The House is scheduled to vote this week on a small-business tax cut bill offered up by Republicans. It's just the latest piece of legislation to focus on small businesses, which are widely praised in the political discourse as engines of job creation. The adoration is nearly universal – and it reflects something beyond economic reality. (audio) (NPR)
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The word "etiquette" gets a bad rap. For one thing, it sounds stodgy and pretentious. And rules that are socially or morally prescribed seem intrusive to our sense of individuality and freedom. But the concept of etiquette is still essential, especially now – and particularly in business. (Inc.)
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In a stinging rebuke, Citigroup shareholders rebuffed on Tuesday the bank’s $15 million pay package for its chief executive, Vikram S. Pandit, marking the first time that stock owners have united in opposition to outsized compensation at a financial giant. (The New York Times)
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It’s frightening. You’ll spend most of your waking life at a job, yet, according to a new study by TheLadders, the average recruiter spends just six seconds looking at your résumé. By the end of that time, they’ll determine whether you’re "a fit" or a "no fit." (Fast Company)
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As companies seek to cut costs and accommodate an increasingly mobile work force, some employees have had to say goodbye to their personal work areas. Unassigned workspaces, sometimes called "free address" or "non-territorial offices," have long been a fact of life for consultants or employees who do their jobs mostly on the road or from home. But a growing number of workers, including some who spend more time at the office, have had their cubicles replaced by communal tables or unassigned desks they share with a sometimes shifting cast of colleagues. (Wall Street Journal)
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The TV show Mad Men has won fans for breathing life – and a heavy whiff of bourbon – into the fictional advertising world of 1960s New York. But surely no American company has such a liver-pickling culture in this day and age, right? According to ABC's Alan Farnham, advertising firms are still at it – or at least, they're making sure that their employees have free access to liquor and beer while they're at work. And the ad companies are not alone. (NPR)
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After spending years of working in neighboring Libya, the last place Daoud Mohammed wants to be right now is back to his home in Chad, the landlocked country in central Africa. With no work and few opportunities, he is worried about his and his family's future in Chad's capital N'Djamena. (CNN International)
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Why Fed officials' suggestions that a third round of stimulus is possible may have sent emerging market central bankers into a cold sweat. (SmartMoney)
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With classes, networking events, club meetings and more, being a business-school student can feel like a full-time job. So how do students handle it when they also work full-time? Even more than their traditional M.B.A. counterparts, students in part-time M.B.A. programs must juggle their school and personal lives – and their careers. (Wall Street Journal)
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Is the admissions strategy followed by the world’s most elite business schools cheating MBAs out of a small fortune? It seems an almost preposterous question, given that the average starting salary for Harvard Business School graduates taking jobs in finance or consulting is now $125,000. But that is exactly the bombshell that a Florida researcher tossed at the B-school ivory tower with a new e-book out this month. (Bloomberg/Businessweek)
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NBMBAA Los Angeles Chapter Member Denise Houlemard Jones was honored as one of the 2012 Women of the Year for Southern California's 29th Congressional District. (Pasadena Now)
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AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint say they need more radio spectrum, the government-rationed slices of radio waves that carry phone calls and wireless data. The wireless carriers say that in the next few years they may not have enough of it to meet the exploding demands for mobile data. The result, they ominously warn, may be slower or spotty connections on smartphones and tablets. (The New York Times)
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Most people still think of Amazon as the internet’s giant shopping mall – a purveyor of gadgets, books and movies – but it’s quietly become "a massive utility" that is either on the sending or receiving end of 1 percent of all of the internet traffic in North America, says Craig Labovitz, a well-known internet researcher and co-founder of DeepField. (Wired)
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Allerta's Pebble smartwatch, which talks to your phone and takes iPhone apps, smashed every funding record on Kickstarter. Can the company hack its "overnight" success? Eric Migicovsky, the man behind the phenomenon, explains how he will try. (Fast Company)
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Consider who comes to mind when we think of entrepreneurs. Does a day go by without mention of Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg or Richard Branson in the media? While admirable, these men are not accessible, especially to women. Women are as likely as men to think entrepreneurship is a good career choice, that entrepreneurs have high status, and are represented positively in the media. So why do they admire this endeavor from afar, but think they are less equipped to do this? (CNN)
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Along with overburdened retirement plans and overcrowded early-bird buffet bars comes yet one more worry as the flood of Baby Boomer retirements begins: The overwhelming majority of America businesses are not prepared to deal with the coming loss of so many experienced workers. (Time)
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Just about every time he gives a speech, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke laments the fact that 42% of the 12.7 million people out of work have been unemployed for more than six months. That's the highest percentage on record, more than twice the percentage during the deep recession in the early 1980s. (Kiplinger)
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If you have lots of money, Tuesday, April 17, was one of the best tax days since the early 1930s: Top tax rates on ordinary income, dividends, estates, and gifts remain at or near historically low levels. That’s thanks, in part, to legislation passed in December 2010 by the 111th Congress and signed by President Barack Obama. Starting next January, rates may be headed higher. (Bloomberg/Businessweek)
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Say you just lost your wallet with $40 cash in it. You’d feel bad, right? There’s the inconvenience of canceling cards, getting a new driver’s license, etc. But what if you lost your wallet with $900 in cash in it, plus your address book and your bank passwords? That’s what it’s like when you lose your smartphone. (MarketWatch)
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Best Buy is in a lot of trouble. Once the undisputed leader in technology retail – it vanquished Circuit City, CompUSA, and every mom-and-pop electronics store in the country – the company is now being killed by Amazon online and Apple offline. In March, Best Buy reported a $1.7 billion quarterly loss and announced that it would close 50 stores. Then, last week, the firm’s CEO Brian Dunn suddenly resigned. (Slate)
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In 1957 Bill Marriott was a 25-year-old former navy officer urging his entrepreneur father to give him a shot at revitalizing the family's first hotel, outside Washington D.C. Fast forward 55 years and as executive chairman of Marriott International, Bill Marriott has built a world-renowned, multi-billion dollar hotel chain. (CNN)
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Now that the latest round of America's ongoing "Mommy Wars" appears to be simmering down, it might be a fitting time for cooler heads to consider the substance of the issue that generated all the faux-rage. At issue are Mitt Romney's recent claims that Barack Obama's policies have actually been bad for women – specifically, that as a result of the incumbent's policies, 92.3% of the net jobs lost in America since January 2009 have been lost by women. (The Economist)
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More than three years after the financial system teetered on the brink of collapse, federal efforts to impose tighter regulation are facing a major challenge. Business groups that denounce various rules as wasteful and misguided have found a powerful legal tactic to oppose regulators and potentially blunt their work. (Washington Post)
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We may talk about eliminating hierarchy, but most organizations still have one. Frankly, it's very hard to mobilize limited resources and diverse skills without someone taking charge. That's why hierarchies have existed for thousands of years – from the days of the Pharaohs to the modern corporation. Yet there's no doubt that hierarchies can be dysfunctional and make it difficult to get things done. As such, we blame them for slowing things down, lowering morale, and choking off innovation. (Harvard Business Review)
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'I'm confused," said Stephen Byrd, who didn't sound confused at all. It was just his polite way of expressing displeasure that the marketing people at the conference table had failed to absorb the message about no discount offers – at least not right away – for tickets to his multiracial Broadway production of "A Streetcar Named Desire." (It opens Sunday.) (Wall Street Journal)
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Between the ages of 18 and 22, Jodi Romine took out $74,000 in student loans to help finance her business-management degree at Kent State University in Ohio. What seemed like a good investment will delay her career, her marriage and decision to have children. (Wall Street Journal)
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