Millions Of Local Niches .3

The vision is ads targeted to a two block radius. Now, that's a micro-niche.

It's easy to imagine a broad open field of large companies in suburban settings as the foundation of recruiting. In fact, well over 60% of the world lives in urban settings. The percentage is increasing rapidly.

When Japan looks at its future (aging population, negative population growth), it sees an increasingly urban lifestyle. The costs of supporting the rural population, including transportation and energy infrastructure, outweigh the costs of encouraging movement t the city. The government is increasingly less subtle in its attempts to move people to the cities. It's how you afford the demographic changes and we'll see it in the US and Europe shortly.

The urban future puts health care customers closer to their supplies. It reduces energy dependence by reducing the need for transportation. It reduces logistics costs across the economy.

The future is pretty clearly urban.

We don't have a really hard time imagining that businesses will quickly prefer to hire people who live close by. The best talent pools are within two degrees of separation and live near the "plant". Early efforts to build long term talent pools have tended to focus on the neighborhoods adjacent to the facility. In other words, there's a clear zip code component of talent pool development.

Location, of course, is not the only thing. Profession, temperament and other discriminating demographics can all be a part of talent pool development.

Google is worth watching on this dimension. They will perfect targeted local advertising. The first logical application will be employment ads and talent pool development. Expect Google to enter this market a change the way it operates.

- John Sumser