Dominican Nail Artist Calls Out Social Issues With Woke Nail Designs

One woman is giving people the opportunity to express their views on social issues like feminism, racial equality and cultural pride in an unexpected way. 

Dominican nail artist Ami Vega has been doing hand-painted nail art for about five years. Recently, her clients have started asking for socially conscious designs like the black power fist and Black Lives Matter-related images, LGBT-inspired illustrations like the gay pride rainbow, or having the words “bad feminist” alongside the names of prominent feminist authors on their nails.

The New York native told The Huffington Post that it's liberating “to have your standpoint [on social issues] expressed somewhere people can see.” She explained that her clients usually come to her with an idea and they work together to bring it to life.

To Vega, wearing social issues on your hands is just another way to go “into the real world and start real conversations face-to-face, to make an impact and to push your thoughts and views so you can get them out there and get them seen.” 

She added, “I think my nail art, as far as what is going on now, is a reflection of what's going on in society and what my clients want.” 

Vega, who also has a 6-year-old daughter, admits that she ultimately hopes her work shows her little girl that “she's capable of doing anything.”

Check out what else Ami has to say about her nail art and see her in action in the video above. You can also see more of her nail art masterpieces on her Instagram account. 

Produced by Liz Martinez/Kohar Minassian, Edited by Kohar Minassian, Shot by Steve Gatti and Sam Wilkes.

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Here's Where Your Employee's Pay Raises Have Gone Since 1970

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If you provide employer-paid healthcare insurance for your employees, show them the chart below the next time you are discussing salaries with them, suggests Barry Ritholtz writing for Bloomberg.com. It demonstrates that real (inflation-adjusted) compensation has risen 61 percent since 1970. Yet despite that increase in compensation, when it comes to wages–the cash portion of compensation that goes into the pockets of employees–have only increased less than 3 percent during that period.

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How can compensation increase 61 percent but wages less than 3 percent?

The answer can be seen in the Federal Reserve chart below. It shows two ways to measure employee compensation.

 

TOTAL COMPENSATION 61% | The blue line tracks total compensation (adjusted for inflation) and shows that between 1970 and today, total compensation rose 61 percent. Total compensation includes wages, various worker benefits such as matching 401(k) contributions, health insurance, disability insurance, paid vacation and leave plus any employer-paid taxes. By far, the largest share of the increase in total compensation has been healthcare insurance.

WAGES  3% | The green line tracks wages–or the cash portion of compensation. Barry Ritholtz says, “it isn't a stretch to surmise that most employees don't really appreciate how substantial this non-wage compensation is; nor do they realize how much healthcare costs, the biggest part of their non-wage compensation, have risen. So while the total amount companies spend on compensation has increased a good deal, it sure doesn't feel that way to many workers.”

What are the ramifications?

If healthcare insurance were not tied to employee compensation, much of that 61 percent increase in compensation would have gone into the “wages” line. As it is today, the total compensation approach masks much of the compensation growth workers have received. Moreover, because the payments of healthcare-related costs are handled by a third-party payor (the insurance company), employees (patients) do not always recognize the significance of the value they are receiving.

Bottom line

Obamacare is making a hard “perception” issue even greater. Employers must balance the perception that compensation is growing while wages are stuck. But in the midst of political discord and misinformation (from all sides of this issue), finding a way to improve, reform or replace our healthcare insurance system–or even tweaking it–seems an impossible challenge.

VIA |Bloomberg.com

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Why Small Businesses Likely Create More Jobs Than Previously Thought

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Steve King, Emergent Research partner and a regular contributor to SmallBusiness.com explains how the U.S. government is underestimating the economic impact of small businesses by excluding the self-employed when collecting and classify small business data. (Background: “Why 'Non-Employer Businesses' are a Big Deal, Even if the Label Sounds Like They Aren't.”)

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Over the past three decades, companies that were less than one-year-old with one to four employees averaged creating more than one million jobs per year.

That's a lot of jobs.

But the number would be much higher if the government included the economic impact of the self-employed, or “non-employer business,” the label used by the IRS to describe freelancers or other types of independent workers.

The decision to collect the data this way happened decades ago; long before the rise of contingent talent and the growing ability to hire contractors through online on-demand talent marketplaces.

A growing trend we see is a new form of job creation where one independent contractor (a non-employee business) hires another freelancer or independent contractor. Because both individuals are defined “non-employee business,” data on their activity is not included in most analyses of the small business sector.

Because of the growing availability of freelance talent, there are millions of such one person small business* who are hiring others on a contingent basis. But, to say it again, today these firms are not considered employer small businesses and not included in most analyses of the small business sector.

We think this is leading to an undercounting of small businesses and a distorted view of the real impact on job creation and the economy of small businesses, a topic we will continue to explore.

(A version of this article also appears on Small Business Labs.)

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Editor's note | We agree with Steve and suggest a good start would be to encourage the adoption of a label other than “non-employee business.” We prefer a term that describes what the individual is, rather than what they are not. Because the term “small business”  has statutory meaning and is a brand favored by consumers, SmallBusiness.com has chosen to use  “one-person small business” in our editorial guidelines.

Also on SmallBusiness.com

Tip for Marketers Targeting Small Business: SMBs Don't Use the Term SMB

Advice | Don't Try to Reason with Unreasonable People

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Understanding and handling an unreasonable person is one of greatest challenges a small business owner must face–be it an employee, a customer, a partner, vendor or, you get the idea: it's a long list. According to physician and author Susan Biali M.D., there is a chance a difficult person in your life might not have a full-blown personality disorder; they may have related traits that express themselves from time to time. It still takes a toll on your self-esteem and well-being to be around them.

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Various Ways a Person Can Be Unreasonable

• You can't have a reasonable conversation with them


• They twist your words or totally confuse you


• They tell you that you're the one who doesn't know how to communicate


• They make subtle or overt demeaning comments


• They say cutting things to you disguised as a “joke”


• They don't respect boundaries and seem to enjoy encroaching into yours


• They aren't willing to consider your point of view or listen to your side of things


• They just stare at you blankly, or laugh, or explode, when you try to explain “how you feel”)


• They are bullies


• They are verbal or emotional abusers (ranging from subtle to overt)


• They are manipulators


• They are liars


• They leave you feeling bad, sad, shaky or feeling sick in the pit of your stomach

They are Crazymakers

According to Dr.Biali, there are some people who are able to provoke you into acting crazy or unbalanced. “Crazymakers love making you feel like there's something wrong with you when you do when your behavior across the rest of your life is proof that you're not,” she explains.

How to handle unreasonable people and minimize the damage to yourself, your days, your sanity and your life

1 | Minimize time with them

Keep communications fact-based, using minimal details.

2 | Keep it logical

Don't try to connect with them from an emotional or empathic perspective. Unreasonable people usually don't care, and their response (or lack of it) will often only make you more upset.

3 | Don't drink around them

It will make you more emotionally vulnerable and more likely to do or say something useless that can make you more of a target.

4 | Focus on them in conversation

A way to avoid being the target of demeaning comments, manipulation or having your words twisted is to say as little as possible.

5 |  Give up the dream that they will one day be the person you wish they'd be

There are people in our lives who have moments where they seem to be the parent/partner/spouse/friend you've always felt they could be. et they ultimately always end up hurting or disappointing us significantly. Amazingly, we fall for it and get our hopes up again the next time they treat us nicely or seem to have turned a new leaf. Giving up the hope and fully accepting this person for who they really are can be an unbelievable relief after what is sometimes a lifetime of wishing.

6 | Stay away from topics that get you into trouble

7 | Don't try to get them to see your point of view

They won't and you'll just feel worse for trying

8 | Create a distraction

Focus on playing with a pet if there's one in the vicinity, have the interaction be based around some kind of recreational activity or entertainment

VIA | Psychology Today

 

Smokin' Calendar Features French Firefighters Posing For Charity

This will get you fired up for a cause. 

Some very shirtless firefighters from France got their Zoolander on for Le Calendrier Des Pompiers 2017, or The Calendar of Firefighters 2017, which was shot by French photographer Fred Goudon.

A portion of the project's proceeds will go towards Pompiers Sans Frontières, or Firefighters Without Borders, an international NGO that helps people around the world affected by crises such as natural disasters or armed conflict, according to a Huffington Post translation of the group's website.

We got our hands on some photos from the calendar and after checking them out, we're sure you'll be thanking us. 

This is the second year the project, which made headlines last year for its fiery photos, has been produced. The calendars, which sell for € 19.95, or about $22.45, contain 17 pages of firefighters donning their helmets and gear, doing push-ups and flashing their best smiles, among other scenes. 

Though firefighters may be from France, but the calendars ― thankfully ― ship worldwide. 

If the photos aren't enough for you, you might want to check out some teaser clips of the photo shoots that have been uploaded to YouTube. 

See more photos of the firefighters below. 

To see more of Fred Goudon's work, check out his blog here. 

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A Creative Design Idea Keeps This Company's Shipments From Being Crushed

The Amsterdam-based commuter bicycle company VanMoof had a problem. “We struggled to find shipping partners that would give our bikes the same obsessive love and care that we do,” Bex Radford, creative director of the company, wrote on her blog recently. “(But) no matter who was doing the shipping, too many of our bikes arrived looking like they'd been through a metal-munching combine harvester. It was getting expensive for us, and bloody annoying for our customers.”

Despite having popular “brand stores” in Amsterdam, Brooklyn, Taipei and Berlin (along with a distribution network in select bike stores), the company has the goal of selling 90 percent of its bikes online by the year 2020. “Anyone in the e-commerce world will tell you, 'you're only as good as your shipping partner,'” wrote Bex.

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Even with great products and an awesome website,

nothing matters if the bike you order arrives crushed.

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Earlier this year, the company's co-founder had a “flash of genius,” writes Bex. “Our boxes are about the same size as a (really really reeeaaaaly massive) flatscreen television. Flatscreen televisions always arrive in perfect condition. What if we just printed a flatscreen television on the side of our boxes?”

And just like that, the shipping damage to the company's bikes dropped by 70–80%.

The company was hoping to keep their shipping trick secret, but the idea was too clever to stay secret for long. People who received the flatscreen TV bicycle boxes couldn't help but post photos on Instagram and Twitter.

So the secret is out. “Just don't tell FedEx,” begs Bex.

VIA | Subtraction.com | “How Graphic Design Reduced Damages to VanMoof's Shipments” and QZ.com

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Photos: VanMoof.com

How Small Business Owners Differ From Others in Debt, Money & Demographics

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Experian, the credit reporting company, has released the findings of a new study that compares 2.5 million random small business owners to similar data of consumers who don't own a business. The results not only provide an interesting comparison to consumers, they offer an interesting comparison to research provided by other sources including the Census Bureau and Small Business Administration.

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“Since the health of small business tells the tale of how the overall economy is performing, it is encouraging to see that while small business owners have an exceptional amount of credit available to them and carry a higher debt load, they have done a great job managing their payment obligations and keeping utilization low,” said Pete Bolin, director of consulting and analytics for Experian's Business Information Services.

Credit management and access to credit

(Note: While small business owners are consumers, in these findings, the term “consumer” refers to individuals who don't own a small business. )

721 | The average credit score of a small business owner

673 | The average credit score of a consumer

$56,100 | Average credit limit of a small business owner

$26,900 | Average credit limit of a consumer.

$195,000 |  Average debt load of small business owners

$96,000 | Average debt load of a consumer

$2,032 | Average payment made per month related to debt

$954 | Average payment made per month related to debt

5.9% | Small business owners with  bankcard trades 90+ days beyond terms (during past 24 months)

7% | Consumers with  bankcard trades 90+ days beyond terms

Income and home ownership comparison of small business owners and non-owners

Small business owners are more likely to own a home, have a higher income and be older than non-business-owner consumers

$91,600 | Average household income of small business owners

$70,400 | Average household income of consumers

62% | Percentage of small business owners who own a home

47% | Percentage of consumers who own a home

$192,000 | Average mortgage balance for small business owners

$147,000 | Average mortgage balance for consumers

Demographic comparison of small business owners and non-owners

56 | Average age of a small business owner

51 | Average age of consumers who don't own a small business

68.6% | Percentage of small business owners who have attended some college and beyond

53.5% | Percentage of consumers who have attended some college and beyond

65.6% | Small business owners who are male

31.2% | Small business owners who are female

47% | Consumers who are male

46.4% | Consumers who are female

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Guitarist Born Without Arms Strums Sweet Melodies

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Half of Small Business Owners Are Unaware of December 1 Overtime Pay Rule Change

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It has been almost four months since we reported the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) had released its final overtime rule. But despite much publicity and speculation about its impending impact, research from Paychex indicates awareness of the rule remains low among business owners.

49% | Percentage of business owners polled who remain unaware of the final overtime rule.

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Reminder of what the final rule will do

• Raise the salary threshold of the salary at which employees are eligible for overtime pay from $455/week to $913 ($47,476 per year).


• Expand overtime pay to 4.2 million workers.


• Automatically update the salary threshold every three years, based on wage growth over time, increasing predictability.


• Strengthen overtime protections for salaried workers already entitled to overtime.


• Provide greater clarity for workers and employers.


• The final rule will become effective on December 1, 2016.


• The final rule does not make any changes to the duties test for executive, administrative and professional employees.

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Even with December being just ten weeks away, almost half of business owners surveyed were aware of the new guidelines.

Small business owners' awareness of the new overtime-pay rules

51% | Aware of the overtime rule

49% | Are not aware

67% | Aware owners who think new guidelines will have little impact on their business

26% | Aware owners who think it will have some impact

7% | Aware owners who think it will have major impact

What are the aware business owners' plans for responding to the rules

36% | Will reposition impacted employees to non-exempt status

21% | Will redistribute hours to minimize overtime hours worked

7% | Will adjust salaries to conform to the new guidelines

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“This study clearly indicates there is a large contingent of business owners who are unaware of the overtime rule,” said Paychex president and CEO Martin Mucci. “These results are particularly concerning as we have every reason to believe the implications of the overtime rule will be far-reaching.”

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Are you prepared for December 1?

Of the 51% of survey respondents who are aware of the guidelines

55% | Somewhat prepared

34% | Very prepared

12% | Not prepared at all

Advice for preparing

• Download this PDF of the rule from the Department of Labor


• Familiarize yourself with the rule


• Determine how you may be impacted


• Begin preparing now for full compliance


• Determine what it will mean for future business operations

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An 80-Year-Old Woman Directed Her First Narrative Feature, And Sony Bought The Rights

Eleanor Coppola, at the age of 80, debuted her first narrative feature film, “Paris Can Wait,” at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 12.

On Monday, Sony Pictures announced it had purchased rights for the project, which Coppola wrote and directed after decades of providing career support for her husband, 77-year-old director Francis Ford Coppola, and children. 

“My long journey making my first fiction feature ended in Toronto to a welcoming audience,” the director said in a statement, adding, “I look forward to working with [Sony Pictures Classics] to show 'Paris Can Wait' to an even wider audience.”

Starring Diane Lane and Alec Baldwin, Coppola's semi-autobiographical story centers on a woman named Anne (Lane). Anne is married to “a successfully driven but inattentive movie producer” (Baldwin) but, during a trip to Cannes with her husband, embarks on a three-day journey to Paris with one of his business associates (Arnaud Viard) that involves “picturesque sights, fine food and wine, humor, wisdom, and much more.”

“Paris” isn't Coppola's first directorial effort ― just perhaps her largest. She got her start behind-the-scenes in the film industry and, in 1991, debuted the Emmy-winning documentary “Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse,” about the making of “Apocalypse Now!” which was directed by her husband. After that, she directed four nonfiction films and became an author. The mother of award-winning directors Sophia Coppola and Roman Coppola spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about her struggle to balance her own creative interests with her home life in an interview published earlier this month.

“I grew up in the '40s and '50s, and a woman's role was to support her husband and make a nice home for him,” she told THR. “I was frustrated that I didn't have much time to pursue my interests. Young women today have no concept of that. My daughter and her generation, and generations after that, they take for granted that they're going to do whatever is their calling. There's not going to be a question of their role or if they have to give it up because they're a wife and a mother.”

While Coppola isn't the oldest director to debut a feature film ― that would be 90-year-old Takeo Kimura ― her story is nonetheless inspiring, particularly in an industry that discourages women, and especially older women, from participating. Producing her first fictional feature film, she said in a statement, was “terrifying, but part of the challenge was cutting through all of your fears and just going for it.”

As a result, “Paris” is “a movie to savor, something very fine,” according to a statement from Sony Pictures Classics. Coppola's filmmaking abilities seem to have aged rather well.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

7 Small Business Etiquette Rules & Manners To Never Forget

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These aren't hard. You probably learned them in kindergarten. But for some reason, your competitor forgot them along the way. But your competitor's loss of common courtesy should be your gain. All it takes to stand out these days is to be the small business owner, manager, or employee who does the following.

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1 | Be on time.

 Apple.com

Being on time shows that you are organized and says to others, “your time is valuable and I'm not going to waste it.”

2 | Dress for success.

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Here's a hint. If your type of business has moved to “business casual” attire, focus on the “business” part of the fashion. If you are going to be attending a meeting with a client, use their dress code, not your's, to determine what to wear. If your business is one in which uniforms are worn, make sure your's is washed and pressed. The idea: Look your best.

3 | Introduce yourself.

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Whenever you're in a crowd, introduce yourself. A firm handshake and using your full name is all you need in such situations. By being proactive and introducing yourself, you'll keep your guests or clients from having to ask your name-always an awkward experience. Even if you think the other person should know your name, err on the side of helping them out: introduce yourself.

4 | Listen. Really. Stop talking and listen.

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Remember the old saying about why we have two ears and one mouth? Well, if you don't remember it, that may explain why you're talking too much and not listening. Be a passionate, active listener. Not only will you learn what the custom or client needs, or discover some great opportunity, you'll be impressing the other person with your charm.

5 | Know how to communicate. Practice if you need to.

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Some rules last forever. A speedy confirmation or reply. Following up on what you promised you'd deliver. Sharing something you think might be of interest. However, also know how to keep things brief and appropriate. Some specifics: Update your voice mail greeting. Make email subject lines relevant and the email short. Set up an auto-reply message for your contact list if you're out of the office and hard to reach. Let them know how to get a message to you, or where to turn for immediate assistance. And, most of all, practice explaining things that are critical to your ability to help your customer understand what you are recommending they purchase.

6 | Don't be dumb, put away the smartphone.

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Many businesses today are technology oriented. That's a good thing. However, there are times when it's best to shut down the smartphone and pay attention to what's happening in front of you. For instance, you should never check email or listen to music in the hallways or the elevator. Instead, spend that time talking to a coworker or employee. And you know that instant, angry email you want to send? Don't.

7 | Be kind.

(Image: on Flickr via mkrigsman)

If you own a small business, there's nothing more important than kindness-and a little of it goes a long way. Common courtesy toward employees and customers (like not raising your voice, saying please and thank you when asking for favors, and making eye contact when someone is speaking to you) goes a long way to raising your image in the minds of others.

Monday Motivation | You Can't Wait for Inspiration

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You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go for it with a club.

Jack London

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Healthcare, Paid Time Off and Retirement Plans Top Benefits Provided Small Business Workers

The top four benefits provided to employees of small businesses are: medical insurance (45%), paid time off (36%), retirement benefits (e.g., 401k) (34%) and workers compensation (a requirement in most states) (33%), according to research of small business owners conducted by Harris Poll on behalf of Nationwide, the insurance and financial services company.

 

58% | Small businesses offering at least one of the benefits listed

4% | Small businesses offering all of the benefits listed

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Companies plan to increase their retirement plan contributions

For the 34 percent of companies that offer insurance (and the 19 percent of business owners who don't currently offer 401(k) plans but say they will offer them in the future), the good news for employees is this: small business owners are planning to increase their contributions to retirement plans.

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“Business owners who help their employees prepare for retirement can differentiate their business as a destination for top talent and a place where valuable workers want to stay,” says John Carter, president of Nationwide's retirement plans business.

8 Keys to Business Longevity

On the 50th anniversary of the magazine McKinsey Quarterly, Ian Davis, former managing partner of McKinsey & Company and now Rolls Royce Holdings chairman, outlined some of the keys to business longevity.

Here is a condensed version of those keys:

1 | Relentlessly focus on your customers | Constantly seek out what your best and most innovative customers are doing.

2 | Engage your key suppliers | Let suppliers help you solve problems and identify opportunities so that these activities also become key sources of insight.

3 | Avoid introversion | Actively seek to understand broader trends outside your own organizations and industries.

4 | Challenge legacy thinking and mindsets | Tolerate, even encourage, the cost of internal competition and cannibalization.

5 | Avoid hubris | Create a culture of dissatisfaction with current performance, however good.

6 | Focus relentlessly on values | Encourage the judgment of a company's values by actions and behavior, not words and mission statements.

7 | Engage younger generations | Stimulate innovation and prevent generational barriers.

8 | Engage older generations | Use them to provide context and wisdom and help prevent generational barriers.

Bottomline for those who own and run a small business: Success, as measured by longevity, is a metric of how well you help your customers succeed-not how much you sell to them. It's the measurement of how deeply customers view your marketing as help, not hype.

Also on SmallBusiness.com

Six Businesses Operated By the Same Family for a Century or More

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A version of this appeared on the blog of Hammock Inc., the company that created and manages SmallBusiness.com.

How Businesses Start: The Founder's Fear of Failing is Replaced by the Fear of Failing to Try

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Everyone hates to fail, but for some people, failing presents such a significant psychological threat their motivation to avoid failure exceeds their motivation to succeed. Their fear of failure causes them to unconsciously sabotage their chances of success, in a variety of ways.

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Writing in PsychologyToday.com, psychologist Guy Winch says, “People who have a fear of failure are motivated to avoid failing not because they cannot manage the basic emotions of disappointment, anger, and frustration that accompany such experiences but because failing also makes them feel deep shame.”

Quote:

Shame gets to the core of our egos, our identities, our self-esteem, and our feelings of emotional well-being. The damaging nature of shame makes it urgent for those who have a fear of failure to avoid the psychological threats associated with failing by finding unconscious ways to mitigate the implications of a potential failure-for example, by buying unnecessary new clothes for a job interview instead of reading up on the company-which allows them to use the excuse, “I just didn't have time to fully prepare.”

Here's the good news: Even successful business founders feared failure

Adam Grant, a Wharton professor, and author interviewed several well-known entrepreneurs including Larry Page, Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey and Mark Cuban in researching his book, Originals. Guess what? They all felt the same fear of failure the rest of us do, according to Grant. They just responded to it differently. Here's how:

“In work and in life, there are two kinds of failure:  actions and inactions. You can fail by starting a company that goes out of business or by not starting a company at all.”

According to Grant, “When most of us fear failure, we walk away from our boldest ideas. Instead of being original, we play it safe, selling conventional products and familiar services.”

“Great entrepreneurs have a different response to the fear of failure. Yes, they're afraid of failing, but they're even more afraid of failing to try.”

When people reflect on their biggest regrets, they wish they could redo the inactions, not the actions. Ultimately, what we regret is not the failure, but the failure to act, says Grant.

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OfferUp Investors Think Craigslist is Ready to Be Disrupted

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Analysis by Steve King, Emergent Research partner and a regular contributor to SmallBusiness.com.

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In an interesting example of how technology-driven disruption is speeding up, Craigslist competitor OfferUp just raised $119 million. It wasn't that long ago that print newspapers made large sums of money selling classified ads. For example, as recently as two decades ago the Washington Post made a third of its revenues from print classified ads. Today it's negligible.

The reason is Craigslist and to a lesser degree eBay. These online sites killed the print classified ads that traditional newspapers used to generate large amounts of revenues and profits.

But anyone who uses Craigslist knows it really hasn't changed much in the past decade. Nor does have much of a mobile application. Additionally, eBay long ago moved on to other market segments and is not widely used by individuals buying and selling used goods.

This has left the door open for yet another wave of disruption in the classified ad space–this time driven by mobile devices instead of desktop computers connected to the Internet.

Key quote from a Tech Crunch article on why VCs are throwing money at OfferUp:

“Hans Tung from GGV Capital said that he invested in OfferUp because 'Craigslist hasn't innovated for a long time and there is unmet, pent-up demand for classified on mobile.' He points out that OfferUp makes it easy to communicate with prospective buyers, without having to share one's personal cell phone number.”

Mobile is a game changer so many ways in so many industries. No matter how much we cover mobile computing, or how aggressive our mobile computing forecasts seem, we continue to underestimate its growth and impact.

In terms of the pace of change, newspapers had about 100 year run with classified ads. Craigslist came along and disrupted classifieds and contributed to the mess that is the newspaper industry today. About a decade later, Craigslist is being challenged by new competitors deploying new technology.

People often say change is constant.

But maybe even more importantly,

the pace of change is accelerating.

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An earlier version of this analysis appeared on Small Business Labs.

Monday Motivation | The Importance of Idleness

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“Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things.”

Robert Louis Stevenson

An Apology for Idlers

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Robert Louis Stevenson wrote the essay, “An Apology for Idlers,” in 1877. Ironically, soon after it was published, Stevenson's career took off and those days of idleness came to an end. Soon after the essay was written, Stevenson wrote his mother, “It was well I wrote my 'Idlers' when I did; for I am now the busiest gent in Christendom.”

Excerpt From an Apology for Idlers

It is not only the person himself who suffers from his busy habits, but his wife and children, his friends and relations, and down to the very people he sits with in a railway carriage or an omnibus.

Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business, is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things. And it is not by any means certain that a man's business is the most important thing he has to do…

There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy, we sow anonymous benefits upon the world, which remain unknown even to ourselves, or when they are disclosed, surprise nobody so much as the benefactor. A happy man or woman is a better thing to find than a five-pound note. He or she is a radiating focus of goodwill; and their entrance into a room is as though another candle had been lighted.

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A Tribute to the Small Businesses of 9/11

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This essay by SmallBusiness.com founder Rex Hammock first appeared on SmallBusiness.com on September 11, 2014.

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In addition to the emotional responses we all experienced while watching the horror of 9/11/2001 unfold, I, like most small business owners, was overwhelmed with sympathy for the hundreds of small business owners and their employees whose companies, shops and restaurants were inside and in the shadow of the Twin Towers.

The photos like the iconic one showing people fleeing the area running by small shops and eateries have stuck with me as vividly as the more graphic and horrid shots from that day.

As a tourist and for business purposes, I had been in the Twin Towers several times before 2001, but other than the towers and Wall Street, I was not familiar with the surrounding area. Much has changed in recent years.

Today, I have a daughter who lives near the 9/11 Memorial Plaza and I have spent many days walking throughout a neighborhood that has risen as dramatically as the Freedom Tower.

The photo on the right, shot at about the same location as the 2001 photo, is from Google Maps' street view. It captures the vibrance you'll feel today among the shops located in what is a far more trendy neighborhood than it was before 9/11. (Something true of neighborhoods throughout New York City.)

It was small business owners and their employees who helped revive the neighborhood before the trendy chains started moving into the area. Like other areas of Manhattan, these small merchants are discovering that higher rents are making it harder and harder to survive.

To me, the men and women who returned first to the neighborhood are small business heroes. While others travel from around the world to shop at famous stores further north in Manhattan, I always make it a point to support the shops that were once in the shadow of the Twin Towers.

Research: One Quarter of U.S. Job-Creating Entrepreneurs Are Immigrants

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Immigrants are 15 percent of the overall United States population, but they become entrepreneurs at a much higher rate than native-born citizens, according to new research by William Kerr and Sari Pekkala Kerr. According to the Kerrs' new National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, “Immigrant Entrepreneurship,” the 15 percent of the population who are immigrants account for as much as 28 percent of the entrepreneurial businesses in the U.S.  (VIA | Working Knowledge, Harvard Business School)

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One of the persistent points of debate among those who differ on U.S. immigration policy, typically falls along these lines:

Anti-immigration | Immigrants take jobs from native-born Americans

Pro-immigration | Immigrants don't reduce employment opportunities, immigrants actually help create jobs

While there are several high-profile examples of immigrant entrepreneurs like Google cofounder Sergey Brin or Tesla founder Elon Musk, there has been little data to gauge the level at which immigrants create companies and jobs. Harvard Business School William Keer and his wife Sari Pekkala Kerr, a labor economist at Wellesley College have sought to remedy that problem with a database of detailed employer-employee information developed by the US Census Bureau called the Longitudinal Employer Household Database (LEHD), which includes employment data from state-level quarterly payroll filings of 200 million Americans from the years 1992 to 2011.

Pekkala Kerr, who is herself an immigrant from Finland who came to the U.S. as an exchange visitor, worked under the H1-B visa program, and ultimately became a US citizen. Kerr has specialized in research in entrepreneurship and innovation. Together, they were able to investigate how many people born outside the United States were responsible for firm creation and the traits of those firms.

Using their method, Kerr and Pekkala Kerr show that immigrant-owned entrepreneurial businesses are growing over time, from 17 percent in 1995 to 28 percent in 2008.

Percentage of U.S. entrepreneurial businesses owned by immigrants

1995 | 17%

2012 | 28%

(More on the research methods, including the Kerrs' definition of the term “entrepreneurship” can be found here.)

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Survival rate vs. employment growth rate

“(Immigrant entrepreneurs) are more likely to fail than those founded by natives, but those that survive experience greater employment growth,” says Kerr. This “up or out” scaling dynamic is frequently connected to how entrepreneurs create jobs, and this finding suggests immigrants may play an accentuate role in that process. “The way entrepreneurs create jobs is not by staying small forever and creating a gazillion firms,” says Kerr. “It's a small firm that grows to a Facebook or a chemical plant with 800 employees.”

Part of the reason why immigrant firms display these properties can be linked to where and what kind of firms they choose to found. “You may find more immigrants in riskier industries and in more volatile business environments like California,” says Kerr.

The authors also note that the job effects are larger in high-wage and high-tech sectors, and they report findings for firms backed by venture capital.

Does the research support H-1B program debate? Not quite.

The Kerrs' findings don't fit perfectly into one side or the other of on going debate surrounding immigration. For example, even though advocates often use examples like Sergey Brin to argue for expanding the H-1B program, which is used for employment-based immigration by adults, the Google founder actually came to the United States as a child.

A preliminary analysis by Kerr and Pekkala Kerr showed that immigrants who come into the country at a young age build better-growing firms than those who come to the United States as adults.

Read more | Working Knowledge, Harvard Business School)

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Flying Burritos: FAA Approves Food Delivery by Drone Test at Virginia Tech

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Project Wing, a unit of Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc., is teaming up with Chipotle and Virginia Tech in an FAA-approved test of an experimental food delivery service on the campus of the Blacksburg, Virginia, university. (VIA | Bloomberg News)

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This will be the most extensive test yet in the U.S. of what many companies–including Amazon.com, Walmart, Dominos and others–hope will eventually become routine drone deliveries of products.

Photo: Alphabet

About the project

• It will use self-guided hybrids that can fly like a plane or hover like a helicopter.


• Virginia Tech was already an FAA approved test site with a program focused on the development of future transportation


• Deliveries will originate at a Chipotle food truck to assess the accuracy of navigation systems and how people respond.


• The devices will hover overhead (video) and lower the Chipotle order with a winch.


• The company is already at work on a more sophisticated second version of the aircraft

See also on SmallBusiness.com

FAA Commercial Drone Rules Will Create Business Opportunities (But Not Yet for Amazon)

Bonus: The Flying Burrito Brothers Performance of Six Days on the Road at Altamont

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More at Bloomberg.com

A Startup Team Shares 10 More Helpful Online Apps and Tools for Small Businesses

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 Last month, we shared some of our favorite online tools and invited users of SmallBusiness.com to send us some of their favorites (Tips@SmallBusiness.com). Niraj Rajan Rout, founder of the Gmail-powered collaborative platform, Hiver, took us up on our invitation and invited team members of his startup to contribute their suggestions. As Niraj and his team are working on an online tool others find helpful, we asked that he start off with describing his product, Hiver.

1 | Hiver

While most other task/project management tools don't completely integrate with your email, causing you to have to go to and fro between your inbox and the tool, Hiver operates right out of the inbox. The tool has a simple and neat design, which will not clutter the inbox in anyway. We keep adding new features to the tool, the most recent one is called, “shared mailbox, which allows you to turn your email into a helpdesk. There are a number of other features such as shared notes, email snooze, shared contacts, etc., which really enhance the abilities of your email.

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2 | Dropbox

Dropbox is an obvious choice for us–it is so essential to our daily process and so integrated into our work that it deserves a mention anyway. While it has competitors in the cloud storage space, Dropbox is special because it keeps evolving and adding new features to play with. It is an incredible productivity booster and a great way to store information.

3 | Trello

The very visual nature of Trello is highly appealing and gives you sense of clarity and direction. With any type of collaborative team, there is a lot going on at any given moment. Plotting it all on a Trello board simplifies your vision and gives you a roadmap of work to complete. The neat, simple and minimalistic interface is just amazing.

4 | Buzzsumo

This is a great tool for smart marketing. It can help you figure out content trends, what is scoring on which social media, who are the influencers talking about your keywords, and much more. It can help you thoroughly analyse your content and help you factor in all the aspects necessary to come up with engaging, value-packed, quality content and smart ways to promote it too.

5 | KISSmetrics

As a business, we adhere to the philosophy “what can't be measured, can't be improved.”  So it's no surprise we extensively use KISSmetrics to track our sales and marketing activities. The live

view feature is especially great to get a broader view of what's going on with your users and modify your strategy according to the suggestions given by the tool. They also provide excellent customer service.

6 | Mailchimp

This is another tool we extensively use for our email marketing campaigns. I prefer using Mailchimp for the way in which it lets us send emails, collect the stats and improve the performance–all with just this one tool. It almost eliminates the need of any other tool to manage your newsletters. It is extremely easy to set up and just as easy to start using. The stats collected by this tool can help you optimize your strategy and can help you figure out what's working and what isn't.

7 | Upwork

We often use freelancers whenever there is an increased workload. Upwork has been quite handy for this. It is widely used by many freelancers, which gives you a lot of options to choose from. The interface is simple and is very easy to navigate. Tip: Do not publish open jobs if you don't want to get flooded with spam mails from job recruiters.

8 | SurveyMonkey

Here's an easy-to-use tool to conduct surveys and get feedback. There are quite a number of survey templates to choose from and you can add as many questions as you like to  the template. The whole survey building process is broken down to a  simple workflow. All you have to do is come up with the questions for the survey, everything else is set in place. Although the premium version comes with complex features such as the skip page logic, the basic version is quite useful too.

9 | WordPress

This reliable, user-friendly, and simple-to-use tool has become an integral part of Hiver and millions of small businesses. No wonder–it is one of the most commonly used content management system (CMS) on the web. The array of  customization options for setting up and designing your website (or blog) makes it unique. But even for those who don't want to customize, there are hundreds of themes and designs already available to choose from. I feel that it makes the whole content management process much easier and you can quickly figure out its many features and put them to use.

10 | Clear

Another important aspect of being a productive organization is encouraging your employees to work towards boosting their own product. I suggest apps like Clear for employees to manage their day better. I like this app because it is fairly straightforward and extremely user-friendly. It allows you to easily drag and re-order your to-do list and add a new task with just a click and all you have to do is swipe the task right once you are done with it. Your to-do lists syncs over iCloud and making it easily accessible for you.

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There are a gazillion tools out there to choose from. Choosing the apps which perfectly fit with your company and business goals is certainly the key here and no one can make that choice for you. However, most of these tools have had good success and excellent reviews and so probably, this is a great place to start.

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Would you like the chance to share your favorite online apps, obscure but helpful calculators or tools, or fascinating resources for those who own or manage a small business, email us at Tips@SmallBusiness.com

 

Machine Learning Projects Point to a Future of Data-Driven Small Business Strategy

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Steve King, a partner in Emergent Research and a regular contributor to SmallBusiness.com rounds up, and breaks down, some recent news about machine learning and extreme data crunching designed to find hidden patterns that may provide business insight and advice. 

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Intuit's expands use of machine learning into smart machines, business advice

ZDNet's recent article, “Intuit Plans Big Digital Expansion Into Small Business Markets With Apps and Big Data,” covers the use of machine learning and big data to develop algorithms and “smart machines” that provide business advice.

Key quote:

“Intuit is planning a major expansion of its online Quickbooks business group into a machine learning advice and services platform for creating, managing, and operating all types of small businesses. Intuit has extensive data from millions of small businesses due to their enormous base of cloud customers.”

This provides Intuit a treasure trove of data to develop machine learning based advisory services.

Machine learning to help business managers make faster, more efficient decisions

Intuit's not the only company working on these types of services. The Big 3 strategy consulting firm McKinsey has an entire division–McKinsey Solutions–devoted to using big data and machine learning to help their clients make faster and more effective business decisions. And, of course, IBM is betting a big part of their future on Watson, a generalized machine learning system that they are using to provide advice in a wide variety of business and scientific fields.

In the long run machines may even take on high level activities like corporate strategy. The Harvard Business Review's Designing the Machines That Will Design Strategy suggests one day there may even be a chief strategy robot, which they call the integrated strategy machine.

Key quote:

An integrated strategy machine is the collection of resources, both technological and human, that act in concert to develop and execute business strategies.

The good news is they continue to see a role for humans–at least for awhile. Human beings are still unique in our capacity to think outside the immediate scope of a task or a problem and to deal with ambiguity.

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Machines are good at executing a well-defined task or solving a well-defined problem, but they can't think beyond the specified context. Nor can they pose new questions, invent answers beyond what's being asked, or reframe or connect the problem to a different challenge they've previously faced.

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The Rise of the Strategy Machines

“The Rise of the Strategy Machines,” from the MIT Sloan Management Review, covers much of the same ground as the HBR article. They too see a continuing role for humans.

Key quote:

Big-picture thinking is one capability at which humans are still–and will continue to be for some time–better than computers…There is a level of sense-making that only a human strategist is capable of (at least for now).

It seems pretty clear that there are tasks where machines are better than humans. There are also tasks where humans are better than machines. But in most cases humans using machines are the best solution

So I agree with Star Trek's Spock, who said:

“Computers make excellent and efficient servants,

but I have no wish to serve under them.”

Star Trek, Season 2, Episode 24

“The Ultimate Computer,” 1968

Disclosure | Intuit is an Emergent Research client.

VIA | A version of this article first appeared in Emergent Research's Small Business Labs.

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Thinkstock, Wikimedia Commons

If You've Been Holding Out For a Hero, Go See "Sully"

Movie Review - Jackie K Cooper

"Sully" (Warner Brothers)



If you've been holding out for a hero in the movies, well your wait is over. Chelsey "Sully" Sullenberger is a genuine, verified, true blue hero who saved the lives of one hundred and fifty five passengers and crew when he landed his damaged aircraft in the Hudson River. This crash is part of his story told in the new movie "Sully," but it is only part of the story.



The rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say, is the investigation into the crash where Sully's (Tom Hanks) actions, as well as those of his co-pilot Jeff Skiles (Aaron Eckhart), are questioned. It seems saving one hundred fifty five lives is not enough when weighed against the cost of an Airbus A320. There has to be an investigation to determine if Sully's account of events might not have been the most practical one.



It is amazing how director Clint Eastwood fills every possible second of screen time with drama and human emotion. He creates a collision course between Sully and the NTSB and lets Sully's career and reputation hang in the balance.. Sully states in the film that he has been flying for forty two years but his career is being determined by two hundred and eight seconds.



Tom Hanks was born to play the role of Sully. He is the one actor who can imbue this character with intelligence, humility, calmness and compassion. During the time of the crash it is these traits that embody Sullenberger. He is never thinking of himself, but always thinking of the safety of the people who are within his care. It is a magnificent role that is matched by Hanks' magnificent performance.

There are other actors who shore up Hanks' performance such as Laura Linney, Eckhart, Mike O'Malley, Jamey Sheridan, Michael Rapaport, Ann Cusack and Molly Hagan. It should also be noted Katie Couric does a good job of playing Katie Couric.



Audiences are desperate for a true hero and this movie provides one. Hanks creates a man who is not only a good person but also a great pilot. He is also the best defender for himself and his co-pilot. There is a sharp brain underneath that thatch of gray hair and it comes in handy time and time again in this film.



The film 's length is only ninety six minutes but there is not one wasted word or action. Eastwood knows exactly where this movie is going and he knows each and every specific scene he needs to tell the story. And tell it he does with just the right blend of action and emotion.



The movie is rated PG-13 for mild profanity and the crash scene.



Some good movies have been released this year but "Sully" is the first to have the total look of a winner. The film, Eastwood and Hanks should all be recognized when awards season rolls around.



There is no mention of religion in this movie but the event is said to have been miraculous. Perhaps Eastwood should have used the title from an old film of the 1940's - "God Is My Co-Pilot".



I scored "Sully" a heroic 8 out of 10.



Jackie K Cooper

www.jackiekcooper.com

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

September is National Preparedness Month: Here Are 7 Ways to Immediately Ready Your Business for a Disaster | 2016

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September is National Preparedness Month, an awareness program from the U.S. Homeland Security. As we've seen many small businesses hit by personal disasters like a fire and others by mass disasters like hurricanes, we are serious when we urge you to prepare for something you hope you'll never encounter. The resources below, many developed through information supplied by the U.S. Small Business Administration, the Red Cross, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other governmental and non-governmental organizations, can help you develop a plan to protect your employees, lessen the financial impact of disasters, and re-open your business quickly to support economic recovery in your community.

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Photo | Small businesses in Howard Beach, Queens, New York, during aftermath of Hurricane Sandy taken on 10/30/2012 by Pamela Andrade via Flickr. (CC BY 2.0)

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Also on SmallBusiness.com | Preparedness information on the SmallBusiness.com WIKI

Also on SmallBusiness.com | The SmallBusiness.com Guide to Emergency Preparedness

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7 Things to do Immediately to Prepare Your Business for a Disaster

1 Create | A preparedness program for your business (outlined in next section)

2 Identify | Critical business systems [PDF]

3 Prepare | An emergency communications plan [PDF]

4 Test | Your business systems

5 Enroll | In the Red Cross Ready Rating Program

6 Build | A disaster preparedness kit

7 Review | SmallBusiness.com's Guide to Emergency Preparedness

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Homeland Security's outline for a preparedness program for your business

Businesses can do much to prepare for the impact of the many hazards they face in today's world including natural hazards like floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and widespread serious illness. Human-caused hazards include accidents, acts of violence by people and acts of terrorism. Examples of technology-related hazards are the failure or malfunction of systems, equipment or software.

Ready.gov/Business has developed the following online tools that utilize an “all hazards approach” and follows the program elements within National Fire Protection Association 1600. (NFPA 1600 is an American National Standard and has been adopted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.)

The five steps in developing a preparedness program are Program Management, Planning, Implementation, Testing and Exercises, and Program Improvement. The links accompanying each step will take you to related information and tools at Ready.gov.

1 | Program Management

• Organize, develop and administer your preparedness program


• Identify regulations that establish minimum requirements for your program

Learn more about Program Management here.

2 | Planning

• Gather information about hazards and assess risks


• Conduct a business impact analysis (BIA)


• Examine ways to prevent hazards and reduce risks

Learn more about Planning here.

3 | Implementation

Write a preparedness plan addressing

• Resource management


• Emergency response


• Crisis communications


• Business continuity


• Information technology


• Employee assistance


• Incident management


• Training

Learn more about Implemenation here.

4 | Testing And Exercises

• Test and evaluate your plan


• Define different types of exercises


• Learn how to conduct exercises


• Use exercise results to evaluate the effectiveness of the plan

Find more information on Testing and Exercises here.

5 | Program Improvement

• Identify when the preparedness program needs to be reviewed


• Discover methods to evaluate the preparedness program


• Utilize the review to make necessary changes and plan improvements

Find more information on Program Improvement here.

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Flood damaged holiday decorations and decor in a pile waiting for disposal outside of a craft shop in Denham Springs, La.  (Photo by J.T. Blatty/FEMA)

Disaster Information in Specific Situations

Hurricanes

• Hurricane preparedness checklist 


• Hurricane safety tips

Winter Weather

• Winter weather preparedness checklist 


• Tips on how to plan and prepare your business for winter weather


• Winter safety tips

Earthquakes

• Earthquake preparedness checklist 


• Earthquake safety tips

Tornadoes

• Tornado preparedness checklist 


• Tornado safety tips

Wildfires

• Wildfire preparedness checklist 


• Wildfire safety tips

Floods

• Flood preparedness checklist


• Flood safety tips

Cyber Security

• Create a customized cyber security plan for your business


• Cyber security tips for your small business


• Take a cyber security workshop

Workplace Hazards & First Aid

• Get a free on-site safety consultation for your small business


• Get Occupational Safety and Health Act compliance assistance

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