My Top 10 List: Big Week Ahead For Vaccines and Return to Work

Hopefully, only one more week of high political drama before we get back to some degree of normalcy (and civility).

  • While the fever broke last week, we are clearly not out of the woods yet. Businesses around the country, e.g., in Pittsburgh and Austin, are boarding up their storefronts again in preparation for one more round of craziness as we head into inauguration week.
  • Fortunately, there are also signs (finally) that even the most ardent proponents of the lockdown are waking up to the fact that it’s not working (see #2 below).
  • I’m also detecting a shift back to the office. Men, in particular, are chomping at the bit to get out of the house and return to a traditional work environment (see Harvard study below, #3, not good news for women, btw).
And with that, Scroll down for this week’s Top 10.
1. I’m BOOKED FOR My COVID SHOT: FEB 23 AT JAVITS CENTER
It took me 2 hours to get an appt. learn from my mistakes.
  • Don’t waste your time trying to make an appointment at small outlets, e.g., a school was listed as my closest location but it ended up having zero openings all the way through May.
  • The Javits Center, on the other hand, which is a mass vaccination site, lists all openings per day.
  • Don’t bother clicking on any dates/times showing less than 10 spots available. By the time I clicked on any of those links and started to add my name, the appointments were already taken.
  • What ultimately did the trick was scrolling down to dates that had at least 100 openings. That’s the strategy that worked!
2. Cuomo finally changes his tune about reopening.

“We simply cannot stay closed until the vaccine hits critical mass. The cost is too high. We will have nothing left to open. We must reopen the economy, but we must do it smartly and safely.”

Andrew Cuomo, NY Governor (1/11/2021)

Quite an about face from what he touted in March

So frustrating to be reminded how, for almost a year, he was willing to shutdown the broad economy and sacrifice every New Yorker’s livelihood vs. making sure those most at risk for COVID were safely locked down. For those of you who don’t remember, he’s the governor who insisted on packing nursing homes with COVID-positive patients over the objections of nursing home operators who were not set up for the pandemic.

3. MEN ARE READY TO GET BACK TO THE OFFICE (Sources: HBR, The Next Miami, Biz Journals LA)

Chief Human Resource Officers are reporting that surveys of their own employees show that men are more likely to decide to return to their workplace, while women are more likely to continue to work from home. Additionally, 64% of managers believe that office workers are higher performers than remote workers, and in turn are likely to give in-office workers a higher raise than those who work from home.

Harvard Business Review (1/14/2021)
and that’s why office space leasing is booming in parts of the country!
  • Miami’s office market is now seeing an unprecedented surge in demand with brokers claiming they are seeing the highest level of activity in their careers. (Source: The Next Miami)
  • Even WeWork is back on track. Chief Executive Sandeep Mathrani said the co-working firm will reach profitability by 4Q 2021, adding many Americans still want to work in an office environment despite the ongoing pandemic.

“We’ve seen mental health reasons for people who want to come back to work [in the office]. I’m a firm believer that the office is an important part of everyday living.”

Sandeep Mathrani, CEO, We Work

4. Twitch: a major money-maker for users esp. gamers

INTERESTING: Erik Griffin told Rick Glassman (on the TYSO podcast) that he makes $20K per gaming session on Twitch which is significantly more than he was making over the course of an entire weekend, doing standup at clubs.

I’m still not familiar with all that Twitch does (other than it’s a streaming site owned by Amazon) but it’s clearly a big hit:

The streaming website, Twitch, where gamers famous and obscure broadcast their virtual hijinks, saw its daily viewership grow from 13 million hours watched to 31 million in March, according to Nielsen data analytics.

Pittsburgh Quarterly
5. Wi-Fi 6E is coming, the biggest upgrade TO WI-FI in 20 years.

Many of this year’s new phones, laptops, TVs, and routers, will come with support for Wi-Fi 6. That’s essentially like expanding your wireless connection from a two-lane road to an eight-lane highway.

Source: The Verge Jan 7, 2021
6. SO MANY new logo and brand identity revamps (Source: kottke, Detroit Free Press, Morning Brew)

Marketers and designers have been in a rebranding frenzy. I’ve never seen so many new logos and brand relaunches over such a short period of time.

3 noteworthy ones

Burger King (designed by Stephen Kelleher Studio)

GM’s new electric vehicle logo and campaign (featuring influencers like Malcolm Gladwell). Logo created in-house.

KIA! Pyrodrones for the win! (No info on who designed)

7. Performers are rebranding too – with a nip and a tuck! (Source: Las Vegas Sun)

“I did a bunch of Cirque du Soleil performers recently. They’re not performing now, so they have a lot of time to recover. You can’t have a breast augmentation and swing from a rope any sooner than six-to-eight weeks.”

Dr. Lane Smith, Smith Plastic Surgery Institute, Las Vegas

In 2019, nearly $17 billion was spent on cosmetic procedures in the U.S., according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

  • Nearly a third of all procedures performed in 2019 occurred west of the Mississippi.
  • Las Vegas — an entertainment-heavy city where a certain look can be important for employment — is located squarely in the plastic surgery hot zone.
Popular Procedures in Vegas:
  • Breast augmentations are the most popular procedures making up 25% of the business.
  • Facelifts and nose reshaping
  • “Mommy makeovers” — which often include “tummy tucks” to remove excess midsection fat for women who have gone through childbirth.
  • Brazilian butt lift procedures have quadrupled in demand in the past two years. Every woman wants their bum bigger now.
8. looks like we can attend Concerts again soon (Source: Pittsburgh Post Gazette)
  • Dr. Fauci spoke (via Zoom) at a conference for the Association of Performing Arts Professionals this past week.
  • He said that herd immunity, with 70% – 85% of the population vaccinated, was a possibility by mid-year.
  • And once that happens, major live events can be scheduled for 2H 2021!
9. And that’s great news for art fairs and museums as well

On a personal note, super excited that Thrillist featured Brad’s upcoming show, “Swap Meet” (at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art) as a must-see for visitors to Phoenix later this year. (Source: Thrillist)

10. And Finally. Big thumbs up to The Fulton Restaurant NYC. Wow!

Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s newly reopened and fabulously designed terrace space is the best (and chicest) outdoor dining spot in NYC. An absolute gem.

it’s got it all
  • The food is divine. Their seafood platters, oysters, salmon are among the best in NYC.
  • Great cocktails
  • Wonderful staff.
  • Beautifully designed space with a HEATED FLOOR!
  • KILLER views of the East River, Brooklyn, and all the Bridges spanning Manhattan and Brooklyn!

And that, my friends, is a wrap

Today (Friday) I am very excited to check out the glorious new Moynihan Train Hall. I will report back next week. I’m especially looking forward to seeing, firsthand, the art installations by Kehinde Wiley, “The Hive,” by Elmgreen & Dragset, and Stan Douglas’ photography.

Next week I also finally got a dinner reservation at Don Angie’s which has received glowing reviews (and their outdoor dining set up is apparently outstanding as well).

And with that, wishing everyone a great weekend. Stay safe, get yourself on the vaccine list if you’re eligible and most importantly, let’s keep our fingers crossed that all goes well on January 20th.

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