A deep dive into digital marketing

Tomorrow Chicago has the highest sales tax!

Posted by Chris under online retail

Yep tomorrow is the day that we of Cook County “celebrate” paying the highest sales tax of any other American City 10.25%! Passed by the Cook County board and driven by Board President Todd Stroger, this is to pay for the shortfall in the counties $3 billion budget.

How do we compare to other cities well, according to Wikipedia not only are we the highest but:

The city of Chicago has the highest total sales tax of all major U.S. cities. It is also one of the most complex. 9.25% is levied on all non-perishable goods purchased, while 2% is levied on grocery items, drugs, and medical appliances. There is an additional 1% tax, the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority (MPEA) “Food and Beverage Tax”, on food and beverage purchases in the downtown area (These “downtown” boundaries are: Surf Street on the north, Ashland Avenue on the west, Stevenson Expressway (I-55) on the south, & Lake Michigan on the east. Furthermore, O’Hare and Midway airports also fall under the 1% MPEA tax district).[32] Car rentals in the city are taxed at 20%. Hotel rooms are taxed at 15.4%. Soft drinks (packs, cases, or individual bottles) are taxed at 13.25%.

New Yorkers pay less than 8.4 percent, and Los Angeles residents pay 8.25 percent and because they are in Cook County, even shoppers in many Cook suburbs will be hit with higher sales taxes for example paying 10 percent in both Schaumburg and Skokie and 9.75 percent in Orland Park. So a shopper in Schaumburg will pay a higher sales tax then NYC! Think on that for a while.

On the contrary, online retailers remain tax free (for now) but we’ll see for how long. My guess is 10.25% starts to make the county look at how they can join in what New York is trying to do. We’ll see how this does/doesn’t make people think twice about where they make their purchases.

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Meet the man in the TECHNICOLOR SUIT

Posted by Chris under Chicago, Fashion

You’ve seen him dancing on the bridges or spinning outside the TV news studios. Who is that guy? His story will surprise you.

I usually start my morning by watching NBC 5, while multitasking through emails, writing, reading, etc. A few years back I saw this guy, that I’d seen on the Michigan Ave. bridge spinning in these wacky suits. My theory was that he was a rich eccentric (if he was poor he’d be crazy, right) guy doing this for some jollies.

After a deeper dive on the web I found I couldn’t have been more wrong. Recently the Tribune posted an article on Vincent, yes that’s the suit guy’s name, that you’ll find here.

You’ll also find more info on his site as well as the site for the a 90-minute documentary from Jennifer Burns about Falk, called “Vincent: A Life in Color,” which is now in the final stages of postproduction.film

Chicago New Media Summit - Sept 15-16

Posted by Chris under CNMS08, Conference, Research, Social Networking, Technology

CNMS08

How the heck did I miss (or almost miss) this one. Thanks Russ and Thanks David

for telling Russ about this great event, incidentally David is speaking at this. Some of the usual chicago tech suspects are signed up to speak: Jason from 37 Signals, Jake and Jeffrey from SkinnyCorp/Threadless, Ross and Mike from crowdSPRING, well you get the picture.

John Patterson, the organizer is billing this as “widescale network of people and industries that allows us all to benefit from our shared ideas and expertise; the intent being that as Chicago becomes known globally as a new media hub, we all benefit.” I certainly like the sound of that. As well as the comparison to making Chicago a New Media capital much like Austin is is an arts/music capital. Tall boots to fill but this fall conference/meetup/TEDish summit may just be the spark to the flame.

Something else supercool, well they are using Ning (you know I’m a big fan of Ning) for the website, forums and social networking around the summit. There’s already about 1000 members of the CNMS08 Website community and it seems to be hitting a ground swell of growth.

Seats are limited to 300 invitations only! That’s right invitation only. However, the first 60 seats, of which as of this writing there are handful left are available on a first come/first serve. There will be 36 presentations, capped at 18 minutes each, I hope that John is as tough as Richard with the hook and I’ve ponied up my $425 already, figured even if I get accepted to speak I’d rather be safe then sorry.

But don’t take my word for it, well do but also make sure you check it out.