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Prince Charles Invests In Clean Tech Startup

2012-02-22T22:07:02Z

By Adveith Nair

LONDON (Reuters) - The Prince of Wales' private estate and financier Jacob Rothschild are among a group of investors who plan to invest more than 65 million pounds ($103 million) in a clean technology start-up focused on producing energy from organic waste matter.

The new company, Tamar Energy, will develop a network of over 40 anaerobic digestion plants to generate 100 megawatt of green electricity over the next five years, the consortium said on Wednesday.

The investor group is led by Rothschild's London-listed RIT Capital Partners and Fajr Capital, along with the Duchy of Cornwall, Lord Rothschild's Family Interests, and supermarket group J Sainsbury, among others.

Anaerobic Digestion is the conversion of organic waste material into biogas by bacteria. The methane-rich biogas can then be used either in a local generating plant to produce electricity, or cleaned and injected into the gas grid.

According to a report published last September by green energy consultancies, there are already 214 anaerobic digestion facilities in Britain, with a total installed generating capacity of 170 MW.

"This investment shows there are great business opportunities in this technology, creating heat and power to run homes and businesses and reducing the amount of organic waste that would otherwise lie rotting in landfill," Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman said.

Sainsbury, which is investing 2 million pounds in the venture, said it will work with suppliers to ensure that they have access to Tamar's new plants, which it said would reduce waste in the supply chain.

($1 = 0.6321 British pounds)

(Reporting by Adveith Nair, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)

Arizona GOP Leader: Let Kids Work For $4.65 An Hour

2012-02-22T21:31:01Z

WASHINGTON -- Republican lawmakers in Arizona are pushing legislation that would lower the legal minimum wage for younger part-time workers and tipped workers such as restaurant servers, just as Florida lawmakers are considering dropping their state's tipped rate as well.

In both cases, proponents of the measures are arguing that the wage floor for such employees is too onerous on businesses.

The Arizona proposal, HCR 2056, would amend state law so that an employer could pay a teenage worker $3 less than the current minimum wage per hour if the worker is employed either part-time or on a temporary basis. The Arizona minimum wage is currently $7.65 -- forty cents more than the federal rate -- meaning that many teenagers could end up being paid $4.65 per hour if voters approve the proposal in a ballot initiative later this year.

An amendment to the legislation would also cut the minimum wage that employers must pay tipped employees by more than $2 per hour. The minimum wage for servers and other tipped workers in Arizona is currently $4.65. If a worker's tips don't add up to the normal minimum wage of $7.65, the employer must cover the difference -- a stipulation that would not change with the legislation.

The proposal, which was sponsored by the House of Representatives' majority leader, Rep. Steve Court (R-Mesa), passed through the state commerce committee last week along party lines. Court could not be reached for comment. According to an article by Arizona's Cronkite News Service, Court said at a recent hearing that the minimum wage for teenagers is "causing employers to employ fewer people. It also makes us a lot less competitive."

The amendment to the Arizona legislation is similar to a proposal in the Florida legislature, where the tourism and commerce committee is considering giving businesses the option of dropping the state minimum wage for servers, currently $4.65, in favor of the lower federal one of $2.13. However, if the employer opts for the lower wage and the employee doesn't earn at least $9.98 per hour after tips, the employer would have to make up the difference.

Since the proposal surfaced in the GOP-controlled legislature earlier this month, some Florida lawmakers and businesses have faced a backlash, with worker advocacy groups denouncing it as an attack on low-wage workers and a boon to the restaurant industry. Members of the Florida AFL-CIO have been leaving literature behind on restaurant tables to inform servers of the potential changes, and the group also put together a protest outside an Outback Steakhouse in Miami Lakes. Organizers encouraged attendees to dress in 1980's garb to mock a minimum wage they described as being from an earlier era.

Outback Steakhouse's parent company, OSI Restaurant Partners, supports the Florida measure, according to the Orlando Sentinel. The Tampa-based company, which counts Carrabba's Italian Grill and Bonefish Grill among its holdings, gave more than $120,000 last year to 32 Republicans running for state office.

Carol Dover, president of the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association, told The Huffington Post in a statement that the proposal under consideration has been mischaracterized. "There appears to be confusion as to the legislation," said Dover, whose trade group supports the proposal. "No one is having their wages cut. Employees are being guaranteed 130% of the state minimum wage if the employer elects to offer that option."

But Rich Templin, legislative and political director of the Florida AFL-CIO, argues that the measure would simply let employers save money at workers' expense.

"We believe that many people in the legislature, from both sides of the aisle, once they understand what it's about will not be supportive of this," says Templin. "It really is a pretty despicable idea."

GOP Lawmaker Seeks To Make Birth Control 'Obsolete And Outdated'

2012-02-22T21:29:27Z

A Republican lawmaker in New Hampshire has proposed repealing the state's requirement to provide insurance coverage for birth control by attaching the measure to a bill aimed to repeal "obsolete and outdated" laws.

State Rep. Andrew Manuse (R-Derry) has proposed the amendment to end the contraception law to a piece of routine legislation clearing older laws off the books, the Concord Monitor reports. Manuse's amendment, first proposed Tuesday as the routine legislation was being heard by a legislative committee, would exclude both religious organizations, along with private companies that have religious objections, from the requirement to provide birth control.

The Monitor reports:

Current state law, passed in 1999 with bipartisan support and no objection from the Diocese of Manchester, requires insurance companies to cover contraceptive care. Employers, including churches, can bypass the requirement by self-insuring, and that is what the diocese does.
Manuse's repeal of that mandate surfaced publicly for the first time yesterday as an amendment to an unrelated bill that eliminates "obsolete or outdated" provisions from various state laws. The housekeeping bill Manuse chose -- which does not deal with insurance, contraception or religious exemptions -- was scheduled for a public hearing and a vote yesterday by the recodification committee.

Manuse's proposal, which is co-sponsored by House Speaker Bill O'Brien (R-Mont Vernon), did not surprise legislative Democrats who are planning a floor fight to stop the bill. Senate Minority Leader Sylvia Larsen (D-Concord) said that Manuse had stated his desire to repeal the provision, but they were surprised with the bill he choose. Larsen said the original law passed a Republican-controlled legislature before being signed by then Gov. Jeanne Shaheen (D).

"He's tacked it on to a deadwood bill," Larsen told HuffPost. "It was meant to be an uncontroversial housekeeping bill. Now it's a nightmare bill."

Larsen said that O'Brien has already ruled the amendment -- which will be heard by a state House committee later this week -- as germaine. The "obsolete and outdated" bill that would be amended contains repeals of a variety of laws that state officials have deemed ready to take off the books. Among the two dozen measures contained in the bill are the repeal of laws relating to the training of campus security officers, a report on school accounting standards, a certificate of need for a Strafford County nursing home and the retirement age of probate court judges. No contraception or abortion related legislation is in the bill.

Manuse and O'Brien's spokeswoman did not return calls for comment.

Kevin Donovan, a spokesman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester, told HuffPost that the diocese did not have a position on the amendment but confirmed that an attorney who worked with the diocese did provide advice to Manuse on the drafting of the amendment. He said the advice was limited to providing wording from a similar proposal in Missouri.

The amendment comes the same week that the Tea Party-controlled New Hampshire House passed a resolution calling on the Obama Administration to repeal the federal birth control requirement for religious organizations. The resolution's passage came after a committee hearing where one Republican lawmaker said that birth control causes prostate cancer and another GOP lawmaker said that married couples should practice abstinence except when they want to conceive.

Larsen said that she believes Manuse's amendment can fail in the Republican-controlled state Senate, which she said is not as conservative as the House. She noted it is likely Gov. John Lynch (D) will veto the bill if it contains the amendment. She also had an opinion on Manuse wanting to call the law "obsolete and outdated."

"If they consider that outdated," she said, "I would consider them outdated."

Marty Zwilling: Scaling a Business by Cloning Yourself Is Tough

2012-02-22T20:42:31Z

Many writers have outlined the critical success factors for product companies, like sell every unit at a profit, patent the design, and continuous product improvement. But recently I was asked about success factors for services startups, and I quickly realized that there is very little published to help the thousands of startups that fall in this category.

The distinction between product companies and services companies is easy to see. Products are tangible and can be consumed now or later, while services are intangible and have no shelf life. A product business can usually be scaled with minimal people, which can lead to enormous profits and "making money while you sleep." Scaling services means cloning yourself.

Obviously we can find many critical success factors, like finding and retaining high-value customers, which apply to companies that are product centric or services centric. Here are a few which I believe are at least most relevant and important to the services arena:

Do what you know and what you love. If your business offers a service, like marketing or management consulting, you are the product. If you or any of your partners really don't have the credentials, the commitment or the interest, you won't succeed. Customers don't like people who don't show their passion and love for the job.

Make sure your service is innovative. Being the low-cost commodity level service provider is not a recipe for success. It's hard to make up for a low margin by increasing your volume of work. You need to demonstrate innovative approaches, more knowledge, more productivity and superior results to get the references you need.

Networking and relationships. No expert or consultant can know everything they need to know. That's why it is just as important that you can fill in the gaps by having the right relationship with people to back you up. Networking is the way to stay current yourself and nurture those relationships.

Clearly communicate the vision, mission, and values. It's hard to "touch and feel" services ahead of time, to see if you are buying what you expected. Thus it's up to you to communicate effectively what you are about, to customers as well as your own team.

Attract and retain the highly skilled and motivated people. Services people need to hit the ground running. Customers don't like to see you learning on the job or outsourcing. Every partner and employee can kill your success potential in a heartbeat, so don't take shortcuts on your hiring and training practices.

Define and document the service process you sell. You can't measure, scale, or patent a service process that is not clearly documented. Even if your service is artisan based, like commercial photography or interior design, the principles, vision, and style need to be clearly communicated to your team as well as your customers.

Create and maintain the highest level of customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is very important for all companies, but it is everything for a services company. You don't have tangible product items which can be compared for quality and cost in the value proposition.

In reality, every company has a services business component, if nothing more than customer service. Thus these are the critical success factors that apply to every company, rather than the ones you typically see for product companies. In addition, the statistics show that over half of new startups, perhaps as high as 75%, provide services only (no product).

Another reality is that angel investors and venture capital groups almost never invest in a services-only company. Their perspective is that these entrepreneurs need only to sell themselves, but shouldn't need capital up front for product development or manufacturing.

That's another reason that your services business is all about you, and what you bring to the table for skills, resources, and customers. In essence, you are the ultimate critical success factor for your business. Make it happen.

Pawnshops Accepting Wine As Collateral

2012-02-22T20:00:00Z

By Leslie Gevirtz

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Some U.S. pawnbrokers are taking liquid assets - literally.

Along with family jewels and fine art they will accept wines as collateral for loans to help ease cash shortages of businesses and people on all rungs of the economic ladder.

"You'd be amazed by how many wealthy individuals have terrible credit ratings," said Jordan Tabach-Bank, head of Beverly Loan Co. in Beverly Hills, California.

"And besides, if you go to a bank, it can take weeks or months to get a loan. When we make a loan, it's usually the same day,"

The pawnshop for the prosperous lends to hedge-fund managers, bankers, lawyers, doctors and even Oscar winners.

"Most people have a vision of pawn shops as sad sites. But that's not the case here," Tabach-Bank said. "I have a lot of people who come in who have a business opportunity and they need an infusion of cash for business purposes."

USGoldBuyers.com, an online pawnbroker with an office in New York, will also accept fine wines, said spokesman Jose Caba, adding that the rich do not always have liquid assets to keep up with their expensive toys.

"That's where we come in," he said. "We don't really want to sell the wine, or any asset that we take in whether it be gold or fine art."

He estimates that about 90 percent of the loans made have been repaid.

But interest rates and length of the loans vary widely.

British-based pawnbroker, borro.com, recently lent $120,000 in exchange for 128 bottles of Chateau d'Yquem, which had an estimated worth of $250,000.

Within the last three weeks, borro.com had taken a case of 1989 Chateau Petrus, valued at about $38,000, for a loan of $24,000, said its Chief Executive Paul Aitken.

Loans were also secured on various vintages of the five First Growths Bordeaux: Chateau Haut-Brion, Chateau Lafite-Rothschild, Chateau Haut-Brion, Chateau Margaux and Chateau Mouton Rothschild -- top wines regularly sold at auctions where cases fetch tens of thousands of dollars.

Aitken's clientele, whose net worth ranges from $1 million to $10 million, are mostly small business owners with cash flow problems. Financial advisers and wealth managers recommend many of their clients to him.

Britain's Prime Asset Loans, based in Durham, has a specific list of wines it will loan against including the First Growth Bordeaux, Burgundy's Domaine de la Romanee-Conti and, depending on the vintage, Australia's renowned Penfolds Grange.

"We lend up to 70 percent of the value of the wines and the term is usually seven months," said Richard Mews, a partner at Prime Asset Loans. "Investors are using this type of loan more as it is quick, easy and there are no fees."

Credit Municipal de Paris, which has been offering loans against fine wines, champagnes and aged spirits since 2008, can keep more than 90,000 bottles in its 18th century wine cellar.

"Just deposit your bottles against a loan that is immediately awarded," said spokeswoman Florence Marambat, adding that Bordeaux were the wines most frequently offered as collateral.

(Reporting By Leslie Gevirtz; Additional reporting by Dominique Vidalon in Paris; Editing by Richard Chang and Patricia Reaney)

Robert Reich: Corporations Don't Need a Tax Cut, So Why Is Obama Proposing One?

2012-02-22T19:10:00Z

The Obama administration is proposing to lower corporate taxes from the current 35 percent to 28 percent for most companies and to 25 percent for manufacturers.

The move is supposed to be "revenue neutral" -- meaning the administration is also proposing to close assorted corporate tax loopholes to offset the lost revenues. One such loophole allows corporations to park their earnings overseas where taxes are lower.

Why isn't the White House just proposing to close the loopholes without reducing overall corporate tax rates? That would generate more tax revenue that could be used for, say, public schools.

It's not as if corporations are hurting. Quite the contrary. American companies are booking higher profits than ever. They're sitting on $2 trillion of cash they don't know what to do with.

And it's not as if corporate taxes are high. In fact, corporate tax receipts as a share of profits is now at its lowest level in at least 40 years. According to the Congressional Budget Office, corporate federal taxes paid last year dropped to 12.1 percent of profits earned from activities within the United States. That's a gigantic drop from the 25.6 percent, on average, that corporations paid from 1987 to 2008.

And it's not that corporations are paying an inordinate share of federal tax revenues. Here again, the reality is just the opposite. Corporate taxes have plummeted as a share of total federal revenues. In 1953, under President Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, corporate taxes accounted for 32 percent of total federal tax revenues. Now they're only 10 percent.

But now the federal budget deficit is ballooning, and in less than a year major cuts are scheduled to slice everything from prenatal care to Medicare. So this would seem to be the ideal time to raise corporate taxes -- or at the very least close corporate tax loopholes without lowering corporate rates.

The average American is not exactly enamored with American corporations. Polls show most of the public doesn't trust them. (A recent national poll by the University of Massachusetts at Lowell found 71 percent with an unfavorable impression of big business -- about the same as those expressing an unfavorable view of Washington.)

The administration's initiative doesn't even make sense as a bargaining maneuver.

Republicans will just accept the administration's lower corporate tax rate without closing any tax loopholes. House Republicans have already made it clear that, to them, closing a tax loophole is tantamount to raising taxes. And corporate lobbyists in Washington know better than anyone how to hold tight to loopholes they've already got.

Big business will fight to keep their foreign tax shelters. After all, it's almost impossible to distinguish between their foreign and domestic earnings, which is why the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business lobbies have spent the past three years trying to make it even easier for companies to defer U.S. taxes on income they supposedly earn outside the country.

Representative David Camp, a Michigan Republican who heads the House Ways and Means Committee, has already proposed a 25 percent corporate top rate and changes that would let companies avoid paying U.S. taxes on even more of the income they say they earn outside America.

Nothing is going to be enacted this year, anyway, so it would have made more sense for the administration to support a hike in corporate taxes -- and use it to highlight the difference between the president and his likely Republican challenger.

Mitt Romney wants to reduce the corporate tax rate to 25 percent before eliminating any tax loopholes. Rick Santorum wants to cut the rate to 17.5 percent and eliminate corporate taxes for manufacturers. Newt Gingrich wants to cut the rate to 12.5 percent and let companies write off all capital investments immediately.

It's discouraging. The President gives a rousing speech, as he did on December 6 in Kansas. Then he misses an opportunity to put his campaign where his mouth is.

Robert Reich is the author of Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future, now in bookstores. This post originally appeared at RobertReich.org.

Amy Schrier: Has a Woman Ever Created a Billion-Dollar Company?

2012-02-22T18:50:14Z

As any entrepreneur knows all too well, nothing can begin until the money is raised. Who to look to? Well, first I start with those that inspire me. Part of the process, the fun part, is thinking about who are the people who have done what I would like to do? So, lately I have been putting together that list. Those are the people I generally want to ask first for money.

The company I am launching, MISSION.tv, is a digital platform about making a difference in the world. We will produce and curate premium content -- video, articles, photos -- and create a social community. We will offer the most comprehensive, independent database of volunteer travel opportunities on the Internet, and perhaps of widest interest, we will connect visitors with nonprofit causes so they can, through activism and philanthropy, literally help change the world.

I have worked on the numbers diligently, carefully, thoroughly. I know them like the back of my hand. We have an ambitious but realistic model. We are seeking to raise an angel round now, and plan to generate many millions by the fifth year. This is what we wrote and plan to execute, but the plan doesn't stop there. When we succeed in meeting our numbers, there will be ways we to expand upon the brand, increase the revenues, grow into the global market of the Internet. I mean... who doesn't want to make a difference in the world?

So, I put a list together of some of the greatest companies of all time and the entrepreneurs who founded them. Then I Googled them to learn their annual revenue size. The first thing I noticed on the list was there were no women. The list by the way, was Apple/Steve Jobs, $65 billion, Microsoft/Bill Gates $60 billion, Amazon/Jeff Bezos $34 billion, Google/Larry Page + Sergey Brin $29 billion, Ebay/Pierre Omidyar $9 billion, AOL/Steve Case $2 billion, Facebook/Mark Zuckerberg $2 billion.

I began to wonder, were there simply no women who had billion-dollar ideas? I went to Inc. magazine's list of top 10 women entrepreneurs. None had I ever heard of. All companies were under $100 million, and 60% were under $20 million.

Buddhism teaches you never to get angry or upset about anything, just to observe it and note the information. So, that's what I did. There must be some purpose for me noting this. I typed right into the Google search bar: Has a woman ever started a billion-dollar company? And the 2nd response on the list was: in bright fuchsia... Miss Dallas 2011 Princess... The Miss Dallas Scholarship Organization, a local division of Miss America. Can you believe that? It's true.

I emailed my MBA friends... Has woman ever started a billion-dollar company? No one seemed to know for sure. The replies were slow, awkward and uncertain.

Of course we all know women have had billion-dollar ideas. But it is challenging to go from billion-dollar idea up the long and arduous path of venture capitalist acceptance than ends in billion-dollar company. And not one woman has made it yet. It might be helpful if there was affirmative action for investments. Imagine if fifty cents out of every VC dollar went to a woman-founded company. What a different world we would live in ten years from now. I think I would like it better.

And Startup Weekend Detroit's Winner Is..

2012-02-22T18:06:00Z

DETROIT -- Nathan Cahill put together the plan for LiveSnip, a web service that aims to manage peripatetic browsing habits, in just 54 hours over Startup Weekend Detroit.

The 15 companies germinated during the business plan competition this past weekend might not all reach full size, but Cahill said he has no intention of giving up on LiveSnip now that the event is over.

He came to Detroit in a car full of techies from Kalamazoo for Detroit's fourth Startup Weekend, an event launched by a Seattle nonprofit and now replicated all over the world that brings together developers, designers and thinkers to come up with business ideas, collaborate and compete against each other.

More than 100 participants gathered at the Madison Building Friday evening to pitch their ideas. Teams assembled around the approved ideas and raced against other groups to make the most progress from Friday night to Sunday midday.

Cahill arrived without a specific idea. Instead, he had a few problems that had been bothering him and that he wanted to solve. His last-minute pitch was one of 15 chosen from a field of 35, and he pulled together a team to work on it.

"It's a hustle," Cahill said. "You have to get people convinced that your idea is something they want to invest 54 hours in."

Cahill worked on the program with his newfound colleagues -- Carl Winans, Christina El-Haddad and Delane Parnell -- until 11 p.m. Friday at the Madison Building and then moved to the Detroit Beer Co. until closing. The next morning the team gathered again at the Madison.

The result was LiveSnip, a web service that solves a problem most readers will recognize: the inefficiency of having too many open tabs in an Internet browser and too many websites to repeatedly check. It's a dashboard that lets users pin snippets of information from other sites, like traffic stats or a Twitter feed, to one page, where the info then updates in real time. Under Cahill's plan, the program would offer free and premium subscriptions, the premium version costing $9 a month and geared to businesses that want to share information.

On Sunday, LiveSnip was chosen as the winner of Startup Weekend by five judges from Michigan's business community -- Maria LaLonde from Bizdom U, Jim Xiao from Detroit Venture Partners, Dan Izzo from Fathead, Jonathon Triest from Ludlow Ventures and Steven Robert from Billhighway. The judges listened to the contestants' short presentations and asked probing questions, making their final decision based on project execution, research into and feedback from potential customers, and overall business model.

In addition to a tour of the Madison Building, Cahill's team won a one-hour business model consulting session with business incubator Bizdom U, a one-hour meeting with venture capitalists Ludlow Ventures and tickets to the Michigan Lean Startup Conference in May.

"There's an amazing feeling that comes from finishing a little bit of code or solving a problem that's never been solved before," Cahill said. "When something works and ... you throw it out to the world and people use it -- it's what I live for when I'm writing code."

LiveSnip isn't Cahill's first business idea; he's been writing code since he was 13 years old. One of the first programs he ever wrote, sometime around 2002, translated the Mayan calendar into the Gregorian system.

Born in California, Cahill grew up in Guatemala and speaks English, Spanish and the Mayan language Q'eqchi' as well as computer programming languages. With no Internet access in his childhood home, he would write code until he encountered a problem and then walk a half-mile to an Internet cafe to search Google for solutions.

Cahill ended up in Michigan with a scholarship to attend Calvin College in Grand Rapids, but the self-taught developer realized in his first year that he wasn't learning enough. Now he goes to Startup Weekends -- he will attend Lansing's event next weekend -- and works on his problem-solving projects, from a simple event-planning calendar app to a crowd-funded college scholarship site.

Many of the other Startup Weekend Detroit contestants seemed to work on problems with personal significance. One created Calls On Fire, a tracking and motivational mobile app for direct sales professionals who make calls all day long. Another proposal, turnDetroit, tackles land development and community building with crowd-sourced funding.

Then there were the whimsical, sometimes zany ideas, two of which took second and third place. Ghost in a Box is a sort of newfangled Pet Rock, and CaptionSIX turns photo caption contests into a social network.

Charlie Wollborg, a previous winner of Startup Weekend Detroit, split his time this weekend between Calls on Fire and CaptionSIX.

"This is a tailgate party for entrepreneurs," said Wollborg, founding partner at Curve Detroit, an advertising and design firm in Pontiac. "We open Red Bull, and we code."

He pointed to one hiccup in the Startup Weekend concept, illustrated by his own experience. Wollborg's idea, Detroit App Factory, won the last competition in 2010, but it hasn't gone anywhere since. Wollborg said time and money have been the restraining factors.

"What we had was a really nice PowerPoint [presentation], and some cool [game] characters, but we didn't have a business," he said. "A lot of people hit Sunday night and they go back to their lives, their families, their jobs ... a lot of things never go beyond Startup Weekend."

Wollborg suggested the events could be more effective if some kind ofÂ check-ins with and support for the winners continued after the first 54 hours.

Startup Weekend Detroit organizer Brandon Chesnutt agreed with Wollborg's critique and said the nonprofit is considering ways to push the developers' ideas beyond the weekend competition. A fifth Startup Weekend Detroit isn't scheduled yet, although Chesnutt said it could come as early as June.

Cahill, Chesnutt and Wollborg all said the event is as much about meeting people and making connections as advancing the business ideas themselves.

Wollborg described "a certain type of person" who comes to Startup Weekends. "Everyone in that room is so screwed up they gave up a whole weekend to keep working," he said. "When you put thinkers and doers together in a room, great things happen ... that's really energizing to be around."

Marian Gibbon: Five Books Every CEO Should Read

2012-02-22T17:42:22Z

This is a list to embolden. For a number of years I've been following the evolution of the conversation about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Over time I have concluded that the CEOs who take a truly responsible approach to their work simply get down to business, doing the right thing because it's what they believe in, commit to. In their companies goodness is not a department, it is naturally embedded into every fiber of the organization.

These five books have influenced and bolstered my views. All are firmly rooted within the framework of capitalism and profit-making, girded by a passionate belief that companies run well are powerful forces for good in society. Three are written by CEO-founders of large, global enterprises, two by investors (there's overlap-Vanguard Group founder John Bogle is both).

Each addresses the qualitative side of doing the right thing --the words stewardship, caring and long-term come up repeatedly -- and they also underscore the bottom-line benefits of a values-driven approach to business. Importantly, they don't sugar-coat the very real challenges associated with staying true to a higher set of principles, adhering to a moral imperative.

For every CEO -- especially those who are struggling with the perceived burdensome elements of CSR -- taken together these five books bring it back to basics, simplifying and enlivening consideration of why-and how-to do the right thing.

1. Profit With Honor -- Daniel Yankelovich

A 1946 graduate of Harvard, Daniel Yankelovich has tracked public opinion and social trends in the United States for the better part of five decades. Profit With Honor was published in 2006, in the wake of the Enron, WorldCom and other financial scandals of the early 2000s.

Yankelovich opens with a quote from philosopher Alfred North Whitehead:

A great society is a society in which its men of business think greatly of their functions. Low thoughts mean low behavior, and after a brief orgy of exploitation, low behavior means a descending standard of life.

From there, he builds a strong case that business is at heart the keeper of social norms. When business abandons this role, society falters. Neither a fan of regulatory-driven rehab nor of CSR, Yankelovich goes on to lay out a framework that he calls stewardship ethics as a post-crisis alternative to the concept of shareholder value. It is grounded in caring, community and higher expectations of business. This is where the book is at its squishiest -- the others on the list pick up its slack.

2. Enough -- John C. Bogle

From the same generation as Yankelovich, John Bogle is much-admired as a pillar of impeccable integrity in the investment community. Enough is his plea-and well made case-for a return to core human values in the wake of the second round of scandals and crises in the early 2000s. His thesis: Good ethics is good business.

As both founder and investor he brings a unique perspective and credibility to his writing, in which he invokes Socrates, the founding fathers, Homer, Goethe -- and Daniel Yankelovich. His number one rule for building great organizations: make caring the soul of the company. This, at its heart, is true CSR.

3. Profit for Life -- Joseph H. Bragdon

Joseph Bragdon is a money manager for high net worth individuals. Published in 2006, Profit for Life is his very meaty consideration of both the management practices and the outstanding investment performance of 60 global companies he has identified as Living Asset Stewards, companies whose cultures are driven by caring for living assets-people and nature-versus non-living-capital.

Inspired by systems thinkers Peter Senge, Arie de Geus and Fritjof Capra, it's hard to overstate the value of this book: It is both unarguably hard-nosed and deeply heartfelt -- polished and thorough -- and it completely reframes consideration of the pursuit of profitability -- from that of a necessary evil to a resource to be leveraged for the greater good. The book's subtitle: How Capitalism Excels. (Market performance of Bragdon's Global LAMP Index through 2011 can be found here.)

4. Business Lessons from a Radical Industrialist -- Ray C. Anderson

Picking up where Bragdon leaves off, Business Lessons from a Radical Industrialist is CEO Ray Anderson's first person account of leading Interface, the Georgia-based carpet manufacturing company he founded in 1974, on the pursuit of zero impact operations by 2020.

This is an engaging roll-up-your-sleeves, nuts-and-bolts guide to sweeping operational change. If you think it can't be done, Anderson will convince you that it can -- and should -- and that, in fact, you'll make money in the process. (Very sadly, Ray Anderson passed away from cancer last year, a deeply felt loss.)

5. The Key Speech -- Sir Ove Arup

Rounding out the list is the text of a brief speech, rather than a book. The employee-owned, UK-based company Arup was founded in 1946 by Anglo-Danish engineer Ove Arup. In 1970, Arup made a speech to his partners that remains a cornerstone of the group's operating philosophy today.

It's a quick read. Arup is down to earth, funny, pragmatic, and he nimbly addresses the challenge of navigating the tensions between conflicting operating ideals. He is also firmly committed to the idea that having a vision that encompasses moral principles binds a community-and a company-together. Arup was ahead of his time -- or, perhaps, we're seeing the value of circling back from where we came.

Today it's harder and harder to separate consideration of doing the right thing from issues of environmental sustainability. Bragdon and Arup touch on it, Anderson's tale is all about it. For further reading specifically on sustainability, the book that inspired Anderson's quest is Paul Hawken's The Ecology of Commerce.

Similarly, more and more leaders are looking to nature as a source of inspiration for innovation and organizational design. Again, Bragdon and Anderson both reference this thinking. Janine Benyus' book Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature is a much-cited resource on the subject and on my To Read list.

Small Businesses On Spending High

2012-02-22T17:36:45Z

The proportion of small businesses planning to increase their capital spending in the next 12 months is at its highest rate in four years, according to a new Gallup poll.

Twenty-eight percent of small businesses plan to increase spending, while 23 percent plan to cut back, the biggest gap in positive percentage points since 2008. While many have plans to spend in the future, 24 percent of owners said they have already increased their spending in the last 12 months, up from 19 percent in October 2011. The number of owners who said they decreased capital spending has dropped eight percentage points from 43 percent in October.

The positive outlook on capital stretches to lending, as 27 percent of small-business owners felt it would be somewhat or very easy to obtain credit in the next 12 months. While 38 percent of owners still feel it may be difficult to obtain credit, the number has dropped from 43 percent since last year.

"The increase in U.S. small-business owners' capital spending expectations is consistent with their optimistic hiring intentions and with the high level of overall economic confidence," Dennis Jacobe, Gallup's chief economist and poll author, wrote of the findings. "It is also good news for the U.S. economy when small-business owners spend and invest more in their physical and human capital."

Post-Grateful Dead Player Scores Medical Hit

2012-02-22T17:30:58Z

(By Deborah L. Cohen - Reuters) - For Jeff Chimenti, a rock keyboardist who plays with offshoots of the Grateful Dead, it has been anything but a "long strange trip" getting his medical product to market.

Chimenti's resume includes stints with Furthur - the band founded by former Grateful Dead members Bob Weir and Phil Lesh - as well as Weir's band, RatDog, and the Dead - the band that evolved from the surviving members of the Grateful Dead after Jerry Garcia's death in 1995.

The musician never planned to invent a device to help people suffering from sleep apnea, but stranger things have happened in the world of rock 'n roll.

When Chimenti's mother faced a medical setback a few years ago, he did not stand by idly like a blissed-out Deadhead in the front row of a concert.

Instead, he plunged in with bare-bones ingenuity and relentless drive to tackle the problem. It paid off.

Less than two years later, the solution he and two friends developed to prevent abrasions from a breathing mask used to treat his mother's sleep apnea morphed into a full-scale commercial venture. Their product, originally dubbed the Sleep Comfort Care Pad, has helped thousands treated for the condition, which is characterized by abnormal pauses in breathing.

It was 2007, and Chimenti's mother, who had been hospitalized, was suffering from severe facial cuts and bruises caused by the mask attached to the ventilation machine used to pump air into her breathing passages. Her doctors tried every available solution but nothing seemed to work, so Chimenti set out to create a fix.

"I just took it upon myself to say, 'Let me see what I can help out with,'" he said. "Basically I just started trying anything over the counter, Band-Aids to whatever different kinds of padding."

He then turned to a proven go-to guy, A.J. Santella, the band's high-tech roadie and his close personal friend. Within hours, Santella had fashioned a makeshift solution from an unlikely source in the studio: a tacky gel used to dampen the vibration on drumheads. The nonabrasive goo was placed between Chimenti's mother's mask and her skin. The quick fix wowed the medical staff at the hospital, who encouraged Chimenti to market the product.

DOCTOR DEADHEADS

He agreed. According to the National Institutes of Health, millions of American adults have obstructive sleep apnea, with one in 10 people over the age of 65 affected by the condition.

Knowing little about entrepreneurship and even less about how to bring a grassroots invention to the commercial market, Chimenti relied on another friend, New Jersey real estate developer and lifelong Deadhead Billy Procida. Procida had a seemingly endless Rolodex.

"One phone call," said Procida, recalling his connection to a former high school buddy in the medical products business, who helped put the team in touch with a manufacturer of medical grade, FDA-approved gel.

Once the wheels were spinning, there was no turning back. Procida worked his network, creating opportunities when necessary. At the first trade show he attended, he crashed someone's unattended booth to promote the new product. He did whatever it took, even volunteering the musicians to provide entertainment.

"The number of doctor Deadheads we encountered and the number of people who helped us is extraordinary," said Procida, who takes pride in his own moxie.

Chimenti and Santella, whose venture was originally dubbed Chi-San - a combination of their names - even created a low-budget video to promote the pads, with Chimenti acting as patient and Santella wearing a borrowed lab coat to play the role of physician.

All the while, RatDog continued touring with a full concert schedule. Chimenti and Santella managed to keep momentum for the medical business going, hosting regular conference calls on the road and using their downtime wisely.

"I think our naivete helped," said Santella, who sometimes fashioned retooled versions of the pads in the van between sets. "We didn't try to go down regular avenues. We asked questions of people that maybe we shouldn't have approached. There were no fences, no walls."

FAST TRACK

The team - whose project was fueled by more than $100,000 of Chimenti's own money - also brought on a fourth player, Ron Richard, a medical products executive whose company, SeQual Technologies, took the pads into distribution.

Richard, whose firm specializes in breathing equipment, knew the ins and outs of the sleep products industry, and he helped with everything from packaging to advertising.

"When I first looked at it, I thought, 'This is so simple, why didn't I come up with it?'" said Richard, who became an owner in the company. "There are products that are as competitive ... but not as simple or as good."

Realizing they needed a bigger fish to manage the product's continued growth, the founders began courting would-be partners, eventually finding a suitable exit with ResMed, a developer of sleep disorder breathing equipment. They are reluctant to provide a dollar amount, but Procida concedes San Diego-based ResMed purchased the technology in December 2010 for an amount pegged "in the seven figures."

The product, known today as the Gecko nasal pad, is now sold globally for about $25.

Chimenti invested his proceeds with Procida's private equity fund, a venture focused on turning around distressed real estate assets.

"His stuff has done quite well in the tough economy," Chimenti said.

Money aside, he said the best part was creating a legacy to honor the memory of his mother, who died from a long illness.

"Throughout it just seemed like the stars were lining up," he said, adding: "It was a homespun thing that fit a need and we were really proud of it. It was really in tribute to my mom."

(Editing By Lauren Young and Matthew Lewis)

Cindy Auten: "Car-cation": Take a Vacation From Your Car

2012-02-22T17:19:56Z

For those who had off on Monday, I hope you enjoyed your three day weekend and sorry about all of the emails in your inbox. I was working away and actually had to take one of those infrequent trips into the office for some in-person meetings.

Here's the highlight of my Monday. Traffic, or I should I say, lack of traffic. I couldn't believe how fast I got to the office. A regular day would take me more than two hours. Rain? Three hours. Snow? Fuhgeddaboudit. If you were one of the few that traveled to work on Monday, then you understand my delight. It was a commuter's dream. Foot on the gas and a vacation for my brake pedal -- I may have even skirted over the speed limit a time or two, unintentionally, of course. Let's face it, how often do you actually get to even go the speed limit during rush hour?

So, what's even better than a clear road? Not being on the roads at all. Today, I had my 30-second commute. Telework. This time of year, I get really excited about Telework Week -- March 5-9. It's our chance to not test the roads and take that 30-second commute. Last year, close to 40,000 employees across the globe teleworked. This year, we expect to exceed these limits, with more than 22,000 pledges already made. Join us and pledge at www.teleworkexchange.com/teleworkweek. There's a handy calculator on the site that counts pledges, total commuting costs saved, and emissions reduced.

So, if you are new on the telework block, here's what you can expect during Telework Week:

More Smiles: Eliminating those stressful commutes will make employees (and you) happier. Teleworkers don't sit in traffic, are known to be as, if not, more productive, and happier with the hours they've regained. A happy employee is a productive employee.

More Money: The average Telework Week pledge will save some $60 by not commuting for one week. Translating for a year, that's $3,000 back in your wallet. Have you noticed the price of gas recently? I thought so. Many are seeing $4/gallon, with fears of paying $5/gallon in the near future.

More Balance: Take your commute out of the mix and you have more time to balance your work and family. It's time to focus on what matters, and eliminate what really doesn't. According to the University of Southern California, drivers traveling the 10 worst U.S. traffic areas spend on average 140 hours annually sitting in traffic. That's almost a full month of work, and more time spent in traffic than on vacation.

So why telework now? It's the telework perfect storm -- there has never been such a need for this work practice before -- the need to be flexible yet efficient, save time as well as money, and keep that workforce happy. And for those cannot possibly telework, think about telework a different way. Teleworkers will certainly contribute to your commute being that much smoother.

Still sitting on cloud nine from this morning's non-commute, I'll definitely be off the roadways for Telework Week. Will you?

Cindy Auten is general manager for Telework Exchange and clearly has issues with commuting. She can be reached at cauten@teleworkexchange.com.

Marty Zwilling: 10 Hiring Shortcuts No Young Company Can Afford

2012-02-22T17:12:25Z

Every startup with any traction quickly reaches a point where they need to hire employees to grow the business. Unfortunately, this always happens when pressures are the highest, and business processes are ill-defined. At this point you need superstars and versatile future executives, yet your in-house hiring processes and focus are at their weakest.

The result is a host of hiring mistakes that sink many young companies, or take years to fix. The solution is to never forget that hiring is a top priority task for the CEO, which should never be delegated, and which often has to supersede the urgent crises of the day.

A key success element is to start by avoiding the known list of interviewing and hiring mistakes that have been documented many times over by human resources professionals. Here's a tongue-in-cheek summary of ten big ones to jog your recollection:

"I'm not quite sure what we need, but this guy sounds like a miracle worker." The message here is that if you don't know exactly what help you need, you probably won't get it. Do your homework on a proper job description, and make sure the applicant credentials on the resume are a fit before you proceed to interview.

"He's not quite what I'm looking for, but I think he is trainable." This is the inverse of the first problem - you know what you want, but you are trying to force fit the candidate into the position. Maybe you are desperate to fill the position, or he's related to the boss.

"I'm confident this candidate can learn a lot from me." This is the arrogant position that you know more than anyone you could hire, so all you need is a helper, not help. Helpers are expensive, since it often takes longer to jointly do a job than it would take one qualified person to do it alone.

"I didn't have time to read the resume, but he has great answers." Some people talk a good story, but can't produce results. Resumes won't give you the positive conclusion, but they can highlight negatives, like job gaps, bad writing, and minimal experience.

"He couldn't keep up with me on results, but we have to start somewhere." It's always a mistake to judge a candidate by using yourself as the bar. You should assume that you are looking for someone who has skills you don't have.

"This one is such a good fit that I don't need to waste time on a second interview." No matter how good you are, we can all miss things the first time around. Never hire someone without a second interview, and without having a second interviewer verify your assessment. Everyone you hire has to fit effectively with many others on the team.

"After my sales pitch, he was so excited I knew he could do the job." Some hiring managers spend the interview selling the company under some mistaken impression that the level of candidate excitement they can generate is indicative of future performance.

"He's not perfect, but our only alternative is to let the work stack up even more." This is pure desperation, guaranteed to have bad results. If you hire someone who can't do the job, the work backs up more, and your work doubles to get them replaced.

"His experience is light, but he seems like a good guy." Avoid evaluating just personality in lieu of job skills. All the statistical research shows that there is very little correlation between a good personality and any specific job. Look for job knowledge first.

"Based on the glowing terms I heard from my friend, I'll just skip the reference check." There are lots of factors that can't be assessed in an interview, or by listening only to an advocate. In this litigious society, reference checks are more productive if you also listen to what is not said.

Another element is admitting that there are things you don't know, and identifying what they are. Too many executives let their ego stand in the way, either in admitting that there might be things they don't do well, or in identifying and communicating specific job requirements.

Take a lesson from an old Business Week article by entrepreneur Andy Dunn, aptly named "To Recruit the Best, Admit Weaknesses" where he admitted to the best applicants "I am not good at what you do, I need your help." In my view, if every CEO and hiring manager followed this advice, as well as good hiring practices, their business would scale a lot faster with a lot less headaches.

Catholic Universities Sue Feds

2012-02-22T16:09:07Z

Four colleges have filed lawsuits against the federal government over the new policy by the Obama administration mandating that employees of religious institutions have access to contraception free of charge.

Ave Maria University in Florida, Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina and Colorado Christian University have each filed lawsuits, represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. A fourth school, Geneva College, filed a lawsuit with the aid of the Alliance Defense Fund.

A controversy erupted after the announcement by the Obama administration that employers would be required to provide birth control without co-pays. There were 18 Catholic colleges and groups that petitioned the administration to repeal its decision.

To accommodate religious institutions, President Obama announced a compromise on Feb. 10 that requires the insurer -- rather than the employer -- to provide contraceptive coverage free of charge for women employed by the entities in question.

The compromise is tailored toward religious institutions such as Catholic hospitals who have to cover their employees' health care coverage, and colleges that offer health care coverage for students. The policy already exempted churches.

But the lawsuits contend that's not good enough for them, as the universities claim having to cover their employees -- who may or may not be religious -- violates their teaching that birth control is immoral.

"Allowing a U.S. president of any political party or religious affiliation to force conformance to his or her religious or secular orthodoxy through executive action, is a perilous precedent," Ave Maria president Jim Towey said in a statement.

"The state shouldn't punish people of faith for making decisions in accordance with their faith," ADF Senior Counsel Gregory S. Baylor said in a statement. "Every American should know that a government with the power to do this to anyone can do this -- and worse -- to everyone."

However, there are many students at Catholic universities who have been supportive of the decision to cover birth control.

"I'm paying $50,000 a year to go to college," Callie Otto, a student at Catholic University of America, told The Huffington Post recently, "I think that I should be able to get birth control with that $50,000."

The Obama administration wants coverage for contraception as preventive care. Birth control is not just used to avoid getting pregnant, it is also frequently used to protect women from developing ovarian cysts or getting cervical cancer.

Polling also shows 68 percent of sexually active Catholic women have used birth control at some point in their lifetime.

The Becket Fund is also representing the Eternal Word Television Network, in a lawsuit filed just before Obama announced the compromise.

CORRECTION:Following multiple media reports, a previous version of this article cited the statistic that 98 percent of Catholic women had used some form of artificial birth control. The researchers who produced that study have clarified their findings and this article has been revised.

Greg Voakes: The Rise of Couponing in Small Business

2012-02-22T16:08:19Z

This week, couponing and consumer savings site Coupons.org launched an infographic called "The Coupon's Comeback." The graphic argues that couponing, a phenomenon largely dormant for the last 20 years, has found a resurrection in the form of online media, social couponing sites, and more traditional dashboard sites. "The Coupon's Comeback" explores the rise in coupon offers and redemption since pre-recession times, the surprising demographics of coupon use, and the evolution of online couponing.

According to the graphic, Americans have been engaged in a "long-term affair with the coupon," which is not entirely surprising, since the coupon has been around for over 100 years. Recently however, there has been a huge surge in coupon use and as a result, spending and savings are up. More and more small businesses are offering coupons, and the number of online coupons increased 360 percent since 2009. As more retailers get online, that number will continue to multiply. By 2014, the number of mobile coupon users is projected to grow a staggering thirteen-fold.

Despite this growth in online couponing, only 1.5 percent of all redeemed coupons are accounted for by Internet coupon codes and promotional codes. Furthermore, according to the infographic, the most recent data shows that in 2010 Americans only redeemed 0.6 percent of the total possible savings offered with coupons. Seemingly, the issue is not the number of coupons offered, but how customers are accessing these deals.

With an increasing number of small businesses offering deals, it can be wearisome to actually find them. Prior to the most recent Internet coupon boom, the fastest way to shop and save was by scouring the Sunday pages for coupons prior to purchasing; a time-consuming process often not worth the amounts saved. Moreover, many of the largest companies with far-reaching marketing arms don't offer the best deals, even though they can be ubiquitous. Sites like Coupons.org function by performing these types of searches automatically, bringing together all the best deals from large and small companies, as well as both print and Internet coupon codes, in one easily navigable location.

Consumer demands are changing. Customers want more immediate access to the best relevant deals and are using the Internet as the primary way to redeem coupons. Now, one in five smartphone users use mobile coupons and the demographics of coupon users are shifting. According to "The Coupon's Comeback," households with an income of over $100,000 are twice more likely to use coupons than households earning less than $35,000. For small businesses, this is a prime market and a great opportunity to offer chances for saving within the overlooked benefits of online couponing.

In fact, according to a recent survey conducted by Forrester Research, companies that offer coupons are viewed more favorably by consumers than those that do not. The result of this is increased brand loyalty, where savings opportunities often determine the final purchase.

Consumers who save by using coupons offered by small businesses contribute in two meaningful ways. First, they save money for themselves. Second, they support a small business that otherwise may not have had the sale, improving their chances for finding a similar deal from the same place. Ultimately, this online coupon renaissance is a win-win, for consumers and small businesses alike.

With enough coupons offered in 2010 to save every single American $1,677, there has never been a better time to take advantage of these types of coupon opportunities. "The Coupon Comeback" and the booming of sites like Coupons.org highlight the increased, and now integral, role that saving money has in customers' shopping habits -- spending may be necessary, but saving is the key.