There are excellent opportunities out there for entrepreneurs looking to start a business. During the past decade, the key trend creating the majority of these opportunities has been the shift toward providing services online, reports the research firm IBISWorld. As internet traffic has grown at an exponential rate and internet connection speeds have increased markedly, businesses from all sectors of the economy have shifted operations online to take advantage of this growth. In particular, opportunities for start-ups are most prevalent in retail and service industries.
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"Here’s your ‘buzzword bingo’ card for the meeting," Wally says to Dilbert, handing him a piece of paper. "If the boss uses a buzzword on your card, you check it off. The objective is to fill a row."
They go to the meeting, where their pointy-haired boss presides. "You’re all very attentive today," he observes. "My proactive leadership must be working!"
"Bingo, sir," says Wally.
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A heartening surprise of our travel so far: the breadth, seriousness, and—in some places—success of the effort to revitalize small-town downtowns. Or, what 3 programmers from Uzbekistan taught us about America.
Last weekend my wife and I had three young software developers from Uzbekistan staying with us at our house. (It's a long story.) They were charming young men—Pavel, Igor, and Roman—who had come to America for a tech meeting in North Carolina and had driven from there up to Washington, to spend a little time touring before their flight back to Tashkent.
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Go ahead and daydream on your commute. Get the important stuff done before noon. Have that second coffee at 2:00 PM. Work out whenever.
Optimizing your work day to maximize your productivity and happiness admittedly isn’t a hard science. Differences in body chemistry, sleep routine, personality, profession, and office culture mean that one person’s ideal day is another’s productivity nightmare. But there are some evidence-based guidelines you can follow to get yourself on the right track. Here’s our take on a top-notch schedule.
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For some people work is an exciting opportunity to use their talents and skills to achieve great things. But sadly, for many people work is considered an act of drudgery that's the price you pay for getting a living wage. I personally don't see why nearly any work environment can't be purposefully fun and entertaining. I was inspired this week by sales guru Jack Daly's new book. In the book, Daly insists you have to put the F-word back into business. Forget simple Band-Aid fixes like birthday parties or a foosball table in the middle of the office. Opt instead for integrating fun into your culture.
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Multinationals invest plenty sending employees abroad and holding their hands to keep them happy during overseas assignments. The companies generally neglect the workers when they bring them back to headquarters, leading about 25 percent to quit their jobs in the first two years after returning.
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Most studies that examine how many women are at the top either look at the gender diversity of corporate boards or calculate overall numbers in the executive suite. Catalyst, for instance, reported that women made up 14.6 percent of senior officers among the Fortune 500 and 8.1 percent of these companies' top earners.
But a recent study shared Monday on Harvard Business Review's site looks at the makeup of those senior teams — and names names.
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DiversityInc, the most widely recognized and leading content provider and consultancy on the business of diversity, is preparing to announce its annual DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity list on April 22nd in New York. CEOs and Chief Diversity Officers will gather in New York City for an awards banquet and meetings to discuss strategies, resource groups, mentoring, talent development initiatives, supplier diversity, philanthropy and community outreach.
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What kinds of lessons can providers of microfinance services in the U.S. learn from microfinance practices overseas? Three experts from the microfinance industry addressed that question during a panel discussion at the eighth annual Penn Microfinance Conference, whose theme was "Microfinance: Beyond Its Roots." In addition, keynote speaker Elizabeth Rhyne, managing director of the Center for Financial Inclusion, discussed how the microfinance industry is moving beyond its reliance on lending into multiple new directions, including innovations in the health care sector.
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South Korea's economy grew more than forecast in the first quarter, helped by a jump in construction and exports. Asia's fourth-largest economy expanded by 3.9% in the January-to-March quarter from a year earlier. Many analysts had forecast growth of 3.7%. Compared with the previous three months, the economy grew by 0.9%.
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The Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has increased its UK economic growth forecast for the first quarter of the year, from 0.9% to 1%.
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One major factor driving student loans into the stratosphere dates back to the recession, in which public colleges increased tuition to compensate for state funding cuts. With the economy tip-toeing through a tepid recovery and state budgets getting a little breathing room, last year marked the first time since the downturn that state and local governments increased funding for higher education on a per-student basis.
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MBA students often wonder why certain companies don’t recruit on their campus. Some even blame their career centers for not bringing the "right" companies to their school. Over the years, I’ve spoken with organizations in almost every industry. To understand how they decide whether to send headhunters to a particular school, it helps to look at how they design their recruitment calendars.
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Thank You for Making Our 1st NBMBAA® Regional Symposium a Success! Join us for our 2nd event in Chicago, July 17th
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From using larger images to showing off your best tweets, Twitter's new profile layout is designed with you and your business in mind.
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Services like Silvercar, Uber, and pay-to-play airline VIP programs help keep the new aristocracy away from the rabble.
When I power on my phone upon landing at LAX, a text message is already waiting for me: "Hi Ian, Silvercar here! We have your res at 1:00pm today. Let’s roll!" Silvercar rents a fleet of silver Audi A4s at airports in Austin, Dallas, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. A slogan speaks plainly on the company’s behalf: "car rental that doesn’t suck."
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Fights over rules and regulations can earn entrepreneurs a certain cachet in startup circles. Harvard freshmen Akshar Bonu and Fanele Mashwama may have won their honor badges early. The undergrads launched a company called InstaNomz in March to cater to classmates who wanted late-night meals without leaving the glowing hearth of their computer screens. For fees ranging from $1 to $10, the service delivered food from a handful of Cambridge restaurants directly to the students’ dorm rooms. The GrubHub-like startup operated between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m.
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Hiring your first employee is a big step and pulling the trigger can be a tough decision. How do you know when the time is right? When can you be sure that you are not adding unnecessary expense to your business?
The simplest rule to follow is that you should hire your first employee when the incremental cost is justified by any combination of three items: increased revenue, lower expense and reduced workload for you.
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The pressing importance of figuring out how rising temperatures will affect people and places around the world.
When Hurricane Sandy pummeled the east coast of the U.S. and the Caribbean in October 2012 it exposed millions of people and billions of dollars worth of economic assets to the sorts of hazards that might be expected to increase as a result of climate change. An estimated 1.8 million structures and homes were destroyed or damaged, with economic losses exceeding $65 billion.
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After two straight weeks in which the figures tracked near their lowest levels in seven years, the number of first-time applications for jobless benefits rose more than expected last week.
The Employment and Training Administration says there were 329,000 such claims filed, up by 24,000 from the previous week's slightly revised figure.
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When you contribute to a Roth Individual Retirement Account you typically don't have to worry about paying taxes on that money or its investment gains ever again. And employers are increasingly adding a Roth option to their 401(k) plans. Aon surveyed 400 employers covering 10 million employees in 2013 and found that half now offer a Roth 401(k) plan. Here are some of the benefits of saving for retirement in a Roth account:
Having a tax-free account in addition to your pre-tax savings gives you more options to reduce taxes in retirement. Tax complications don't end when you leave the workforce. In fact, your taxes in retirement can be more complicated than in the years when you were working. For the most part, you'll want to withdraw money you have in taxable and Roth accounts first and delay paying taxes on your savings in traditional retirement accounts as long as possible. But it's also possible that you could pay significantly higher taxes if you delay too long and your traditional retirement account gets big enough for required minimum distributions to force you into a higher tax bracket. With money in different pots, you'll have a chance to run different scenarios and maximize your after-tax retirement income.
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As online and mega stores take up more of the retail landscape, small mom-and-pop shops are getting more specific. We examine one of the ways small stores are looking to survive and possibly thrive.
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Every day consumers are confronted with countless logos, mostly unaware of how these icons are constantly transmitting a slew of messages aimed at the subconscious.
"A company's logo is its shorthand, a visual cue that tells a story of the brand's culture, behavior, and values," said Su Mathews Hale, a senior partner at the New York brand-strategy and design firm Lippincott. Because a logo may only have a second to tell this story, creating one "can sometimes be the most difficult aspect of branding," she said.
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The hip-hop mogul supports youth program and sets the example that hard work pays off. Bad Boy Worldwide Entertainment Group founder and CEO Sean "Diddy" Combs is schooling young people on entrepreneurship. Combs has partnered with the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), which empowers at-risk youth through entrepreneurship education.
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Kathy Cramer is a psychologist and leadership consultant who specializes in helping leaders and their teams make small shifts in thinking to produce large impacts. She is also the author of the new book "Lead Positive: What Highly Effective Leaders See, Say & Do." Cramer spoke with Tom Fox, a guest writer for On Leadership and vice president for leadership and innovation at the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service. Fox also heads up their Center for Government Leadership.
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The concept of not knowing what you don't know has gotten its fair share of attention. Here are three practices that can lead to crucial discoveries.
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