Archive for April, 2009
Tuesday, April 21st, 2009
With a brand new name coined by Leah McLaren, “Generation Debt” (Gen X) faces cohort effects with conflicting impacts on their well being. Due to low birth rates in the late seventies, the future promised abounding opportunities to this group. This phenomenon was described in David Foote’s book, “Boom, Bust, and Echo.” However, due to lack of seniority at work, particularly vulnerable new mortgages and new parenthood, the recession strikes the Debtors (X’ers) at a vulnerable moment, spread thin due to their previously good prospects and spoiled upbringings. McLaren points out that boomers may need to sell their cottages to pay for their divorce, but without job security or savings, and now, without an inheritance, the Debtors will feel the reverberations of this downturn throughout their adult lives.
DECODE’s new exploration of confidence may help to predict how members of this group will fare, whether they will be shaken, whether they will choose to engage themselves in community and policy work and take their future into their own hands, or whether they will curl into balls of apathy, bathed in the not-so-soothing glow of a 15″ screen (I’ve heard that ice-cream sales never feel the pangs of recession). One can’t help but see the prospects of this group as somewhat fated: the type of consumers they become, the type of employment opportunities they seek may be tied to the confidence instilled during their democratic upbringings so long ago, during the bust years of the 70s.
While the Xers may be most vulnerable to long-term impacts, Canada’s youngest workers have been hardest hit: 15-24 year olds held 15% of full time jobs, yet accounted for 25% of all jobs lost over the last few months. The grass is always greener, McLaren.
Friday, April 17th, 2009
In the category of “not-so-surprising” and “surprising” you can now file the Pew Centre’s latest report on the 2008 U.S. Election. Unsurprisingly, the Internet was more likely to be source of election information than a newspaper. Remarkably, 10% of the population used Facebook or Myspace for gathering election information or to become involved.
Another nugget:
Politically-active internet users are moving away from news sites with no point of view to sites that match their political views, and this is especially true among younger voters.
What happens to a political culture where people are not exploring opposing viewpoints?
Friday, April 17th, 2009
An article in Slate reports that Youtube (which everyone says is a giant success) is losing more money than newspapers (which everyone says are dead). This is despite heavy usage. The problem, is as always, advertising.
Figuring out an advertising model for Youtube’s young user base is proving be just as problematic as figuring out what for newspapers. The common conception is that younger generations have no sense of value and will not pay for content. How then, to explain the success of paying websites like Apple’s Itunes, or Consumer Reports? Jack Shafer has some ideas.
Thursday, April 9th, 2009
I just came across this term and while it is definitely jarrgon, there is something quite appealing about it. (I realise that my affinity is highly influenced that I fall into said categorisation). It does however open the converstaion around what role, if any, life-stage playes in the relative potency of said group. Empowered women – or those ages 25-54 who feel that the Internet helps them manage their family life — are highly influential as household decision-makers as well as among their peers.
Food for thought and do we have clues as what causal factors determine when / if a woman falls into this group?
Monday, April 6th, 2009
An interesting take on how American Generation X members are now experiencing the second economic bust in their professional careers. Key statistic: for people aged 25-34the American jobless rate has jumped from 4.9% to 8.7% in a year.
Sadly, the people profiled in this article are of a particular socio-economic class, and work in stereotypically “Gen X” industries, like IT. For most, it appears that they’ll weather the storm — these are people with good prospects when the economy does recover. It would be good to see the media cover younger people working in, say manufacturing.
Thursday, April 2nd, 2009
So after our meeting on Monday I decided to make it my mission this week to find something insightful to share about “Youth and the Arts”. Arguably there could have been more structure to my web searches, but thus far I’ve not found anything. Why is this I wondered? It bears mentioning that this personal quest was spawned by a conversation I had with Scott late last week about audience development and the arts. Personally I am convinced that one inherent flaw in the current approaches to audience development is a general lack of understanding about our USP as artists. We are not entertainers. Then I happened on this brilliant speech and I feel that I would be quite remiss if I didn’t share it. Like all art, classical music is for everybody so please enjoy Benjamin Zander.
Thursday, April 2nd, 2009
Ben and Jerry’s April Fool’s Day prank touches a very sensitive consumer issue especially in light of our current economic state. I’m of two minds on the issue. First let’s face it no one has to consume meat and or dairy products. It is a fallacy that the protein required to we require must come from meat and poultry. Further more the purported necessary intake of calcium derived from dairy and dairy products is also questionable as it’s not readily digestible. But hey I’m not a nutritionist after all. Ultimately though the buck stops with each individual as to what they will or will not consume. If people really care they need to ask. Which then brings me to my second point given that food and beverage industries are “strictly” regulated is there not a moral and ethical obligation on part of producers and governments to clearly indicate food sources that are genetically modified and cloned.
Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
Interesting confirmation of what we would assume to be the effect of the economy on the diets of North Americans. While this particular study was done with our friends south of the border I wonder is some of Canada’s economic resiliency is tied to similar behaviour? Interesting times for packaged goods manufacturers of Food and Beverage in this troubled economy. Do they do what is ethically right and try to produce nutritionally sound lower cost sustainable food products? or continue with the status quo and take their money and run?
