1. Detroit, MI
2. Bentonville, AK
3. Cleveland, OH
4. Syracuse, NY
5. Boston, MA and San Francisco, CA
6. Any town in Alaska
7. Orlando, FL

You can compare that to the 10 cities with the best IT job prospects:

1. Atlanta, GA
2. Boston. MA
3. Chicago, IL
4. Dallas, TX
5. Los Angeles, CA
6. New York/New Jersey
7. Philadelphia, PA
8. Seattle, WA
9. Silicon Valley, CA
10. Washington D.C/Baltimore

Poor Boston seems a bit schizophrenic. Of course, one could argue that “Silicon Valley” and “San Francisco” are too close to each other to be counted differently. I mean, what percentage of IT workers employed in SF actually live within city limits? To be fair, ‘where the jobs are/aren’t’ is a different metric from ‘best/worst.’ You could have a high number of jobs, but still end up in the ‘worst’ group if the external environment is bad.

There are other ways, however, to ensure that your product is easy to buy. I walked by this shop called Gather (warning, auto-music on link) yesterday and it had this sign in the window.

Caribou, as you can probably guess or already know, is a cafe. Gather is located right next to Caribou. There are a lot of shops that post signs saying “no food or drink,” which is really saying that if you are eating or drinking, they don’t want your business. Gather could have posted nothing, implying that drinks are ok. This sign, however, simply suggests that once you have your half-caff, extra strong, skim, no-whip mocha, you might just enjoy drinking it in their shop instead of sitting in Caribou.

The problem with Segway is that the thing that makes it unique, the feature that’s hard to replicate, isn’t actually that important to the market. See, you can deliver a personal mobility machine suitable for almost everything the Segway does without ‘dynamic stabilization’ technology. Just add a third wheel.

Not a Segway

The link is to a short blog post that’s worth reading if your day generally involves attending meetings.