to blog about moms!  Last week, my colleague Jenn pointed out a great section in an EPM Communications newsletter titled “Facts About Moms.”  The stats cover a wide range of mothers – and nowhere is that diversity better represented than in the blogosphere.

So in celebration of Mother’s Day, next to each U.S. Census Bureau statistic below is a link to the blog of a mom who fits that demographic. Take time to celebrate these mothers by clicking through and checking out what they have to say.  

• There were 82.8 million moms in 2004 (the latest year for data).

Heather writes Dooce (one of the most highly trafficked mom blogs).

• 55% of women between the ages of 15 and 44 are mothers.

Tracey writes Sweetney.

• 81% of women aged 40 to 44 are mothers.  In 1976, 90% of women in this age group were mothers.

Joanne writes PunditMom.

• Average number of children each mom has in the U.S.: 2.1

Sarah writes Sarah and the Goon Squad.

• The average age of first-time moms: 25.2 (that’s up 3.8 years since 1970!)

Vicky writes The Mummy Chronicles.

• Number of stay-at-home moms: 5.6 million

Gretchen writes Bananas and Toddlers.

• Number of single moms: 10.4 million

Kat writes My Single Mom Life.

• The percentage of first-time mothers in the early part of this decade who were working by the 6th month after they gave birth: 55%.  In the early 1960’s, the corresponding percentage was 14%.

Nicole writes Not Just a Working Mom.

• The percentage of mothers who went back to work within a year of their child’s birth who returned to the same employer: 83%

Kristin and Erin podcast at Manic Mommies.

• 7 in 10 of these women returned to jobs at the same pay, skill level, and hours worked per week.

Isabel writes at Alpha Mom.

Even though the “typical” American family and the role of mothers across America continues to change, we need our mothers more than ever.  Our moms work hard, make sacrifices, and do everything they can to make our lives the best they can be. We should always remember to take the time (more than once a year in May) to let them know they are appreciated. 

So, in case I haven’t told you lately… I love you mom!  See you Sunday!!

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