Three skills for living in a social media world

Mark Schaefer has a great post at {grow} listing three careers that will be in high demand at companies living in the social media space.  I think those ideas translates into skills we will all need to work on – Three careers that will dominate social media (and it’s not what you think)

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This is what progress look like – 1 electronic gadget in 2010 does the work of 14 electronic gadgets in 1980

(cross-post from my other blog, Nonprofit Update.)

Check out these two pictures showing 1980 and 2010 electronics tools:  Worth a thousand words.

One tool in 2010 does the work of 14 (by my count) in 1980.  Can you begin to guess the cost reduction, even without discounting for inflation?  How about the weight reduction or portability increase?

From Café Hayek, of course. This is the type of thing I talk about at my other blog, Outrun Change.

Graph of oil production in North Dakota compared to Alaska and California

I have a couple of graphs of production in North Dakota here. In today’s Wall Street Journal, there is a good month-by-month graph from 2007 through 2011. You have to scroll down some, but you can find it here:  Oil Boom Sparks River Fight.

Higher education in trouble

There is a tsunami wave out in the ocean that’s headed toward the higher ed shore.

Don’t know exactly how tall it is or how wide. Can’t quite make out the exact form but it is large and it is on the way.

The tsunami is online courses.

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Building a museum after the exhibit is in place as an illustration of adapting to change

How do you get a 252 foot long, 880 ton submarine into the basement of a museum?  Can’t quite put it on the elevator.

Bill Sheridan describes how the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry got the U-505 into the exhibit hall – No room for big ideas? Make room. (Yeah, yeah, I know he’s a better headline writer than me.)

The plan?  Dig a hole, lower the sub into the hole, enclose it, and built the rest of the exhibit around the sub.  Brilliant.

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Animated explanation of hydraulic fracturing

Curious how a fracking well is drilled?

I’ve been wondering about a few things.  Like how to drill horizontally, how to break open the dense rock, and how to prevent leakage.

Superb animated video from Voyager Oil & Gas answers a lot of my questions:

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More college student loan debt than loans on houses?

Yup.

That might be why there is a serious danger of a higher-education bubble.

Read this comment by Holly Finn in today’s Wall Street Journal article Watching the Ivory Tower Topple:

In this new educational model, the shy and the easily distracted get advantages. You can rewind a video and watch whenever and as many times as you like. Plus, teachers save time with computerized grading and students save money. (U.S. college debt, nearly $1 trillion, is bigger than housing or credit card debt.)

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Creative Visualization – mapping the growth of retail stores

(cross-post from my other blog, Nonprofit Update.)

Check out these time-lapsed maps showing the growth of a retail chain from Flowing Data.  Great visualization of the speed and location of new stores.  Also shows the diffusion across the country.

Lets you see the data of Walmart from 1 store in 1962 to 4,393 in 2010.

Check out these visuals:

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Technology opening opportunities for people with special needs

Hat tip to Mark Perry, as usual – Creative Destruction: $7 iPad App Replaces $15,000, 20 Pound Communication Device

Bloomberg has a superb article on how simple apps are opening tremendous opportunities for people who need assistive technologies – Brain-Injured Emma Finds Her Voice With IPad Grassroot App

Emma was severely injured in 2001.  She can not talk or walk and has minimal motion in her arms.

Previously she used a 9 pound device that cost $15,000 to type a message. The device read the position of her eyes.  That’s good, but it has to be recalibrated every time it is moved.  She’s tied to her room.

That has changed….

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Graph of North Dakota oil production

After reading about oil production in North Dakota surpassing California here, I pulled some data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration here.  Created a couple of graphs.

Took the annual average daily production in North Dakota for 2000 through 2010. Added the average monthly production for 2011.  Came up with this graph. Continue reading “Graph of North Dakota oil production”

In December North Dakota passed California in oil production

And North Dakota pulls into third place!

Federal stats show oil production in North Dakota was 535k bbl/d in December compared to 531k bbl/d in California. – Five states accounted for about 56% of total U.S.crude oil production in 2011

Check out the graph of monthly production. North Dakota has been accelerating since 2008 while Alaska and California have been declining for 10 years.

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