Monday Buzz: How Valentine’s Day Flowers Get to Your Door

Are you gifting flowers to your sweetie this Valentine’s Day?

If you are, then you’re part of a multibillion-dollar international flower industry that kicks into high gear this time of year, according to the Miami Herald  (opens in a new tab).

Each year, importers fly in billions of flowers from countries including Ecuador, Mexico, and the Netherlands, with most entering the United States via the Miami airport. And yes, an association is involved—specifically the Association of Floral Importers of Florida  (opens in a new tab).

“More than 90 percent of imported flowers move through Miami International Airport, according to UPS,” the Herald reports. “Year after year, Miami International Airport consistently receives the most flower imports of any other U.S. port.”

After arriving in Miami, the flowers reside in a huge refrigerated room until Customs and Border Protection officials inspect them for pests and plant diseases.

On Mother’s Day, another huge day for the flower industry, all types of flowers are popular, but “Valentine’s Day is really focused on one flower: the rose,” says Christine Boldt, the association’s executive vice president.

Learn more about flower transportation logistics here  (opens in a new tab).

Structured Content

Make your content findable and manageable https://t.co/pJesfxKLPM  (opens in a new tab)

— Carrie Hane (she/her) (@carriehd) February 13, 2017  (opens in a new tab)

These days, people read content on all sorts of of devices, including laptops, tablets, smartphones, TVs, and even watches.

It’s past time you quit producing content that’s optimized merely for the desktop user. At the Tanzen Consulting website, consultant Carrie Hane suggests making your content easier to find and digest by using structured content.

“‘Structured content’ means content that is broken into smaller parts, or ‘chunks,’ that can be mixed and matched in multiple ways,” Hane writes. “Essentially, it turns content into data.”

Structured content makes your site omnichannel optimized. It also makes it easier for web-scraping robots to read.

Check out Tanzen’s post for more details about how to optimize your site infrastructure  (opens in a new tab).

Other links of note

Getting unlimited: The Verge reports that Verizon is bringing back unlimited data plans  (opens in a new tab)—something every major provider now offers.

Raising red flags: Struggling to get major gifts? In a guest post for the Wild Apricot blog, fundraising consultant Amy Eisenstein details obstacles nonprofits face with large donations  (opens in a new tab).

Membership community: Feverbee tells us why you should focus on changing people’s attitudes  (opens in a new tab) rather than trying to change their behavior.

(iStock/Thinkstock)