Ending a marriage is never an easy decision to make. The mental, emotional, and financial damage that it leaves spouses and their children can take many years to heal. One of the messier aspects of separation involves dividing the family assets between separating spouses. Regardless of whether exes end a marriage amicably or not, getting the help of a family attorney is strongly recommended especially if they share a business together. [Read more…] about The Impacts of Divorce on a Family Business
Law and ethics
When an Employee’s Personal Problems Affect the Job
When things aren’t right at your employee’s home, it can spill over into work and affect performance and your bottom line. Helping your employee sort out some of the issues can help improve things for your company, but there’s a line you shouldn’t cross when it comes to dealing with an employee’s problems outside of work. Knowing what you can do – and what you shouldn’t do – is essential when it’s time to tackle performance issues with a valued employee. [Read more…] about When an Employee’s Personal Problems Affect the Job
How Businesses Can Ensure a Safe Work Environment
Business owners must always provide a safe working environment regardless of the number of employees they have. This is an important step in retaining workers, ensuring their health and improving productivity.
Creating a safe workplace may involve some investment on safety equipment and other tools but the benefits are for the long term. Additionally, the beneficiaries go beyond your staff as they can also include your customers and the general public.
When a work environment is safe, business owners can also prevent injuries and diseases and promote the well-being of their workers. [Read more…] about How Businesses Can Ensure a Safe Work Environment
Relationship Risks Couples in Business Face
Many couples passionate about providing products and services that meet people’s needs are often successful in running their own business. Although they may assume different roles, their support for each other keeps the business in good condition. Those who work as a team are more likely to sustain their enterprise for the long term.
In the U.S., about one-third of all family businesses are managed by husband-and-wife teams, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. But analysts warned that difficulties are part of this kind of business situation notably as couples need to juggle between their work and personal life and face the trials that come with operating a business. A study done by a North Dakota State University small business specialist revealed that stress is a major problem faced by “copreneurs” and this has led to the closure of their enterprise and the end of their marriage. [Read more…] about Relationship Risks Couples in Business Face
Can’t Afford a Divorce? Get Help from Divorce Funding Companies
Divorce is a stressful process and can be hard on the pocket. Nowadays, legal experts confirm that the financial costs involved in filing a divorce have gone up the reason why couples who plan to end their marriage for good should have enough funds.
The legal aspect of the process alone can already cost you a fortune. Divorce lawyers today charge hundreds of dollars on an hourly basis and this is exclusive of the retainers fee they require up front. The other costs couples have to take into consideration are the fees they need to pay financial advisors, forensic accountants as well as vocational and valuation professionals. [Read more…] about Can’t Afford a Divorce? Get Help from Divorce Funding Companies
5 Ways to Gather Email Addresses from Your Business Blog
An important part of email marketing is getting permission to send marketing emails to someone before you hit the send key. That means, you need a way to get people to opt-in to receive your marketing emails. Whether you send a newsletter or promotional offer, you still need people to opt-in before you can send information that might be deemed solicitous via email. You also need to provide an easy way for them to opt-out of receiving emails from you later.
With that in mind, you can use your business blog as a tool to collect email addresses. But proceed with caution! You don’t want the process of obtaining opt-in email addresses to damage the user experience on your business blog. Remember, successful social media marketing stems from the removal of the gateways to content sharing and conversations. The last thing you want to do is insist that people provide their email addresses and opt into receiving email messages from you in order to view your shareworthy content. That content should be freely accessible without barriers.
Therefore, your goal in collecting opt-in email addresses through your business blog is to make the process not seem disruptive. Here are 5 easy ways to do it: [Read more…] about 5 Ways to Gather Email Addresses from Your Business Blog
Apple Pays Off Nick From ThinkSecret
After a long and tumultuous struggle between Nick from Think Secret and Apple, they’ve resolved their issues and Think Secret will be publishing no longer.
This is especially interesting to me because I’ve been a reader of Think Secret for many years, essentially since the site started, and followed the lawsuit from its genesis to now. Nick is actually a few years younger than I am, is still in college, so seeing him go up against a giant company like Apple is interesting for me since I’ve enjoyed his reporting over the years.
As part of the press release that Think Secret posted, it said that a “positive solution” had been reached for both sides. To me, that means the lawsuit has been dropped and perhaps Nick got a payoff to stop writing. I don’t know what type of payoff, perhaps Apple paid his legal fees plus some cash, but maybe it was larger than that. Maybe once the EFF got behind Nick’s case Apple realized they were going to lose, so they decided to turn the tables and stop that from happening. If Nick won then other rumor sites could safely pursue information inside of a protective Apple NDA without worrying about the legal consequences, so by Apple paying off Nick it stopped the forthcoming rumor flood.
Ars Technica mirrors my sentiments in that they also believe he got a nice payday:
“Apple was faced with losing the case and having to pay attorney’s fees,” explained Opsahl, which is likely part of the reason why it decided to settle instead of continuing to pursue it. As for Ciarelli, “We understand that Nick is very satisfied with the outcome of the case,” Opsahl said. “We hope that Apple learns a lesson over this.”
With a wad of cash in his pocket and some real journalistic work experience behind him, Nick can no move forward and has many opportunities to choose from. Of course those opportunities don’t include writing about Apple rumors, but there could be far worse outcomes to this story.
Tim O’Reilly Wants to Show You His Badge
In light of the recent and now-famous Kathy Sierra incident, respected publisher and blogger Tim O’Reilly has proposed a “Blogger’s Code of Conduct” that would be followed by individual bloggers, and promoted with a badge (actually modeled after a Wild West sheriff’s badge) on their website.
Is a Code of Conduct Needed?
So far, the primary response to the code of conduct has been (not surprisingly) controversy and skepticism.
Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine summed up the opposing viewpoint thusly:
[W]hen I moved into the place that is my town, I didn’t put up a badge on my fence saying that I’d be a good neighbor (and thus anyone without that badge is, de facto, a bad neighbor). I didn’t have to pledge to act civilized. I just do. And if I don’t, you can judge me accordingly. Are there rules and laws? Yes, the same ones that exist in worlds physical or virtual: If I libel or defame you on the streetcorner or in a paper or on a screen, the recourse is the same. But I don’t put up another badge on my fence saying I won’t libel you.
Does It Hurt More Than It Helps?
One unfortunate aspect of O’Reilly’s move is the response from the media. It’s a great publicity move for O’Reilly himself, who’s received coverage from a variety of major media outlets, but at what cost?
The news media has, predictably, jumped on this opportunity to spin the blogosphere as a sordid and lawless colony on the fringe of society—with O’Reilly cast as the upright sheriff trying to save the women and children.
The New York Times take on it? A Call for Manners in the World of Nasty Blogs. “Nasty Blogs”? This obviously hasn’t raised the level of discourse a whole lot.
That spin is great for selling newspapers, but the net result is yet another negative tourist campaign for the Web: “Blogging: Where the Bad People Are!”
What Happens Next?
Robert Scoble had this to say:
I do find disquieting the social pressure to get on board with this program. Tim O’Reilly is a guy who really can affect one’s career online (and off, too). I do have to admit that I feel some pressure just to get on board here and that makes me feel very uneasy.
Where we go from here is up to the crowd, but my guess is that this effort will follow the path of so many others—reviewed, evaluated, discussed, and ultimately found wanting.
What’s your take on it?
Paid-For Posts Emulate Real Life Media
So much has been said about PayPerPost, its copycats, and now the new ReviewMe.com service and everyone seems to be all up in arms. The horror! Someone writing about a company with less than completely altruistic intentions! Disclosure or not, the idea of influenced writing isn’t new to the blog medium even though so many act as though it is. It’s been going on in mainstream media for a very long time, but over there in Big Boy Land there are companies built around this type of influence peddling, we call them public relations firms. PR firms are paid to take your message and get the word out in whatever way possible — whether that’s cold calls, emails, press junkets, expensive dinners, or flat-out bribes, it’s what happens in the “real world” when you want X to be written about in Y and you have no connections to Y.
Anonymous Annoyers, Beware!
A new law has just been passed that makes it now illegal for anybody to “annoy” (yes, that’s the word they used) others on the internet anonymously. So, I guess, if you post an anonymous comment on a weblog that pisses somebody off, you can now be arrested and forced to endure chinese water torture and/or reruns of The Waltons.
Read all about this new law over at C|Net. I love the internets! (from Mix-Master Stowe)