Infographic by Unbounce (@unbounce).
According to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey, 43% of American adults have purchased goods through a full week without the use of cash or coins. Only slightly more (47%) have not done so.
BBC Radio’s Business Daily looks at the cashless society. A cashless world may be more efficient, and cheaper for governments but does it make us more vulnerable to electronic fraud?
CBS News reports that Sweden is moving toward a cashless economy.
Bloomberg’s article Visions of a Cashless Society: Echoes puts the issue in historical context.
And in his Washington Post commentary, “Don’t show me the money: Why eliminating cash may be the secret to prosperity,” Dominic Basulto casts a positive opinion:
In countries that have been early to embrace the cashless society, such as the emerging nations of sub-Saharan Africa, the movement has unlocked the extraordinary economic potential of their citizens. This is borne out not just anecdotally, but also through reports from international aid organizations. As the Financial Times points out, innovations such as Kenya’s M-Pesa have actually led to the empowerment of society’s poorest members for one simple reason: In today’s mobile world, it’s much easier to get someone to use a cellphone than it is to get someone to open a bank account. The Financial Times goes on to report that, in Kenya, 15 million people use M-Pesa, resulting in over $8 billion in transactions that never would have occurred otherwise.
Although he does admit, “A cashless society is also a society where there is no longer any anonymity.”
What would this cashless shift mean for booksellers? Write your comments below.
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According to NielsenWire (@NielsenWire), consumer interest in blogs keeps growing. By the end of 2011, NM Incite (@nmincite), a Nielsen/McKinsey company, tracked over 181 million blogs around the world, up from 36 million only 5 years earlier in 2006.
Overall, 6.7 million people publish blogs on blogging websites, and another 12 million write blogs using their social networks.
· Women make up the majority of bloggers, and half of bloggers are aged 18-34
· Bloggers are well-educated: 7 out of 10 bloggers have gone to college, a majority of whom are graduates
· About 1 in 3 bloggers are Moms, and 52% of bloggers are parents with kids under 18 years-old in their household
· Bloggers are active across social media: they’re twice as likely to post/comment on consumer-generated video sites like YouTube, and nearly three times more likely to post in Message Boards/Forums within the last month
Also see Michael Hyatt's (@MichaelHyatt) article, "4 Insights I gleaned from Building My Own Platform."
Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you plan your strategy to communicate your brand’s message in the most effective way.
And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Social Media/WOM tab.
Here’s the latest disrupter in the education field. TED (@TEDNews & @tedtalks) curator Chris Anderson (@TEDchris) announced yesterday that “after more than a year of planning and dreaming, we're finally launching our new TED-Ed website (@TED_ED), whose goal is to offer teachers a thrilling new way to use video.”
...the goal is to allow any teacher to take a video of their choice (yes, any video on YouTube, not just ours) and make it the heart of a “lesson” that can easily be assigned in class or as homework, complete with context, follow-up questions, and further resources.
This platform also allows users to take any useful educational video, not just TED’s, and easily create a customized lesson around the video. Users can distribute the lessons, publicly or privately, and track their impact on the world, a class, or an individual student.
In recent years at TED, we've become enamored of a strategy we call “radical openness”: Don't try to do big things yourself. Instead empower others to do them with you.
This has served us well. Sharing TEDTalks free online has built a global community of idea seekers and spreaders. Opening up our transcripts has allowed 7500 volunteers to translate the talks into 80+ languages. And giving away the TEDx brand in the form of free licenses, has spawned more than 4000 TEDx events around the world.
So it's natural that we would look to this approach as we embark on our education initiative.
Also see The Atlantic’s (@TheAtlantic) article by Megan Garber (@megangarber), “The Digital Education Revolution, Cont’d: Meet TED-Ed’s New Online Learning Platform.”
Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you take advantage of new technology to publish and market your brand’s message.
And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.
Warc (@WarcEditors) reports that “young consumers in the US are growing more distinct from their older counterparts when it comes to using digital channels in the purchase process.” According to The Millennial Consumer: Debunking Stereotypes, a poll of 4,000 “millennials” (16-34 year olds) and 1,000 consumers from older cohorts by the Boston Consulting Group (@BCG_Consultant & @BCGPerspectives), 60% of the former group rated goods and services online, versus 46% of the latter cohort.
· 50% of BCG’s more youthful sample have used a mobile device to read reviews and research products while out shopping, measured against 21% for the older panel questioned.
· 53% of millennials look for information or engage with brands on sites like Facebook and Twitter, and 33% favor companies that are active on these sites. Both are 16 percentage points higher than for over-35 year olds.
· 60% of 16-34 year olds upload videos, images, and blogs, doubling the total logged by over-35 year olds.
· 59% of the first audience own a smartphone, easily surpassing the 33% of participants falling outside this age range.
· Just 26% of millennials watch television for more than 20 hours per week, compared to 49% of more mature interviewees.
Read the full report (pdf).
For an added perspective on this demographic, see USA TODAY's "Millennials Struggle with Financial Literacy."
Also see our previous blogpost, “Young ‘Millennials’ Losing Faith in Record Numbers.”
Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you market your brand to Millennials.
And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Research tab.
Warc (@WarcEditors) reports that “young consumers in the US are growing more distinct from their older counterparts when it comes to using digital channels in the purchase process.” According to The Millennial Consumer: Debunking Stereotypes, a poll of 4,000 “millennials” (16-34 year olds) and 1,000 consumers from older cohorts by the Boston Consulting Group (@BCG_Consultant & @BCGPerspectives), 60% of the former group rated goods and services online, versus 46% of the latter cohort.
· 50% of BCG’s more youthful sample have used a mobile device to read reviews and research products while out shopping, measured against 21% for the older panel questioned.
· 53% of millennials look for information or engage with brands on sites like Facebook and Twitter, and 33% favor companies that are active on these sites. Both are 16 percentage points higher than for over-35 year olds.
· 60% of 16-34 year olds upload videos, images, and blogs, doubling the total logged by over-35 year olds.
· 59% of the first audience own a smartphone, easily surpassing the 33% of participants falling outside this age range.
· Just 26% of millennials watch television for more than 20 hours per week, compared to 49% of more mature interviewees.
Read the full report (pdf).
Also our previous blogpost, “Young ‘Millennials’ Losing Faith in Record Numbers.”
Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you market your brand to Millennials.
And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Research tab.
A growing tide of young Americans is drifting away from the religions of their childhood — and most of them are ending up in no religion at all.
According to a new report from the Public Religion Research Institute (@publicreligion) and Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, & World Affairs (@GUberkleycenter), 1 in 4 young adults choose “unaffiliated” when asked about their religion. But most within this unaffiliated group — 55% — identified with a religious group when they were younger.
· Across denominations, the net losses are uneven, with Catholics losing the highest proportion of childhood adherents — nearly 8% — followed by white mainline Protestant traditions, which lost 5%.
· Among Catholics, whites are twice as likely as Hispanics to say they’re no longer affiliated with the church.
· White evangelical and black denominations fare better, with a net loss of about 1%. Non-Christian groups post a modest 1% net increase in followers.
· The only group that has significant growth between childhood and young adulthood is the unaffiliated — a jump from 11% to 25%.
· The study also finds a morally divided generation, with 50% of respondents saying right and wrong depends on the situation and 45% believing in absolute morality.
· An overwhelming majority of white evangelical Protestants (68%) say they believe some things are always wrong, compared to 49% of black Protestants, 45% of Catholics, and 35% of the unaffiliated.
Read the full report (pdf).
Also see our blogpost, "US Consumer Habits Evolving."
Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you market your brand to Millennials.
And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Research tab.
This article by Nathalie Kylander (@6kylanders) and Christopher Stone in Stanford Social Innovation Review (@SSIReview) says many nonprofits continue to use their brands primarily as a fundraising tool, but a growing number of nonprofits are developing a broader and more strategic approach, managing their brands to create greater social impact and tighter organizational cohesion.
A decade ago, the dominant brand paradigm in the nonprofit sector focused on communications. Nonprofit executives believed that increased visibility, favorable positioning in relation to competitors, and recognition among target audiences would translate into fundraising success. Branding was a tool for managing the external perceptions of an organization, a subject for the communications, fundraising, and marketing departments.
In contrast, the emerging paradigm sees brand as having a broader and more strategic role in an organization’s core performance, as well as having an internal role in expressing an organization’s purposes, methods, and values. Increasingly, branding is a matter for the entire nonprofit executive team. At every step in an organization’s strategy and at each juncture in its theory of change, a strong brand is increasingly seen as critical in helping to build operational capacity, galvanize support, and maintain focus on the social mission.
The authors propose a framework that allows brands to contribute to sustaining their social impact, serving their mission, and staying true to their organization’s values and culture. They call it the Nonprofit Brand IDEA (in which “IDEA” stands for brand integrity, brand democracy, brand ethics, and brand affinity).
· Brand integrity means that the organization’s internal identity is aligned with its external image and that both are aligned with the mission....
· Brand democracy means that the organization trusts its members, staff, participants, and volunteers to communicate their own understanding of the organization’s core identity....
· Brand ethics means that the brand itself and the way it is deployed reflect the core values of the organization....
· Brand affinity means that the brand is a good team player, working well alongside other brands, sharing space and credit generously, and promoting collective over individual interests....
Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you plan and execute the proper strategy for your brand.
And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Branding tab.
Two-thirds of the American public says religion coverage is too sensationalized in the news media — a view held by less than 30% of reporters, according to the results of a first-of-its-kind survey of both reporters and the audiences they serve by the Knight Program in Media and Religion at the University of Southern California (@USCedu) and the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron (@uakron).
Less than one-fifth of journalists, or 18.9%, say they’re “very knowledgeable” about religion. Most reporters in that minority say they’re mainly familiar with their own religious traditions, not the wider array of faiths and practices, the survey showed.
“News organizations are rightly worried about creating smart business plans and developing cutting-edge technology. But they’re overlooking their most basic resource: knowledgeable reporters,” said Diane Winston (@dianewinston), Knight (@knightfdn) Chair in Media and Religion at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism (@USCAnnenberg). “News consumers want more reporting on authentic religious experience and a lot less on polarizing religious politics. But reporters can’t do that if all they know about religion is what they hear in church or — ironically — what they read in the news.”
· A majority of both the public and reporters agree the news media “does a poor job of explaining religion in society,” with 57.1% and 51.8% agreeing, respectively.
· Both the public and reporters rank TV news lowest in the quality and quantity of religion coverage compared to other media with 28.1% of the public and 8% of reporters responding that broadcast news provides “good” religion coverage.
· The American public sees religion in starkly polarized terms. Nearly half, or 43.6% believes religion is a source of conflict in the world, while a narrow majority, 52.6%, sees it as a fount of good. Most reporters, 56.1%, consider religion to be a mixed bag, offering both benefits and drawbacks for society. But only 3.8% of the general public shares this more circumspect angle on religion.
· Not surprisingly, then, most reporters believe their audiences want personality-driven religion news related to specific institutions and events. But despite the aforementioned polarization, 69.7% of Americans say they’re interested in more complex coverage that looks at religious experiences and spiritual practice.
· A strong majority of the public, 62.5%, says religion coverage is important to them, but nearly one-third of the rapidly growing cohort of those with no religious affiliation say they aren’t interested in religion coverage.
· Christians from ethnic minorities constitute over a third of news consumers who say they’re generally very interested in the news and have a particular interest in religion. In contrast, white evangelical Protestants tend to care specifically about religion news, but less about the news in general.
Read the survey results in full.
Also see online journalism resources, such as Religion News Service (@ReligionNewsNow) and the Religion Newswriters Association‘s (@ReligionReport) ReligionLink, Religion Stylebook, and Reporting on Religion: A Primer on Journalism’s Best Beat.
Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you plan your strategy to communicate your brand’s message in the most effective way.
And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Research and the Religion News tabs.
With the objective to promote reading, publishing, and the protection of intellectual property through copyright, UNESCO (@unescoNOW) has declared today World Book and Copyright Day.
23 April is a symbolic date for world literature, since 23 April 1616 was the date of death of Cervantes, Shakespeare, and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega. 23 April is also the date of birth or death of other prominent authors such as Maurice Druon, K.Laxness, Vladimir Nabokov, Josep Pla, and Manuel Mejía Vallejo.
This is why UNESCO chose this date to pay a worldwide tribute to books and their authors on this date, encouraging everyone, and in particular young people, to discover the pleasure of reading and to gain a renewed respect for the extraordinary contributions of those who have furthered the social and cultural progress of humanity.
The idea for this celebration originated in Catalonia (Spain) where it has become a tradition to give a rose as a gift for each book purchased.
The year 2012 also marks the 80th anniversary of the Index Translationum, an international bibliography of translations. Search the online database.
Also see the World Digital Library (@WDLorg), the International Children’s Digital Library, the Internet Public Library (@theipl), the Library of Congress (@librarycongress), and the United States Copyright Office (@CopyrightOffice).
And be sure to bookmark and use daily SomersaultNOW, the online dashboard for publishing and marketing professionals.