relevance varies
Thanks to a few new connections over the past month, I’ve been able to get an interesting view of what apparently happens when you leave Gaylord, Michigan - YOU NEVER GO BACK! OK so diaspora is a little much, but it is passover-ish, so I get a little leeway. So here is a representational drawing of the distribution of 19 connections:
Awe inspiring.
Interesting presentation which puts things in context. A little busy….
Geography is maps! Nevertheless, this parody proves not all maps are created equal and not all people read maps. You don’t have to be a cartographer, but understanding boundaries and directional relevance is a good thing.
Nation Of Andorra Not In Africa, Shocked U.S. State Dept. Reports
I always thought that the “Geography is Maps” statement had a verb tense issue, but it doesn’t. You don’t have to say it three times fast to get that, it doesn’t sound correct feeling.
So I was doing a little bit of travel over the holidays and got to see a good bit of the back roads country and survey roadside advertising. The quality, product mix and “vacancy rates” appeared to have changed from what I historically remember. Although I will say that promotional messaging for empty billboards is getting much better. The other interesting thing is the use of “shared space” appears to be up for billboards….
Billboards may be a bellwether for the state of the economy and represent a great part of the cultural landscape which I like to appreciate. I originally wrote myself a note on this topic last week, but was reminded of the concept by Vaguery on twitter, who in real life is Bill and blogs over @ Notional Slurry. Economic trends and perceptions of the economy impact individual, local and regional buying behaviors and how marketers appeal to buyers.
Vaguery’s tweet of “…considering the likelihood of any Michigander doing real five-figure cookery” seemed to align with billboards, data and articles I’ve been reading/seeing, such as the USA Today piece I read over my free continental breakfast the other day. So things are changing - spend patterns, the movement of people and general open market activities.
The USA article spoke of the current housing woes and how they impact population movement. “Michigan hard hit by cutbacks in the auto industry and other manufacturing sectors” has seen population decline and housing value declines ahead of the rest of the nation. This was unscientifically verified as I drove around and saw more for sale signs than I think I have ever seen.
At the most basic level, demographic changes impact market dynamics - specifically how people market and what they market. With a more granular look at the population shift, by state, it becomes evident that Michigan and RI are seeing a different level of change than other markets.
With the change in the economy and population, the roadside marketing landscape has changed as well since general investment patterns change from all key constituents segments - government, national brands and local SMBs. This change appears to be visible in the current billboard mix being mainly casino oriented in Detroit - no longer automotive/manufacturing innovation related. The overall billboard content also appears to be on a different level of creative quality as well, not just the type of advertiser. I was able to find the following billboard just outside Lansing in Portland, Michigan which is an example of the changing billboard landscape throughout Michigan.
I’m glad I’m not in billboard advertising with a weakening dollar, tempered consumer confidence and the apparent need for cheap pepper spray as a stocking stuffer.
Latitude and Longitude - a geographer I would guess - where are you?
So I’ve have had the opportunity this week close out “The Collectors”, a fairly disappointing novel actually, and get back to this quirky little book which has been in my bag for 5 months, “Bob’s Ichthyosaur” by John Britt. It’s one of those books you would never buy, but somehow you have it in your bag. So, what the heck! Give it a read. So far a very intriguing fiction read, which isn’t my typical Thriller fodder for air travel.
I met John randomly on holiday in Canada with my wife when taking our kid in for an ear infection at a rural hospital. After chatting about emergency room visits and general pleasantries - he gave us a copy of his book and I have finally gotten to it. Regardless of my slack reading habits, I ran into interesting run on sentence in the book which just make one think about how relative spatial relationships are….
“I would have to say our town is North, but not so far north that it’s north, or even central for that matter, being to far south for either. So you could say that its south even where its north by most peoples reckoning, and west from most places that matter to most people, but too far east to be west, so its not west either, even if it’s not east which makes it just about anywhere you might be going or might be inclined to go to for that matter”
Where’s your community? Where are you inclined to go?
The online excerpt from the publisher, which is essentially the teaser on the book jacket.:
In th lazy hazy days of old boys, life is a case study of human nature. They are there, the octogenarians and septuagenarians, retired men from farms and business that gather on benches outside of banks and the town halls to theorize on life. The old boys study the passage of rite of Bob, into the world of the old boys. Bob reluctantly falls into the old boy’s club, all the while searching for what is elusive. Into bob’s world enters an extinct forty-foot marine reptile, that lives in the local bay. To satisfy his curiosity, Bob begins his fishing venture determined to capture the elusive Ichthyosaur. A fishing story, an old man’s story, a story reserved for all of those men deserving of being anointed old. Each and every person is searching for their own Ichthyosaur.
While it might not be the typical thing you might read, you might give it a try and think about finding your Ichthyosaur. I am. I’ll let you know when I’m done.
Technorati Tags: Bob’s Ichthyosaur, John Britt, books, fiction, north, south, west
I continue to notice that there are just not enough people blogging on geography or other concepts which are moderately academic in nature. To that end I have set forth to think of 25 ideas to stimulate the hidden geographers out there, who are also bloggers and have a desire to document a sense of space. Social commentary on a geographic concepts just might be interesting and so I have put together a list of items for consideration/stealing.
Do you have a hidden geographer?
A quick note of appreciation to 3 folks that I synthesized this from - Chris Carfi (business travel posts), Chris Brogan (conference twitter posts and 100 list) and Jeremiah Owyang (meme following)
Technorati Tags: gravity model, meme, Flickr, Widespread Panic, Georgia, Google, Orlando, Technorati, top 100, Harvard, Bezerkly,
In a reasonably unscientific manner I’ve noticed what I think might be an interesting/plausible relationship in how regionalization may impact blog content. Content development, presentation and geospatial references appear to vary based on where a blogger hails from:
1. If not in the california, boston or NYC - geographic references are limited. If in these locations, location dropping is all the rage. Of course there are exceptions, that’s why I referred to it as a content analysis and unscientific, mainly just a casual observation.
2. There may be an east coast west coast blogging style.
I’m curious if there are other styles base on geography, but due to the first casual observation in item #1 and the limited content survey (<30 blogs and <100 posts), I just haven’t seen a pattern outside of east and west. Have you?
So assuming observation #1 is a reasonable observation, then what are the east and west coast attributes which define the pattern/mode/style? While overly simplistic, the gaps appear to be in frequency and length of post. West coast bloggers appear to have fewer words in in any single post (initial data indicates potentially up to 20%), are more “linky” and more posts in a given week, while east coast bloggers appear to be more verbose and posting at a slightly lower weekly post velocity.
That being said, it appears that weekly words are really close, thats right “spitting distance”. This might be a thesis topic for some creative writing wonk on the average writing capacity of any given person. PLEASE NOTE: I’ve done none of the math to validate correlation of any of these assertions.
This is a great opportunity for some budding social geographer out there who is bored with house types, the impact of infrastructure or capitalism on the the landscape and land tenure analysis. A virtual understanding of site, situation and place as expressed by blogged content. C’mon - it’s just math.
As a southern blogger, I’m almost afraid to slice the states to a more regional level, at least I’m too lazy to do the work, after all east coast/west coast worked for rappers, it will work for bloggers.
twitter is a social geography thesis waiting to happen!
Technorati Tags: content analysis, land tenure, twitter, social geography, thesis
