News-Record.com

From Sean Olson at UNCG, who passed on a post from his kayaking listserv:

Last Monday, August 22, I just got sick at the cost of filling up my vehicle at $2.44 per gallon so I went on a search for a motor scooter. I brought home a 2005 Honda Ruckus that very evening. It gets 91 mpg! No tag, insurance, registration, etc. required. Top speed 40 mph and I just zip around town getting everywhere in about the same amount of time as in my truck. Matter of fact, I've driven the truck only once to go a couple of miles to get large bottles of filtered water.

Too bad I can't carry a kayak on it!!!!!! But I'll save enough on gas to justify taking the truck on kayak and camping trips.

So this is my reaction to the terrible gas prices (and now scarcity).

In the midst of Winston-Salem's 30 days of welcoming Dell, international media have been questioning, if not excoriating, the city and state's prize possession.

Slate's Daniel Gross links to a bevy of articles (some require subscriptions to get the full article) and charts. He also links to Jeff Jarvis, who has chronicled his problems with Dell's customer service on his blog.

Both are great reading and I highly recommend the Financial Times article (and the whole paper, for that matter) he mentions.

Ten percent of respondents to a recent survey thought VoIP was a low-carb vodka. Even better, 20 percent of the 1,000 or so adults surveyed by Harris Interactive thought VoIP was a European hybrid car.

VoIP actually is an acronym for Voice over IP, which allows users to make calls through the Internet instead of via the phone. It has been around for a while, but this survey, commissioned by Verizon, found that 87 percent of respondents didn't really know what the service is.

Back in March, Harris Interactive released more data about consumer knowledge of the service from The 2005 Telecommunications Report. Among those surveyed who didn't use VoIP, 47 percent said they didn't know much about it. And 64 percent of the 1,473 consumers interviewed weren't familiar with the somewhat cumbersome term "Internet Telephony VoIP."

If you're interested in learning more about the service, there's a pretty good Q&A about it on the Federal Communications Commission's Web site. The FCC also provides a consumer fact sheet and some history about the service in links at the bottom of the page. Here's the primary link: http://www.fcc.gov/voip/

except downtown Greensboro, it seems. Starbucks, caffeine pusher extraordinaire, is moving into downtown Winston-Salem.

The brewer of $4 + lattes and addictive caloric coffee beverages is scheduled to open in October the Embassy Suites Hotel in the Twin City Quarter.

Downtown GSO has more than a few places to load up on java, but they are all independent. Officials at the The International Civil Rights Museum told Starbucks it could have space in its who knows when it will be completed building if it donates money, but so far the company hasn't bitten.

In the past few years Elm Street has become a mecca for botiques, restaurants and new condos. But once you hit Lee Street, the landscape turns into an urban wasteland.

Efforts are underway to revitalize the area, once thought to be too contaminated to touch.

Check on the area's status at its new website. The City of Greensboro will post development updates as they arise.

An Action Greensboro sponsored group will buff and gleam the face of Thousands O'Prints at 223 South Elm St.

The point: reveal an arched entrance not seen since 1917. The cost for owners: nothing! When: October 28-30. "The Radical Renewal will use donated building supplies, sponsorships and volunteer elbow grease to give the shop's facade a total transformation in one October weekend."

Meanwhile, blighted South Elm stays thoroughly un-coiffed.

Biz Buzz would never make light of the Hurricane Katrina disaster in any way.

But the federal government's slow response does have us wondering if FEMA hadn't fallen under the sleepy spell of "Voice Mail Syndrome" during the New Orleans calamity.

Now that agencies and businesses routinely cast calls into the silicon purgatory of voice mail, we wonder if that attitude is going beyond telephone systems and into the way some agencies handle real people and events.

Voice mail, when used badly, often presents a public face that says: "It's not my problem. Please choose somebody else ... It's not my problem either," and so on.

We don't know how FEMA routinely handles its calls in Washington. But the mentality in some businesses and in Washington that would relegate people to a trek through endless voice mail could also consign suffering people to pressing buttons for help without an answer from a real person.

The number of people in the labor force dropped in August for the first time since February, according to the latest statistics from the N.C. Employment Security Commission.
Employment remained about the same and unemployment edged down slightly to 5.6 percent from 5.7 percent in July.
Economists said it was too early to tell whether the 3,547 decrease in the labor force, the number of workers either employed or unemployed and looking for work, was an anomaly or indicated a trend. While the figures are meant to account for changes in the labor force like students leaving jobs to return to school and teachers returning to the classroom, they often underestimate changes, they say. A prolonged drop would indicate a slowdown in the economy.
"The labor force is growing in the Carolinas, particularly in North Carolina," said John Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia Corp. "We're still getting immigration into this state from Latin America and from the North. I would treat this as a seasonal blip."
Economist Michael Walden, a professor at N.C. State, said figures in May and June as well as November and January -- times when big labor shifts occur because of school and Christmas -- should not be overanalyzed.
"We all need to be cautious. I’d wait to see if the trend continues," said Walden.

After our story on the 2005 Job Expo ran Thursday, I got calls from a few people who are interested in applying to head to the Gulf with Shamrock Environmental Corp. As of Wednesday, the local company was looking for about 50 people willing to head south for an indeterminate amount of time to clean up what Katrina left behind.

In case you're interested in applying, e-mail your resume to resume@thehrgroupinc.net and make sure to write "clean-up" in the subject line of the message. The HR Group is managing recruitment for Shamrock.

Here are answers to the most common questions people have been asking me:

* Shamrock doesn't require applicants to have the 40-hour safety training under their belts, but the company certainly prefers to hire people who already have been trained. If you're hired and have not been trained, the company will put you through the OSHA training.

* You must pass a physical and a drug screening.

* It could take three or more weeks to get you down to the coast, and the assignment could last anywhere from a few weeks to a year or more. During that time, you could work between 60 and 100 hours a week. Hourly pay is $12 to $15, there is overtime and lodging is provided. Workers also will receive a food stipend.

John's groused before on this blog about the challenges that come with a cell phone contract. Well, here's another one: Early termination fees.

Last month, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a national advocacy organization, released survey results showing that 36 percent of respondents would have switched cell phone companies if not for early termination fees, flat penalties of between $150 and $240 per phone lobbed at consumers who try to get out before their contracts are up.

The cell phone companies frame these fees as another part of their rate structures, but 89 percent of consumers surveyed thought of the fees as penalties implemented to discourage switching between cell companies.

Unemployment rates did not budge from July to August in Guilford County, according to seasonally adjusted figures released by the N.C. Employment Security Commission Friday.
And at 5.2 percent, the rate is unchanged from last year at the same time.
Economist Don Jud, professor emeritus at UNCG, said that while the jobless rate has not changed, the number of people working in the county has risen 3.4 percent over the past year. That points to a growing economy, he said.
"People who have totally withdrawn from the workforce are back looking," said Jud.
Seasonally adjusted unemployment for Forsyth, Guilford and Alamance counties was 5.2 percent in August, unchanged from July and down slightly from 5.3 percent a year ago.

One of our hometown economic development pros now has a chance to make his mark nationally.
The International Economic Development Council voted Wednesday to add Greensboro economic developer Dan Lynch to a two-year term on its board.
Lynch is the senior vice president of the Greensboro Economic Development Partnership. He is also the acting president after former president Andy Burke resigned recently.
The IEDC's mission is to assist its members with developing economic development leadership.

If you have a great idea and a great product but shrink at the thought of selling them, the Piedmont Triad Entrepreneurial Network wants to help you out.

It's hosting Marketing Traction: How to sell more stuff to more people more often on Oct. 5 from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the Bridger Field House at Wake Forest University.

For more info go to www.pten.org.