The Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development just released employment statistics for the Greater Boston metro area. The data revealed encouraging information and highlighted some interesting trends.

The unemployment rate for the Boston MSA was a non-seasonally adjusted 7.1 percent in March, the lowest rate in nearly two years and a full percentage point lower than the 8.1 percent recorded in March 2010. Each month, the local unemployment rate has remained lower then that of the United States, currently 9.2 percent, for the duration of the recession. 

From a job standpoint, education and health services continue to be the largest source of jobs in Greater Boston, with 21.2 percent of the total non-farm job employment. Over the past two years, the total number of jobs in education and health services has grown 5 percent, while those in financial activities, historically a large source of employment in Greater Boston, have declined 5 percent during this same period.

Over five years, jobs in education and health have grown 13.5 percent while financial activities has seen an 8 percent decline. It will be interesting to see what the data looks like two years from now, particularly if financial services companies ramp up hiring levels.

For insight on local real estate activity, check out our Q1’11 research reports (bottom of the page). Overall, the Boston market recorded its fifth consecutive quarter of positive net absorption, an encouraging trend. While 2010 saw tenant-favorable conditions across all markets, it is expected that 2011 will see landlord-favorable or neutral conditions inside of Route 128. Meanwhile the submarkets in the I-495 belt will remain tenant favorable through 2012.

-Geoff

In what will likely become a precedent setting legal decision, the state of Vermont is challenging the permitting process of Entergy’s nuclear power plant. This is in hopes of closing the plant. Here is the Boston Globe story.
 
We face challenging decisions as our demand for energy soars. While the benefits of renewable energy are undeniable, I am concerned about ignoring nuclear power as a reliable and proven energy source.

What do you think?  I found this on-line debate to be informative and representative of both sides of the issue.

Please respond to my informal survey. I look forward to your thoughts, and hopefully an open dialogue.

-Tim

One of the things we do on the tenant side of the business is help our clients interview architects and engineers for projects. It’s not the most exciting way to spend a morning or afternoon, but it’s nice to be on the other side of a sales pitch once in a while.

The part I enjoy about this process is listening to how they s connect their experience to my clients’ needs. In general, when speaking to other people it is important to know one’s audience. Whether it’s a colleague, friend, authority figure, or a child, we all change our tone, approach and general topic to suit the audience. 

From the real estate selling side, most brokers tend to talk about real estate because it is what we know best. I am often guilty of this as well. “The market’s doing this. Rents are doing that.” We talk about positive absorption, net effective rents and a myriad of other terms that probably don’t rank in our clients’ top 10 list of concerns.

One of the most important things is to put ourselves in our their shoes and say “What would be my major anxiety if I was running a real estate project?”  Then it is our job to address these issues. 

In the end, it is important that we connect with our clients on the topics they find most important. Every one of them have to defend why they made a decision. As a vendor, it’s our job to give them the necessary information to support these decisions.

-Brian

from Matt Giffune
Assistant Vice President
Jones Lang LaSalle

Perhaps the most fundamental interaction in the industry is between the tenant and landlord. There are, however, usually intermediaries (brokers) that facilitate the consummation of the relationship. Thus it gets a little complicated. 

Resources such as LoopNet and ROFO that aggregate property listings and make them available to the general public seek to cut out the middle man in a way, but I am skeptical that these are not just MLS and CoStar equivalents with bells and whistles such as augmented reality offered by mobile apps. My hunch is that landlords will benefit from the power of social media more than tenants. After all, they are always searching for new deals, while tenants, especially those active on Twitter, deal with real estate when they have to. 

Every landlord should hire a social media marketing manager who follows existing and prospective tenants on Twitter, blogs about new things happening within their portfolio, and makes sure LinkedIn connections are made between asset managers and tenant decision makers.

-Matt

I spent a lot of time this week thinking about how social media is changing the stodgy commercial real estate industry. I don’t know if I have all the answers, but I have framed my thoughts in the context of the barriers that exist when trying to achieve a successful partnership. The first barrier is between the broker and tenant.

This one seems the most obvious. While most brokers think that human interaction with a prospective tenant client is achieved through a cold call, stop-in or email blast, it is obvious that in order to get someone’s attention, you need to be playing in their world and luring them into yours. I don’t mean reciprocal golf outings at each others’ country clubs. The @mention on Twitter is the clear winner when drawing attention to your personal brand, and thus creating an interaction with someone you are chasing for business. @mention someone a few times to get into their conversation. They will begin to notice you and follow your tweets.

Creating and broadcasting fresh content on your personal or company blog is also a great way to draw in-bound tenant rep leads into the queue. Of course LinkedIn is a powerful tool when gathering intel and reaching out (warmly) to your prospective customers. Rostering buildings and googling the company phone number is so 2000s. If your prospective customers are on Twitter then go there.

Watch for my subsequent posts on the other barriers. My prediction is that the most interconnected firms with the best use of social media tools and their analytics will leave the others in the dust. 

-Matt

We think the world of 99 High, a recent BOMA Award winner, but never imagined it as a model for the multi-dimensional universe. Fortunately the show’s producers put two and two together and came up with 99 High for an interview with Harvard cosmologist Dr. Lisa Randall.

Dr. Randall’s famous theory states that our universe is like two parallel office buildings. We live in one building that is separated from another building by a hidden dimension. Just like a person working on an upper level floor couldn’t travel to the other building through the window, matter in our world cannot travel to the other world. In the clip below, Dr. Randall illustrates the membrane (or brane) model of the universe.

99 High Through the Wormhole with Dr. Lisa Randall from Jones Lang LaSalle Boston on Vimeo.

Confused? Intrigued? You can catch this episode of “Through the Wormhole” this summer on the Science Channel and Discovery Channel. Watch our Boston Blog for the day and time.

A “Greater Boston” segment highlighting the recently opened Liberty Wharf, was followed up by a discussion with area stakeholders sharing viewpoints on the District’s new energy. View video

Our energy management programs have earned us the ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year award for the third time. The EPA offers strategies everyone can follow toward reducing energy. Read the release.

from Matt Giffune
Assistant Vice President
Jones Lang LaSalle

I have always done my best thinking while enjoying the solitude and rush of distance running. As I labored through my final long training run of 21 miles leading up to the Boston Marathon, I pondered several concepts that are game changers for me.

Here’s one. I paid for my coffee at Starbucks the other day by using my iPhone. Using my Starbucks app, I simply held my screen up to their handy scanner, and voila, my card was charged $2.25 for a Grande Pike. Why can’t we do this with office space?

Imagine needing a place to plug in for a day and crank out a presentation while you are on the road. Or if you are a 3-person start up that can’t afford dedicated office space, but need basic office services to conduct business once on a while. You should be able to remotely locate and show up to a partner location, scan in with your mobile device, enjoy the comforts of a professional office and scan out with a mobile app that charges the credit card or bank account of your choice.

By scanning in, you can also let your network know your location through your various social networking platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Rewards can be given to frequent users, and advertising opportunities would be available to partner locations and complementary service providers.

Companies with empty offices and cubes can monetize their unused space without sacrificing flexibility by subleasing or downsizing. Innovation will happen when people attract other entrepreneurs to their locations, and mix and mingle with the other people working in the partner location.

Gone would be the days of cumbersome leases and shared office agreements, and the path would be cleared for a mutually beneficial platform for sub landlords and casual office space users.

Respond if you wish to invest in my idea. Or just let me know if you think I am full of it.

- Matt