Nine Shift

Great Debate: Does Location Matter?

Does physical location matter in today's economy? 

Does where you live, and where your company is headquartered, matter economically for both your work organization and for you?  Enrico Moretti, author of The New Geography of Jobs, says yes.  We're skeptical. Our initial reaction: he's wrong.

Here's what Moretti writes, "Where you live matters more than ever. Whether you work inside or outside the innovation sector, whether you are self-employed or work for others, where you live greatly affects all aspects of your life, from your career to your finances, from the kind of people you meet to the values your children are exposed to." 

He dismisses telecommuting as "incredibly rare," without citing any statistics to counter the data that telework is growing each year. He dismisses cities like Cleveland and Milwaukee, that while overall are clearly rust belt, nevertheless having growing downtown hubs of urban professionals.   What do you think?

 
Moon over Minneapolis.  LERN staff from five states met in our annual retreat in this 21st century. Moretti and NineShift both agree Minneapolis a 21st century city.

New Book, Great Data

A new book, The New Geography of Jobs, by Enrico Moretti, has great data supporting our 9 major Nine Shift predictions.

Moretti's basic contention, which we reported several years ago, is that there's a huge migration of young people going on right now in the U.S. to new economy cities, what we sometimes call 21st century cities. Moretti's underlying 'force' in this migration is a college education.  College educated young people are moving to new economy cities, and those cities are doing great. Cities with fewer college graduates are not doing very well.  Flint, Michigan, for instance, has only 12% of its population with a college degree.

There are 15 cities whose population is 40% or more with college educations. Six of the 9 NineShift 21st century cities are on that list. The other 3 not far behind. These cities are where the economic action is today.

Fascinating data, all supporting NineShift.  Check it out. 

Why Gen Y is Driving Less

The American media, and thus the American public, just does not get why Gen Y is driving less.

One example: Stuart Elliott, writing about how Gen Y and teens are driving less in The New York Times, again cites theory and not facts about why Gen Y is driving less. Without evidence, he gladly quotes an auto exec (huge bias there!) saying that Gen Y is staying home and not travelling, logging onto Facebook etc instead.

The evidence is all to the contrary. Gen Y is travelling all over the place. They are the biggest growth segment for airlines right now. A recent airline magazine article cited the "ideal" air traveller as single and in his 30s.  Gen Y is flying more, not less, than previous generations of young people. In the U.S. they fly for leisure 3.9 trips a year, far more than older people.

And the primary reason Gen Y is driving less is that they are taking trains.  Gen Y is creating record ridership on trains. Amtrak has recorded record ridership in 9 of the last 10 years.  The American Public Transportation Association attributes the biggest factor to Gen Y riding trains. If you visit a train station, you will see for yourself.  The reason for driving less and taking trains: you can work on a train. Time is so valuable for knowledge workers we cannot afford to waste 2 hours a day driving around. 

Photo: Kids streaming into  Union Station in Chicago last month

Coates discovers supporting evidence on STEM solution

My brilliant co-author Julie Coates has found a National Science Foundation study from 2011 on why women do not go into STEM.  The NSF study supports Coates' evidence that women choose not to go into STEM.

The biggest reason female engineering graduates don't go into engineering- - they don't particularly like engineering.  The third biggest reason- - they would have to do "engineering tasks." 

The NSF study tries to lay blame on a male dominated work culture, the standard lame excuse that just does not have any validity.  We are now supposed to believe that "making money" is a bad male value, for instance.

It IS true that the professions that women go into have a different corporate culture and often different values. Making money not as highly valued in education, non-profits and health care (if you work there, not if you own).

America continues to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Feminine Mystique by dismissing Betty Friedan's quite correct understanding that men and women are different, and equal.

Nice job Julie!  Photo: Julie Coates explaining gender and STEM to senior administrators at the College of DuPage last month.

Faculty Behave Just Like Their Students

We teach faculty. And they behave just like their students. Especially when it comes to gender.

While trying to convince their male students to act like girls in the classroom, male faculty behave just like male students.  And female faculty behave just like their female students.

Males do 30% less school work than females, for instance.  Males learn as much, test equally, but they do 30% less work.

Even male faculty members.  I analyzed the number of times faculty took the four quizzes in my online course.  The males averaged taking the quizzes about 6 times.  The females averaged taking the quizzes about 11 times. 

Before you try to change the gender characteristics of your students, try changing yourself.

Faculty logging on at our conference, just like their students do.

 

End of text based online courses

Text-based online courses are just bad courses.

Every presenter at our recent faculty development conference advocated more multimedia in online courses. It's pretty unanimous among online experts such as Les Howles of the University of Wisconsin.

The problem is that only about 20-25% of online courses have multimedia now. Which is why so many are advocating for more multimedia. 

It's clearly the end of text based online courses.  It cannot happen fast enough.

Faculty buying our books at recent faculty development conference in Savannah.

Why there's push back on Telework

Here's why there is push-back on working from home right now:  telework is increasing.

It's part of the Last Stand for Baby Boomers, the generation raised believing in 'responsibility,' showing up on time, and working only in an office.

Only believe office-workers are more productive than teleworkers when you start to see the numbers of teleworkers go down.  So far teleworkers keep growing in number.

The push-back got some high profile media attention this month as Yahoo and Best Buy both recalled their teleworkers back to the office.  Keep in mind these companies are both losing money.  Successful companies like IBM are not recalling their teleworkers.  This leads us to believe that telework is not the cause of corporate failure.   PS:  LERN, with 75% of its workforce working from home, is on its way to our second record income year.

 Pretty late winter April farm landscape in Wisconsin. Photo by Julie Coates

State of Society April 2013

Three months into 2013, here's a summary of the state of society.

It's from my Nine Shift update at our Institutes in Fort Lauderdale last week. Society is stumbling forward, but it's a confusing time. We're in 3 places at once.

1.STILL CLUELESS
  Leaders, business, government knows Gen Y is driving less, but they still don't know why. They don't understand the intangible economy.  They don't know why Gen Y is migrating to 21st cities. And on. Case in point: A NYT article saying Gen Y is not travelling.

2.RESISTANCE
  Most everyone over age 40 still is embracing old ideas of the last century.  That belief system dies hard.  The reality of today is there, but the belief system of yesterday clouds the reality for people over 40. And they are resisting the new century. Case in point:  STEM and giving males gender equity in our schools.

3.SUCCESS
   Amid the cluelessness and resistance, there is success.  4 cases in point: 1)tax increases on the rich; 2)health care law;  3) gay marriage; and 4) marijuana laws. All four hard to imagine just four years ago. All are a "done deal" in 2013.

Participants in my Institute, one of six, met outside in the patio for many small discussions.

 

Kids Getting Smarter

Young people are actually getting smarter.

Writing in The New York Times, Nicholas Kristof reports on the Flynn Effect, which shows that I.Q. on average increases 3 points every decade. 

Teachers should understand and celebrate. Instead, too many teachers bad-mouth students today, harming the very young people they are supposed to be serving. Teachers saying  "I worry that...."  should be banned from public places, including schools.

The effect is named after James R. Flynn, a New Zealand scholar.  Kristof writes "Countless other scholars worldwide have replicated his findings, and it is now accepted science." 

It's good news for everyone. Except for negative educators. Photo: Two of our 93 participants at our Institutes in Fort Lauderdale last week. Our LERN members are getting younger too.

The Next Generational War

Gen X will be the next generation to do 'war' with Gen Y.

So predicts my brilliant co-author Julie Coates, the leading expert on generational learning styles. Gen X apparently does not like Gen Y, and Gen Y is well aware of that.  

So just when Boomers retire, Gen Xers take over, and Gen Y moves more into the workplace, there's going to be (or is already) another generational conflict.  What do you think?  Know any Gen X managers who like Gen Y?  I need to find one to help resolve this.