Alone, Together

Women have become the amateur documentarians of 21st suburban life.

With devotion, and, some say, obsession, they have fueled the thriving, $2.5 billion scrapbooking industry, an ever-expanding, ever-more-elaborate supply of photo-safe minutiae: corner lacing punches and circle cutters, rickrack and paisley paper and brads eyelets and packages of thematic word stickers -- on love, on vacation, on childhood -- the better to frame a life.

Savoring Life's Memories, by the Book

One anthropologist said it's part of an underlying trend he calls. "Alone, together."

"It makes me feel part of a larger community, but it also grows my sense of self," he said. "That's what scrapbooking does, especially for moms, who have no time to be creative these days."

And yet, among their thousands and thousands of photos, women tend to include very few, if any, photos of themselves, often because they don't like to be photographed or are reluctant to relinquish control of how their descendants will view their lives in 100 years.

UPDATE: Virginia Postrel says
One theory is that it creates an excuse for sociability while allowing time for personal enjoyment. I suspect that scrapbookers find their hobby a deeply satisfying source of "flow".

Very promising vaccine against avian flu

Let's hope that this moves fast.

Quick vaccine gets off the starting blocks Attached somehow to the cold virus, this new vaccine can be grown faster and the volume scaled up because it's grown in culture dishes and delivered via a nasal spray.

Researchers in the United States have unveiled a new, faster way to produce vaccines against a strain bird-flu virus. They claim that the technique can create a vaccine against a specific strain within 36 days.

Elderberry extract effective against avian flu

Now that Oprah has devoted an entire show to avian flu, the need for preparedness has finally hit home. You can hear the "untold story" here.
Her tips

• Stock your cabinets with enough canned goods to last four to five weeks.
• Stockpile your prescription drugs, if possible.
• Speak with city officials to make sure your community has enough chlorine on hand to purify the water, in case shipments stop coming. Many cities only keep enough chlorine on hand to last five to seven days.

Her guest was Dr. Michael Osterholm who said we can learn a lot from the lessons of Katrina. He said we need to be prepared to live without modern luxuries. He also said communities need to have a plan to bury their dead in a timely, respectful way. Nothing got people more upset during Katrina than the dead bodies that lay on the streets for days, sometimes weeks.

Your best all around resource is CIDRAP, the Center for infectious Disease Research & Policy at the University of Minnesota.

For me, the idea that elderberry extract may be effective against the bird flu is the best news I've heard all week. Elderberries were always an old folk remedy against flu and often called the "medicine chest" of the country people.

Now it turns out that an Israeli grandmother Dr. Madeline Mumcuoglu, a world-renowned virologist, has been working on an elderberry extract cure for the past 12 years. Wouldn't it be wonderful if this "comfortable and grandmotherly" woman has developed the cure for one of humanity's biggest threats?

Technorati Tags: avian flu, preparedness

Legal Outsourcing Boom to India

Outsourcing legal services is a $200 billion business in the US. Forrester Research estimates that LPO - Legal Process Outsourcing will become the key vertical in the KPO sector. KPO is knowledge process outsourcing.

India will receive 60% of around 40,000 legal jobs outsourced by the US by 2010.

Even fresh lawyers there demand anything between $250,000 to $300,000 per annum, compared $6,000 to $15,000 in India.

I can imagine some of the discussions going on right now in partners' meetings. Pink? Who's Daniel Pink? Maybe they need a mind map.

In the Pink

Daniel Pink's predictions on the boomer market. First, Buns of Steel, then Minds Like Steel Traps.

It's Brain Fitness - workouts and exercises to keep our minds in shape.
An Accelerated Search for Meaning.

When Boomers blow out 60 birthday candles, they'll inevitably take the measure of their lives. "When," they'll wonder, "am I going to step up and do something meaningful? What kind of legacy will I leave?"


An "I've always wanted to ..." industry

Tapping these "I've always wanted to" urges will be big business -- for the travel industry, for publishers, for adult education, and for a variety of new businesses in the experience economy.

Banking Industry Trends in 2006

From the Aite Group,

After three consecutive years of annual profits exceeding US$100 billion, U.S. commercial banks are thriving. In 2006, however, between volatile interest rates, bad loans, declining demand for mortgage financing, and regulatory compliance pressures, U.S. banks will find themselves navigating through rough waters. But while risk and compliance issues will remain at the forefront, Aite Group predicts that U.S. banks will nonetheless engage more aggressively in pursuing untapped customer segments, marketing innovative products, refreshing key components of their technology infrastructure, leveraging the Internet better to attract new customers and cross-sell to existing ones, and battling at the point-of-sale to deliver more value to merchants and consumers.

Top 10 Banking Industry Trends in 2006.

The Beauty Market grows up.

The Beauty Market grows up. For Mature Audiences

Nice as it would be to believe that older women in high places (and a few enlightened men) are at last recognizing the allure of the post-Edenic Eve, that is, a woman with experience who knows what she wants and how to get it, some hard economics may also be wooing the cosmetic and fashion industries away from their long love affair with youth. M.A.C., whose edgy self-image seems made for the young, admits that almost a quarter of its customers are over 40. Dior reports that 65 percent of women using antiaging skin care are over 40 and that antiaging accounts for half of the company's total treatment business. What is more, expenditures of that mature age

Older and online

One of the fastest growing segments on the Web are people 55 and older, growing 20% in one year. From Burst media, Old Liners Becoming Onliners.

As with other demographics, the higher percentages online are more educated and wealthier.

63% of American men and 66% of American women, aged 50 to 64 are now online.

The Market for Online Finance Portals

The Market for Online Finance Portals

December 2005 - Unique Audience
1. Yahoo Finance - 10.6mm
2. MSN Money - 9.8mm
3. AOL Finance - 8.1mm
4. Forbes.com - 8.1mm
5. Dow Jones Online - 7.5mm (inc. MarketWatch and WSJ)

(Source: Nielsen/NetRatings via Crain's):

via Daily Dose of Optimism

Zillow sounds like pillow

I would say that most of the bloggers over at BusinessWeek's Hot Property feel that the bubble in real estate won't pop, but leak slowly.
Too many unsold houses and changing demographics.

But it looks like the brokers have the most to worry about in a changing real estate market. Zillow.com: How Scared Should Brokers Be?

Zillow has already raised $32 million!

Time's Up

Too many customers were complaining about long waits at NatWest banks in England.

So what did the company do?

They removed the clocks. via Johnnie Moore

Blame the Trees

Well, if this doesn't take the cake. Trees are threatening the planet.

Seems as if scientists have just discovered as reported in the most recent edition of Nature that trees and plants emit methane, probably the most potent greenhouse gas, and not just while they rot in swamps but as an entirely natural side-effect of plant growth that scientists had somehow missed.

According to a study published today, living plants may emit almost a third of the methane entering the Earth's atmosphere.
The result has come as a shock to climate scientists. "This is a genuinely remarkable result," said Richard Betts of the climate change monitoring organisation the Hadley Centre. "It adds an important new piece of understanding of how plants interact with the climate."

This has the opponents of Kyoto crowing and the supporters of Kyoto urging caution about this findings. I just wonder how all the experts in global warming missed this basic fact.

But then I remember how little we know.

Let's not forget that 95% of the matter of the universe is dark matter and scientists don't have a clue as to what dark matter is.

When will sports become an asset class?

Nellie Linde over at New Persuasion contemplates the near and new future when sports betting will be just another part of the stock market.

Financial Services - Serious Change Ahead

So what is the difference between investing, hedging and gambling anyway?

Break over

Break over, moving done, new office set up, time to start posting and boy do I have lots to post about. So Happy New Year everyone. 2006 is going to be great!