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It was a provocative headline for a radical idea. In an op-ed article for Forbes.com, “A Monster Real Estate Paradigm Shift Demands a New Direction for Capital,” Michael Messner, co-founder of Seminole Capital Partners, proposed on that we rip our capital out of the glut of shuttered commercial properties that litter America, bulldoze them into oblivion, and convert the land to green space.
It’s not as shocking a suggestion as you might think. The scenario is already playing out in distressed residential housing markets across the country. Fed up with neighborhoods blighted with foreclosed and abandoned houses, many cities are putting deadbeat, usually out-of-state, investors on notice and targeting homes that have fallen into extreme disrepair for removal. The bulldozers are moving in on homes that have become neighborhood magnets for crime, drug use and vermin. When the dumpsters are hauled away, what remains is not just an empty lot but hope for a new beginning. Community groups are banding together to turn these empty spaces into community gardens, playgrounds and green spaces.
What works on a small scale, some believe could work on a massive scale. Numerous people have proposed wholesale destruction of abandoned, foreclosed and, in some cases, underwater homes as the fastest path to solving the nation’s housing ills. But our current housing woes are far more complex matter than simple supply and demand. It is ludicrous to think that the housing marked can be “fixed” by using bulldozers to decrease supply without addressing the myriad other social and economic issues that contribute to the continued depression of the residential real estate market.
That said, Messner’s idea to apply bulldoze economics to commercial real estate is intriguing. He suggests that the capital languishing in real estate could be reinvested to drive new economic growth. At the core of his idea is the conversion of unused commercial property to green space where it would be held via a land bank until the market recovers. It’s an interesting idea, although getting all the players on board seems like a Herculean task. However, it’s hard to argue with Messner’s key point: “it’s the utilization of assets that increases wealth.”
Share your views on bulldoze economics on my Cynthia M. Albanese website. Find out more about me and my firm, CMA Technology, on LinkedIn.
According to a recent National Sleep Foundation Study, 30% of U.S. workers sleep less than 6 hours of night. While individual sleep needs vary, accepted research pegs baseline adult sleep requirements at 7 to 8 hours per night for optimal mental and physical performance. The degradation of manipulative skills, concentration, reaction time, critical judgment and memory that occur with loss of sleep is well documented. More recently, researchers have found demonstrable links between sleep loss and a greater risk of obesity, diabetes, heart problems, depression and substance abuse. However, one of the most disturbing results of our country’s chronic sleep deficit may be its deleterious affect on creative thinking.
New sleep research reported by Jeffrey Kluger in the April 23, 2012 issue of Time magazine is unraveling the way our brain “thinks” during sleep. We’ve all experienced the “ah-ha” moment that occurs when the solution to a problem reveals itself after we “sleep on it.” Using fMRIs, PET scans and high-density EEGs, researchers are now able to watch the brain at work as it sorts through thorny problems during sleep and arrives at creative solutions.
“Dreams are just thinking in a different biochemical state,” Deirdre Barrett, Harvard University psychologist and author of “The Committee of Sleep,” told Time. “In the sleep state, the brain thinks much more visually and intuitively.”
The unusual pathways down which the brain travels during sleep could hold the key to unlocking the source of human creativity, some researchers believe. Even more exciting is the possibility that a way might be found to tap creativity. Might the day come when “creativity on demand” could allow us to order up new inventions or solutions to complex problems?
Sleep, or rather lack of sleep, is the fly in the ointment. Sleep occurs in two alternating cycles: the light dozing of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep and the deep, heavy sleep of rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep. It is during REM sleep, which occurs about 90 minutes into the sleep cycle, that dreaming occurs; and it is during dreaming that the brain creates the radical new connections that lead to ingenuity.
How much of our creative potential are we losing as a nation when nearly a third of our workers suffer from chronic sleep deprivation? Share your thoughts on my Cynthia M. Albanese website. Find out more about me and my firm, CMA Technology, on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is the go-to site for business networking. Business professionals regularly review colleagues’ and consultants’ LinkedIn profiles before making contact. The site has become a smart place to showcase products and advertise services. A useful employment network, reviewing a candidate’s LinkedIn profile has become standard procedure in many HR departments. Yet, despite the potentially important role their LinkedIn profile could play in their business life, few people take the time to maximizing the effectiveness of their LinkedIn profile.
Failing to mine all the advantages LinkedIn has to offer is an easily corrected oversight and a task all business professionals should move to the top of their to-do list. Follow these tips to make the most of your LinkedIn Profile:
- Use your headline to target people most likely to use your services.
- Add keywords to your headline and profile sections to search engine optimize your profile. Well-maintained profiles typically rank on the first page of Google search results.
- Use social proof to augment brand value by including specifics that validate your credentials.
- Take advantage of linking apps to connect your profile to your website, Facebook page, blog and other resources.
- Enhance your reputation as an expert by participating in groups.
- Increase network connections by including a call to action in your profile.
- Make use of data search tools to expand your sales network.
- Create a search engine-optimized testimonial page listing recommendations, achievement specifics, awards, etc. With an audience of more than 90 million professionals, a little self-promotion is a smart move.
- Use Signal to flag news relevant to your business. The personalized news feed is a great source of material for blogs and tweets.
- Export LinkedIn contacts to your Outlook (Yahoo, Google) address book by clicking on Export Connections under My Connections.
- Use The Resume Builder to create a professional resume from your profile.
- Brand your account by creating a custom domain name by clicking Public Profile under the Edit Profile tab, then Your Current URL.
Share your LinkedIn tips on my Cynthia M. Albanese website. You can find out more about me and my firm, CMA Technology, on LinkedIn.
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