The European Pressphoto Agency image that has captivated the world: A mother kisses her soldier son at a Cairo checkpoint in early February 2011.The world has watched events in Egypt unfold this past week with rapt attention as a 30-year regime stumbles to its inevitable end.
But a picture from the European Pressphoto Agency that appeared on the front page of The Wall Street Journal this past Tuesday transcends the political aspects of the events and speaks to us on a far more fundamental level.
The story told by the photo is simple enough: A mother kisses her soldier son at a Cairo checkpoint on a day when protesters are gearing up for a huge march on the Egyptian capital city.
But it’s an image that’s “gone viral” and has bounded about the worldwide web.
Why?
What is it about this picture that is so compelling? After all, it portrays a pretty mundane occurrence in the world of political events and regime change. But there’s something about the image that strikes right at the heart of our shared existence as human beings and our connections to family.
We don’t know these people at all. The location may be exotic … the culture and dress “foreign.” But the photo is about something much deeper – and it’s a connection that binds us all.
In this case, it’s a picture that’s worth a million words.
Milton Levine of Ant Farm fame.If you read last month about the death of businessman Milton Levine (1913-2011), you might not recognize the name at first. But those of us “of a certain age” remember well when ant farms were quite the craze in elementary and junior high school. Uncle Milton’s Ant Farm® was the target of keen interest, and most teachers willingly went along, allowing kids to bring them to school for “show and tell.”
From the vantage point of 50+ years, it’s also safe to claim that the Ant Farm was arguably one of the first toys that captured the imagination of boys and girls alike. It’s unlikely you’ll ever meet someone who owned one of these Ant Farms who doesn’t have vivid memories of the experience … and who wouldn’t also tell you how much their friends and fellow students were interested.
The “Uncle Milton” of Uncle Milton’s Ant Farm was Milton Levine, a business entrepreneur who died last month at age 97. It was he and his brother-in-law who introduced the wildly successful toy to the American market in the mid-1950s.
Levine was a mail-order merchant, having already built a successful business selling items like plastic toy soldiers, spud guns and toy shrunken heads via “back-of-the-book” advertising in comic books and children’s magazines. But it was his decision to design a durable plastic formicarium (the fancy Latin term for homes for ants) that propelled Levine into the mail order major leagues.
As he would later recall, the idea of merchandising an ant farm came to Levine from remembering his boyhood exploits constructing crude terrariums in Mason jars while visiting his uncle’s farm in Western Pennsylvania. He liked to quote the Bible as inspiration, too – specifically the verse: “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways and be wise.”(Proverbs 6:6)
Levine’s ant farm creation sold an eyebrow-raising two million units in 1957-58 alone. As sales boomed, the product began to be stocked in retail stores as well. Those who purchased ant farms sent in a coupon packaged with their product to receive a vial of 25 pogonomyrmex californicus ants – a species found in the southwestern desert regions of Arizona and New Mexico.
Levine’s company paid workers a penny per ant to harvest the ants in the desert; shovels and vacuums were the tools of choice in these endeavors, with some workers reportedly making ~$3,000 weekly in what has to be one of the most unusual U.S. farm labor jobs ever.
Whenever he spoke about the success of his creation, Levine expressed surprise: “Most novelties, if they last one season, it’s a lot,” he remarked in 1991. “If they last two seasons, it’s a phenomenon. To last 35 years is unheard of.”
And in fact, the Ant Farm is still doing quite well, more than 50 years after its introduction. The latest cumulative estimates of unit sales are upwards of 20 million. In a time when today’s popular toy is in tomorrow’s junk pile, that’s quite an accomplishment.
So as we salute the memory of Milton Levine, we can marvel at the fact that his signature product has outlasted even his own very long life. It’s an impressive legacy by any measure.
Sudan's southern region (in blue) votes 98%+ for secession and is slated to become Africa's newest nation in July 2011.Is Africa poised to be the home of a brand new country? It would seem so, as the results of a January referendum held in Sudan’s southern region were announced earlier this week.
While there were indications of voter irregularity – some provinces have fewer registered voters than votes cast – this is no sham election à la Iran or Cuba. International monitoring groups have determined that the overwhelming sentiment for separation and independence makes the pro-secession vote a valid result.
The final results will be certified in a few weeks, following which the wheels will start turning toward the formal creation of an independent state on a predetermined date of July 9, 2011. The new country will likely be called the Nile Republic or Azania.
If events continue as they are going, July 9 will be the culmination of a decades-long struggle that has produced more than its share of misery for the primarily Christian inhabitants of Sudan’s southern region. In this case, religious and tribal differences trumped the impractical and ultimately unworkable colonial-imposed boundaries set down by Britain in the late 1800s.
But despite the grim and grueling history of the conflict, the resolution of this struggle provides a happier ending compared to similar struggles on the continent – the secession attempt of Biafra from Nigeria being perhaps the best-known. That struggle had similar shades of tribal and religious differences, but the end result was reunification by force.
Contrast that with Sudan’s actions today. President Omar al-Bashir declared that the southern region had a right to choose whether to secede, and stated that his government would respect the outcome of the vote.
This is not to say that Sudan will not continue to keep a close eye on its southern border. “The stability of the south is very important because any instability in the south will have an impact on the north,” al-Bashir says. “The south suffers from many problems. It’s been at war since 1959.”
One can only imagine the Herculean challenges the new Nile Republic will face – ranging from citizenship qualification to finances, infrastructure and security issues.
But to have come so far while suffering so much in the process, those are issues most people are probably looking forward to facing and solving. And those of us lucky enough to have been born into societies where self-determination is already an accepted ideal wish them nothing but success.
The harsh realities of cost are driving healthcare providers, insurance carriers and government agencies to implement policies designed to encourage consumers to take better control over their own health.
More healthcare plans and programs than ever before are including incentives for making lifestyle changes, undergoing preventive care routines, “do-it-yourself” testing as well as online consultations with physicians.
In this regard, it seems everyone is completely on the bandwagon … except perhaps the consumer.
Why is that the case? One reason might be because of what we’ve trained people to expect in the delivery of healthcare services.
For decades, American consumers weren’t given any meaningful incentives for engaging in preventive care or in making lifestyle adjustments. Several generations of Americans were acclimatized to seek out healthcare services when they needed it – and that was when something was wrong. And the billing for those services was sent directly to the insurance company for payment.
In such an environment, preventive health or cost control was the last thing on people’s minds.
I recall being hospitalized for six days back in the early 1980s, along with being given a battery of medical tests conducted by health specialists of every stripe. I’m sure the invoicing associated with my hospitalization and treatment was astronomical … but I never saw a copy of the bill to really know.
My only out-of-pocket expense for the entire week? Thirty dollars for using the television set in the hospital room.
What was surprising to me, even at the time, was that I was kept in hospitalization far longer than I felt I needed to be – my symptoms of infection were gone after just a day or two. If I had been responsible for paying for even a portion of my hospitalization, I’m sure I would have been talking with anyone I could find about how quickly I could be discharged!
Today of course, people are far more aware of skyrocketing healthcare costs – not to mention their concerns about ever-rising health insurance premiums, higher deductibles, and bigger co-pays. Still, when asked about adopting new ways of interfacing with healthcare providers, American consumers seem somewhat ambivalent about them.
A recent online survey of ~1,000 Americans age 18 and over conducted by marketing and research firm Euro RSCG Worldwide found that only ~42% of respondents are comfortable with the idea of having online consultations in lieu of personal visits with their doctors.
[Men are more receptive to this idea (~58%) than women are (~37%) … but women are the ones more apt to make healthcare decisions for their families.]
On the other hand, here’s an interesting additional insight from the survey: When told that having an online consultation with their physician might result in lower expenses, ~77% of those same respondents reported that they’d be open to trying it.
What about the concept of “do-it-yourself” testing? Close to half of the respondents in the survey (~48%) reported that they’re receptive to the idea of using mobile apps to run their own tests and checkups at home. Checking blood pressure was the most popular DIY test, along with tracking and reporting on symptoms.
Of course, as time moves forward, technology is no longer the big obstacle it once was for turning “virtual visits” and “remote care” into a reality. Instead, it’s consumer attitudes and a willingness to adapt. And to accomplish that, the purveyors of modern healthcare must try to undo several generations of “learned” behavior that’s nearly the polar opposite.
Denise Murtagh, a planning director at Euro RSCG, mentions another factor as well: the doctors themselves. “A lot will depend on how facile physicians are with the technology, and how comfortable they are with it.”
And let’s not forget age demographics, too. The survey underscores that Gen-X and Gen-Y consumers are far more comfortable with the idea of physician remote care (47% – 52% positive) than Baby Boomers and those born earlier are (only 33% – 39% positive).
It looks like we’ll need to give this trend a bit more time to come into full flower.
Surprisingly, college textbooks still reign supreme over their digital counterparts.The digital revolution is having its first and greatest impact on the younger generations. Whether it’s mobile apps, hyper-texting, online gaming, or keeping up on the news without the benefit of the daily paper, they’re the ones most on the cutting edge.
So it might be somewhat surprising to read the results of a survey of college kids about how they prefer to access their textbook information. I’ve blogged before about the racket that is college textbook publishing – a rip-off if ever there was one. So one would think that college students (and their parents if they foot the bill) would be very keen on any advancements that begin to render expensive textbooks obsolete.
But according to a survey conducted in mid-2010 by OnCampus Research, a division of the National Association of College Stores, only 13% of college students had purchased an electronic book of any kind during the previous semester.
And of that percentage, ~56% revealed that the prime mover of their e-book purchase was because it was required course material for class, not because they chose an available e-version over a printed version of the textbook.
What’s more, nearly three-fourths of the students in this survey stated that they prefer printed textbooks over digital versions.
And when it comes to what devices people are using to view their e-books, most are accessing the contents on laptop computers rather than newer devices that have hit the streets in recent times:
Prefer reading e-books on a laptop computer: ~77%
Prefer reading on a desktop computer: ~30%
Prefer reading on a smartphone: ~19%
Prefer reading on a Kindle or similar e-reader device: ~19%
Prefer reading on an iPad or similar device: ~4%
Laura Cozart, a manager at OnCampus Research, had this to say about the survey results: “The findings of the report are not surprising. Every new innovation takes time before the mainstream population embraces it.”
Reflecting the current situation, of the NACS member stores that offer digital content, e-books comprise only ~3% of course material sales. But NACS is expecting that percentage to rise to 10% or 15% by 2012.
But the impetus behind that anticipated increase is expected to come from faculty members as they get more familiar and comfortable with the interactive possibilities to enhance their classroom instruction — rather than from those oh-so 21st Century students.
It wouldn’t be the first time the “leading edge” meets the “back edge” going around the other side.
By now, everyone knows that Facebook has pretty much won the social media wars, as early entrant and rival MySpacehemorrhages employees as it tucks its tail between its legs and slinks away.
And Facebook itself is a good chronicler of the hyperactivity of Facebookers wordwide. Recently, it published some stats on “what 20 minutes on Facebook looks like.” Among the revelations:
~10.2 million comments uploaded every 20 minutes
~2.7 million photos uploaded
~2.0 million “friend” requests accepted
~1.8 million status updates posted
~1.6 million wall posts
~1.5 million event invites sent out
~1.3 million photos tagged
~1 million links shared
Fan designations (or “likes”) are now reaching stratospheric proportions for some celebrities. And who were the most popular in 2010 based the “most liked” status? The results show a major skew towards the younger generation … and toward entertainers rather than political, scientific or academic leaders:
Lady Gaga: ~25 million people “like”
Eminem: ~24 million people
Megan Fox: ~20 million people
Vin Diesel: ~19 million people
Rihanna: ~19 million people
Where does President Barack Obama rank by comparison? He’s at ~17 million “likes” – right along with Bob Marley, Li’l Wayne, Justin Bieber and Shakira.
Personally, I found the trends in relationship status to be the most interesting. There were quite a few relationship changes … but perhaps not as many as you might expect considering that there are an estimated 600 million active users on Facebook these days.
For the record, here’s what happened with personal relationships in 2010:
~44 million people changed their status to “single”
~37 million changed their status to “married”
~28 million changed their status to “in a relationship”
~6 million changed their status to “engaged”
~3 million changed their status to “it’s complicated”
Notice that the number of people who migrated away from marriage were nearly equally matched by those becoming engaged or getting hitched. As the famous French saying goes, Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. (The more things change, the more they stay the same.)
Google's Online Library Project: 5 million+ volumes and growing.An article published recently in Science magazine provides fascinating sociological findings based on researching the content of the growing number of books in Google’s digital library.
Google has amassed a database of some 2 billion words and phrases from more than 5 million books published over the past 200 years. Much of the news coverage about this project has been focused on the intense criticism of some publishers and authors who are concerned about copyright protections and Google’s alleged knowledge “power grab.”
But a more interesting and useful result of Google’s library project has been that linguists have been able to use this trove to measure information and trends based on the language in the books and the people and concepts that are referenced therein.
By analyzing the digitized text of the books in Google’s database in relation to when they were published, the researchers found that they can measure all sorts of trends – such as changing tastes in foods, ebbs and flows in relations between countries, and the role of religion in the world.
For example, references to “sausage” peaked in the 1940s and have dropped off dramatically since then, whereas references to “sushi” began to appear in significant volume in the 1980s.
It’s also interesting to see how references to certain “personalities” grow or decline over the decades. Revolutionary leader Che Guevara was covered widely in the 1960s but has receded since then, whereas Hollywood actress Marilyn Monroe has seen a slow, steady increase in references even decades following her death.
References to “God” have declined steadily since its peak usage in the 1840s, which likely comes as no surprise. More interestingly, references to “men” far outpaced women all through the 1800s and 1900s … until the 1980s when the two were at parity. And by 2000, references to women surpass those of men.
When evaluating emotional concepts, the researchers have found that concepts like “empathy” and “self esteem” have exploded since the 1940s and 1950s … while those of “will power,” “self control” and “prudence” have all declined.
Commenting on the importance of this academic research, Mark Liberman, a computational linguist at the University of Pennsylvania, said, “We see patterns in space, time and cultural context on a scale a million times greater than in the past.”
It turns out that Google’s digital database of books is but a small fraction of the total number of volumes published since the invention of the printing press; that figure has been estimated at ~129 million. But Google’s 5 million+ books are giving us a much more precise view of trends than what’s ever been possible before.
And an interesting ancillary finding of the research is realizing the number of completely new words that have come into use in the English language. It turns out that more than 500,000 new English words that have made their “debut” since 1950.
Google is making this data available at a time when it continues to face criticism about its online library endeavor. The initiative has faced copyright disputes, lawsuits and charges that Google is attempting to create an “information monopoly” (some of which have been sort of settled). But over the long haul, I think it’s a pretty safe bet that people will view the pluses as outweighing the minuses in Google’s library project.
Roy Neuberger: Financier and art patron extraordinaire.When someone lives to the age of 107, that’s news in and of itself.
But when Roy R. Neuberger died at 107 on Christmas Eve Day, he was far more than just a person who had lived an extraordinarily long life. He was one of the most significant figures in 20th Century American finance, along with being an important patron of the arts.
Neuberger’s life story follows the arc of America’s modern history. Born into a family of wealth in Bridgeport, CT in 1903, he was orphaned at an early age. At first Neuberger was interested in a journalism career, but found college studies unfulfilling and dropped out of New York University before earning his degree.
Neuberger’s first job in business was with B. Altmans, a famous New York department store. He would later recall that this experience prepared him not just for a life in business, but also nurtured a lifelong appreciation for art.
Neuberger then took a sabbatical from business in his early 20s to travel to Europe, where he dabbled in painting and lived the life of a Bohemian in Paris along with other American expatriates.
After this wanderlust wore off and he was back in the United States, Neuberger stepped back into the business world by beginning his career on Wall Street – mere months before the stock market crash of 1929. Soldiering on during the years of the Depression, by 1939 he had co-founded Neuberger Berman, an investment firm that would later establish one of the first no-load mutual funds in America (the Guardian Fund – still in operation today).
But Neuberger’s love of art and painting was never far from his mind. In fact, by the early 1940s he was well on his way to becoming one of America’s most important art patrons. Neuberger was an early admirer of the paintings of Peter Hurd, promoting his works and helping to put this artist on the cultural map. It was a pattern that would be repeated over the years, as Neuberger championed the works of such luminaries as Edward Hopper, Milton Avery, Alexander Calder and Jackson Pollock.
On the social scene, Roy Neuberger was a fixture in New York business, political and artistic circles. He was a close personal friend of Gov. and later Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. In later years, after the death of his wife, he was a regular escort of the glamorous singer, actress and fellow art patron Kitty Carlisle Hart – another member of the glitterati who lived a long and celebrated life (96 years).
Throughout his many decades of involvement in the arts scene, Neuberger never severed ties to his business or the world of finance. Indeed, he was a person who seemed genuinely comfortable operating in both realms – two worlds that sometimes do not get along so well.
Neuberger even found time to write his memoirs: So Far, So Good – the First 94 Years was published 13 years before his death … and he penned a second book on art collecting as late as 2003.
Clearly, Roy Neuberger was someone who had a real zest for life and who never stopped growing and learning … which surely makes him an inspiration to many. But if that’s not enough for you, just the fact that he lived to be 107 years old is noteworthy in itself!
Chrysler's Town & Country minivan: On top of the charts again.Not surprisingly, the ongoing saga of the GM bailout and subsequent re-listing of General Motors on the New York Stock Exchange was the biggest automotive news story of 2010.
But in what may be the more surprising comeback story, the Chrysler Town & County minivan is poised to regain the top spot in a segment that Chrysler once dominated, going all the way back to when the first minivan rolled off the assembly line in the early 1980s.
But in recent years, beset by organization troubles along with spirited competition from other domestic and imported automakers, Chrysler had lost its first-rank position to the Honda Odyssey while its overall share of the minivan market declined.
For December, the Town & Country’s unit sales were over 102,000, compared to the Odyssey’s ~98,000. Chrysler’s sister brand, Dodge, racked up minivan unit sales of ~89,000, the same as the Toyota Sienna. That puts Chrysler on pace to lead the minivan pack for all of 2010 and reclaim the sales crown.
It’s no secret that Chrysler considers the minivan to be one of the keys to its brand identity – and a key component of its comeback strategy. “Our goal is regaining leadership. We consider we own it and we need to regain what once belonged to us,” the Detroit News quotes Olivier Francois, head of the Chrysler brand, as saying.
[Another reason Chrysler might have lost its edge over the years in the “minivan derby” was a perception of quality issues and the way its vehicles handled. But speaking as someone whose family has driven Chrysler minivans since 1990 – and currently owns four Dodge Caravans spanning ten years’ worth of model years – we’ve never encountered any major quality issues beyond the expected maintenance requirements for vehicles we routinely run for close to 200,000 miles each.]
If a car maker is making a major push for product sales, it makes sense to place more inventory in the showrooms for consumers to buy. Significant “upgrades” to Dodge and Chrysler minivans are being introduced for 2011, and greater numbers of vehicles will be delivered to dealerships, it’s being reported.
Of course, no one believes that Chrysler’s goal to maintain the sales crown for minivans will be slam-dunk easy. Japanese automakers are introducing their own all-new minivan models in 2011.
And why not? They’re seeing an increase in consumer interest in the minivan segment just like everyone else. While no one expects sales of minivans to return to the stratospheric levels of the late 1990s, stories about the “death” of the minivan that were being published in more recent years have now completely disappeared from the newswires.
One of the interesting questions Chrysler will be facing in the coming years is whether to continue to cultivate two separate minivan nameplates or to consolidate them into one. Chrysler has tended to lavish more “design” attention on the Town & Country and more “performance” focus on the Dodge Caravan. As a result, the Town & Country is now more popular with female consumers and the Caravan more popular with men.
This “gender-focused” targeting finds its penultimate manifestation this year with the introduction of Dodge Caravan’s so-called “man-van” – a high-performance version of the Grand Caravan featuring a “macho” all-black interior with red stitching. Can’t wait for one of these show up in the auto showroom!
While there’s been evidence of significant shifts in U.S. population growth over the past decade, the decennial census performed earlier this year gives us an opportunity to learn precisely what’s been happening and end some of the “speculation.”
And now, with the U.S. Census Bureau releasing its preliminary population reports, we’re seeing how this has played out in cities across the country. While it’s true that the American population has grown pretty steadily at about 2.5 million people per year, some areas have grown much faster than others as a result of being better positioned through the education of their workforce and/or their business- and technology-friendly environments.
Alas, other areas haven’t merely stagnated, but actually lost residents because of failing industries and unattractive business climates, sparking net out-migration of their residents.
Interestingly, many of the cities in the “industrial heartland” of America have managed to stay on the positive side of population growth – even if just barely. But some cities have experienced such hardship that their populations have dropped dramatically in the past decade.
New Orleans tops the list … and who’s surprised about that? After all, Hurricane Katrina effectively robbed the city of one-third of its residents – with most of them electing not to return after establishing new livelihoods in Houston, Shreveport, and other localities further yon.
But New Orleans surely represents a “special case” if ever there was one. Other cities have suffered greatly due to their dependence on industries that took a beating over the past decade. And really, any city with a major focus on traditional manufacturing saw thousands of jobs disappear.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Census report on the nation’s largest cities — ones with 100,000+ population — the seven experiencing the biggest percentage declines in population over the past decade are:
1. New Orleans, LA – Dropped by ~129,000 to ~355,000 (-27%) 2. Flint, MI – Declined by ~13,000 to ~112,000 (-11%) 3. Cleveland, OH – Fell by ~45,000 to ~431,000 (-10%) 4. Buffalo, NY – Dropped by ~22,000 to ~270,000 (-8%) 5. Dayton, OH – Declined by ~12,000 to ~154,000 (-7%) 6. Pittsburgh, PA – Dropped by ~22,000 to ~312,000 (-7%) 7. Rochester, NY – Declined by ~12,000 to ~207,000 (-6%)
[I was a bit surprised to see Detroit missing from this list. After all, it’s the poster child for urban decay and depopulation. But Detroit’s population percentage decline was actually smaller than the cities above, and it remains the nation’s 11th largest city. However, the 2010 census will likely show that its population has fallen below 800,000 for the first time in nearly a century – and the figure is even more startling when you realize the city’s population was nearly 2 million as late as the 1950 census.]
Unfortunately, the negative implication of population declines in these proud American cities go far beyond the loss of social prestige and political clout.
Once decline sets in, it can go on for years. The loss of residents contributes to a drop in tax receipts and the subsequent curtailing of social services ranging from police and sanitation to schools and recreation. Home vacancy rates say volumes about the precarious position in which the cities above find themselves – they’re above 15% in every single case (and sometimes dramatically higher).
Confronted with such a reality, too often the result is more people fleeing the urban core, creating a continuing downward spiral that seemingly has no bottom. Representative examples of where this sorry state of affairs can end up can be found in two smaller but particularly grim urban communities: Camden, NJ and Chester, PA.
From the outside looking in, it’s difficult to accept these population reports … and it seems like people should step in and do something – anything – to arrest the decline.
And in the abstract, it’s only natural to feel that this is what should happen. But in the “real world,” who are going to be the ones to step up to the plate and expose themselves (and their families) to the harsh reality of urban pioneering?
Would I do it? Would you?
For most of us, the answer to that question falls into the “life’s too short” category.
Nones Notes 