We kick off today’s PBO link roundup with — shockingly — positive news from the mainstream media! The Wall Street Journal outlines why now is a great time to seek funding for your business due to a special tax break that closes at year’s end.
Also included in the roundup: important tips for business owners’ whose employees work outside; the inside story of Martha Stewart’s deleterious return to her company; why social media isn’t doing what we all thought it would; and, how the Chinese continue to hijack not just the products of others, but even entire stores.
Why Now Is the Time to Seek Investors — Wall Street Journal
Need funding for your business? Thanks to a special tax break, now’s the time to seek a cash infusion from a private investor. There’s a catch though: The window to use the break closes on Dec. 31, and the opportunity might never come around again.
Here are the details:
Making Sure Employees Beat the Heat — Wall Street Journal
For the many small businesses that operate outdoors, summertime poses a regular threat to their employees’ health. But there are ways owners can minimize heat-related hazards – and the potential for legal woes.
The Comeback That Wasn’t — NYMag.com
The company’s looming revenue problems—and its sinking stock price—affected Stewart’s mood, and the mood was infectious. The creative rank and file at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia were a mix of proud elitists and wild enthusiasts, prone to almost ecstatic fervor about such matters as glitter and hole punches. They lived for Martha’s approval, and at her best, she could be inspiring. But Stewart was also famous for her drive-bys. A group of stylists and art directors might spend a week away on a shoot, only to have Stewart dismiss their labor with a belittling remark. “Martha would say, ‘Ugh, why are there bananas there? I hate bananas,’ ” says someone who edited food stories. “There’s a list of things she loathes.” At times, the offices resembled a shelter for battered crafters. “That women’s bathroom,” the editor adds, “there are women in there crying literally all day long.”
A Billion Dollars Isn’t Cool. You Know What’s Cool? Basic Human Decency — TechCrunch
It’s cute to be the token Luddite at TechCrunch — but it’s also hugely disingenuous. I’m writing this stuff on Twitter, and on a hugely popular technology blog. You could cut the irony with a knife.
The truth is, I love technology. It’s rare that I dismiss or disparage a new gadget, app or company without trying it out at least once; and I certainly believe that – on balance – the more technologically advanced we become as a society, the better the world becomes.
And yet increasingly I wonder whether, for the sake of humanity, it might not be a bad thing if the earthquake comes and tips all of web 2.0 into the sea.
I should possibly explain.
Chinese retailers hijack the Ikea experience — Reuters
This knock-off Ikea store is emblematic of a new wave of piracy sweeping through China. Increasingly sophisticated counterfeiters no longer just pump out fake luxury handbags, DVDs and sports shoes but replicate the look, feel and service of successful Western retail concepts — in essence, pirating the entire brand experience.
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