TECHNOLOGY IS
CHANGING OUR LIVES
Recently, the Chicago Federal Reserve explored the topic of e-commerce, and concluded that there is no question that electronic commerce is changing the way people work and live, and tried to measure the impact. Michael Moskow, the president of the Chicago Fed said, "The dramatic increases in information-technology certainly played a role in the healthy economic growth that our country experienced during much of the last decade." He said that if the 1990s were the decade of the Internet, then this may be the decade in which new possibilities are more fully realized. Moskow noted that although e-commerce was certainly a new development, it was also was the latest installment in this history of technology-driven advancement.
The report refers, overall, to a technological revolution. It says that in the past, adequate information has been a missing ingredient to drive competition. Chicago Fed President Moskow stated an example; a century ago a factory owner had a limited amount of information about customers, and potential suppliers and their products. Distance and speed of transportation limited access of information, and consumers had fewer choices. As technology improved, information could be had within minutes by picking up the phone, and later, by sending a fax.
Says Moskow, "Today, thanks to the Internet, the amount of information available is enormous, and the process is closer to being instantaneous."
The report notes that today businesses are using the Internet to find the best price and quality for their inputs, and it also enables producers to better monitor customer's buying patterns and streamline their production process by accurately tracking inventories and flows of material.
Moskow says it's too early to tell whether e-commerce is just an important innovation, or a revolution in the making. But either way, the Internet is already bringing buyers and sellers together far more efficiently than ever before. The report concludes by noting that "How our society shapes and is shaped by e-commerce today, will have a lasting impact on our nation and on our economy."
The weatherman keeps promising that summer is right around the corner, and that often means camp-time for children. If you are interested in sending your child to a business camp, there are such things, and I know of at least a couple. Business camps are already accepting applications for this coming summer. The camps fall into two categories; those that teach you how to make money, and those that teach you how to manage it. Some camps will give a child a taste of both.
As with other summer camps there are different sizes and varieties; some are overnight and some are just day camps. There are co-ed camps, girls-only camps, expensive and not-so-expensive camps. Some last as long as a month, others just a week. For a comprehensive list of these fairly unusual camps, go to the Internet and check out www.kidscamps.com. This site has information and Internet links to more than 30 business camps as well as hundreds of others. And yes, oh by the way, there is a Camp Wall Street.
According to a recently released business group survey, small employers have become so frustrated with the tight job market that they have started to give up on finding qualified applicants to fill vacancies. According to a survey sponsored by the National Federation of Independent Business, 23% of the firms surveyed reported that finding qualified labor was their biggest concern, while 33% reported having job openings that were hard to fill.
At the same time, however, hiring plans fell by 1/3 from the previous quarter with the federation's chief economist concluding that a combination of factors such as a record number of hard-to-fill jobs, and reduced hiring expectations, have led a fairly significant number of business owners to give up hope of finding workers to staff their offices, factories and sales departments.
On the other side of the coin, however, the survey also indicated continued strength in the economy, with the overall survey's index of small business optimism rising again, as sales and earnings also improved.
According to small businesses, quality of labor, taxes, regulation and red tape are the biggest problems facing them today. Competition from large business and the other usual factors like the cost of labor, poor sales or fear of inflation, are simply also-rans.
(Tom Butenhoff is a First Vice President with J. E.
Liss & Company in Milwaukee. The views are his and not necessarily
those of Liss Financial Services or the Job Connection/Hiring
Network.)