120) Emotionally Premium 6:18 PM

One thing that came out of our investigation of Upcycle Tailors for our final project was the idea of a product being premium or luxury in an emotional way. A handmade, one-of-a-kind piece, while not monetarily expensive (the pieces we saw typically ran from 40-70 euro), carries added worth because of the emotional value.

We all love a good find. Something unique that no one else has. Usually there's a good story attached, the hidden, back alley stores feeding into a treasure hunt mentality. Like famous explorers of the past, we want to be the first to discover something. How many times have you mentioned a great new band, only to have your friend tell you he first heard them three years ago?

119) Sexy Smartphones 8:11 PM

OkCupid.com recently released some interesting social findings on their blog, OkTrends. Using aggregated survey data from 10,000 of their users, they found a correlation between brand of smartphone and number of sexual partners. I bet you can guess which legion of smartphone users came out on top (or bottom).

Yes, the oh so sexy iPhone claimed the title of smartphone with the most bangable owners, followed by Blackberry and Android. Check out the numbers for 30-year-olds:



Trend holds true across all ages:



Of course, this data means nothing if we can't conclude causality, or the reason behind these numbers. Speculation is that the type of people who buy iPhones are also those who typically have more partners (simple, no?). Think of Justin Long in the old Mac vs. PC ads. He's young, cool, artsy and smooth with the ladies, whereas PC (read: Blackberry) is old, dumpy, stale and awkward. Could, then, the data be seen as the result of a successful ad campaign on Apple's part?

In a chicken and egg sort of way, could it now also be possible that people with iPhones are seen as more desirable, based on the personality characteristics that the iPhone implies? Maybe on a more subconscious level - when it comes down to it, I'm not sure how many people are actually choosing their partners based on smartphone choice (i.e.- I was about to go home with him, but then he whipped out an Android...).

I applaud OkCupid for being curious and proactive with their members' information, but it's yet to be seen whether anyone will follow up with the oh-so-important "why".

118) Long Lost Blogroll 10:45 PM

While I was at goodness Mfg., I used a laptop supplied by the company as my work and personal computer. Over the two year period, I built up a fairly robust blogroll, or list of blogs and websites that I visited daily. It was a healthy combination of all my interest areas - news, tech, trends, fashion, food, photography, design, etc. Some were well-known, and others had been serendipitous, stumble-upon discoveries.

When I left my job, I lost my computer, and with it, my bookmarks. (Mini aside - some of you are wringing your hands and thinking, Google Reader silly! I get how great it is and have tried using it in the past, but I can't get over the fact that some feeds don't pull in images. Which means you have to click through to the post anyways. Plus, there's something to be said about viewing posts in context - something is lost when the blog design is missing. Lastly, putting a number on how many posts you haven't read is terrifying.) I've got a new rig now, and have slowly been restoring my blog roll to its former glory.

Easier said than done, having to pull maybe a hundred sites out of my memory. But I'm finding that the process is a cathartic trip down a digital memory lane. Each re-discovery is a little like running into an old friend that you haven't seen in awhile. You try to catch up on what's been happening, comment on what's new or changed, and promise to keep in better touch (by adding it to the blogroll).

117) Youth Trend 9:19 PM

Last week, I had my good friend Jesse over for dinner and catch up. I was explaining what I'd learned in the coolhunting class I took in Barcelona - the whole connecting what we see on the street with larger macrotrends, explaining the why, etc. Jesse, being Jesse, threw Silly Bandz at me (verbally) and asked me to explain the meaning behind the self-described silly trend. I'd like to say that I whipped out some genius answer, or informed him that like any good analyst I required more research. In reality, I stammered.

A week and some Internet sleuthing later, and it's time to discuss. For those unfamiliar, Silly Bandz are brightly colored rubber band bracelets that take the shape of various objects at rest. When worn and stretched, they resemble a squiggly line, but will always snap back to their original shape once removed. They've existed in the US since 2008, inspired by animal bands seen at a Japanese trade show, and have exploded in popularity among kids this past year. According to USA Today, the company now sells 1 million packs of Silly Bandz per week.

Silly Bandz come in the shapes of animals, seasonal items, Marvel super heroes, to name a few. The array of shapes and colors makes them perfect for the social trading rituals of kids (see also: baseball cards, Pogs, stickers). It also plays nicely into kids' just-emerging need to express individuality, while still remaining part of the group (a driver that will bloom exponentially in their teenage years).

This is all pretty straight forward so far. Now throw in full grown celebrities like Sarah Jessica Parker, Mary-Kate Olsen, Paramore's Hayley Williams and Rebecca Romijn, who have all been spotted sporting Silly Bandz.




Sarah Jessica Parker and Rebecca Romijn are both mothers, which gives us one possible explanation. But how about childless Mary-Kate Olsen and Hayley Williams? It's harder to explain their mixing of a youth trend with their designer arm wear. Furthermore, none of these womens' audiences are the age group that is fiending Silly Bandz, so it can't be said that they are trying to appeal to kids. Typically, it is the celebrities that model and disseminate trends to the youth. This time, we see the opposite - celebrities picking up trends from the youth. But why?

Needs more time to marinate.

116) Health Tax 6:19 PM

I'm spending the night with a good friend in San Francisco, and we just returned from dessert at Burger Bar in Union Square. On our bill, under the tax, was a line item called, "Healthy SF Tax." This isn't the first time I've encountered the mysterious Healthy SF Tax - it reared its head at Pizza Delfina back in February.

The thing about the Healthy SF Tax is that no one knows what it is exactly. On both encounters, we questioned the waitresses, who gave vague, I'm-not-really-sure answers. A quick Google search yielded this answer from the Wall Street Journal:

Since the beginning of the year, San Francisco businesses have been required to offer health insurance to employees or pay a fee to the city to fund health care. Some restaurants are passing the fee on to consumers in the form of a health surcharge, which shows up on the bill as a flat fee ($1 per person, or so) or as a percentage (like sales tax).

If the SF health care mandate is meant to benefit restaurant employees, you would think that waitresses would be the Healthy SF Tax's biggest advocates. Or at the very least know what the it is. And if the beneficiaries aren't aware, then you can be sure the general restaurant-going public is in the dark. Way in the dark:

So, my friends and I were having dinner in the city this past weekend, when we were hit with the "health tax" on the bill. Hmmm....never heard of this, so we asked the waiter, who told us the mayor has recently enforced a health tax of 50 cents on each food item sold throughout restaurants in the city. The money is pooled and then distributed to the homeless. They get $500 CASH to better their lives!

For all the debate surrounding the Healthy SF Tax (sometimes called "health fee" or "health surcharge"), there seems to be a disconnect between restaurants, their employees and their customers. A misunderstanding somewhere along the way. It's amazing how essential, yet often overlooked clear communication in public policy is.

Note on the photo: not our actual bill.

115) Dear California 8:26 PM

California, I'd like to have a word with you.

We pride ourselves in being one of the most liberal, progressive states in the US. The Golden State, full of new ideas, new talent and notoriously new money. Our abundance of fair weather days gives us reason to live up to our sunny, happy-go-lucky reputation.

And still, photos like these appear in the news. The first is representative of Prop 8 supporters in Los Angeles in the ongoing battle over same-sex marriage. The second is from an article in the New York Times this past weekend (recommended read). It shows residents in Temecula, CA protesting a mosque's proposed worship center.

I try to avoid talking politics on this blog, but COME ON. California, you of all states should recognize this as a civil rights and freedom of religion issue, respectively. The fact that Iowa legalized same-sex marriage more than a year ago, while you have just recently overturned a ban is just shameful. How can you expect to continue to be seen as the forward-thinking, "what's next" state when you can't even ensure basic rights for all your citizens?

114) The Ultimate Job 10:18 PM

At an age where we couldn't possibly know the answer, we are all asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" The answers are always vague - a fireman, a doctor, an actress. Then when we graduate from college, we are asked, "So, what are you going to do now?" At this point, the answers are a little more detailed - training to be an EMT, going to med school to become a surgeon, moving to LA to pursue musical theatre.

But once we're out in the real world, we are rarely asked to define exactly what we want to do, or who we want to be. Tonight I met up with an old friend who pushed me to explain in specifics what I ultimately wanted to do. If I could imagine the pinnacle of my career, what position I would hold. And I couldn't quite give a satisfactory answer. Sure, I have an idea of the direction I'd like to pursue. But when asked to name the end all be all job, I came up short.

In our mid-twenties, we may not be expected to know exactly who we will become career-wise. But is there something to be said about having a specific goal in mind (however fluid and changing), instead of feeling around, hoping you'll stumble upon the right job? Or by defining it, do you blind yourself of other possible paths?

PS - How wonderfully cheesy is the image above? I found it on the blog of a self-proclaimed Chief Happiness Officer.