It's not lame to be labeled a "geek" in 2023, and Houston's a great place to embrace your geekness. Photo via Jamie McInall/Pexels

Heads up gamers, a new surprising report has deemed Houston one of the geekiest cities in the country, with two other Texas neighbors in the top 10.

Houston ranked No. 6 in the categories for accessibility to collectibles stores (board game, video, comic book, and trading card shops) and variety of "geeky" events, according to the report by Lawn Love. The city also ranked as the fifth-best city for its variety of costume/cosplay stores.

Houston is home to some fantastic board game and comic book stores, like Bedrock City Comic Company, Dragon's Lair, Nan's Games and Comics, and Asgard Games, which all host fun events and meetups for different groups.

Other factors that helped determine Houston's overall rank as the No. 7 geekiest American city include the number of Dungeons and Dragons groups, LARPing groups, comic cons, Renaissance fairs, and much more.

J. Richard Stevens, the department chair of the College of Media, Communication, and Information at the University of Colorado, Boulder, says the rise in "geeky" community spaces and activities can be attributed to social media obscuring the boundaries "between consumption and commentary about entertainment texts."

"Fan conversation is much more visible in a larger-scaled way than it used to be," Stevens said. "While most fans and audiences still don’t comment on the objects of their passion, those who do are increasingly bundled into tight networks, which amplify their taste politics. Finding virtual fan communities is much easier than it used to be, though there are many more flavors of fan networks for any given fandom, making finding the right one tricky."

Other Texas cities that made it in the top 10 are San Antonio (No. 3) and Austin (No. 6), both with high scores in the categories for collectibles and costumes. San Antonio has third highest number of board game and trading card shops, such as Heroes and Fantasies, Texas' largest comic book and collectibles store.

The top 10 geekiest cities in the United States are:

  • No. 1 – New York City
  • No. 2 – Los Angeles
  • No. 3 – San Antonio
  • No. 4 – Chicago
  • No. 5 – Las Vegas
  • No. 6 – Austin
  • No. 7 – Houston
  • No. 8 – Atlanta
  • No. 9 – Orlando
  • No. 10 – Indianapolis

The full report can be found on lawnlove.com.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

Turns out, everyone wants to live here. Photo by Jim Olive Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau

Houston named 4th most populous city in U.S. — with the greatest housing growth — in new Census report

welcome, newstonians

Houston is the fourth most populous U.S. city, and saw the ninth largest numeric population gain of any U.S. city in 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's latest findings.

From July 2021 to July 2022, Houston added 11,223 new residents, bringing its total population to 2,302,878. By comparison, San Antonio (population just under 1.5 million) is the seventh largest.

Harris County also led the way with the highest numeric gains for housing units in the nation, at 32,694, coinciding with recent reports deeming Houston the most active real estate market within the last decade.

Together, Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land ranked No. 5 in the list of the 10 most populous U.S. metro areas (as opposed to the cities, themselves). Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington ranked one place higher at No. 4.

Texas cities and towns dominated every list in the new Census Bureau report. "Texas was the only state that had more than three cities on both the 15 fastest-growing large cities and towns by numeric change and by percent change lists," the report says.

Fastest-growing cities
Six out of the 15 fastest-growing cities in the United States are in Texas, and with one Houston suburb – Conroe – landing at No. 11. Conroe had an 6.3 percent population increase from July 2021 to July 2022, bringing the city's total population just over 101,400.

The north Austin suburb of Georgetown had the highest growth rate in the nation, at 14.4 percent, bringing the city's total population to more than 86,500 residents. Surrounding Austin suburbs Kyle and Leander landed in No. 3 and No. 4 with the same population growth rate of 10.9 percent.

The not-so-little Dallas suburb Little Elm zoomed all the way up to No. 5 with an 8 percent population increase, bringing the city's total population to more than 55,300 residents. New Braunfels, which is outside San Antonio, came in at No. 13.

The top 15 fastest-growing large cities in the U.S. are:

  • No. 1 – Georgetown, Texas
  • No. 2 – Santa Cruz, California
  • No. 3 – Kyle, Texas
  • No. 4 – Leander, Texas
  • No. 5 – Little Elm, Texas
  • No. 6 – Westfield, Indiana
  • No. 7 – Queen Creek, Arizona
  • No. 8 – North Port, Florida
  • No. 9 – Cape Coral, Florida
  • No. 10 – Port St. Lucie, Florida
  • No. 11 – Conroe, Texas
  • No. 12 – Maricopa, Arizona
  • No. 13 – New Braunfels, Texas
  • No. 14 – Lehi, Utah
  • No. 15 – Medford, Massachusetts
Largest population increases
When it comes to most populous cities overall, Texas takes five of the 15 top spots with Houston claiming No. 1 in the state. After Houston's No. 4 national rank with its population of over 2.3 million, San Antonio earned No. 7 with over 1.47 million residents, and Dallas at No. 9 with just under 1.3 million residents. Austin barely made it into the top 10 with over 974,000 residents, and Fort Worth ranked No. 13.

The top 15 most populous American cities are:

  • No. 1 – New York City
  • No. 2 – Los Angeles
  • No. 3 – Chicago
  • No. 4 – Houston
  • No. 5 – Phoenix
  • No. 6 – Philadelphia
  • No. 7 – San Antonio, Texas
  • No. 8 – San Diego, California
  • No. 9 – Dallas
  • No. 10 – Austin, Texas
  • No. 11 - Jacksonville, Florida
  • No. 12 - San Jose, California
  • No. 13 - Fort Worth, Texas
  • No. 14 - Columbus, Ohio
  • No. 15 - Charlotte, North Carolina

Greatest housing growth
The report also discovered that housing inventory skyrocketed by 1.6 million units between 2021 and 2022. Texas had the third fastest housing growth with a rate of 2.3 percent, versus Utah, which had the fastest growth at 3.3 percent.

In addition to Harris County, the only other Texas county that made the top five for the highest housing growth was Travis (No. 3).

The full report can be found on census.gov.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

Seven Texan cities appear in the study’s top 10 where a six-figure salary goes the furthest. Photo by Alexander Mils on Unsplash

A $100K salary goes farther in Houston than other top Texas cities, a study finds

Make that money

Many people daydream about making six figures in their career before they enter the workforce. But the rising cost of living certainly throws a wrench in the works. Luckily for Texans, a six-figure salary still goes pretty far in the state.

In a new report from SmartAsset, a $100,000 salary in Texas is worth an average of $77,885 after taxes and adjusted for the cost of living. The financial technology company analyzed income in 76 United States cities, and adjusted them for the cost of living in each location.

Seven Texan cities appear in the study’s top 10 where a six-figure salary goes the furthest. Houston ranked No. 6 as the fourth Texas city on the list, after El Paso (No. 2), Corpus Christi (No. 4), and Lubbock (No. 5). A Houstonian's six-figure salary is reduced to $74,515 after taxes, but is technically worth $81,350 when adjusted for the cost of living.

In a three-way tie with San Antonio for No. 7, a person who makes $100,000 a year in Fort Worth and Arlington takes home about $74,515 after taxes. When adjusted for the cost of living, which is seven percent lower than the national average, that money is worth $80,124.

Dallas appears at No. 34 on the list, with the average six-figure earner bringing home $72,345 after taxes. That salary shrinks in the northern Dallas suburb of Plano (No. 59), where the worker brings home $59,422.

The place where $100,000 goes the furthest is Memphis, Tennessee. Much like Texas, Tennessee doesn’t have a state income tax and has a lower cost of living in comparison to the national average.

After Memphis is El Paso, followed by Oklahoma City (No. 3), then Corpus Christi, Lubbock, and Houston. After the Texan three-way tie for No. 7, St. Louis, Missouri rounds out the top 10.

The 10 total Texas cities that appear in SmartAsset’s study include:

  • No. 2 – El Paso
  • No. 4 – Corpus Christi
  • No. 5 – Lubbock
  • No. 6 – Houston
  • No. 7 – Fort Worth, Arlington, San Antonio (tied)
  • No. 24 – Austin
  • No. 34 – Dallas
  • No. 59 – Plano

The report and its methodology can be found on SmartAsset’s website.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

Houston added more than a million people in the last decade. Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images

Bayou City comes close to topping Census Bureau's list for greatest population boom in the country

so popular

The Lone Star State is proving quite popular, at least according to the U.S. Census Bureau. As reported by numbers released on March 26, Texas is home to cities with the fastest-growing large metro area in the nation and the biggest numeric gain of residents.

Those would be Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth, respectively. And we'll delve into their numbers in a minute, because first it's time to talk about Houston.

H-Town actually nipped at DFW's heels in terms of the numeric population gain from 2010 to 2019. In that time, the Houston area picked up 1,145,654 residents, the second highest total among U.S. metros. That's around the number of people who live in the Buffalo, New York, metro area.

Houston stills holds the No. 5 position on the list of the largest U.S. metro areas. The bureau put its 2019 population at 7,066,141, up 19.4 percent from 2010.

Austin, meanwhile, saw its population shoot up 29.8 percent between 2010 and 2019, landing at 2,227,083 as of July 1, 2019. Put another way, the Austin area added 510,760 residents during the one-decade span.

From 2018 to 2019 alone, the Austin area's population rose 2.8 percent, the Census Bureau says. Numerically, the one-year increase was 61,586 (taking into account births, deaths, new arrivals to the area, and people moving away). That works out to 169 people per day.

Helping drive the Austin area's population spike from 2010 to 2019 were two of the country's fastest-growing counties. Hays County ranked as the second-fastest growing county in the U.S. (46.5 percent) in the past decade, the Census Bureau says, with Williamson County at No. 9 (39.8 percent).

In terms of numeric growth, Travis County ranked 10th in the country from 2010 to 2019 with the addition of 249,510 residents, according to the Census Bureau.

While Austin was the fastest-growing major metro area from 2010 to 2019, Dallas-Fort Worth topped the Census Bureau list for the biggest numeric gain. During that period, DFW welcomed 1,206,599 residents. To put that into perspective, that's about the same number of people who live in the entire Salt Lake City metro area.

On July 1, 2019, DFW's population stood at 7,573,136, up 19 percent from 2010. It remains the country's fourth largest metro, behind New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

Although the San Antonio metro area didn't make the top 10 for percentage or numeric growth from 2010 to 2019, two of the region's counties appeared among the 10 fastest-growing counties:

  • Ranked at No. 4, Comal County's population jumped 43.9 percent.
  • Ranked at No. 5, Kendall County's population rose 42.1 percent.

In the previous decade, the San Antonio area's population climbed 19.1 percent, winding up at 2,550,960 in 2019, the Census Bureau says. Over the 10-year period, the region added 408,440 residents.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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Growing Houston tech nonprofit expands access to textbooks for college students

openstax updates

If everyone that attended a college or university were polled, they’d all likely agree that one of the worst parts of the experience was the rising costs of textbooks.

In an effort to combat the hefty price tag of assigned texts, OpenStax, a nonprofit education startup out of Rice University, which is on a mission to increase educational access for all, seeks to democratize high-quality education by offering free, peer-reviewed, openly licensed textbooks for students and knowledge seekers across the globe.

This month, OpenStax will add to its 57 open education resources, or OER, titles with a full version of John McMurry's popular pre-med textbook, Organic Chemistry, under an open license to honor his late son, Peter, who passed away in 2019 after losing his battle with cystic fibrosis.

“The author, John McMurry, granted us the ability to publish the 10th edition openly,” Anthony Palmiotto, director of higher education at OpenStax, tells InnovationMap. “So, the most widely used organic chemistry textbook went from being one of the most expensive undergraduate texts on the market (almost $100), to a free and open text, making this a watershed moment for OER.”

This school year, OpenStax is adding 16 academic institutions onto its platform, including Georgia State University, Southwest Texas Junior College, Texas A&M University-Commerce, University of San Diego, and more. It's the largest batch of new schools OpenStax has onboarded in a year, Palmiotto says in a news release.

Founded to increase access

Richard Baraniuk, a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University, founded OpenStax. Photo via rice.edu

OpenStax founder and director Richard Baraniuk, a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University, started the OER publisher in 1999 to remove financial barriers and make educational resources more widely available. Much like increasing access to McMurry’s Organic Chemistry, the goal is to continue to support both learners and educators by providing easily accessible and well-developed materials.

“Our mission is to support all learners in their educational pursuits by providing access to high-quality education,” Palmiotto says. “Richard Baraniuk founded it initially as a way for faculty and others to get their material and their knowledge in the form of textbooks and other learning materials to students.

“And then born out of that, we started this robust textbook development and course material development program where we put out the highest-quality materials we can in a way that fits the way courses are taught. Meaning convenience and scope and sequence and other needs that instructors must use textbooks. So really the access was really the start of it, increasing that and lowering barriers to education, and then a lot flowed from that.”

OpenStax’s library of OER titles, which are published under a Creative Commons Attribution license, are free and easily accessible on the go and usable on any device in multiple formats, including digital and PDF.

Funded by philanthropic supporters, OpenStax normally works to openly access five or six books per year, working mostly on introductory courses. Most recently, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board funded the publisher to do a series of nursing books, eight in total.

“Before the nursing books, we were doing business books,” Palmiotto says. “Murry’s book builds out our science offerings, so we're thinking about the different areas that students take that can be barriers for them to move up in education and succeed. From there, we’ll continue to think about how a free textbook can help students through that process.”

Tapping into tech

Currently, OpenStax has over 7.5 million users in the formal education space, primarily in higher education introductory courses, as well as grades K–12. Photo via openstax.org

In addition to nursing, OpenStax is working towards releasing books in data science and computer science, including programming, workplace software and, eventually, artificial intelligence.

“AI is a big deal to us,” says Palmiotto. “We're thinking about it a lot, and in the books themselves, we're incorporating as best we can how AI plays into Data Science, Computer Science and Python Programming those. We’re thinking about how AI could be used and will impact programming, for example. But the AI landscape is changing as we go, and that's another reason we don't just put out the books, we maintain them.

“So, we can continually update them. Once we publish, six months later, we can publish updates or additions to reflect what's happening in courses or in professions or in the workforce to reflect how AI is being used as new software is released and so on.”

As OpenStax continues to build on its OER title database, they are using multiple methods of outreach to reach as many people as possible. Currently, they have over 7.5 million users in the formal education space, primarily in higher education introductory courses, as well as grades K–12.

“Over 140 countries are using our material,” says Palmiotto. “We're not as easily able to track how many students have used our material in all those other countries. But that's not the point, we want to put it out there. We know it's being used. We want to help as much as possible. But it is being used in all those countries and in different ways. Some people are translating it. Some people are using it in English. Some people are breaking it up. It just depends on what they need.”

Evolving the industry

OpenStax repeatedly receives feedback from users worldwide that appreciate the openness and availability of their books. Photo via openstax.org

As much as OpenStax is a disrupter to conventional textbook publishers, they would rather work in partnership with publishers like Murry’s former house Cengage rather than outright replacing them.

“What we've tried to do with those publishers is actually partner with them and say, we know that textbook prices were too high,” says Palmiotto. “Some of them partnered with us, Cengage, Riley, some of the other publishers, like Macmillan, incorporate our textbooks into their platforms so that instructors and students have that flexibility even with those publishers.

“Not every publisher wants to do that. That's their choice. But what we've tried to do is say ‘let's make an ecosystem.’ That's what we call it and let them participate in this movement that open education has become.”

With their textbooks on an open forum, it might seem that OpenStax texts would be susceptible to hacking or other unauthorized changes. But, according to Palmiotto, there’s a safeguard to that.

“We keep the standard version,” he says. “That's why a lot of people keep using it because they know that the version that we provide will be the most up-to-date version. But it is openly licensed. So, if we see that a school wants to teach the course in a slightly different way or if they want to recombine two different books to make a different course, take biology and make human biology, or take philosophy and make ethics or something, they can do that.

“But we still retain the standardized version that we redistribute and make sure that that's the high-quality one that people can look to. So nobody is getting back to our version and changing it, but they do have the opportunity to change their own.”

After more than a decade in the space, OpenStax repeatedly receives feedback from users worldwide that appreciate the openness and availability of their books.

“We have some great stories of different learners from all over the world that are non-traditional students facing barriers,” says Palmiotto. “And having a free textbook and not having to choose between food and their book or courseware makes a huge difference in their lives. If they have this flexibility in what they have to purchase, most people appreciate that choice.”

Texas earns healthy rating as 2nd best state for nurses, Forbes says

health care heroes

With a global pandemic in the rearview and an aging workforce reaching retirement in larger proportions, strong healthcare is becoming increasingly crucial in the United States.

Nurses are in great demand throughout the nation and can make significant impacts in a state like Texas, which was just named the No. 2 best state for nurses in a study by Forbes Advisor.

Texas currently employs more than 231,000 nurses, the second-highest number in the country behind California's 325,620 nurses. Florida rounds out the top three with more than 197,000 nurses employed.

There are several factors to keep in mind when considering a career as a nurse, but one has been in a lot of recent discourse: the salary. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) says nurses in the U.S. earn a median salary of $81,220 per year. While healthcare company Trusted Health places a Texas nurse's annual salary at $74,540 - lower than places like Florida and California, adjusted cost of living can make Texas more attractive.

"Salary is a significant factor in any professional’s career decisions, but it’s not the only one to weigh when deciding where to work," the report's author wrote. "You should also consider job availability, economic demand, and licensing processes before settling on a place to grow your career."

Regarding job availability, Projections Central estimates there will be a demand for more than 16,000 nursing positions in Texas between 2020 and 2030 - the second-best job outlook in the U.S.

Texas is also part of the Nurse Licensure Compact (NLC), which can help nurses transfer their licenses from other states.

"NLC members grant RNs multi-state licenses, which allow them to practice in any NLC-participating state without jumping through the hoops of meeting a new state’s specific licensing guidelines," the report says. "NLC nurses can offer their skills to another compact state in the event of a crisis and provide telehealth services across compact states."

The full report can be found on forbes.com.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

Houston innovator explores importance of belonging within the modern workforce

guest column

Even in a highly digital, globalized world, the essence of business remains the same: a vibrant tapestry of people working together towards a common goal.

Regardless of how fractured business focus can become, people are at the center of everything that brings business success. And people all share in our fundamental human need to belong to something greater than ourselves and to experience a sense of community, support, and affiliation with others.

The intricacies of human connection underpin our collective drive for unity and purpose, which becomes profoundly disrupted when an organization loses sight of prioritizing its employees. To prevent the Great Disconnect from further eroding our people and forestalling the perils of losing their best and brightest people, leaders must cultivate a deep understanding of, and commitment to, fostering organizational belonging.

The recent groundbreaking study by the team behind Deutser's Institute for Belonging, incorporating the perspectives of nearly 15,000 employees, crystallizes this sentiment. Our results overwhelmingly indicate that an employee's sense of belonging outstrips both their perception of organizational culture and their salary as key determinants of engagement, satisfaction, and overall performance. Previously, employers believed the inverse to be true. This is a significant shift in the attitudes of the workforce.

Unless leaders devote considerable energy, time, and resources towards nurturing an organizational culture of belonging, they may risk depleting their most valuable asset: their people. This article delves into the intricate details of our research and the consequent implications for leadership, aiming to provide a blueprint for leaders to build an inclusive and empowering workspace.

In another of our studies with 275 employees, a staggering 90 percent affirmed the importance of experiencing a sense of belonging at work. Broadening our research to an expansive sample of 14,709 employees across diverse industries and roles, we found an undeniable correlation: individuals who experienced a sense of belonging exhibited significantly higher levels of engagement, job satisfaction, and effort. The most striking understanding about this work was that belonging predicts satisfaction, engagement, and commitment to the organization over and above employees’ views of the culture or strategy.

As leaders, we’ve seen a decades long placement of culture and strategy at the top — but it is belonging that really drives performance. Another adjunct study, employing an experimental design with 71 employees, validated that employees would willingly forego higher compensation and be more inclined to stay at an organization that nurtures their sense of belonging. In sum, organizations and leaders stand to gain substantially by investing in nurturing connections, empowerment, and unity among their teams.

In our survey research, conducted with a sample of 14,709 employees, we used a five-dimensional measure of organizational belonging, encapsulating:

  1. Acknowledgment and appreciation of individual opinions.
  2. Fostering a strong sense of team unity.
  3. Opportunities for professional growth within the company.
  4. Optimal alignment between job responsibilities and individual skill sets.
  5. Trust in leadership’s commitment to their welfare.

Although there are many definitions out there, we define belonging as where we hold space for something of shared importance. It is where we come together on values, purpose, and identity; a space of acceptance where agreement is not required but a shared framework is understood; where there is an invitation into the space; an intentional choice to take part in; something vital to a sense of connection, security, and acceptance.

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Brad Deutser is the founder and CEO of Deutser, a Houston-based consulting firm, and author of BELONGING RULES: Five Crucial Actions that Build Unity and Foster Performance. Isabel Bilotta is managing consultant and head of learning and innovation at Deutser's learning initiative.