You Do What? - I have ADD. I always have to be doing something–okay, usually two or three things at once. As it turns out, I’m not really a freak. Norm Brodsky is like me–so there is hope–and so is Steven Friedman, the entrepreneur front-and-center in this article. Friedman imports and sells dirt, soil, earth from the Holy Land and sells it for tradition-rich burials and more. He also juggles numerous other opportunities and winds up too distracted to fully succeed. Brodsky finally comments: “It’s a common situation. I’ve seen a lot of people who get an idea they think is hot, but when they try it, suddenly it’s not as hot anymore. So they shove it aside and start on the next one. You need patience, persistence, and focus to succeed. First efforts often meet with failure.”
Recession Road Trip- All the pundits and powers-that-be in the big cities and market centers are screaming about the recession. But what do they really know? David Whitford conducted flew cross-country more than 4,500 miles to interview 47 people in smaller, more remote cities around America. The result is amazing insight into how the great political issues–immigration laws, credit crunches, and more–really affect a wide range of “average” Americans. Who would have guessed that the 621 employees at one of the largest employers in Sioux Falls, South Dakota speak 22 (African and eastern-European) languages and dialects.
Protecting Company Secrets - Non-competition clauses are always a popular topic in my business law class and discussions with entrepreneurs. The article does a great job of briefly surveying the subject and explaining how California has basically banned the clauses and Florida presumptively enforces them. Big points for employers to remember are these: limit the scope of application (to a reasonable distance and time ~no more than 2 years); communicate with your employees what you really want to protect (proprietary information, skills, access to customers) as it applies to individual employees and what they do (usually CEOs and janitors have different access to and uses for information); and, finally, realize that courts read these clauses strictly because they want people to be able to work and make a living. For better or worse, though, some employers don’t care about legal enforceability–they like the fact that such clauses can psychologically shock-and-intimidate employees into long-term commitments.
Housing Meltdown – A great article for understanding the whole mess, what the potential results are, and what it means to all of us.
Bill Zanker Never Wants to Come Down- This article gives a shout-out to my colleague and co-author, Robert Shemin, then explores the hype-and-hoopla underlying the “Get Rich” programs run by the Learning Annex. In my book, at least, it takes cojones to offer The Donald $1.5 million to speak ($30 million for 20 events) when you haven’t lined up any other specifics. Just reading the article psyched up my curiosity…hmm, where’s my wallet.
The Secret Life of a Serial CEO- Several adventurous professors and entrepreneurial classes in business school try to explain what it’s like to pitch to VCs but this article does a great job of sitting up the scenarios and offering several afternoon-long snapshots that pass over a restless year in the life of a serial CEO. For aspiring entrepreneurs it may not be pretty but, from what I’ve heard, it seems painfully accurate.
The Word of the Year – “Subprime” - An interesting article in the Nashville Bar Journal briefly describes the evolution of our modern real estate lending system.
The $34 Trillion Problem - During my last semester at Vanderbilt’s business school, I took former-Fed Governor Daane’s “Seminar in Monetary and Fiscal Policy,” opened my mind to policies that never before made sense to me. I learned a lot but one thing that just about every guest speaker (from Fed Vice-Chariman Kohn to Fed Presidents and others) reiterated that the real economic elephant in the living room is Medicare. The general public doesn’t seem to get it and election-wary politicians are avoiding it but these facts really deserve immediate attention:
As the country ages, Medicare and Medicaid (for those of any age with low incomes) will devour growing chunks of U.S. economic output. So will Social Security, but its cut of GDP should stop increasing around 2030. The federal budget has averaged about 18% of GDP over the past several decades. If that average holds and if the rules of our social insurance programs don’t change, then by 2070, when today’s kids are retiring, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will consume the entire federal budget, with Medicare taking by far the largest share. No Army, no Navy, no Education Department – just those three programs…But wait – the situation is actually much worse. Those estimates, reported in the latest Financial Report of the U.S. Government, assume that Medicare payments to doctors will be slashed drastically, by some 41% over the next nine years, as required by current law.
Hidden Messages in the Documents You Share – MS Word and other frequently-used programs pack your documents with data–including a lot of stuff you may not want to share. Check out the article and learn how to safeguard yourself and your clients. Or, if you’re a manipulative cynic, learn how to “plant” information you want to share.
Out with the old, in with the possibilities – Since developed at Harvard a century ago, case method (outside the classroom and a heavy dose of Socratic method in the classroom) has been the dominant method of teaching in law schools and business schools. Under the leadership of a new dean, Columbia Business School has broken with tradition and decided to teach so that their students are “used to dealing with incomplete data…to make decisions out of uncertainty.” It’s the real world, after all, and few things are certain. It makes sense to me and I hope that other schools consider new methods. Did you know that Fortune 500 companies comprise 0.03% of all businesses? But business schools teach everyone using case studies that are primarily based on those businesses and their practices. Sound crazy? Maybe. I guess it depends on who business schools best customers are and what they intend to do with their education / educated employees.
Well, that’s it for now…I’ve caught up on my articles. And that’s good because more magazines will arrive tomorrow. Best of luck to all!
