Business Trends

Change This – The Promise of Entrepreneurship

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We are made to believe that when it comes to business success, bigger is always better. In our super-sized, consumption-oriented culture, not even small business is exempt from the pressure to grow for growth’s sake. We fixate on top-line revenue growth and increasing numbers of employees and locations. We pepper entrepreneurs with questions such as, ‘What are your plans for expansion? What’s next? How many cities will you go to?’ instead of asking what their goals are or why they started their business in the first place. When talk about growth we focus on speed, not sustainability. When we talk about success we focus on size, not satisfaction.

via Change This – The Promise of Entrepreneurship.

From the Change This website:

Adelaide Lancaster is the co-founder of In Good Company, a community, business learning center and coworking space for women entrepreneurs in Manhattan. She is a small business expert and has advised thousands of women entrepreneurs on how to create businesses that meet their needs and keep them satisfied over time. She earned two graduate degrees in psychology from Columbia University and her undergraduate degree from Colgate University. ingoodcompany.com

GYL here – this manifesto really hit home for me.  I am 5.5 years down the Path and I would have to say the effort and sacrifice is worth it.  So if you’re on your Path or if you are not and considering getting on your own Path, you ought to read this.  The link takes you to the Change This website.  Once there you can download a PDF of the manifesto.

 

 

Facebook Is Making Us Miserable – Harvard Business Review

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Facebook is negatively affecting what psychology Professor Jeffrey Parker refers to as “the closeness properties of friendship.”

via Facebook Is Making Us Miserable – Daniel Gulati – Harvard Business Review.

Please note I am not the author of the HBR blog article so please don’t shoot the messenger.  I’m neither a huge fan nor harsh critic of what the pundits term as “the dominant communication platform of the future”.  I simply don’t use Facebook a lot.  I don’t have a smart phone.  I have a dumb phone.  I don’t use an iPad.  I use an old-fashioned laptop if necessary.

If anyone wishes to communicate with me, email or phone works just fine thank you.

Or we could meet in person!

 

Bob MacDonald on What’s So Hard about Doing the Right Thing?

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In the abstract it is easy to say that doing the right thing is – at the very least – reporting the improper activity. But what if your report seems to be ignored? Are you off the hook and have no further responsibility? Even worse, if you do report it and your boss survives with nothing more than a reprimand, what might this do to your personal well-being and your future with the company? In theory, of course, you could quit your job and find another; but in this economy, is that possible? Is now the right time to put you and your family’s financial future at risk? You could go halfway and say nothing while you look for another job, but is that the right thing to do?  This type of enigma is not an academic exercise. Anyone who has ever been in the business world, with ambitions to be successful and rise up the pyramid and support a family knows this type situation – and a wide variety of others – is more reality than theory. The real questions are: At what point are you willing to dilute or even trade in “doing the right thing,” to protect your career by “going along to get along”? At what point do you break and become willing to rationalize the elements of “doing the right thing?”

via What’s So Hard about Doing the Right Thing?.

Bob’s right.  Read his entire blog post to understand why it is not easy to do the right thing.  Thanks Bob and please keep writing and sharing.

Would Your Company Hire an Unemployed Job Candidate?

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Not Working? Sorry, Not Interested – Businessweek

Rejecting unemployed job candidates out of hand is really stupid business, on top of being shockingly rude and unprofessional. When we say, “We don’t hire unemployed people, period,” we’re sending a loud signal to the talent population, our employees, our customers, and our vendors that we don’t have a clue how to manage people. It’s pretty easy to separate the wheat from the chaff in a selection pipeline. No one has yet won a Nobel Prize for innovation in recruiting, because it’s just not that complicated a topic.

Fascinating article and IMHO a MUST read.  If companies don’t hire the unemployed just because they are unemployed then we will have millions of people spinning their wheels looking for work until they end up dead or on government assistance.

Hamsters one and all.

 

Quiet Please…Life Underwriting Expert Witness Personal Branding Exercise in Progress

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Only Your Brand Will Save You – Dorie Clark – Harvard Business Review

Starting today, think about how you can own your niche and build your audience. If you care about insuring yourself against hard times, the only true safety is in developing a personal brand that’s better known — and therefore more powerful — than that of your competitors, or even your employer.

Scary Chart of the Day 10.21.11

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Economist’s View: “First Look at US Pay Data, It’s Awful”

The median paycheck — half made more, half less — fell again in 2010, down 1.2 percent to $26,364. That works out to $507 a week, the lowest level, after adjusting for inflation, since 1999.

A VERY Scary Chart

I had gotten away from posting Scary Charts.  There were just too many to pick from.  But when I came across this graphic, well I just had to post it.

Life Settlements Update – 09.28.11

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Delaware Court Weighs in on Life Settlement Cases – Regulatory,Legislative and Tax Issues – Life and Health Insurance News

In PHL Variable vs. Price Dawe 2006 Insurance Trust Insurance Company, the court has affirmed the common law ability of a legally insured person or insurable trust to sell a policy on that person’s life for market value — provided that procurement of the policy is not part of a straw purchase pursuant to a prior agreement to resell to an investor, and that the procurement is not part of an illegal wager in which a third party directly or indirectly pays the premiums.

The court holds that an arrangement involving an agreement with a straw man is illegal. An illegal arrangement occurs when an investor has a pre-negotiated arrangement for an immediate transfer of ownership of the policy, and there is no insurable interest on the part of the original owner, according to the court.

The court has ruled that the “intent” of the insured to sell a policy is irrelevant. The transaction itself is legal if, at inception, the individual procuring the policy has insurable interests and does not have a pre-negotiated agreement to immediately transfer ownership.

Setback for Life Settlements – WSJ.com