Nine Shift

First Nine Shift Video

Draves dancing, live from "Nine Shift for 2009: Going Virtual" speech in San Francisco November 18, 2008.

Check it out here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGEaYLogOZM That was Benny Goodman's Sing, Sing, Sing, which was recorded 70 years ago, in 1938. Benny Goodman was responsible for a significant step in racial integration in America, integrating his band with such musicians as Teddy Wilson, Charlie Christian and the great Lionel Hampton. The tuxedo and top hat belonged to my father when he was in college in 1938. They wore them every Saturday night when they heard the big bands live and in person.  If you haven't been on campus recently, they don't wear them as often as they used to.

 

Marriage crisis predicted

Nine Shift is predicting a marriage crisis 3-5 years from now.
The reason is that colleges are graduating so few men that college educated women will have a much harder time finding a mate.
The same problem is also the reason why we have a gr owing skilled worker shortage, predicted to be a shortage of 14 million by 2020 (the same shortage of husbands in all probability). The solution is to graduate more men from college. 

Why no one will be responsible

In this century, no one will be "responsible."
The reason-- "responsibility" has been defined in last century terms, with specific behaviors. Those behaviors include:
* Be present. Be physically there.
* Do not be late.
* Do not turn in work late.
And all of these behaviors are obsolete in the successful work place of the 21st century where people work from home.

Just like you are not "moral."  You think of yourself as moral, but in terms of your great grandparents and teachers of 100 years ago, you are not moral.  You work, drive and shop on Sunday; you go outside without a hat on; your word is not good; you move more than 11 miles from your parents.

Teaching responsibility is obsolete.   Photo: from web site of Charlotte, NC, public schools

Mathematically, cars are dead

Even without the awful sales figures of GM, Ford, and the other horseless carriage companies, mathematically cars are dead.

Car sharing is growing by leaps and bounds.  The math:  owning a car costs $8,500 a year (gas at $2-$3/gal., insurance, depreciation, repairs, tires).   Car sharing costs $8 an hour (including gas and insurance).  So you can drive for 1,000 hours (essentially 20 hours or half time every week). 

Gen Y is clearly switching to car sharing. There's no evidence Gen Y will be buying cars.

Now look at this math.  Some 17 people can share one car.  They say each car in car sharing takes another 17 off the road.  That means we don't need 16 cars for 17 people, or we don't need 95% of the cars. 

Let's be generous and say automobiles will drop to 20% of what they are today.  They cannot support roads, garages, gas stations, State Patrol, auto insurance companies, etc.  on 20% of the traffic we have today.  Mathematically, cars are dead.  What does your math indicate?

The end of the Commuter Campus

They are called commuter campuses.  Because students drive to them.  And then drive back home at night.  They cannot survive.

The reason:  Gen Y and future generations will not own cars. 

We live in a small university town with a state university of 5,000 students. The greatest number come from the Twin Cities, from 30-60 minutes away by car. 

But anywhere from 5 to 20 years (max) from now those students will be able to take high speed trains to other campuses much further away in miles, but much closer in terms of time.  There will be six high speed trains a day to Duluth and Winona and their universities, for example.

And, with no car, exactly how would those students get to our commuter campus in River Falls, Wisconsin? They can't. They won't. Instead they will "commute" by train.  It's time for colleges and universities to get serious about their future in a world of trains, and no cars.  Nine Shift is now doing research and strategic planning seminars for colleges and universities on this topic.

Nine Shift predicts 12 month recession

Nine Shift is predicting we are in a recession, not a depression. And that the recession will last around 12 months.

I'll be making the prediction in person this week at the big LERN conference in San Francisco, before 1,000 attendees.

Ignore others who keep saying "the worst since 1929." This is not 1929.  This is 1908.
The Bankers' Panic of 100 years ago got resolved and the stock market rebounded.

One stock market expert says actually the stock market has risen an average of 30% between years ending in 8 and 9. 

But the real test:  ask anyone who was alive in 1929.  She or he will tell you this is no depression.
I asked my mother, you can ask yours. Photo: My mother in 1929.

Will Obama be a "Taft" or a "Wilson" President?

Will President Obama be more like Taft (elected in 1908) or President Wilson (elected in 1912)?

A friend told me a pundit said the defeat of McCain marked the end of the Industrial Age President. I agree. 

But transition team folks who are wondering whether this year is more like 1993 or 1933 have got it wrong. This year is exactly like 1908, as all NineShifters know. (photo: Pres. Taft)

Another pundit compared McCain to Teddy Roosevelt, which he probably would have been if he had been elected in 2000.  But what about President Obama?

President Taft did not move the country quickly enough into the new century, and he was defeated by the first Industrial Age President Woodrow Wilson in 1912.  Wilson moved the country quickly out of the Agrarian Age into the Industrial Age.

Some may worry about Obama moving too fast. But with another xx million Gen Yers voting in 2012, his administration should also be concerned about not moving fast enough.  What do you think?

Trains win last week!

Game over. No question trains are now replacing cars. Trains won big last week.

Train people are now emailing each other with a new sense of enthusiasm and optimism, almost euphoria.  Here's what happened:

1. Prop 1A passed in California.  The new high speed bullet train from LA to SF moves ahead, scheduled for service between 2015 and 2020.  This will change everything. For everybody. As California goes, so goes the nation. 

2. Vice President Biden rides a train everyday.  We now have a Vice President who has taken the train every day for 25 years.

3. Last month, Congress passed a funding bill for passenger rail that already got people excited.

4. The Bailout. Now when one mentions billions for trains it is spare change compared to the trillion dollar bailout of this fall. 

It will take decades, but America is on the right track again with trains.

Gen Y Elects Obama President

He got there 48 hours ahead of time and slept outside in Chicago to be first in line to get into the Obama victory celebration in Grant Park. The first person was age: 28. Gen Y.

Some 23 million Gen Yers voted, 2 million more than four years ago for people aged 18-29.  And they voted overwhelming for Obama. (photo of Shawn Fanning, Napster inventor and oldest Gen Yer, NOT the first guy in Grant Park)

NineShift co-author Julie Coates predicted Baby Boomers would vote for McCain, and she was right. But one can very well argue that Gen Y voted Obama in, and without them he would not have won. What do you think?