Nine Shift

Vote for the Top Story of 2009 so far

The year 2009 is half over. Time to think about the top stories for the first half of 2009.

Here's the most important 'news' stories about the transition from the Industrial Age to the Internet Age.

You vote below (make a comment) on which one you think is the most important.

A. High speed trains in the U.S. get $8 billion in funding.
B. The Higher Education financial model is now recognized as broken.
C. The government tries to save the car industry.
D. Socialism becomes an issue in the U.S.
E. Twitter becomes the hot new social media.
F. An education war breaks out over testing, grading and whether late work should be penalized.
G. Public ridership on trains hits a record high for the fourth year in a row.
H. The government's role in spending on infrastructure and investments for the new century become an issue.
I. Kids in Gen Y start a Do-it-yourself biology organization and advocate for amateur and citizen biology labs.
Photo: Map of routes proposed in U.S. for high speed rail.

Now you vote (make a comment) on which one you think is the most important.

Top NineShift Discoveries of 2009 (so far)

Here are the nine top NineShift discoveries of 2009.

1. First evidence that the solution to boys' bad grades actually works. (May 19)

2. Among young people, support for cars plunges. (May 5)

3. City of the 21st century to be 200 miles long.  (June 2)

4. Higher education model is "broke."  (Feb 8; Feb 4; Feb 3; and Feb 2)

5. The 5 learning habits that hurt women discovered. (Feb 8)

6. GED for college proposed by NineShift.  (March 16)

7. NineShift discovers why the economy is in recession. (April 22)

8. Food epidemic predicted by Nine Shift.  (April 13)

9. Public places to grow as people work from home.  (June 1).

What's your favorite NineShift discovery?  Which one do you hate the most?  Tell us.

More on the Top NineShift Discoveries

With the last year of the first decade of the 21st century half over, NineShift pauses to reflect on the Top NineShift Discoveries of 2009 (so far).  It's been an exciting year already. Here's more on the top 3 on the list:

1. First evidence on the solution to boys' bad grades (and skilled worker shortage) actually works.
   NineShift discovers the first evidence that not penalizing students for late work actually works. Boys' GPA is the same as girls' GPA when students are not penalized for late work. When schools implement the solution, the number of smart students in higher education will leap by 2 million a year, thus solving the skilled worker shortage. (see our post on May 19 for more)

2. Support for cars plunges among young people.
   NineShift discovers unpublicized critical data in a new Pew Research study on whether cars are considered a necessity or luxury.  The percentage of young people who view a car as a necessity plunged from 92% to 80% in the last 3 years.  Prior to this, there was no generational difference. By contrast, 93% of baby boomers still regard a car as a necessity.  This is more evidence that Gen Y is switching from cars to trains. (see May 5 post)

3. City of the 21st Century is 200 miles long.
   NineShift co-author Julie Coates reveals that the city of the 21st century will be 200 miles long, about how far one can travel on a train in 2 hours. Kids going to school, people going to church, professionals attending club meetings, all will choose schools, churches and clubs in this new 200 mile metro area, providing they are on train lines. (see June 2 post) Photo: Julie's wild flower garden up north

Generation Gap Widest (Ever)

A new study by the Pew Research Center has found that 79 percent of people think there is a major difference in points of view of younger people and older people.  These 79% are right!

The top differences named are also the most profound and NineShifty:
1. Morality
2. Work ethic
   The two areas are, of course, intertwined, as morality (example: downloading movies) is integral to work (where Gen Y understands downloading media is 'work' ).

For one story on the survey,click here.

The story says the gap beats even the 1969 generation gap when 74% of people said the generations thought differently.  NineShift would say this is the largest generation gap since 1909, when our grandparents had a similar gap with their carriage-riding-farming parents.  The Pew Research Center is about the only source of good info about Gen Y these days - - everyone else seems to be trying to ignore Gen Y - - another illustration of the generation gap.  Photo: Willie's friend Graham

Will Gen Y miss newspapers?

San Francisco is in danger of losing its' last major daily newspaper. SF Mayor Newsom said recently that no one under age 30 would miss it.

And with autos, suburbs, tv, radio, factories, offices, credit card debt, plastic, bottled water, retail stores and many other features of the last century and Industrial Age also in decline, will Gen Y miss any of that either?  Tell us your thoughts: will anyone under age 30 today miss newspapers?

Government fails to meet own mileage standards

Here's my question:  Can the federal government's car company (GM) meet the government's own mileage standards?

The federal government is setting new fuel and mileage standards, hitting 35.5 mpg in 2016.  Now GM - - Government Motors - - has released its first new post-bankruptcy car, the Camero, which only gets 22 mpg.  And GM admits the Camero will lead to greater focus on selling S.U.V.s - - here we go again with cars killing the earth. Interestingly, the Camero is touted as a "nostalgia" car, aimed at older adults.

Plus it looks like the federal government will allow states, like California, to set even tougher standards. But what happens if the feds can't meet Cal's standards?  What do you think?   Sidepost: if you google Camero, the first YouTube video caption on it ends with "I'm riding my bike." 

Trains: Just connect the big cities to win

One of the lead stories on national public radio news last week was a study for high speed rail between El Paso and Denver.  What got our attention was not the study, but that it made the national news.

But in order to replace cars, trains don't have to serve every town. The NY Times reported (July 9, 2009) that two-thirds of the country lives in large metropolitan areas and even more importantly, "The 100 largest metropolitan areas also contribute three-quarters of the nation's economic activity..."

NineShift is suggesting that as soon as the Top 50 cities get connected with trains, game over. What do you predict?

New GM like New Coke

My brother Timothy says the New GM reminds him of New Coke.
Ironically, he says New Coke only sold really well in one state - - Michigan.

Updated photo of your NineShift co-authors

"I got hooked on these futurists" wrote Sheryl Netwall of Balsam Lake, Wisc after attending a NineShift seminar last month.

The photo on the book stays, because that's how we looked when Nine Shift was published 5 years ago.
But a number of folks have been asking for an updated photo, so here it is.

NineShift celebrated its 5th anniversary with more than 200 people participating in webinars in April. Plus Nine Shift has keynoted conferences and made presentations in these cities the past 3 months:
-Saint John, New Brunswick
-Orange Beach, Alabama
-Rice Lake, Wisconsin
-Humboldt, Saskatchewan
-St. Louis, Missouri
-New York, New York
-Montgomery, Alabama (first keynote via distance)
We have openings for fall and all of 2010. Email TammyP@lern.org
Thanks for your support!

Cities grow at suburbs' expense

"Cities grow at suburbs' expense." That's the headline, straight out of the Wall Street Journal (July 1, 2009). We didn't make it up.

In truth, the suburbs are still growing faster than cities, but the rate is slowing while the rate of city growth is growing. If the trend holds, cities will be growing faster than suburbs.

Cities grew 0.97% this past year, up from 0.90% two years ago and up big time from around 0.5% some 4-7 years ago. Suburbs grew 1.11%, but that is down big-time from 1.48% some 4-7 years ago.  So the trend (cities grow, suburbs decline) started around 2002. 

Now of course WSJ attributes this to the recession, but NineShifters know better. This just one more statistic documenting the decline of the Industrial Way of Life.