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There was a time when Sarah Truckey had a close relationship with her blog. The St. Louis-based freelance writer visited it every couple of days, sharing stories and thoughts with anyone willing to read them.

But today, the intervals between visits are growing longer as Truckey, 25, increasingly turns to social networking site Twitter to talk to the world. She likes the way Twitter limits entries to 140 characters, forcing her to keep those missives short.

"The blog posts wouldn’t necessarily get me in trouble. But I would end up revealing more than I should," Truckey said.

While not ready to abandon the blog altogether, Truckey does represent a growing trend in the world of blogging. Young people just aren’t as interested in them as they once were. And it’s yet another example of the way rapid changes in technology — and the way we use it — can transform you from trendy to dinosaur seemingly overnight.

MySpace? Out. Facebook? In. Using a cell phone for phone calls? Out. Using it to send a text message? In. E-mail? Outside of scammers and spammers, does anyone use it?

OK, there’s a bit of hyperbole there. But it’s clear we live in a world where our ways of communicating are changing so fast that it’s virtually impossible, particularly for older adults, to stay current.

And certainly there are times when keeping up can be critical. As the parent of virtually every cell phone-toting teenager or young adult knows, you learn to text if you want to keep in touch.

Still, there’s no reason to obsess over every new communication development, said Dean Terry, director of emerging media at the University of Texas at Dallas. Some basic familiarity with social networking and texting may be all you need to get by. It’s not as if the old ways will just die out.

"Don’t beat yourself up if you can’t keep up with everything," Terry said. "We still have radio. We still have plays. And we still have novels."

In so many ways, it is the nation’s army of teenagers and young adults that’s deciding for the rest of us what’s cool and what’s not. Those decisions can, and often do, change quite quickly.

"Adults are always playing catch-up. And unfortunately, when we get there, (teens) may have already moved on," said Gary Rudman, a California-based market researcher who specializes in teens.

Just look at what’s happened to blogging, an area that’s still growing in popularity with older Americans, just as it’s losing steam with the younger set.

The percentage of older adults — those over the age of 29 — who say they maintain a blog has increased from 7 percent to 11 percent since December 2007, according to a recent report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Meanwhile the ranks of bloggers in the 18-29 age group fell from 24 percent to 15 percent during the same time frame quick payday loans.

The drop has been even greater among teen bloggers. In 2006, 28 percent of online teens said they blogged. Only 14 percent say the same thing today, according to Pew.

Social networking experts cite some pretty simple reasons for the decline of young bloggers.

Some suggest that it’s tied, at least partly, to the decline in popularity of My- Space, the one-time king of social networking. In recent years, social networkers have made a decided shift to Facebook, which puts more emphasis on short status updates and less emphasis on blogging.

"Because of what each site offers, that really changes what people do," said Amanda Lenhart, a senior research specialist with Pew.

Others say blogging simply doesn’t match well with the preferred communication style of young people, who like quick exchanges via text message and Facebook status updates. Some even suggest that young people might have skipped blogs altogether if they had arrived at the same time texting was taking off. Many young people just don’t have time in their lives for blogs.

"We used to think of blogs as short little blips of commentary. But now they seem very long," said Terry, from the University of Texas. "If you are updating your Facebook or Twitter all day, then in some ways you’ve gotten it all out. You’ve said everything you wanted to say."

Some attribute the decline of blogging and MySpace — and anything else being abandoned by young people — to the desire of teens and young adults trying to carve out their own space.

Rarely are they happy to see that space infiltrated by parents and grandparents.

"As soon as it becomes too popular, they want to move on to something else," said Kathryn Montgomery, a professor of communication at American University in Washington.

Not everyone buys that.

"That’s been the routine theory about why MySpace lost ground to Facebook," said Steve Jones, a professor of communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "But I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. A lot of adults are using Facebook now. And I don’t see younger people leaving in droves."

And really, it’s not necessarily the end of the world even if the youngsters do run off to greener pastures.

Rebecca Hanes, 36, of St. Louis, has been blogging for five years. She actually has a pair of blogs, including one she describes as "a big ol’ bowl of soup" in terms of content.

Hanes shrugged off the news that young bloggers have been dropping left and right. She says she has no plans to abandon her own little slice of cyberspace: "As far as I’m concerned, it’s probably something I’ll always have."

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Programs at the University of Cincinnati and Miami University are among 14 Health Care/Biomedicine Centers of Excellence across the state announced by Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland.

UC’s newly named state center of excellence, Transforming Health Care in the 21st Century, focuses on the neurosciences; environmental health and cancer; pediatrics; and diabetes and obesity. At Miami, Structural Biology and Metabonomics made the list.

“Aligning Ohio universities with Ohio’s growing biomedical and health care industries will generate economic growth and new, hard-to-outsource jobs,” Strickland said. “Biomedicine and health care in Ohio create high wage jobs, investments in facilities, research and development and production. But much more than that, these industries bring forth medical breakthroughs that benefit citizens of Ohio and citizens of the world.”

Dr. John Tew, clinical director of the UC Neuroscience Institute, said his organization was honored to be included cash advance america.

“Ohio is renowned for its health care excellence, and to be recognized as a neuroscience leader by the state’s leadership confirms our achievement as a benchmark institution in neurological care,” he said in a statement.

The Centers of Excellence are part of Ohio’s 10-year Strategic Plan for Higher Education. Friday’s announcement was the second of five announcements of university Centers of Excellence that align with the state’s targeted industries and focus on talent recruitment, according to a press release. In October 2009, the governor announced Ohio’s nine Centers of Excellence in Advanced Energy at eight of the state’s universities.

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Editor’s note: This story is part of a special supplement to the Jan. 22 print edition of the Phoenix Business Journal. For more on the print edition: jbertolino@bizjournals.com.

The battle over noise concerns if the new F-35 fighter training mission comes to Luke Air Force Base has placed Glendale and El Mirage in a public relations and political skirmish.

El Mirage worries the F-35 fighter is louder than the F-16 jets that currently fly into and out of Luke. The West Valley suburb wants noise tests done to see how much louder the F-35 might be, and it could sue the U.S. Defense Department over the matter.

“You can ask questions about noise and still support the base. The jet may be noisier, and if it comes, everyone is going to have to deal with it,” said Stacy Pearson, a spokeswoman for El Mirage.

Glendale, where the base is located, has taken the lead in trying to attract the new F-35 fighter to Luke, which is the U.S. Air Force’s main training base for F-16 pilots. The F-35 is replacing the F-16 in the U.S. military arsenal, and Luke is on the short list for F-35 training along with bases in Florida, New Mexico, Idaho and Tucson.

Glendale spokesman Jerry McCoy said community support for Luke could help draw F-35 operations to the base.

“They’re going to base their decisions on what’s best for the national defense. But they also want to be in a community that’s supportive of them,” said McCoy.

Glendale has been garnering political, business and community support for Luke and the F-35. The main concern is that if the Pentagon picks another base for F-35 training, Luke’s mission could end and base could be closed.

The West Valley suburbs are no strangers to conflict. Glendale prevailed in recent court battles with El Mirage regarding decades-old strip annexations. El Mirage officials have hinted that if Glendale turns over some of that land, it could help ease El Mirage’s worries about Luke noise fast cash advance.

Arizona Sen. John McCain has asked the Department of Defense to have an F-35 fly over the region in an effort to determine how much noise will be generated by the new plane if it ends up being based at Luke.

Pearson and McCoy are not strangers, either. Pearson worked as a spokeswoman for the city of Glendale with McCoy before leaving for a post at Rose & Allyn Public Relations. Last year, El Mirage hired Rose & Allyn, headed by Jason Rose, to handle its PR on the F-35 and Luke. Policy Development Group previously handled PR for El Mirage.

Pearson said Glendale’s reaction to El Mirage’s noise concerns is disappointing.

“It’s been juvenile,” she said. “The two cities have not been the friendliest of neighbors. It is time to bury the hatchet and discuss noise.”

In its quest, El Mirage has drawn comparisons to Valparaiso, Fla., which filed a federal lawsuit regarding F-35 noise at Eglin Air Force Base, near Pensacola. Since Eglin held some F-35 test flights, the Florida town has complained about what it believes is an increase in noise compared with the F-16.

McCoy said the noise concerns in Florida may not mirror those at Luke because of the number of and the differences in how flights take off and land at the two bases. Glendale officials point out that El Mirage does not get all of Luke’s flight noise: Some flights follow a path over Goodyear, south of the base, for takeoff and landing. El Mirage is north of Luke.

McCoy said the F-35 issue is not about a rivalry between the two cities.

“We don’t look at it as Glendale-El Mirage,” McCoy said. “This is really a statewide issue.”

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Mark Tade, manager of employee relations for U.S. Steel’s Granite City Works, was elected as this year’s president of the Leadership Council Southwestern Illinois, a key economic development organization in the Metro East area.

Members also chose four other council officers for one-year terms:

— Council chairman, Vaughn Vandegrift, chancellor of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

— Council vice president, Gerry Schuetzenhofer, president of Coldwell Banker Brown Realtors
— Secretary, Richard Sauget Sr short term personal loan., president of East County Enterprises

— Treasurer, Dale Stewart, executive secretary/treasurer of the Southwestern Illinois Building and Construction Trades Council

The Leadership Council was organized to attract and retain jobs and stimulate capital investment in the Metro East area.

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The Sedona Film Festival is raffling off a $50,000 solar system to benefit the annual event.

The festival, now in its 16^th year, will sell 3,000 of the tickets at $20 each or six for $100 in order to raise money for the festival. The system is being donated by the Cottonwood-based Arizona Solar Power payday loan.

The idea to raise money is based on the festival’s new endeavors into sustainable media.

For info: www.sedonafilmfestival.com.

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Hawaii stocks were mixed Friday as Wall Street was up slightly following a jump in retail sales.

Hawaii stocks seeing gains:

• Hawaiian Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: HA), parent company of Hawaiian Airlines, up 3.9 percent to $7.39.

• Bank of Hawaii Corp. (NYSE: BOH) up slightly to $45.57.

• Alexander & Baldwin (NYSE: ALEX) up slightly to $32.82.

• Territorial Bancorp (Nasdaq: TBNK), parent company of Territorial Savings Bank, was up slightly to $17.33.

• Cyanotech Corp. (Nasdaq: CYAN), was up 7.3 percent to $4.40.

• Maui Land & Pineapple (NYSE: MLP) up a bit to $5.85.

Hawaii stocks seeing declines:

• Hoku Scientific (Nasdaq: HOKU) was down 5 installment payday loans.3 percent at $2.47.

• Central Pacific Financial Corp. (NYSE: CPF) was down 1.6 percent to $1.16.

• Hawaiian Electric Industries (NYSE: HE), parent company of American Savings Bank and Hawaiian Electric Co., down slightly to $20.69.

• Barnwell Industries (Amex: BRN) was down slightly at $4.32.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended up 66 points at 10,472, the S&P 500 was up 4 points at 1,106 and the Nasdaq Composite Index closed down points at 2,190.

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Fears are increasing among more than 1,000 workers at the Navistar assembly plant in Chatham that they’ll never produce another heavy truck.

The plant has remained idle since the last ProStar and LoneStar models rolled off the assembly line almost three months ago, and there are no signs of a reopening.

U.S.-based Navistar International Corp. laid off all workers at the venerable operation after their contract expired and bargaining with the Canadian Auto Workers reached an impasse in late June.

Negotiators from both sides haven’t budged from their positions, and uneasy workers are wondering whether the company will close the plant permanently.

"There seems to be more concern among the members that it could happen," said Cathy Wiebenga, plant chair for CAW. "They (Navistar) are playing a new game. We’re being forced to play it but we don’t know what the outcome will be."

Dan Ustian, chief executive of parent Navistar, suggested publicly for the first time this month that the company could close the plant.

"But we also want to point out if we close the plant, we have not incorporated any of the closing costs or restructuring of that yet into our financials," he told analysts during a conference call to discuss third-quarter results.

The plant has operated in Chatham for more than 60 years and remains one of the community’s biggest employers.

Navistar planned on closing the plant in 2003, but reversed the decision when workers agreed to concessions and the federal and provincial governments provided more than $60 million in aid.

A shutdown would be a big blow to the southwestern Ontario region and numerous suppliers. It would follow the closing of the Sterling Trucks assembly plant in St. Thomas and the elimination of about 1,300 direct jobs earlier this year.

Ford’s assembly plant in St. Thomas is also in jeopardy of closing in 2011, which would wipe out another 1,500 jobs.

Although the Navistar plant has experienced ups and downs because of the cyclical nature of the heavy truck market in North America, Wiebenga said she has never experienced such a lengthy stoppage.

Some workers are taking temporary jobs, while others are retraining or looking for new careers.

Kevin Jack, a veteran assembly-line worker, said his anxiety about the plant’s future has increased, and he questions Navistar’s intentions as the shutdown drags on.

It’s difficult for employees to find new work, he said, because companies believe they’ll return to Navistar if the plant reopens.

"They (Navistar) are keeping us all in limbo," he said no fax cash loans. "Let us know so we can get on with our lives."

Since the start of the latest shutdown, Navistar has shifted production to a plant in Escobedo, Mexico. Wiebenga said she thinks it will be difficult for that operation to meet orders when the market improves.

Although she is not optimistic about contract talks any time soon, Wiebenga said bargaining could resume later this year because industry watchers expect the market to recover in early 2010.

Union officials say Navistar’s last proposal for extensive concessions would "gut" the existing contract, eliminating most workers’ jobs and leaving remaining employees with few rights. They say Navistar’s proposals call for widespread contracting out of work, leaving jobs for only about 100 full-time workers.

"The vast majority of workers would be voting themselves out of a job by accepting something like this," Jack said.

The union said Navistar also wants to significantly trim health benefits, freeze pensions and dramatically erode seniority rights. Changes would allow management to award jobs on the basis of ability rather than seniority.

There have been no serious discussions about wages. Under the old contract, workers earned an average of $24 an hour.

Navistar, which weathered a bitter six-week strike at the plant in 2002, has not commented on bargaining since laying off about 350 workers at the end of June. Some 700 employees were already on layoff because of slow sales.

Plant manager Craig Holmes said in an audio message to workers at the time that the operation had reached "a crossroads" and needed to become "smaller and radically different." Navistar has not revealed how much the plant workforce would shrink, or other details.

"Nothing has changed," Navistar spokesman Roy Wiley said about the status of bargaining this week. "We are willing to talk any time as long as the talks are productive."

Navistar has said economic conditions have created the "worst truck market" since 1962.

At the time of the stoppage, the Chatham plant produced 35 trucks daily. During the plant’s peak in daily output, it assembled an average of about 200 trucks a day.

In defence of the company’s proposals, Holmes said employees and retirees would maintain a good quality of life. But he acknowledged the uncertainty and level of necessary change is "tough."

He said he would update the June 30 message when appropriate. The message has remained the same.

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Heartland Bank added Catherine Baize to its Private Wealth Group.

Fulcrum Securities added Teresa Creighton as a financial adviser and first vice president of investments.

Clean The Uniform Company named Angela Willis as a collections representative.

CB Richard Ellis added Holly Heyde as a broker.

BJC Medical Group added Dr. Erica R. Schockett.

Horner & Shifrin added Brooks K. Brestal.

WirelessUSA added Anna Capkovic as a communications consultant.

Payne Family Homes added Edward Lott as sales and marketing manager.

Evans & Dixon promoted attorneys Ellen Brooke and Karen Jones to senior associates.

Gresham Smith and Wyatt added Lynn Swaney as a manager in their accounting services department.

SAK Construction added Steve J. Hirtz to the management team as vice president of rehabilitation operations.

Clear Channel Radio St. Louis promoted Aaron Hyland to director of sales.

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WASHINGTON — Signaling that manufacturers are leading the economy into a recovery, output from the nation’s factories, mines and utilities posted widespread gains in August.

The August gains in industrial production marked the second straight increase after the global recession dried up the appetites of customers worldwide. Output rose 0.8 percent, the Federal Reserve said Wednesday, beating analysts’ estimates.

In part, the improvement reflected auto sales that were boosted by the government’s now-ended Cash for Clunkers program. But analysts were impressed that output rose broadly across industries. Even with autos and parts stripped out, manufacturing activity gained 0.4 percent last month.

"Vehicles are not the whole story," Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight, said in a note to clients.
Gault noted that production rose in five out of 10 categories of durable goods, including machinery and electrical equipment.

The pace of growth is expected to slow later this year. That’s partly because the stimulative effect of the clunkers program, which issued rebates for people who traded in older gas-guzzlers for new, fuel-efficient models, will fade.

But industrial stockpiles are so low that production should keep rising even as consumer spending remains weak, economists said. Companies had cut their stockpiles by a record $159.2 billion in the second quarter. Low inventories tend to signal higher output ahead, because companies eventually must produce more to refill their depleted stockpiles bad credit personal loan lenders.

Manufacturers "are in a catchup mode right now," Gault said. "They’re adjusting for the fact that the level of demand didn’t meet their worst fears."

Inflation remains nowhere in sight — The Consumer Price Index rose just 0.4 percent in August, after a flat reading in July, the government said. Prices fell 1.5 percent in the last year, as gasoline prices dropped sharply from record levels last summer. The "core" CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, ticked up a scant 0.1 percent, matching expectations.

Buffett thinks economy has hit bottom — Billionaire investor Warren Buffett says the economy appears to have leveled off at the bottom of the recession over the summer, but Berkshire Hathaway’s CEO still isn’t seeing much improvement. "I think the odds are very much against getting significantly worse. It’s sort of plateaued at the … bottom right now," Buffett said in an interview with CNBC that aired Tuesday and Wednesday.

Labor Department reports weekly jobless claims, Commerce Department reports housing starts. STLtoday.com/business

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The Dutch pension fund sector has joined criticism of a European Union regulatory directive for hedge funds and private equity, saying the new rules may cut investment opportunities and raise costs.

The EU’s draft “Alternative Investment Fund Managers” directive published in April aims to tighten regulation and increase information disclosure for hedge funds and private equity firms to quell public anger over financial market excesses.

“The inefficiencies that would sprout from the Proposal will ultimately need to be borne by current and future pensioners and could be reflected in higher pension premiums and lower net payout,” Dutch pension managers said in a letter addressed to the European Commission.

The letter, dated Aug 27 and obtained by Reuters on Friday, was signed by APG, which manages funds for the world’s third largest pension fund ABP, and by PGGM, Mn Services and others, representing about 450 billion euros ($642.1 billion) in assets, the letter said business cards design.

European hedge funds and private equity organizations have already said the EU draft was hastily made, while British pension funds said the directive could damage investment choice and hit returns.

The Dutch pension managers said they were willing to advise the European Commission in case the directive is revised and said the current draft may “not reach its intended objective to reduce the systemic risk as experienced under the current financial crisis.”

The pension managers had about 90 billion euros invested in alternative investments such as hedge funds, and the extent to which these assets have contributed to the financial crisis was “perhaps less clear than the Proposal claims it is,” the letter said.

(Reporting by Gilbert Kreijger; editing by Chris Pizzey)

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