Is there anyone in the workplace who has not undergone the torture of a performance review done badly? I’m sure we have all had to endure the torment of a well-intentioned but badly-executed performance appraisal—in which we felt as if we were the ones being executed! Blindfold, anyone? 

Back-to-school season is in full swing, and students everywhere have traded in their carefree summer days for homework, tests and grades. While formal report cards may still be a few months away for these schoolchildren, performance evaluations never stop in the business world—and employees say their bosses have some room for improvement.

Big data is more than a buzzword; it’s powerful stuff. Big data refers, of course, to a high volume of data that needs a lot of computing power to make sense of. Typically we think of large corporations when we think of big data, but you may have a lot more data in your business than you realize. Or you may be able to start collecting more data that truly can help your business grow and be more profitable.

At least three times a week, I get emails from entrepreneurs or small-business owners asking for advice on public relations. The questions range from "How much should I budget?" and "Should I hire an agency or an in-house person?" all the way to "What can I expect from a sales standpoint if I engage in PR?" This last one makes me cringe the most, because it likely means that the person asking doesn’t really understand PR’s multi-faceted function.

Employees at Greenwich-based Splash Car Wash can work their way up from vacuuming car seats to managing million-dollar businesses. Even if they lack a college education, employees with the right attitude and aptitude can end up handling everything from hiring and training to ordering equipment and balancing the books.

Stuttgart, Germany. Home to Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, and, as this new video from The Wall Street Journal demonstrates, one of the largest carwash facilities in the world. Mr. Wash is housed in a two-story building that cost $40 million to build with the capacity to wash 400 cars an hour. That works out to be around half-a-million cars a year. Mixing cutting-edge machinery with the personal touch, drivers come to Mr. Wash to enjoy a cup of coffee, treat their dog to a snack at the dog bar and wait for their car to arrive looking out-of-the-factory fresh.

Water conservation has been a big theme this summer in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valley. Many of us have gone without watering lawns, plants or even washing our cars at home. The Regional Water Authority said washing your car at home can use over 10 times as much water as a commercial wash.

Most Baylor students are not strangers to high tuition costs and working long hours to keep up with their fees. Aledo senior Austin Dorchester is offering a solution to both problems: paying student workers in wages and in scholarship money as their paychecks. CO-ED Car Wash is a 100 percent student-operated business with locations in College Station, Austin and Waco.