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June 2019 Summary of Select Trends
Click on the source in (parenthesis) to visit the full article ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Is your community full of Digital Dependents or Aging Aquarius? Community leaders often struggle to identify and recruit retail or restaurant businesses that can thrive in their community. Understanding their citizens’ purchasing behavior to better match that of desired core customers can be a powerful business recruiting tool. Psycographic tools such as Experian’s Mosaic can be used to identify which retail and restaurant businesses will find a community to be attractive. Additional data on quality of life, demographic projections, and housing can help close the deal. (Cobalt) HOUSING Strong home price appreciation last year led many to wonder if housing was unsustainably strong. Recent data are showing many markets are beginning to see falling sales prices. This update shows that housing will continue to soften. (Forbes) ENVIRONMENT Cities are looking for greener solutions for burials and cremations. Washington has become the first state to sanction and regulate the process for human composting to provide an environmentally-friendly way for people to be disposed of after death. On the whole, cremations in America release some 270,000 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year -- equivalent to the CO2 from 22,000 homes. (Governing) HEALTHCARE Data breaches have become just a bit too close to commonplace for comfort. Retailers, banks, and credit bureaus have all reported devastating data breaches to the public in recent years resulting in loss of business, reissuing debit and credit cards, and providing credit monitoring services for the affected consumers. This month Quest Diagnostics and Optum 360 - healthcare companies used primarily for diagnostic testing, pre-employment drug testing, and other health testing services - announced a data breach involving their common third-party vendor for billing collection, American Medical Collection Associates. To date, nearly 12 millions consumers may have had key financial and medical data compromised. Forensic accountants are collecting more information. (NBC New York) WORKPLACE Is diversity and inclusion recruiting and training right for your organization? Last year, Starbucks shut its doors to customers for a day of racial-bias training after a store employee called the police on two black men for seeming suspicious after sitting at a table for several minutes and not purchasing anything. This month, Sephora stores will close for a day of similar training after a store employee in Calabasas, Calif. suspected rap artist, SZA, of shoplifting and called store security earlier this year. There are many considerations for preparing for diversity and inclusion. (SHRM) TECH If you’re thinking of launching a new website after July 1st, you better pay extra attention to the mobile version of your website if you’d like it to appear on page 1 of Google search results. Starting next month, Google will start indexing the mobile version of new website domains for search results and a majority of search queries are launched by users on mobile devices. This will impact how your website will appear in Google search results and ultimately how many visitors contact you for your services. (TechCrunch) ENVIRONMENT Clean air taxis have been on the streets of New York City since 2009. The fuel-efficient yellow vehicles have made a significant impact on air pollution in largest city in the US. Introduced in 2006, Clean Air Taxi legislation mandated that at least 9 percent of new medallions for yellow taxis be set aside for hybrid or compressed natural gas vehicles, as well as incentivizing the purchase of low-emission taxis via EPA classification adjustments. The scientists report that corresponding estimates of nitrous oxide and particulate exhaust emissions declined by 82 percent and 49 percent, respectively. (Science Daily) TECH Do you remember when we reported a cyber attack on the city of Atlanta? Well, some of Baltimore’s public services have been down for a month and counting. Last month a ransomware attack was discovered in Baltimore, and the city refuses to pay the hackers. Instead, city officials are working ‘round the clock to restore the data and services to normal. This takes the total of cities under cyber attacks up to 24 for the year - on-pace with last year’s 53. (Governing) WORKPLACE The World Health Organization has officially recognized workplace burnout as a syndrome resulting from an occupational environment filled with stress and work mismanagement. It’s true that it isn’t listed as a medical condition, and it only applies as a result of a toxic workplace environment. What do you think this means for workers’ compensation claims and your responsibility as an employer? (CNBC) |
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For more information on how Cobalt can help you adapt and thrive in the changing demographic, economic and social environment, visit the Cobalt website or reach out to us by email. Let us know if you need anything at all for benchmarking or research data; we are here for you.
Cobalt Community Research is a national 501c3 nonprofit, non-partisan coalition that helps local governments, schools and membership organizations measure, benchmark, and affordably engage communities through high-quality metrics, surveys, dynamic population segmentation, focus groups and work groups. Cobalt combines big data with local insights to help organizations thrive as changes emerge in the economic, demographic and social landscape. Explore how we can help by calling 877.888.0209, or by emailing [email protected].
Cobalt Community Research is a national 501c3 nonprofit, non-partisan coalition that helps local governments, schools and membership organizations measure, benchmark, and affordably engage communities through high-quality metrics, surveys, dynamic population segmentation, focus groups and work groups. Cobalt combines big data with local insights to help organizations thrive as changes emerge in the economic, demographic and social landscape. Explore how we can help by calling 877.888.0209, or by emailing [email protected].