Office News

5. Eugene, Oregon

Eugene, Oregon, is in the top five for a number of reasons, but the biggest of these reasons has to do with electricity. The city of Eugene gets almost half of its electricity from renewable resources. Most of western Oregon gets around 34% of its energy from hydroelectric dams, but Eugene takes things a step further by adding on 9% from wind farms. The city’s water utility– EWEB– even buys back excess energy produced by residential solar arrays.

4. Oakland, California

The city of Oakland, in the state of California, has been long-heralded as one of the most forward-thinking cities in the US on the environmental front, and that has helped to drive new technologies in Oakland. The most impressive of these technologies are the hydrogen-powered buses that roam the streets. These buses have significantly cut down the pollution in the city, and have helped to develop this technology into a more economical form.

3. Boston, Massachusetts

Boston has a highly developed public transit system, as well as an impetus toward innovation and new technologies. This is highly evidenced by the unique system that Boston is implementing to help produce methane for generators. They are using bacteria within residential glass clippings to produce the methane. This is a fuel source that is readily available, and which would only be going to waste otherwise. Modest projections state that the system has the potential to create enough methane to power 1.5 megawatts of electricity. At the end of the composting cycle, the grass and leaves will have turned into a source of fertilizer that can be used for residential or farm fertilizer.

2. San Francisco, California

San Francisco, California, is another of the cities with a highly developed transportation sector. Public transportation is a large part of how people get around here, and it has a significant impact on the air quality and health of the people living here. Also, San Francisco has one of the most aggressive large-scale photovoltaic projects in the country, with massive potential for both environmental and financial benefits.

1. Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon, is the most eco-friendly city in the United States. While it lags behind other cities in terms of energy and electricity, it blows past them on things like public transit and green construction. 35 buildings in Portland are certified by the U.S. Green Building council, and a quarter of workers in Portland commute by bike or public transit.

According to a recent survey conducted by Gallup Daily Tracking, around six percent of workers are employed by the State of California, which goes up to twelve percent if you include local and federal workers. More than sixteen percent of workers in America were employed by the government last year.

The state with the highest percentage of government workers goes to Hawaii, which employs over twelve and a half of the state’s workforce. Alaska came second, employing eleven and a half percent of workers, followed by West Virginia, coming in at just over eleven and a half percent.

According to the survey, the US states employing the least number of government workers were New Hampshire, with just over four percent, Pennsylvania, with just under four and half percent and Maryland and Ohio, with both states employing just under five percent of workers.

Due to the expansion of the technology industry in California’s Silicon Valley, office occupancy has increased in the last year, which is good news for real estate agencies and office space providers.

According to Colliers International, forecasts show that office space and research facilities could increase by five million square feet this year, which would be in addition to the three and a half million square feet increase in office and research space net occupancy in 2011.

The technology companies who are leading this expansion in Silicon Valley include mobile application businesses, cloud computing providers and social networking companies. It is hoped that the technology surge is only just beginning, and that 2012 should bring another strong year for commercial leasing.

According to Colliers International, office space vacancies were down from 16 % at the end of last year compared to 20.2 % in 2010. In addition research and development space vacancies were down 13.7 % at the end of last year, down from 16.2 % in 2010.

Chicago Restaurant Week is an event that attracts Chicagoans, Midwesterners and even international folks every year. The event is designed to celebrate the rich history of Chicago restaurants. The event actually lasts for two weeks, and visitors can enjoy competitive prices at top-rated restaurants in the area. Chicago Restaurant Week is also intended to boost the economy and increase profits for restaurants in the area.

Growing the Profitability of Restaurants

All types of restaurants enjoy profitability during Chicago Restaurant Week. From sophisticated venues to the local diner, restaurants generally enjoy an eight percent jump in profits during Chicago Restaurant Week. Participation in the event has been drastically increasing every year. As restaurant owners discover the advantages of becoming part of Chicago Restaurant Week, they have joined in on the fun. In 2013, a total of 286 restaurants participated in the event. Restaurants served over 513,000 meals during Chicago Restaurant Week in 2013. Read More »

According to the Peninsula press, at the recent 2012 Silicon Valley Conference panelists agreed that despite the rise in venture capital investment for clean technology we still have a long way to go. The old saying that “charity begins at home” is being paraphrased by the panelists who want to see a push to bring clean technology straight into homes by showing households how much they can save by using greener appliances and solar energy.

The mayor of San Jose, Chuck Reed, insisted that the constant innovation taking place in Silicon Valley makes it an ideal candidate for the development and refinemnet of green technology, adding “that’s the easy part….it’s just going to happen.”

Whether you want a quick bite to eat or are a major foodie, food trucks have become popular for many reasons. Hipsters and office workers alike love the chance to support a local business in Los Angeles and enjoy cultural dishes. Busy professionals love buying a lunch that takes just seconds to prepare. To become a food truck connoisseur is quite easy, and all you need to do is find out where these roving trucks are. By checking a food truck’s Twitter feed or googling the truck’s name, you can get instant information on the whereabouts of a truck in your community.

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Looking after your back

Sitting at your desk all day can lead to back problems, especially if you have bad posture. There are some things you can do to help relieve the aches and pains associated with prolonged sitting.

Good Posture

When sitting at your desk, what is your posture like? Do you slouch over while you work? Sitting straight is very important, as is having back support. Your shoulder blades, lower and mid back should all make contact with the upright support of your office chair.

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Dating in the workplace can be a dangerous sport, if all goes well and you end up marrying the person then good for you. It can be much easier to get to know someone at work, you spend so much time together already, you have plenty of common ground and shared interests.

If you end up with a nasty breakup and you still have to see the person sitting across from you everyday then it’s another matter altogether.

One survey says 40% of workers succumb to office romances. You need to be aware of the pitfalls before making the decision, especially if your company has a policy forbidding dating.

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Whether inspired by famous movies or celebrity quotations, city nicknames and slogans are a fantastic and informative way to introduce your city to a complete stranger. We all know that what happens in Las Vegas, stays in Las Vegas, but what about other locations across the States?

Offices.net has compiled a list of city nicknames and slogans to try shed some light over the historic, social, cultural and – sometimes criminal – situation of each and every state, as well as most of the cities.

There are the flavoursome (Hershey, aka Chocolate Capital of the World; Kansas City, aka BBQ Capital of the World), the beautiful (Los Angeles, aka City of Flowers and Sunshine), the scary (Kansas City, aka Killa City; Roswell, aka Alien Capital of the World; Salem, aka The Witch City), the foreign (Ouray, aka Switzerland of America), the odd (Strong, aka Toothpick Capital of the World) the down-to-earth (Plano, aka Play No Games) and the humorous (Telluride, aka To-hell-you-ride).

The list of official and un-official state nicknames and taglines shows how over time certain things started to be associated with particular states, became inseparable and widely used, and in many cases treated as the -state surname-.

If you happen to know of a state motto or a city moniker that we haven’t included in the resource, please get in touch. Your contribution will be greatly appreciated. Read More »

Just like there are millions of ways to change a light bulb, apparently there are many ways to misspell the names of cities and states.

We have looked at the most common misspellings and decided to compile a helpful resource, containing over 1000 versions of cities we all love to spell correctly, but oh-so-often fail to do so!

Amazingly, there are ten ways to misspell Fayetteville, involving extensive swapping of the letters, doubling them where necessary, or trimming them down. Even the shortest of the shortest city names are featured in the list, i.e. Lodi in CA is commonly misspelled as Laudy, Lody, Lordy and Lowdy. Inventive!

If you are aware of any more common misspellings for US states or cities please feel free to submit them using this form.