Economic and Regulatory Trends

Economic Trends

1. Floridian citrus is on the decline
 
  a. In my local newspaper, there was recently an interview about how California could overtake Florida in American citrus production.
    b. There's an opportunity here for Florida to subsidize farmers who want to grow citrus and for these farmers to experiment to create better, hardier, more nutritious citrus in the future and to outsell each other. On the other hand, Florida could also push a different fruit that would thrive in hot, humid conditions with little cold weather to help it grow fruit.
    c. The government of Florida is an option since they will be receiving taxes paid on the sold citrus.
    d. Apparently at the moment it is difficult to market Floridian citrus being better than citrus from Mexico or California based on cost.
    e. I am a proud Floridian and I want to do whatever is in my power to see this state function, flourish and improve. I formed this belief because I want Florida to retain their legacy of being famous for their citrus, especially the oranges.

2. Employment for high school to college-age people is very low in the school year.
 
  a.  I've experienced this from my freshman year of high school until the present.
    b.  It's incredibly hard to get your foot in the door for a first job, but perhaps the more severe problem is that these people don't have a lot of time for a job on the side. The opportunity here either lies in giving them an opportunity to add to their resume and in general present themselves as good employees.
    c. The market themselves probably couldn't pay for this, so the market would be their parents or guardians.
    d. Parents and guardians always want to see their charges do better things with their lives than what they're doing at the present. So yes, I do think this is an easy opportunity to exploit.
    e. As I've said before, I've lived this, being a sophomore in college. Before my first job I would've benefited from extra tips on how to market myself and different ways to get viable experience to put on my resume.

Regulatory Trends

3. Conventions of all kinds are on the rise, but are only popular for the first day they're available.
 
 a. The Professional Convention Management Association has several statistic on how the average number of convention attendees has gone up from last year, but interest drops drastically after the first day has concluded.
    b. The people who come to these conventions are almost always looking to invest in some merchandise or a product that they think will improve their business (depending on the type of convention). This is a hotbed of opportunity to make revenue off of. Even if it's just at the door and not involved at all in the details of the gathering, it's literally a large gathering of people and someone is bound to be interested in what you're selling.
    c. There are several markets here, but I will choose the attendees of these large meetings and conventions who I assume have a decent amount of cash to spend.
    d. This would be an easy opportunity if the entrepreneur did their homework on the details of the convention. If it's a convention for fangirls and fanboys, provide easy, climate controlled transportation with plenty of room for their cosplay; if it's a convention for businessmen and women, make something that identifies groups of people in a crowd easily, for example.
    e. I have been to a few conventions like Mega-Con and I know from first-hand experience that these are often overwhelming and difficult to get where you want to be easily and quickly. In the future, it'd be nice if this was changed to be easier for the attendee.

4. Libraries are becoming obsolete among young adults, but for those who do go, mobile use is a vast part of their experience.
   
a. Whenever I go into a library (which is rarely) it is comprised of families and older people. After putting further research into this, I found that attendance has been on a slow decline, but those who do go use the Internet and their phones quite a bit.
    b. There is an untapped source for libraries to interest young adults to utilize the resources. Besides putting books online, the rest of the tools are unused, like meeting spaces or classes or even story-time for children. One possible solution would be when a certain number of children are in one area, they have access to an audio recording of a book. They can sit down, listen, and look at the pictures in the book. It even caters to their short attention spans because they can pause it or walk away but it'll still be there.
   c. The government would be the customer here because it would require a revamp of library online interfaces.
   d. It would be challenging to convince the government to pour money into something that is already free and is not very popular.
   e. I love the culture a library brings: it brings people together around a common interest. One of my favorite teachers in high school was the librarian and she was constantly talking about how she was innovating since only a few people were coming in to check out books anymore.