Monthly Archives: December 2012

Religious nones vote overwhelmingly for Obama in 2012 presidential election

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A number of commentators have pointed out the advantage for President Obama among the religious “nones,” people who have no religious affiliation who now make up almost 20% of the US population, in the 2012 election. Here is another look at the voting gap:

— In Ohio, Obama lost the Protestant vote by 3 points and the Catholic vote by 11, but he won the “nones” — 12 percent of the state’s electorate — by 47 points.— In Virginia, Obama lost Protestants by 9 points and Catholics by 10 points, but won 76 percent of the “nones,” who were 10 percent of the electorate.

— In Florida, Obama lost Protestants by 16 points and Catholics by 5 points, but captured 72 percent of the “nones.” They were 15 percent of the electorate.

Similar results were seen in states including Michigan, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania…

Nationally, Obama lost the Protestant vote by 15 points, won the Catholic vote by 2 points, and captured 70 percent of the “nones.”

If the late 1970s and 1980s were about the rise of conservative religious voters, the Moral Majority and all that, are the 2010s going to be about the rise of the “nones”? While the article cautions at the end that religious switching is common in the United States, I haven’t seen commentators or political types address this question: how could Republicans change their pitch to attract more of the “nones”?

Using GIS to study Gettysburg, the Holocaust, and the American iron industry

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Smithsonian takes a look at a historian who uses GIS to get a new perspective on important historical events:

Her principal tool is geographic information systems, or GIS, a name for computer programs that incorporate such data as satellite imagery, paper maps and statistics. Knowles makes GIS sound simple: “It’s a computer software that allows you to map and analyze any information that has a location attached.” But watching her navigate GIS and other applications, it quickly becomes obvious that this isn’t your father’s geography…

What emerges, in the end, is a “map” that’s not just color-coded and crammed with data, but dynamic rather than static—a layered re-creation that Knowles likens to looking at the past through 3-D glasses. The image shifts, changing with a few keystrokes to answer the questions Knowles asks. In this instance, she wants to know what commanders could see of the battlefield on the second day at Gettysburg. A red dot denotes General Lee’s vantage point from the top of the Lutheran Seminary. His field of vision shows as clear ground, with blind spots shaded in deep indigo. Knowles has even factored in the extra inches of sightline afforded by Lee’s boots. “We can’t account for the haze and smoke of battle in GIS, though in theory you could with gaming software,” she says…

Though she’s now been ensconced at Middlebury for a decade, Knowles continues to push boundaries. Her current project is mapping the Holocaust, in collaboration with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and a team of international scholars. Previously, most maps of the Holocaust simply located sites such as death camps and ghettos. Knowles and her colleagues have used GIS to create a “geography of oppression,” including maps of the growth of concentration camps and the movement of Nazi death squads that accompanied the German Army into the Soviet Union…

Aware of these pitfalls, Knowles is about to publish a book that uses GIS in the service of an overarching historical narrative. Mastering Iron, due out in January, follows the American iron industry from 1800 to 1868. Though the subject matter may not sound as grabby as the Holocaust or Gettysburg, Knowles has blended geographical analysis with more traditional sources to challenge conventional wisdom about the development of American industry.

Sounds pretty interesting. Having detailed geographic data can change one’s perspective. But there are two things that need to happen first before researchers can take advantage of such information:

1. Using GIS well requires a lot of training and then being able to find the right data for the analysis.

2. Using geographic data like this requires a change in mindset from the idea that geography is just a background variable. In sociology, analysis often controls for some geographic variation but doesn’t often consider the location or space as the primary factor.

While GIS is a hot method right now, I think these two issues will hold it back from being widely used for a while.

The McDonaldization of TED

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Wired looks at the spread of TED around the world:

Free online access is just one of two major initiatives that TED has undertaken to engage a wider audience. The other is fully physical and has equally changed the character of the organization. That initiative, called TEDx, began in 2008 as a way to bring TED-like gatherings to smaller communities. It quickly spread to cities and towns around the globe—1,300 so far, in 134 countries, hosting more than 800,000 people in total, many times more than have ever attended an official TED event. The video viewing I attended at the Bozeman library was not some random screening; it was an overflow simulcast of the inaugural TEDxBozeman, which had sold out its tickets in six days. Each event is required to show at least two videos from TED.com, but the rest of the speakers are in person, often local, creating a TED-style experience for places where “ideas conference” isn’t even part of the lexicon.

TED does place some restrictions on the independent organizers. The TEDx logo renders the x like an asterisk, with a tagline below that reads “x = independently organized TED event.” But in practice, TED has put its entire reputation in the hands of these organizers, if only because they’re so entrepreneurial and so plugged into their communities. These local showrunners recruit speakers unknown to TED central and coach them on how to present their ideas. The resulting one-day conferences draw huge crowds. For most of the world now, and even for most of the United States, these events are TED.

Chris Anderson (no relation to the editor of this magazine), a former media executive who has run TED since 2001, sees both TEDx and TED.com as in keeping with a larger philosophy of “radical openness.” But putting media online is a standard practice, whereas these satellite events have taken Anderson into entirely uncharted territory: He has given his nationally known brand away to thousands of complete unknowns, spawning independent TED events in cities and towns all around the world. Can “big ideas” really cover that much ground?

This piece praises TED for this move – here is the concluding paragraph:

As gauzy as this may sound, there really is some idea that underpins whatever it is that each of us does, and there’s some narrative (whether our own or someone else’s) that helps convey it to others. By bringing speakers out of their specialties, by teaching them to talk to everyone, TEDxes are helping speakers connect with audiences, and helping audiences in turn to connect ideas inside their own minds. That is, they’re adding to our store of stories—and it’s hard to think of a much better reason to get together than that.

I can’t help think of George Ritzer’s analysis of McDonaldization. As the headline for the article suggests, TED has become a franchise. And with franchising and a global spread, Ritzer argued these traits come to dominate organizations:

  • Efficiency – the optimal method for accomplishing a task. In this context, Ritzer has a very specific meaning of “efficiency”. In the example of McDonald’s customers, it is the fastest way to get from being hungry to being full. Efficiency in McDonaldization means that every aspect of the organization is geared toward the minimization of time.
  • Calculability – objective should be quantifiable (e.g., sales) rather than subjective (e.g., taste). McDonaldization developed the notion that quantity equals quality, and that a large amount of product delivered to the customer in a short amount of time is the same as a high quality product. This allows people to quantify how much they’re getting versus how much they’re paying. Organizations want consumers to believe that they are getting a large amount of product for not a lot of money. Workers in these organizations are judged by how fast they are instead of the quality of work they do.
  • Predictability – standardized and uniform services. “Predictability” means that no matter where a person goes, they will receive the same service and receive the same product every time when interacting with the McDonaldized organization. This also applies to the workers in those organizations. Their tasks are highly repetitive, highly routine, and predictable.
  • Control – standardized and uniform employees, replacement of human by non-human technologies
  • Culture – As a part of standardization, cultural hybridization occurs. As McDonald’s enters a country, consumer patterns are unified and starting with the food chains, local cultures are westernized.

Maybe TED is a bit different because it is about ideas and the content of the different talks could vary widely between Bozeman, Montana and Indonesia. This article also suggests the parent organization isn’t completely controlling everything on the other end. At the same time, I imagine attendees have some idea of what kind of product a TED conference is and they expect to have a particular kind of experience. What happens if the product at the local level, particularly when comparing a local TEDx conference versus the larger official TED talks, doesn’t compare? Even though the conferences are about ideas, do the ideas tend to clump together in certain fields or ways of viewing the world? The trick here is to balance a consistently good TED experience with new ideas that push attendees to see the world in new ways, all while avoiding becoming just another global brand or product.

Live video feed of a 100 house gingerbread community

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If you are looking for holiday architecture, check out this live feed of a 100 house gingerbread community. Curbed provides a brief description of the community:

Design-y Japanese retailer Muji has taken the whole genre up another notch, this time with a tiny gingerbread town, complete with 100 houses created from 15,000 Muji snacks. There’s a commuter train; hay bales; tiny residents shoveling snow, heading to work, and chatting with neighbors; and even mini video projections. The burg is on display in Toyko until Christmas Day, but the company has also installed a 24-hour live feed for virtual visitors. And yet again, Muji has enlisted children to help build stuff—watch the video and see some close-up shots below.

I checked the live feed last night and it looked like the gingerbread village was asleep. The music is also catchy but I imagine it could get annoying really quickly. I’ll have to check back today to see if the town is more lively today…

Two other notes:

1. Does gingerbread architecture differ across cultures? While this community was put together by a Japanese corporation, it looks like it is made up of fairly traditional and Western architecture.

2. Since this is put together by a retailer, I assume this is supposed to lead me to buy something. Gingerbread house kits? Model train sets?

Contingency plans being developed for the bankruptcy of Detroit

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A number of municipalities have experienced fiscal troubles in recent years but the issues in Detroit may be pushing it to bankruptcy:

The working concept, still evolving, assumes that the state’s financial review would find severe financial distress in Detroit, that Mayor Dave Bing and City Council would be unable to push through overdue restructuring, and that the process would culminate in appointment of an emergency financial manager under Public Act 72.

The case would be filed under Chapter 9 of the federal bankruptcy code, according to two ranking sources familiar with the situation, following efforts to reach prenegotiated settlements with as many key creditors — unions, vendors and pension funds among them — as possible before any filing…

The evolving bankruptcy scenario is a clear signal that Gov. Rick Snyder and Treasurer Andy Dillon have lost confidence in the ability of the mayor, his management team and council to honor their commitments under the eight-month-old consent agreement with the state, or to make any meaningful progress on restructuring.

Over recent years, a number of suggestions have been thrown out regarding Detroit including the city should be contracted and it is an ideal site for urban farming and reclaiming the land from unused and/or vacant buildings.

I wish the article spent more time discussing what would then happen to Detroit moving forward. How will this affect city services and residents? After a managed bankruptcy, where does this leave the city? Realistically, what plans could be pursued that would put Detroit on a better financial footing and with some hope for the future?

Highlights from the Nielsen Social Media Report 2012

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Nielsen just released the Social Media Report 2012 (more data here). Here are a few things to note:

Facebook remains the most-visited social network in the U.S. via PC (152.2 million visitors), mobile apps (78.4 million users) and mobile web (74.3 million visitors), and is multiple times the size of the next largest social site across each platform.  The site is also the top U.S. web brand in terms of time spent, as some 17 percent of time spent online via personal computer is on Facebook.

-More than 70% of Pinterest’s users are female.

-The top three reasons by far for why social networks users become connected/friends: know person in real life, interested in keeping up, mutual friends. This is more evidence that social networks are mainly about maintaining existing connections rather than creating new connections.

-Watching TV is increasingly linked to tablet, smartphone, and Twitter usage. Multitasking is alive and well and perhaps TV can be interactive after all.

There is also some fascinating data at the end about social media usage around the world.

Beautiful infrastructure: new image of the US from space at night

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This is worth gaping at for a moment:

United States

Some of the details on how the image was obtained:

These super-high-resolution images, made possible by a new type of infrared sensor on the satellite, were revealed here at the American Geophysical Union conference Dec. 5.

The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite has a “day-night band” that can detect natural and man-made light with unprecedented resolution and clarity. It can resolve everything from the nocturnal glow of the atmosphere to the light of a single boat at sea. It can detect auroras, wildfires, the reflection of moon and star light off clouds and ice and the lights alongside highways. The sensor has six times better spatial resolution and 250 times better resolution of lighting levels than anything that came before it.

The VIIRS instrument works by scanning in 22 different wavelength bands. For each pixel, it uses a low-, medium- or high-gain mode to accurately depict the light from each source. Low-light signals are amplified and bright lights are kept from being over-saturated.

This could be an example of infrastructure at its finest. With a quick glance at this photo, you get an idea of the geographic dispersion of the American population. Of course, it could also tell you something about light pollution…

Claim: 90% of information ever created by humans was created in the last two years

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An article on big data makes a claim about how much information humans have created in the last two years:

In the last two years, humans have created 90% of all information ever created by our species. If our data output used to be a sprinkler, it is now a firehose that’s only getting stronger, and it is revealing information about our relationships, health, and undiscovered trends in society that are just beginning to be understood.

This is quite a bit of data. But a few points in a response:

1. I assume this refers only to recorded data. While there are more people on earth than before, humans are expressive creatures and have been for a long time.

2. This article could be interpreted by some to mean that we need to pay more attention to online privacy but I would guess much of this information is volunteered. Think of Facebook: users voluntarily submit information their friends and Facebook can access. Or blogs: people voluntarily put together content.

3. This claim also suggests we need better ways to sort through and make sense of all this data. How can the average Internet user put it all this data together in a meaningful way? We are simply awash in information and I wonder how many people, particularly younger people, know how to make sense of all that is out there.

4. Of course, having all of this information out there doesn’t necessarily mean it is meaningful or worthwhile.

Discussing why a professional sports team would adopt the name the Pelicans

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It appears the New Orleans Hornets will adopt a new name: the Pelicans. Here is some discussion on TrueHoop about the meaning of the name and other names that were in the running:

And yet, if you put a gun to my head and said: Come up with a funny name for a minor league baseball team I’d say “Pelicans” and I’d worry that it wasn’t realistic. Like, what owner would name his team for an unathletic bird noted for how much marine life it can carry in its big mouth?

In terms of specifically dissecting the Pelican and noting its awkwardness, I think that is fair, but I think the qualities of the bird do not necessarily translate into the perception of the team. Magic is not the “sportiest” of names. It’s either weak in some sense or cheating (is there a rule against sorcery?), right?

Not to pick on the Magic, of course. The Celtics aren’t meant to be pagans. The Knickerbockers don’t have people’s unsundry parts in them. Those names are “made” by their legacies. It is the duty of every franchise to build that legacy to overcome all of these, at first, imperfect names. And upon the fanbase. They have to “own it,” to use the parlance of our time.

People in New Orleans dislike change, but they love New Orleans. There’s nothing like some hate from north of I-10 to get some New Orleanians to love what those “Yankees” hate.

It’ll work.

And a quick look at three other possible names:

The colors were purple, red and black primarily, they had the voodoo dolls, the graveyard, bones and mojo for mascots, and more. It was fantastic, local, recognizable, edgy. Voodoo is currently owned by the new AFL, as Benson folded his team prior the older AFL folding. The Shreveport-Bossier City Battlewings (north Louisiana for those playing the home game) moved here, donning Voodoo garb. This was at least one obstruction to this…

Krewe was another good choice. “Krewe of X” is used to describe the people in parades in many cases (I was Krewe of Endymion after the Super Bowl, for instance). This has clear cultural relevance and built-in mascots, branding, etc. It would be a beacon for those three people who’ve never heard of Mardi Gras. Krewe of New Orleans … the party has arrived.

Brass was another good name. It’s evocative of Jazz, and was the name of an ECHL team (minor league hockey) here in New Orleans (yes, really) that folded shortly after the Hornets relocation. You can write the branding for it quite easily.

I suspect this analysis is right: local fans could get used to all sorts of names over time. I would assume that winning more would make a sports team name more permanent. While there may have been other reasons for these switches, think of the Charlotte Bobcats and the Washington Wizards. Perhaps some cities are even better suited than others to adopt stranger or more local names. And yes, a number of professional pro sports team names don’t make a lot of sense given their current context and era. For people who like local color, it is almost too bad sports teams aren’t required to have names that match their current community. Finding the best local names could be a fascinating exercise…

But I wonder if this is part of a larger shift in the names of sports teams away from fierce animals or creatures. Just as first names in the United States can change (here is a sociologist talking about the decline of the name Mary but the resurgence of the name Emma), the names of sports teams can change. Think of the new team names in the four major sports in the last two decades and it is an odd collection of old-style and new names. This may have to do with branding: new kinds of names offer new opportunities. Take the Oklahoma City Thunder. Their name is not shared by another team in the four major sports and is not found too frequently elsewhere. It could lead to all sorts of new marketing opportunities though it might be difficult to come up with appropriate mascots and train copy editors to use the name correctly.

Of course, one innovation of the future could be that more American sports team adopt corporate names. This could be a lucrative revenue stream.

Toll Brothers experiences strong growth

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Toll Brothers, known for their construction of large homes (McMansions to critics), recently reported strong growth:

The company hasn’t figured out some amazing new way to build houses more efficiently and get more money out of every house built; instead, it is just building more. A lot more. Compared with a year ago, revenues were up 48 percent, and the number of homes built rose 44 percent to 1,088. Toll Brothers’ gross margin—which measures revenue from sales—was 24.6 percent in this quarter compared with 24.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011.

The full year was successful for the company as well. Its net income was $478.1 million compared with $39.8 million last year. Pre-tax net income shows a more stark story of decline and recovery: for this year it came in at $112.9 million versus a pre-tax loss of $29.4 million in 2011.

One figure that most directly shows this significant increase in building activity is the company’s “net contracts per community,” which is comparable to what retailers report as “same-store sales.” This measure shows how much Toll Brothers is building in the areas in which it already operates. As such, it directly reflects the increasing demand for homes, as opposed to the company’s expansion into new markets. Net contracts per community were up 33 percent from the fourth quarter of last year and 60 percent from this fiscal year to last, the highest yearly gain for the company since 2006 and the highest quarterly increase since 2005.

The housing market may still be lagging but this Toll Brothers data suggests the demand for larger homes has increased in the last year. See more of the financial details here.