Expand Family and Business Income Streams

Economic suffering from jobs lost to automation and the COVID-19 pandemic accelerate the need for multiple income streams from family members and businesses. The earlier post, "Rebirth of Self Worth," suggests ways children even can help generate income by adding lemonade and hot dog stands and entertainment to family yard sales. The following examples show how some businesses find new market segments eager to try their products.

     Hard to mow hilly parks overgrown with invasive buckthorn bushes and honeysuckle inspired the formation of the HaakHagen Goat Grazing farm run by a couple of friends in Wisconsin. Their 88 agile goats, rented out to private landowners and government land, also help preserve prairies by nibbling invasive species and shrubs that block the sun needed by shorter native plants. The goats are gentler on the land than heavy mowing machinery, what they leave behind eliminates the need for some fertilizer and adults and children find the goats fun to watch.

     Renting out RVs during the pandemic has become a new business catering to both vacationing families and virtual employees looking for office space while sheltering at home. When pleasure and business travelers return to the skies, they are likely to receive airline-branded Honeywell Safety Packs containing single-use gloves, hand wipes and face masks. Trendwatching.com reports Honeywell offers airline crews reusable packs of safety glasses and face masks with interchangeable filters.

     What is obvious from these three businesses is the way they each seized opportunities to serve multiple market segments. Clothing manufacturers now have an opportunity to produce double-duty items for home and business wear. Educational suppliers can think in terms of the home and school markets. Online retailers might gain multiple incomes from pop-up holiday shops, and more and more similar ideas will create new jobs and economic growth. 

   

Examples of the Devil in the Details

In Indonesia, the Boeing 737 MAX's tragic loss of 189 lives illustrates how computerized directions prevented a pilot from executing the right decision. Pilots, unlike astronauts with access to mission control, apparently lack hotlines to aircraft manufacturers that could tell them to flip two switches when they experience the problem Indonesia's plane had. Already, suggestions note the missing detail of highlighting important information about new aircraft systems, such as the Boeing MAX has. These changes need to be written in the language most easily read by pilots, not always in English, and illustrated in a brochure or on a card separate from the aircraft's basic manual.

     Bill Gates observed the detail that new medicines and vaccines invented in the lab do nothing to eliminate human suffering, if  they lack a distribution system. I was reminded of the way I walked two blocks to a schoolyard where I received a drop of the polio vaccine on a sugar cube, a distribution system replaced by doctor's offices today. In Africa, where providing patients with medication that requires refrigeration was a problem, drones had to be enlisted to carry them to clinics in remote villages.

     If there is no use for recycled plastic bottles and containers, why bother with the details of collecting them? A TV segment showed what looked like bales of "dirty" plastic stacked ten feet high at a recycling center. Could dirty plastic items be melted for use in 3D printers to make insulation and furniture for the homes 3D printers now construct from concrete?

     China, once a customer for dirty plastic, now only buys pristine plastic with no labels or other irregularities such as moisture. Those requirements certainly leave out the plastic debris long boom arms collect from the ocean in what's known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch or "the blob" between California and Hawaii that forms the mass of warm water that seems to nourish the warm, dry winters that dehydrate forests along the northwest coast of North America.

     Then, there are the new members of the U.S. Congress who want to replace Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. First, they need to master the details of passing legislation..     

   

Travel Tip Reminders

Even though airlines are allowed to offer short times to make connections with different flights, travel experts recommend allowing  two hours between domestic flight connections and three hours to make connections with international flights.

A US friend who broke a foot in Spain found out Medicare does not cover medical expenses outside the US.

Since poachers use social media photo tags to locate rare animals, safari travelers are advised to disable geotag functions on smartphones.

Might be a good idea to discourage a culture of begging by not handing out cash or goods while on vacation.

On a trip to a park where wild animals run free, stay in vehicles. Don't get out to take pictures like one visitor who was saved from attack when a friend called out to tell her a bear was approaching.

Be aware of surroundings when taking all photos. On trips, I've seen someone back up without noticing he was getting too close to the edge of a cliff, a giant wave knock down and swamp a couple, and a child about to step off a board walk into a volcano's flowing lava.

Flying Can Be Fun Again

Some airline passengers in the Caribbean, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates, according to trendwatching.com, can begin to anticipate the glamorous experience flying was in years gone by. In Turkey, they'll also meet a new friend, Nely.

     Vacationers touring in Barbados with Virgin Holidays will be able to put their casual flying clothes over their bathing suits and check out of their resort hotels early, because Virgin will pick them up, check their luggage, and take them to the beach. At oceanside, Virgin will provide boarding passes, a locker, beach towels, a showering facility, unlimited refreshments, and an air conditioned lounge area, while every last vacation moment merits a "Wish You Were Here" selfie home.

     Visitors to Singapore's Changi Airport have walked among animatronic, remote-controlled butterflies designed to resemble the Diaethria Anna species. For kids, the airport's five-story playground offers climbing nets, a pole to slide down, and more for use for 50 at a time.

     Before heading into the wild blue yonder from Dubai International Airport, passengers will be exploring the virtual  blue aquarium surrounding them as they walk through a security tunnel to their flights in Terminal 3. To use the tunnel instead of traditional procedures, passengers pre-register at 3D face-scanning kiosks located throughout the airport. Watching the fish is expected to relax and entertain passengers as 80 hidden tunnel cameras scan visitors' faces from different angles. At the end of the tunnel, cleared travelers are sent on their way with a "Have a nice trip" message or a red sign alerts security. Dubai's airports process 80 million passengers now. The tunnel was developed to handle the increased volume of passengers, 124 million, expected by 2020. It should be mentioned that Dubai's virtual aquarium receives the same legal challenges that other facial recognition systems face.

     At Turkey's Istanbul New Airport, a robot named Nely notes the expressions, ages, and genders of passengers before greeting them and making (or not making) small talk. Nely is, of course, travel-functional: booking flights for passengers, relaying information, and providing weather updates. Using AI, facial recognition, emotional analysis based on input from sociologists, voice capability, and a bar code reader, Nely even remembers passengers from previous interactions.