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Graduate students interested in an academic career after graduation day have often been told they need to be open to moving somewhere they may not want to live. This advice is because of how hard it is to get a tenure-track professor position. These days, this advice may be less relevant as graduate students are increasingly pursuing and ending up in careers outside of academia. Where graduate students want to settle post-graduation has potential consequences for communities and states across the country that depend more and more on a steady stream of skilled workers to power their economies. Locations seen as undesirable may struggle to attract and retain the next generation of scientists, engineers, professors, and other professions filled by todays graduate students. We are sociologists who are examining some of the factors that influence graduate students educational and career paths as part of a research project supported by the National Science Foundation. In March 2025 we distributed a survey to a sample of U.S.-based graduate students in five natural and social science disciplines: physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, and sociology. As part of our survey, we asked students to identify states they would prefer to live in and places where they would be unwilling to go. To some extent, our findings match some past anecdotes and evidence about the varying number of applications received for academic positions across different states or regions. But little data has directly assessed students preferences, and our survey also provides some evidence that some states policies are having a negative impact on their ability to attract highly educated people. Most preferred, most unwilling For our study, we built our sample from the top 60 graduate programs for each of the five disciplines based on rankings from U.S. News & World Report. We received responses from nearly 2,000 students. Almost all of these students98%, specificallyare pursuing PhDs in their respective fields. As part of our survey, we asked students to identify locations where they would prefer to live and also those where they would be unwilling to live after finishing their graduate program. For each of these questions, we presented students with a list of all states along with the option of outside of the United States. Just looking at the overall percentages, California tops the list of preferred places, with 49% of all survey-takers stating a preference to live there, followed by New York at 45% and Massachusetts with 41%. On the other hand, Alabama was selected most often as a state students said theyd be unwilling to move to, with 58% declaring they wouldnt want to live there. This was followed by Mississippi and Arkansas, both with just above 50% saying theyd be unwilling to move to either state. Clusters of preference While the two lists in many respects appear like inversions of one another, there are some exceptions to that. Looking beyond the overall percentages for each survey question, we used statistical analysis to identify underlying groups or clusters of states that are more similar to each other across both the prefer and unwilling questions. One cluster, represented by California, New York, and Massachusetts, is characterized by a very high level of preference and a low level of unwillingness. About 35% to 50% of students expressed a preference for living in these places, while only 5% to 10% said they would be unwilling to live in them. The response of outside of the United States is also in this category, which is noteworthy given recent concerns about the current generation of PhD students looking to leave the country and efforts by other nations to recruit them. A second cluster represents states where the preference levels are a bit lower, 20% to 30%, and the unwillingness levels are a bit higher, 7% to 15%. Still, these are states for which graduate students hold generally favorable opinions about living in after finishing their programs. This cluster includes states such as Colorado, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New Jersey. A third group of states represents locations for which the rate of preference is similar to the rate of unwillingness, in the range of 10% to 20%. This cluster includes states such as Minnesota, Delaware, and Virginia. The fourth and fifth clusters consist of states where the rate of unwillingness exceeds the rate of preference, with the size of the gap distinguishing the two clusters. In the fourth cluster, at least some students5% to 10%express a preference for living in them, while around 30% to 40% say they are unwilling to live in them. This cluster includes Florida, Montana, South Carolina, and Utah. Almost no students express a preference for living in the states contained in the fifth cluster, while the highest percentages40% to 60%express an unwillingness to live in them. This cluster includes Alabama, Kansas, Oklahoma, and South Dakota. Signs of current politics Many factors influence our preferences for where we want to live, including family, weather, and how urban, rural, or suburban it is. The politics of a community can also influence our perceptions of a places desirability. Indeed, political factors may be of particular concern to graduate students. In recent years, some states have taken a more hostile stance toward specific academic disciplines, institutions of higher education in general, or professions that are of interest to graduate students. While states such as Florida and Texas have been leading such efforts, many others have followed. Interestingly, our statistical grouping of states finds that students unwillingness to live in states such as Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Ohio is higher than we would expect given those states corresponding preference levels. For example, about 10% of students selected Texas as a place they would prefer to live in after graduation. Looking at other states with similar preference levels, we would expect bout 10% to 20% of students to say they are unwilling to live in Texas. Instead, this percentage is actually 37%. Similarly, 5% of students say they would prefer to live in Florida. Other states with this preference rate have an unwillingness rate of around 35%, but Floridas is 45%. Although our data does not tell us for sure, these gaps could be a function of these states own policies or alignment with federal policies seen as hostile to graduate students and their future employers. These findings suggest that communities and employers in some states might continue to face particularly steep hurdles in recruiting graduate students for employment once they finish their degrees. Christopher P. Scheitle is an associate professor of sociology at West Virginia University. Katie Corcoran is a professor of sociology at West Virginia University. Taylor Remsburg is a graduate research assistant in sociology at West Virginia University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce
An often-overlooked competitive advantage in business isn’t your technology stack, market share, or even your talent pipelineit’s your leadership team’s customer obsession. As someone who recently merged marketing, customer success, and renewals under one umbrella, I’ve experienced how customer obsession can transform an organization. However, from the C-suite to entry-level roles, were all navigating complex responsibilities, deadlines and metrics. These competing priorities make it easy to lose sight of what truly matters to the business: the customers who make our work possible. By putting customers at the heart of every decision, regardless of the role, you establish a foundation that naturally delivers results. This is why it is so important for executive teams to champion this customer obsession perspectiveit empowers everyone else to do the same! Customer-focused leadership leads to customer-centric goals which leads to a truly customer-obsessed company culture. What customer-focused executive leadership teams do differently What does customer obsession look like in practice? The processes vary based on role as leaders address their own areas of focus, but here are a few examples to get the wheels turning. Customer-focused executive leaders: Spend significant time with customersnot just with friendly references or during sales calls, but with frustrated users and lost accounts Create direct feedback channels that bypass typical corporate filters Measure what matters to customers, not just what’s easy to track internally Reward employees who advocate for customer needs, even when those needs create short-term challenges These behaviors signal unmistakably to everyonefrom frontline employees to fellow executive leadersthat the customer experience isn’t just another corporate initiative, but the foundation of company culture. That all-important ripple effect When the entire executive leadership team models customer focus, it spreads throughout the organization. Marketing develops messaging that resonates with actual pain points versus staying laser-focused on internal product features. Product development prioritizes improvements that deliver meaningful value. Support teams receive the resources needed to resolve issues effectively. As I mentioned, I’ve experienced this transformation myself. After integrating customer success with marketing and renewals, we gained truly mind-blowing insight into the complete customer journey. This unified view enabled us to identify friction points that were all but invisible when these functions operated in silos. Organizations with customer-centric leadership consistently outperform peers in customer satisfaction, retention and lifetime value. Executive leaders who prioritize customer needs create an environment where employees feel empowered to advocate for those same needsthey set the tone for the entire company culture. Practical steps on the way to customer centricity Becoming truly customer-focused requires more than good intentions. Ill admit it, this is a big shift. It could even mean making serious changes in how the company gathers, analyzes and acts on customer feedback. So, yes, it can feel daunting but take it from me, its very doable and very worth it. Here are some practical steps to consider: Revise executive meeting agendas to start with customer insights Implement cross-functional customer journey mapping with executive participation Create direct feedback mechanisms between customers and leadership Redesign incentive structures to reward customer-centric behaviors In my experience, customer-focused companies take steps to ensure these practices are part of their leadership approach. They understand that competitive advantage flows from this orientationnot as a happy accident but as a direct consequence. The ultimate competitive moat Right now, products and services are undergoing rapid commoditization. Thats hard to keep up with, but I believe customer experience is the most defensible competitive advantage. An executive leadership team that understands this can make a massive difference in the companys competitive positioning. Again, this shift extends way beyond the executive team. When employees see that customer satisfaction genuinely matters to company leadership, their engagement and motivation increase dramatically. This alignment creates a (very rewarding!) cycle where employee experience and customer experience reinforce each other, building a competitive moat that rivals will struggle to cross. So, let your rivals keep focusing on internal metrics. That moat will keep getting wider as you build something stronger. Melissa Puls is the chief marketing officer and SVP of customer success and renewals at Ivanti.
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E-Commerce
Figma prototypes have been the go-to for years. For digital product designers crafting clickable mockups of apps, this powerhouse design platform hasn’t just gained popularityit’s become the indispensable tool of choice. Nearly every app, website, or digital experience that didn’t make you rage-quit was likely prototyped and rigorously tested in Figma before a single pixel was coded. The platform’s dominance is no accident. Figma prototypes help product teams communicate direction, test early ideas, and align stakeholders around what’s being built. At design consultancies like ours, they’ve played a critical role in due diligence where we stress-test client concepts before writing a single line of codesaving countless development hours and budget dollars. All of that is important, because the first version of any design is usually wrong. It’s based on assumptions about what users want or how they’ll behave. And if you ship based on those assumptions, you risk launching a broken experience that tanks in the market. That’s why prototyping for validation has been industry standard. And Figma has been the undisputed champion in the game the past 5+ years. But with the blistering pace of AI, we may be approaching the end of the clickable prototype era as we know it. AI can do more Until now, prototypes were the fastest way to go from idea to experience. But new AI tools are starting to change that because they can: Generate user interface (UI) from a single prompt. UI is what you see and interact with on a screen, like buttons, menus, and layouts. Simulate logic, state, and user paths. This shows how a digital product would workhow it reacts to choices, keeps track of information, and guides users through different steps. Auto-populate realistic data and content. This instantly fills in a design with lifelike text, names, images, or numbers to show how it would look and feel in context. Create testable product flows. AI tools can do this without manually connecting screens, letting you quickly explore how a user would move through the product. Were not talking about wireframes anymore. Were talking about high-fidelity simulations that look and feel like real software. Tiny testbeds for behavior. And theyre being spun up in actual seconds. Instead of designing screens, were starting to describe outcomes. Were shaping intentand AI is helping us fill in the rest. This is not just a faster way to prototype. It is a leap forward in how we go from an idea to something you can touch, click, and test. But make no mistake, its not replacing designers. Instead, its shifting their rolefreeing them from repetitive tasks so they can focus on what really matters: understanding users, shaping strategy, and making sure the experience is not just functional, but human. Communicate a vibe, not visuals Theres a new term floating around in product circles: vibe coding. Its the idea that instead of specifying exactly how something should look or function, we start by telling the AI the feeling we want a product to evoke. For example: Make it feel luxurious and calm, like checking into a boutique hotel. Should feel fast, responsive, and trustworthylike booking a ride on Uber. And the AI? It generates an interface, interactions, even tone of voicebased on that emotional brief. Its not perfect (yet). But it gets scarily close. For designers and product leaders, this unlocks a wild new dimension: communicating vibe, not just visuals. You become a creative director of experience, not just a user experience lead pushing pixels. Its a shift from mechanics to meaning. From layout to language. But lets be real: The tools arent quite there yet. Theyre close. But not close enough to fully replace the fidelity, intentionality, and nuance that a designer brings to a clickable prototype. AI misses the thoughtful transitions. The user context. The subtle decisions that are often the difference between something that works and something that clicks. That saidit wont be long before thats possible. Designers will evolve We think well see a hybrid approach emerge where designers dont disappear, they evolve. Our predictions include: AI-generated prototypes to quickly test concepts and assumptions Clickable flows to align teams and create confidence High-fidelity design systems built after AI confirms demand AI copilots supporting live ideation, usability testing, and iteration Well move from building UI blocks to shaping systems and behaviors. Well direct the choreography of an experience, rather than drawing every step. Still, its time to lean in. At Crema, our designers are still using Figma, and were still building prototypes. But were also exploring whats nextbecause we believe in the power of using the right fidelity at the right time to move ideas forward. If youre leading a product team, this shift matters. Because the tools we use to test the viability of our ideas are about to get a serious upgrade. George Brooks is CEO and founder of Crema.
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E-Commerce
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