5 Business Trends You Need to Know

RISMEDIA, Feb. 5, 2008–Do you thank your employees properly? How about learning a better way to get around in crowded cities? E-mail spam have you frustrated? These are just a few of the topics noted in this month’s RISMedia’s Real Estate magazine Trends column, published monthly. Here’s a sneak peak at February’s insights:

1. Zip Around Town on Your Own Terms
People who live in crowded cities that hold more cars than parking spaces are changing their driving tendencies, some even opting to get rid of their cars and hop onboard the Zipcar system.

In the Zipcar program, participants have access to one of the hundreds of cars the company owns. Members can choose their own time slot to use the vehicle, ranging from a couple hours to an entire day, and can even choose the pick-up and drop-off locations. Cars can only be unlocked with the zipcard that members receive when joining the program. For more information, visit www.zipcar.com.

2. Survey: Giving Thanks is Good for All
A recent survey conducted by Adecco USA found that 65% of employees would like to receive more “thanks” at their jobs. The same survey pointed to the fact that 52% said their bosses did a good job of thanking them.

Recognizing your employees for a job well done is an important aspect of employee satisfaction and retention. Employees prefer to be thanked face to face and 68% of respondents believe that an email “thank you” is worse than being thanked in person.

The survey reported that younger employees are more likely to crave appreciation at the office. Over 75% of Generation Y employees said that being thanked more often would give them more motivation to do a better job.

3. Half the World-Just a Phone Call Away
Research firm Informa reported that worldwide mobile telephone subscriptions have reached 3.3 billion, the equivalent of half of the global population. This number comes 26 years after the first cellular network was launched.

Even though mobile subscriptions have reached the equivalent of 50% of the population, this doesn’t mean that half of the people in the world have a mobile phone. According to Informa, 59 countries have mobile penetration that exceeds 100%, meaning that some mobile phone owners in these countries have more than one phone.

4. Spam Contributes to 95% of Email
According to spam filtering services firm Barracuda Networks, out of 1 billion e-mail messages, only one or two out of 20 e-mail messages is now not spam. This means that 95% of all e-mail is spam. In 2001, Barracuda stated that spam accounted for 5% of all mail; that number rose to 70% by 2004, 80-85% by 2005 and 85-90% by 2006.

5. Googling Oneself is Popular Practice
In a recent report, the Pew Internet and American Life Project said that 47% of U.S. adult users have looked for information about themselves through Google or a different search engine. Americans can even be found Googling their friends, co-workers and romantic interests as well.

About 60% of Internet users said they aren’t worried about information about themselves being on the Web, even with the increasing concern over how the information can be used. Americans under 50 and with more education and income were more likely to Google themselves. Pew stated that 53% of adult Internet users admit to looking up information about someone else.

Few users said they Google themselves regularly. About three-quarters of self-searchers have Googled themselves once or twice, and most have found the information to be accurate.

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Sources: Yahoo!, Source: Inc.com

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