"Joe Rhodes, who’s been on the move in his 'Traipsemobile' camper for 10 years, has made a life of eating in restaurants, drinking in local bars and going to gyms, where he uses the shower."

"'But what’s happened is that those spaces where I was living my life have slowly but surely all shut down,' he said. As the crisis worsened, he fled to a friend’s home in Dallas, where he is now parked in the driveway. He has access to the house, a shower, a meal or bed should he desire, but he feels keenly aware of not wanting to impose on his hosts.... Robert Meinhofer, 49, has been living in a one-bedroom trailer with his wife, Jessica, 42, and their two children since 2015... which is marooned in his in-laws’ driveway in Mount Dora, Fla. 'Once you stop traveling, it turns into a routine and then we’re, "Oh my god, we’re in 26 feet of living space and my daughter is running down the middle of the R.V. and my son is trying to have video calls with his friends," and it just feels like the walls are closing in on you,' she said. Then there’s the added stress of parking a few feet away from relatives who don’t endorse their itinerant life. 'In an R.V. park, everybody’s in the same situation and you understand that you choose to live in a small space,' Mr. Meinhofer said. 'But my in-laws — they have never really approved of our lifestyle, so whenever we go to the house we’re very conscious that it’s not our place.'"

From "Sheltering in Place in an R.V. Is Not as Fun as It Sounds/With parks shut down and utilities harder to come by, drivers of motor homes are finding themselves trapped in the vehicles meant to liberate them" (NYT).

Spring break idiocy.

“If I get corona, I get corona. At the end of the day, I'm not gonna let it stop me from partying”: Spring breakers are still flocking to Miami, despite coronavirus warnings. https://t.co/KoYKI8zNDH pic.twitter.com/rfPfea1LrC

— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 18, 2020

"Beluga trip's off."

Your aunt who just now realized we should quarantine pic.twitter.com/IQ7EHWnRBQ

— Meg Stalter (@megstalter) March 17, 2020

From "Escape Our Current Hell With These (Good) Coronavirus Jokes" (NY Magazine).

"Isolation and other shifts in behavior during the coronavirus outbreak could also alter our greenhouse gas emissions. But will the changes stick?"

Wonders John Schwartz (in the NYT).

The strategies of avoiding coronavirus — staying home, not flying and driving, using on-line shopping — also reduce your carbon footprint. This social distancing is a green new deal... if it persists. Ever start something for one reason and then continue it for another?

Charles Duhigg, the author of “The Power of Habit” and a former New York Times reporter, said habits built over lifetimes are hard to shake. “As soon as the environment becomes stable again, the habit starts to reassert itself” unless there is a “powerful reward” to the new behavior.

Mr. Duhigg said that while there is no set time for a habit to form or change, some cultural habits could, if the pandemic response lasts long enough, take hold. One example: shaking hands. “I could see other kinds of behavior replacing that habit, or maybe just diminishing,” and wondered aloud whether his own children might one day think “hand shaking is a weird, old-timey thing.”

Yeah, but shaking hands didn't affect your carbon footprint (handprint?).

Some practices, like videoconferencing and telecommuting, may gain ground, Mr. Duhigg said, for a reward of saved time and trouble. He expressed doubts, however, that leisure travel behavior would see a similar shift. “It seems unlikely to me that people will say, ‘You know, I loved not taking vacations. I learned staying at home with my kids is so rewarding!’”

Oh, the sarcasm! What I'm picturing is a married couple where one of them says I loved staying home, and the other is massively alarmed if not angry. The one then adds the climate change factor to his (and I do mean "his") side of the argument, and the other explodes in a confetti burst of wokeism. Ha ha, the anti-travelist wins! The erstwhile bucket list kicks the bucket, and the forced stay at home goes on and on... until death comes to take that frustrated travel bug on that long-anticipated, truly exotic trip — out of the world altogether.

5 Basic Tips for Effective Target Marketing

Analytics is an ever-important tool to influence customer behavior and have them act favorably to your marketing and sales goals. It doesn't hurt, too, for you to take advantage of Web-based tools, such as geocoding that allow you to pinpoint the location of your customers and leads, and target your messaging to specific regions.

But here are some basic things to do to effectively perform target marketing - you might just marvel at their simplicity!

Profile customer behavior across different channels. Every business enterprise has various types of clientele, each acting differently at different times and occasions. You can spot certain actions and apply value to them once you begin to understand what your potential and existing customers are doing. Collecting data from various channels - much like a big data warehouse - will offer you the information you need to segment your customers properly.

Know what activities and behaviors can be favorable changed. Data analysis does a great job of identifying patterns within segments and ascertaining the behaviors that can undergo transformation for profitability. Afterwards, learn how to trigger the desirable change. For example, know the reasons why a number of loyal customers begin to spend less every time they visit your store. Take action to reserve this pattern - or curtail the beginnings of it.

Test multiple strategies for optimal results. The first move isn't always the best. A case in point: when you develop a new incentive for customers to buy and spend more, it is necessary that you test different choices in terms of time frame, value, type, and delivery channel. It may take time to segment, test, and reach the right combination, but it will be worth your while.

Listen to what customers say - and do. People don't always do what they say they will, and this is an important point you must keep in mind. Wait for two months or so after analytical results of a test before you respond and act. You may receive few to no complaints on your service delivery, but this is not a complete measure of profitability. Don't rely on positive feedback alone; data will always tell you what you TRULY need to do to improve.

Continue to test and improve to remain competitive. This is a never-ending process: a strategy that may be a winning method today may be the worst tomorrow. Same applies to something that didn't test well; it might be the best way to go in the near future. Testing will optimize your marketing strategy to keep ahead of the game.
It is also recommended that you invest on Web-based tools that will save you time and manpower and bring greater results. Are you familiar with geocoding? To geocode address means providing a property-level match for practically any address that successfully standardizes. It not only improves target marketing, but also offers instant address verification at the point of entry to help improve shipping, tracking, and mailing efforts.