Office Max!

The gap between FrontPage and Blogger is a very wide one and there is probably room in that space for more than one product, so Bubbler appears to be well positioned, though if I were making a recommendation to a small business client at this point, I’d probably point them at Macromedia Contribute hosting instead of Bubbler. It’s not an apples to apples comparison, but Contribute has a lot more features and a lot fewer bugs and the $99/desktop price difference is mostly made up for by the cheaper hosting costs for a reasonably sized team.

I mentioned that my company just won a contract to do some development assistance work here and we’re opening up a project office. Well part of my duties here is to find suitable office space within our budget. The Arme.nians first instinct when they see foreigners is to jack up the price of everything, and finding a big enough space in the center of town is proving to be very difficult. We went out with a real estate agent recommended by a local subcontractor and went to a few inappropriate and over priced places before he took us to a dilapidated looking office under an old Russian style apartment block. We greeted the owner and went in for a tour. I knew this place wasn’t going to work out and walked out after 5 minutes.

Web applications will begin to rival and exceed the functionality of their client/server or desktop cousins. Expect the next webmail version of Outlook to have more functionality, richer experience, more dynamic, and maybe easier to use than the Windows version. I wouldnt be surprised if MSFT tried to charge more for it.

The Scandinavians have done a lot of research in the area. One Swedish study followed a number of companies which gave grants to employees to construct home offices. Employees continued to travel to work 2-3 days per week and worked from home the rest of the time. The results were staggering. The company saved money from the move - even though there was a significant set-up cost for the home offices. The savings occured because teleworkers no longer needed full-time office accommodation and could share "hot-desks" with other teleworkers. This led to significant savings on expensive rents for commercial space. The workers saved on commuting cost and increased the value of their homes to boot. The most interesting find was that productivity was much higher in the home office, away from the distractions of colleagues, phones etc.

After her presentation, she was asked about why stock options were so important to the growth of a company. Without getting into the technical accounting arguments on the merits of whether they are an expense or not, she talked about how they infuse a sense of ownership in the employee population. There have been studies done that show that companies that give stock options to all employees are more productive than those companies that do not. A company of "owners", she said, is more productive than a company of "renters." Which made me think of the current debate on social security and the "ownership society."

Last year, expanding and relocating tenants leased about 400,000 SF of additional office space in Uptown and downtown. A half-dozen office projects in the works for the area could add more than 2 million SF of office space in the next two years.

Meanwhile, the broader push for homeland security has prompted the creation of new initiatives to prevent cyberterrorism, a nebulous but serious thread to the American way of life. According to war games, a North Korean or Chinese hacker with a paper clip, a rubber band, and an Atari could destroy a significant portion of America’s electronic infrastructure, to significant economic and social detriment—and presumably to the consternation of politicians who face reelection. In response to this looming threat, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley bill, loaded with measures intended to create greater security for America’s electronic networks, while also improving corporate governance and preventing fraud. Although the bill is unquestionably thick and laden with requirements, is it up to the task of protecting the homeland? Previous encounters between business and industry suggest not. In this article, I evaluate major failings in Sarbanes-Oxley and suggest alternatives.

First, let me admit this: the tall chair might be a dangerous addition to your office setup. Not giving up yet, and I'm not saying it was a bad idea, even. But if you're a little scattered at times (you caught me,) and you've been "doing it another way" for ages and ages, it's at least possible that you might hurt yourself. Like when it comes time to climb down from the chair at the end of a lengthy work session. Other than that, it's kinda' cool.

Very little bothers me more than when ill-informed people conflate their own overinflated egos with Windows XP, implying that anything less than a Dell PC with Windows XP Pro is the domain of computing lightweights, grandmothers, children and homosexuals. For some, being well-practiced in weekly disk defragmentation, periodic registry cleaning, spyware removal and the installation of numerous resource-hogging antivirus interceptors is the hallmark of computing expertise, a skillset which defines what people who Really Know Computers do. I’m going to pour my drink on the next person who brags to me how OSX is for morons and women while running AdAware scans on his uber-l33t Win32 machine.

It’s an open question if Ailes can replicate his Fox News success in business news. Fox News Channel succeeded because it easily and smartly defined itself in opposition to what its core audience perceived to be bias on the part of the other networks. But nobody regards CNBC and Bloomberg TV the way Fox viewers regarded CNN and MSNBC. And CNBC has solid right-wing credentials. Mark Haines, the host of Squawk Box, routinely greets his colleagues at CNBC Europe by asking what’s going on in Socialist Land. CNBC’s idea of a leftist is a Wall Street Democrat like Roger Altman. And the network has given over an entire show to supply-sider Larry Kudlow. The gang at CNBC bears some resemblance to the House Republican caucus—an all-white, overwhelmingly male group in which centrists are branded as liberals and marginalized.

Yahoo! News has a story on the release of a new Business Software Alliance study that claims software piracy is growing in-step with the expansion of the Internet. No surprises here.

If you follow business news, you probably know that New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has made his reputation lately by prosecuting big corporations – especially financial corporations like banks and Wall Street firms – for all sorts of vicious corporate crimes. Except, he has not actually been prosecuting these firms in actual courtrooms. Apparently what he does is investigate a firm for a few months, driving them nuts with subpoenas for all sorts of financial records – then he calls a press conference and accuses them of fraud, or some other form of “greed” invariably involving making money for “insiders.” The company is worried about being sued, the officers are worried about going to jail – so they cut a deal. Eliot Spitzer then calls another conference, claims a victory for the “little guy” and brags about how big a fine he got the company to pay for whatever it was they admitted to to avoid prosecution. The company doesn’t get sued, and Eliot Spitzer gets lots of great publicity for his anticipated run for governor without having to actually prove his case in court.

After passion, the next most important characteristic that companies were looking for was talent. Of course, as one person in the audience indicated, they both have to go hand in hand. You could have someone who is incredibly passionate about gaming but who has very little talent with regards to what they do (i.e. programming, art design, etc). Therefore, looking for talented people who are passionate about what they do is the key. And remember, the passion doesn’t have to be tied to actually building the game itself but any aspect of it. So if someone in Human Resources was very passionate and talented in finding great people for their company, then the gaming industry wants that type of person.

My short career as an MBA student crashed to a screeching halt last night.

There I was cruising along in the fast lane of MBA night classes, jamming to some tunes by They Might Be Giants and working on Multiple Choice problem number three of my Financial Accounting homework when I caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye, like a deer jumping in front of my car at the moment before impact.

For those who don’t know, I happen to have a fetish for office supplies and stationary. I’m not kidding. I get worked up over new pens, pencils, notebooks (especially Moleskine), printers, staplers… I could go on forever. Browsing through Officeworks on a lazy day is my idea of heaven.

Great video interview with Jack Welch available here on his business philosophy and new book, "Winning". I read his last book "Jack: Straight From the Gut" and there is a lot in there that makes sense for careers and recruiting. In fact if you watch the video interview you will see how passionate Jack is about Human Resources and how much of a difference he feels they make in business.

Use this OS for your business software, and use this OS for your digital lifestyle software all in one computer.

"When we see patterns of excessive compensation, that is usually an indicator that the board is not sufficiently independent," says Marshall. As a result of the board's coziness, he says, no one stepped in to challenge Krispy Kreme's move away from the fresh-doughnut model, and no one questioned the aggressive accounting for franchise buybacks. "It was a classic governance failure," sums up Marshall.

Overall, hiring for new graduates is up 13 percent over last year. And, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, accounting majors are in hot demand. In fact, four of the top 10 most sought-after majors are in accounting, finance or consulting.

Under the agreement, Microsoft will contribute up to $2 million in funding and human resources through its Partners in Learning initiative to help build a peer coaching framework for teachers that excel at integrating technology into their curricula while helping build new tools and resources for pre-service and high school institutions.

With this lack of regulatory requirements for businesses on the Internet a couple of questions come to mind:

1- How can we tell the difference between an actual Internet Consultant that offers the consulting services we expect and one as witnessed by the results of our Internet search.
2- What can be done to standardize and regulate these business services.

A small law firm or accounting firm or ad agency is succeeding because they're good, not because they're big. So smart small companies are happy to hire them.

Can we be sure that all of this was a result of SEO? No. There could have been product, seasonal and other effects that contributed. We think it's safe to say, however, that there was a significant increase that resulted directly from the SEO. The bottom line: search optimization has a real and measurable impact on traffic, conversions and revenue (or lead generation) improvement. Given that these clicks begin to approach "free" after amortizing the cost of SEO over time, the ROI for SEO is compelling. After accounting for both the long-term "free"...

Accounting for Non-Accountants: "If you are a small business owner or manager, there will come a time when you have to dispose of an asset. You may sell, trade, or discard the asset but regardless how you dispose of it you must account for it on the company's books."

since it was revealed the day after memorial day, and after mentioning it to some people, i’ve gotten a lot of the same questions over and over, so i decided to write this article to answer all those questions as well as serve as a howto for others choosing to waste office supplies in a similar artistic endeavor.

Rosemary Haefner, Vice President of Human Resources for CareerBuilder.com, offers these tips to make the most of your time off:

I kind of practiced the same thing in the beginning of last semster, in which I found a pretty nice chair, which is a hell of a lot better than the standard crappy office chairs we get from the University. I “borrowed” the chair, and used it for the rest of the semester, and continued to do so during this semester. However, a month ago some professor wanders by our group room, casually looks in, stops, and says: “Where did you get that chair?”. Followed by: “You must put it back!”

If you are a retailer, you should think about this. Yes, you still have to appeal to the majority of people who are soberly looking for chairs and office supplies. But you can also appeal to enthusiastic impulse buyers with a timely hook, a sample sale angle that makes customers feel you're putting them in the know, and they have to act fast to scoop their fellow shoppers who have less of the "trained eye." The thrill of the hunt that you give them will keep them coming back.

With the book's release date nearing, Merritt told his supervising attorney about it in early March, Merritt said. The firm fired him a few days later. The human resources director told him that, because of the book, they didn't believe he'd be able to serve clients as well as Powell Goldstein standards would require. . . .

Question: How flush are the current capital markets for commercial real estate? Answer: It just doesn't stop. As one veteran industry economist says, “Goldilocks is back” to describe the perfect temperature for real estate borrowers and investors.

What will the rapid appointment of Congressman Chris Cox to succeed William Dondaldson as SEC chairman mean for mandatory stock options expensing? No one knows yet.

The US Supreme Court has unanimously overturned the conviction against accounting firm Arthur Andersen for shredding documents related to the Enron investigation.