Health Care and Small Business

With the new health care reform springing up on us all it is probably no surprise that most of us aren't all that up on how it will actually work for , or against our businesses. I am ashamed to say that I haven't took as much time as I should have to look deeper into the whole thing, and was probably as surprised at anyone that anything actually got done. I have a hard enough time keeping up with my best weight loss supplements.

So...I won't even try to break it down for you in how it relates to businesses because this guy has already given his interpretations of it himself. Even though most of the things won't kick in until 2014, it is probably best to get on this now and figure out if you want to start making some noise :D.

Facebook Tops Google News For Advertising?

Recent research has suggested that users are more loyal to Facebook than they are to Google News. What that means is that if you want to advertise on the internet, the Ad giant Google Adwords may not be the best place to go anymore. Advertising on Facebook has become a great place to spend your advertising dollar.

Earlier this month the social networking site topped Google to win the title of most visited site in the U.S. Yes, that was just one week in March (for the record, the second week). But now the social networking site has added another medal to its haul: Facebook's news readers are more loyal than those of Google News, says research firm Hitwise.

This just shows that people want to do more than just read the news when they go online. Facebook offers a lot more of a one stop shop than Google news does for easy communication with other people, news, and probably even stuff like jenny craig reviews. Shocking that Google doesn't have their own launch of the next Facebook yet now that I think of it.

How Are the Online Television Sites Doing?

All of us spend a good amount of time on the internet. We can get virtually all forms of entertainment we desire simply by going to a website, downloading a torrent file, or buying music from a place like iTunes. More and more of us are actually watching all of our television online as it is just easier to do. We can watch it whenever we want. We don't have to remember to DVR it, and the commercials are less than watching live.

Instead of waking up everyday with dark circle under our eyes because we wanted to watch the Daily Show at 11 PM, we can watch it at lunch. There are 4 major TV sites right now that get all the traffic. I'm sure you have heard of Hulu.com, but what others are there, and how do they stack up? Take a look at 4 Hulu alternatives.

The Green Bubble?

Remember the Tech Boom, and the following Tech Bubble Burst in early 2000? While the economy is nowhere near where it was then, in fact it hasn't even moved back to the heights of that level since, many wonder if the lack of results in "Green" are headed for the same fate. Sweating the debts, and lack of results for all the clamoring of green technologies, I'm sure many are plowing through their acne medicine.

At a time when most startups can't get funding and even government-backed small-business loans are scarce, there is seemingly endless enthusiasm for cleantech--that is, young companies that create energy out of renewable sources such as wind or sunlight, or make vehicles powered by something other than fossil fuel.

Cleantech is "the greatest economic opportunity of the 21st century, says Ira Ehrenpreis, board member of the National Venture Capital Association and general partner with Technology Partners, in Palo Alto, Calif. It is the only sector, he points out, that combines bipartisan political agreement, corporate and Wall Street support and a transformational issue--saving the earth's energy and water resources. "The green of the environment and the green of economic and financial returns go hand in hand, he says.

Unpaid Interns? Should You Use Them?

Hey...if people are willing to work for free, how can you turn it down? The old addage "You get what you pay for" obviously comes to mind, but what do you think about unpaid interns?

Sometimes the unpaid intern can be a nightmare, but many times t may become your greatest employee. Interns are typically young, and hungry to succeed. They obviously wouldn't work for free if they weren't now would they? Being an intern is better experience many times if they are willing to take the risk, than to maybe be a busboy and waste their time getting no experience. Take a look at a start up that has hired 6 of their interns already. A style site that posts articles and information on fashion, beauty trends, and anything else like best acne treatment.

The article also goes into being an intern, as well as how, and why you would want one for your business. Mainly because you can't afford to pay someone for the same work. While it may not be easy to do in many businesses, there are plenty of people out there that want good experience for the future and are willing to do the work.

A Year After The Stimulus Plan: What About Small Businesses?

You would have to live under a rock to not have heard about the stimulus plan from last year, and the Billions of Dollars that was given to huge corporations. $787 Billion to be precise.

So...what of the little guy? What kind of help did the small business sectors end up with in this whole thing? The simple answer is: Little to nothing.

Entrepreneur.com interviewed a small businesses that has done a lot of government contracts over the years and asked how much of that money they ahve seen.

Veronica Rose, founder and CEO of Aurora Electric, a Jamaica, N.Y., electrical contracting company, has spent nearly 20 years successfully bidding on government contracts. She says about the stimulus money:

"We haven't seen any of it," Rose says. "The stimulus money went to the big infrastructure companies that build highways and bridges--the bigger, deeper, heavier part of our industry where you have to be a big company in order to compete."

Apparently, she is not alone in being held out of the prize pool. A year after the government rolled out the biggest economic stimulus plan in history, small businesses like Rose's are wondering where the money went and why so little of it came their way. While VC-backed startups like Tesla Motors, the Palo Alto, Calif., company that makes electric cars, got a $465 million taxpayer loan, most of the stimulus dollars have ended up in the pockets of big companies that employ thousands of workers, not the millions of small businesses like Rose's that each employ only a handful. In fact, much of the stimulus money has gone to government agencies, bypassing the private sector completely.

Logically, you can't really argue with money going to companies that employ thousands of people. It just has a bigger impact on more people than a small business in most cases. The government institutions raking in cash is a bit unnerving I guess. Never know where that went. Probably for a new dream gym full of high end fitness equipment, or 424234 iPhones sitting in boxes int eh basement.

According to a recent analysis by The Wall Street Journal, $112 billion of the $179 billion in stimulus funds shelled out last year went to state governments to plug the gaps in education, Medicaid and unemployment benefits budgets or to boost funding for food stamps and other social services programs. An additional $700 million was spent on administration, and about $47 billion went toward transfer payments, such as $250 checks for Social Security recipients. Some $70 billion in social spending is in the pipeline already, the Journal reported, including grants for local organizations conducting job training programs.

Working At home? Here Are a Few Rules

Working at home is brilliant. What a great way to spend the day. Wearng a comfortable beat up t-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts while you sit at the PC and type away all day :D.

Oh wait...I just got a new Bioshock 2 game...hmm...I think I will play that for a couple hours. Heh...time to eat. I guess I will watch this movie while I do that. Done eating? Gotta watch the rest of this movie I guess. Ahhh...let's take a nap :D.

So many distractions at home, but working at home is amazing. You just have to figure out how to keep the distractions to a minimum and keep the work flowing. Unless you are like me and you put it off to the last minute and then cram like you never crammed before almost every week ;). For some reason i am one of those people that needs to be up against a deadline to produce. Odd I know. Maybe I can find a weight loss product that tells me if I don't get that weight off by such and such a day that I am going to get put in jail :).

8 Work At home Rules for you to learn ;)

Regulation and You: Drowning in Red Tape

Believe me when I say I know what it feels like to spend half the day filling out ridiculous forms, and doing it in a way that is incredibly inefficient. Yes, I used to work in the finance industry and the SEC was not a friend of technology. Paper, paper, and more paper were filling hundreds of file cabinets in my office. Every client had a phonebook sized file full of documents and forms that would kill 6 trees.

Every single day my partner and I would be insanely annoyed at the arcane way all these files had to be kept. It wasn't kept this way by our choice. We certainly would have loved to store our hundreds of clients on ONE little flash drive with 50 back ups on 50 other flash drives We could literally save 1000 square feet of space alone with our 50 flash drives of info. A nice 4 GB flash drive would be enough to last us until we retired, literally. IT would save us thousands of dollars a year, and thousands of hours of meaningless paperwork. Time that could be spent doing much more important things like expanding our business, or even as silly as looking through phosphacore reviews.

Fortunately many business owners have the option to "Let Someone Else Do it!" (Homer Simpson's campaign slogan for Sanitation Commissioner is brilliant). Here are some ways to get this done.

Astrology and Your Business

Sometimes it gets a little boring reading about serious stuff all the time. As a business owner you likely don't buy into any supernatural crap, or crazy astrology ideas, but I thought it was entertaining to see what this author came up with.

This by no means is an actual astrological article with all the crazy luck and fate things you would get with a cheesy newspaper horoscope. This is just a neat little way to express some points that the author wanted to express while using a well known idea. The whole thing is written as a horoscope, but is there because it wants to talk about trying to predict the future of your business. Foreseeing the possible problems, taking advantage of insight, a better exposed acne treatment to look better, and anything else.

Finding a Mentor

You want to be Bill Gates? Well good luck. He claims his mentor is Warren Buffet. The two richest men in history together. Do you want a mentor, and how do you even go about finding one?

One thing I have always noticed is that I always have questions about something. That isn't just reserved for little kids. We always have something to learn and there is usually someone that knows a lot more about it than we do. It is only natural to seek out like minded people with more experience in the areas you are interested in for help. Of course finding someone willing to help you may be a completely different matter. It is a bit difficult to connect with someone on that level. IT takes dedication from both the mentor and you as well. Just because you both like arcona doesn't mean you are a great match. Your philosophies may not be in line. Your ethics off. Maybe you change yours because of them.

Well...I am no expert in finding a mentor, but I did read a pretty good article about such a task earlier today. Check out How to find a Business Mentor and let me know if it helps.