High Fashion, No Airbrushing

Posted by & filed under Part 1 Business in a Global Environment, Part 2 Starting and Growing Your Business, Part 3 Management: Empowering People to Achieve Business Objectives, Part 4: Marketing Management, Part 5 Managing Technology and Information.

Description:  Like most women, Tina Hines has her size — an 8 — and then she has her list of clothes that actually look good on her. Side pockets are out (they make her hips look too wide). Halter tops are difficult (she needs to wear a bra). Defined waists are good, and she likes… Read more »

Iowa Farms Minting Millionaires as Rich-Poor Gap Widens

Posted by & filed under Part 1 Business in a Global Environment, Part 2 Starting and Growing Your Business, Part 6 Managing Financial Resources.

Description:  Pickup trucks lined a stretch of gravel road where 150 farmers mingled between 7-foot tall cornstalks and shimmering soybeans to see which of their wealthy brethren would bid on a swath of Iowa’s richest cropland. This was a farm — table-flat and 314 acres — so coveted that it drew three times the usual… Read more »

The future of rechargeable batteries

Posted by & filed under Part 1 Business in a Global Environment, Part 2 Starting and Growing Your Business, Part 3 Management: Empowering People to Achieve Business Objectives, Part 4: Marketing Management, Part 5 Managing Technology and Information.

Description: Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory are developing car and smartphone batteries that can hold 50 percent more energy. Source: CNNMoney.com – video report Date: Oct 10, 2012 Link: http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2012/10/10/t-lithium-battery-volt.cnnmoney/ Questions for Discussions: How do you think the development of this new technology will change the transportation and communications industries? Which other industries are likely… Read more »

For Some Drivers, an Electric Motorcycle Could Be the Best of Both Worlds

Posted by & filed under Part 1 Business in a Global Environment, Part 2 Starting and Growing Your Business, Part 3 Management: Empowering People to Achieve Business Objectives, Part 4: Marketing Management, Part 5 Managing Technology and Information.

Description:  Zipping around on a motorcycle can be fun, but being in a downpour or an accident on one is not. Driving a car is safer and more comfortable, but traffic and parking can be annoying. What if you got rid of the bad parts of both? Source: NYTimes.com Date: Oct 10, 2012 Link:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/11/technology/start-ups/for-some-drivers-electric-motorcycle-could-be-the-best-of-both-worlds.html?ref=business… Read more »

A High-End Brand Tries a Different Sales Channel

Posted by & filed under Part 1 Business in a Global Environment, Part 2 Starting and Growing Your Business, Part 3 Management: Empowering People to Achieve Business Objectives, Part 4: Marketing Management, Part 5 Managing Technology and Information, Part 6 Managing Financial Resources.

Description:  Last week, we published a case study about Eve Pearl, an Emmy-winning TV makeup artist who founded a cosmetics company by the same name. In June 2011, with online sales and traffic at her three-year-old Manhattan boutique slower than desired, Ms. Pearl, 46, listened hard when ShopNBC, the nation’s third-largest 24-hour home shopping network,… Read more »

The farmers market goes digital

Posted by & filed under Part 1 Business in a Global Environment, Part 2 Starting and Growing Your Business, Part 3 Management: Empowering People to Achieve Business Objectives, Part 4: Marketing Management, Part 5 Managing Technology and Information, Part 6 Managing Financial Resources.

Description: Mobile apps can shorten the food chain, skipping grocery stores and connecting farmers directly to consumers. Source: CNNMoney.com – video report Date: Sep 27, 2012 Link: http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2012/09/27/n-farmigo-digital-farmers-market.cnnmoney/ Questions for Discussions: Which marketing functions are being provided by the Internet system that is connecting farmers directly with consumers? How is this system more socially responsible?… Read more »

How a tech co. ended up in Concord, Mass.

Posted by & filed under Part 1 Business in a Global Environment, Part 2 Starting and Growing Your Business, Part 3 Management: Empowering People to Achieve Business Objectives.

Description: Concord, Mass. wasn’t co-founder Paul English’s first choice for Kayak’s HQ, but he did it for the sake of recruiting the best talent. Source: CNNMoney.com – video report Date: Sep 27, 2012 Link: http://money.cnn.com/video/magazines/fortune/2012/09/26/ldrshp-kayak-4.fortune/ Questions for Discussions: What does this report say about the way in which businesses are formed and business people are… Read more »

The myth of the entrepreneurial personality

Posted by & filed under Part 1 Business in a Global Environment, Part 2 Starting and Growing Your Business, Part 3 Management: Empowering People to Achieve Business Objectives.

Description:  (MoneyWatch) I’m incredulous when I read or hear people talking about some kind of prototypical entrepreneurial profile. Many well-meaning experts, and even empirical research, would have you believe that most successful entrepreneurs fit an identifiable personal mold. But based on my own experience, and my associations with many entrepreneurs — both successful and not… Read more »

Goya knows what bean you like

Posted by & filed under Part 1 Business in a Global Environment, Part 2 Starting and Growing Your Business, Part 3 Management: Empowering People to Achieve Business Objectives, Part 4: Marketing Management.

Description: Goya says it became the U.S.’s biggest Hispanic-owned food company by catering to the tastes of varied Latin-American groups. Source: CNNMoney.com – video report Date: Sep 19, 2012 Link: http://money.cnn.com/video/smallbusiness/2012/09/19/sbiz-hwgs-goya.cnnmoney/ Questions for Discussions: Summarize the entrepreneurial factors that explain the success of the firm? What are the demographic and other factors that suggest the… Read more »

Ancestry.com’s Genealogical Juggernaut

Posted by & filed under Part 1 Business in a Global Environment, Part 2 Starting and Growing Your Business, Part 4: Marketing Management, Part 5 Managing Technology and Information.

Description:  In July, Ancestry.com (ACOM) announced that it had uncovered evidence that links President Barack Obama, through his white Kansan mother, to one of the earliest known slaves in North America. Obama’s also related to Brad Pitt. The genealogical website says they’re ninth cousins. Warren Buffett is family, too. He’s Obama’s seventh cousin, three times… Read more »