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8866ec3bae16fdbc3e7352fc7f58ee75	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngiuffo/2013/07/11/a-tourists-guide-to-pennsylvanias-alcohol-laws/	A Tourist's Guide To Pennsylvania's Alcohol Laws	A Tourist's Guide To Pennsylvania's Alcohol Laws Genny Cream Ale - the undisputed king of cheap beers to the Northeastern cognoscenti - can only be... [+] purchased by the case at PA's beer distributors. Photo: John Giuffo It was a good plan: eight friends, four from New York, two from D.C., and two from Tallahassee flying in to Philadelphia, all renting a house in the Poconos over the July 4th weekend. It had been almost a decade since I'd last spent any significant amount of time in Pennsylvania, and I'd never visited the Poconos themselves. I had also never faced the task of buying alcohol in Pennsylvania for Independence Day revelry on the Fourth. This is, the uninitiated should know, a nearly impossible task. “Pennsylvania's alcohol laws are weird,” said one member of our group upon returning from the supermarket the evening before July 4th. “If you want to buy beer, you have to go to a beer store or distributor. If you want to buy spirits, you have to go to a state-run liquor store.” “Huh,” I replied. “That sounds tiresome. I'll pick some up in the morning when I make a run for fishing gear at Dick's.” There was a bit more murmur about the politics of it, a discussion of monopolies, but I tuned out. I chalked it up to the general oddness of Pennsylvania – a complicated place with its share of contradictions. “Pennsylvania is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between,” said James Carville in a famous statement based on personal work experience, and though more than 20 years have passed since, it remains largely true. “Pennsyltucky” is a nickname with similar intent, widespread enough to warrant its own Wikipedia page. But what was supposed to be my two-hour bait-and-tackle trip from our rented lake house to Wilkes-Barre and back became a five-hour odyssey of GPS psycheouts, outdated blue law frustrations, and shuttered wine and liquor shops. Was there no Kentucky bourbon to be had on Independence Day? Not a dram of Tennessee whiskey? Where was the rum, vodka, and wine the group was looking forward to? One could – entirely theoretically – purchase $120 worth of 4th of July fireworks at half price seemingly every 30 feet in the Poconos on the very same day – unless, in the most Pennsylvanian of Pennsylvania's legal twists, one is a resident of Pennsylvania, in which case you are not allowed to shop in the fireworks stores, tents, or outdoor tables. A customer from, say, New York, is entirely free to spend thousands of dollars on patriotic munitions, as long as that customer signs a form promising not to actually use the fireworks within state borders. Hey, what blows up in New York is New York's problem, right? Wink, wink. And there's Pennsylvania for you: all fireworks and no wine on the Fourth of July. Being a federal holiday, wine and liquor sales were verboten, and if you're dumb enough – or n00b enough, in our case – to put off buying your wine and spirits until a holiday, well, then capitalism is canceled for you for a day. Luckily, I did find a beer distributor, which satisfied our alkie itches, but of course, that 12-pack of pale ales I picked up couldn't be purchased by itself. I was required to buy an entire case of 24 pale ales – not a style that lends itself to large group preferences. Many of Pennsylvania's state legislators realize that the outdated laws are a problem, but efforts to change the antiquated rules have been stymied – as recently as two weeks ago, when the state senate left a four-hour closed-door meeting intended to overhaul Pennsylvania's liquor laws. The proposal, to allow beer distributors to begin selling wine and liquor, would still have left the state as an intermediary in the market. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, which published a lengthy examination of the partisan back-and-forth responsible for the paralysis on the laws, the changes were close to passage, but procedural difficulties and a related transportation bill prevented a vote, and gridlock won the day. As it stands, the message these laws have for tourists in Pennsylvania is simple: bring your own alcohol if you can, and leave that commerce in New York, New Jersey or Washington, D.C. Plan ahead, and even the most removed and pastoral of Pennsylvania getaways can remain stocked with essentials – no matter how hard Pennsylvania's laws work against you.
58954bdcc1d2796879353199e85b0d5f	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngiuffo/2013/08/16/americas-prettiest-towns-3/?sh=403e1be41c7c	America's Prettiest Towns	America's Prettiest Towns Gallery: America's Prettiest Towns 15 images View gallery There’s something restorative that draws us to small, photogenic towns like Breckenridge, Colorado. World famous for its much-beloved ski resort, Breckenridge is truly made for scenic strolling, ski season or no. During summer months, white water rafting and hot air balloon rides attract out-of-town adventurers. In winter, people lug gear and family 9,600 feet into the mountains to traverse a seemingly endless supply of ski trails. And night is when the town really shines – and twinkles, with lights strung everywhere like a perennial Christmas village. In Pictures: America's Prettiest Towns And that’s precisely what we went looking for – towns seemingly custom-designed for soaking in the sights, with charming main streets, a variety of activities and beautiful vistas. Whether it’s the fresh air, authenticity or lack of skyscrapers, these enchanting locales deserve a spot on your travel to-do list. To designate Breckenridge and the rest of America’s most picturesque towns, we called on travel experts from Frommer’s, National Geographic, Fodor’s, and Midwest Living magazine, all of whom shared with us selections of what they consider to be among America’s prettiest towns. Of course, “prettiest” is subjective, and there are many other towns around the country that would fit the bill – but we chose 15 that we think would not only stand out in a beauty pageant, but also provide great options for your next getaway. If the Colorado winter isn’t your style and heat is what you seek, then you might consider a weekend in the New Iberia, Louisiana, bayou. Here you can find a proper crawfish boil, take a fanboat and zip past gators, or take a tour of the nearby McIlhenny Tabasco factory on Avery Island and take home some of the country’s most famous hot sauces straight from the source. And don’t forget the mansions. “This is the Old South, with some great plantation homes (you can tour the exquisite Rip Van Winkle Gardens), and some lovely little diners where people still speak Cajun,” says Andrew Evans, National Geographic Traveler’s Digital Nomad. But with the summer fading quickly and many people looking for a last-chance beach getaway, there are few seaside destinations with more magnetism and charm than Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard, a gorgeous corner of the famous island playground for presidents and celebrities alike. In Pictures: America's Prettiest Towns Edgartown looks like every picture-perfect New England coastal town, but up a notch or two. Restored sea captain’s homes share sandy real estate with ultra-modern beach homes, designer boutiques line the quaint streets, and the seafood is as good as fresh Atlantic seafood gets. Small town perfection like this comes at a price though – both financially and in terms of traffic when President Obama is in town for family vacations. Yes, even presidents pine for small-town escapes.
beaabead47a2f9e33b4c6c06b6f756e8	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngiuffo/2013/12/16/brooklyns-mccarren-ice-rink-helps-fulfil-a-76-year-old-promise/	Brooklyn's McCarren Ice Rink Helps Fulfill A 76-Year-Old Promise	Brooklyn's McCarren Ice Rink Helps Fulfill A 76-Year-Old Promise McCarren Park Pool ice rink on opening day a few weeks ago. Photo: Open Space Alliance for North... [+] Brooklyn Who would have guessed that ice would be a key part of giving a dilapidated and neglected municipal pool back to a neighborhood? The new ice rink located inside Greenpoint’s McCarren Park Pool, near the northwestern corner of Williamsburg, is more than just the first outdoor ice rink in northern Brooklyn – it’s the latest in a series of changes that have rejuvenated the giant Depression-era complex, making the red brick facility a recreational center for all seasons. It’s become a destination for locals and visitors alike, who can now add figure skating in the snow to the list of reasons visitors flock to this part of north Brooklyn. More than 9,000 people have visited since the rink opened on November 15, according to Philip Ramirez, a spokesman for the Open Space Alliance for North Brooklyn, the community organization tasked by the Parks Department to operate and manage the rink. I’ve seen McCarren Park, and the pool complex that takes up its eastern side, in almost every one of its incarnations over the years, and with a couple of exceptions – more on those in a moment – it’s rarely looked better. I grew up five blocks away. Doggy-paddling my way toward the wall of that pool is one of the first swimming memories I have, dating from the late ‘70s, before the pool became a flashpoint for the surrounding neighborhoods’ racial tensions. I’ve got Christmastime photos of me and my brother, six and five respectively, where dad brought us to test out our new Big Wheels, and we’d fly down the steps in front of the pool in a way that would give today’s parents heart attacks. The McCarren Pool is one of 11 grand municipal pools opened in 1936, funded by the Works Progress Administration during the depths of the Depression, and the project was the passion of both Robert Moses, New York’s outsized and problematic shaper, and Fiorello LaGuardia, who was inarguably our greatest mayor. In a city where summer can become oppressively hot and A/C can become prohibitively expensive, it’s hard to overstate the importance of a public pool. Nevertheless, the pool closed in 1984 due to crime and vandalism that convinced many locals that maintaining a pool “for outsiders” wasn’t worth the trouble, and the once-proud WPA triumph fell into rapid disrepair. By the following year, you’d have thought the place had been abandoned for decades. The pool house and locker areas resembled a set straight out of Escape From New York, rotting and crumbling, sealed behind locked gates. “Locked” is a euphemism, really; there were holes in the perimeter everywhere. Nighttime belonged to the crackheads, but after school during seventh grade at JHS 126, just across the street from the park, the post-apocalyptic remains of the once-proud McCarren Park Pool became the setting for the most epic games of Manhunt imaginable. Crumbling arches became opportunities to display one’s highwire skills. Discarded needles were lava patches. We chased each other around the constant threat of injury for hours. One day the following summer, my buddy Rocky from up the block went poking around where he shouldn’t have been, found a small door in the basement maintenance area that led to the drainage and filter pipes that circle the entire pool, and he came back to tell the rest of us. Of course, something like that can’t go unexplored, but we had a problem: no flashlights. And digging through drawers looking for flashlights in the middle of the day attracts unwanted parental attention. Hot dogs, grilled cheese sandwiches, and other snacks available at the McCarren rink. Photo: Open... [+] Space Alliance for North Brooklyn. We decided it would be easier just to twist newspapers up into torches, because that makes sense, so we grabbed a couple bags’ full, some matches, and spent the next hour crouched on top of the large pipe encircling McCarren’s Olympic-sized pool. Luckily, for fire control purposes, the pool had long since drained down into the access tunnels, so when our torches became too short – which happened about every ten feet – we could just drop them into the water below the pipe we walked on. Also, we were pretty certain that if we slipped and fell into that black stagnant hellmouth we would die instantly. In trying to eliminate the pool as a focus for crime, the victorious proponents of its closure created a giant shooting gallery that slowly decayed into an ever-greater eyesore over the years. By the time the abandoned pool had been cleaned up and jerry-rigged to serve as a concert venue in 2006, all of the areas of the pool that once had large barbed gates had long been bricked up with raw cinder blocks. But Williamsburg was by then already becoming too expensive for the first wave of artists and gentrifiers – those that had given the neighborhood a reputation it gained seemingly overnight, approximately three days after I moved away in the early ‘90s, if memory serves. Million-dollar condo high-rises started going up at the edges of the park. Though the Parks Department made a smart move by allowing various organizations to sponsor musical and other events in the abandoned space, it was clear for years that something would eventually be done with such a large patch of increasingly-valuable real estate. I saw some incredible concerts while standing inside the pool I once crawled around by torchlight, but there was always something ephemeral about that venue. This can’t last, I always thought as I walked under the main arches, past the blasted-out old ticket booth. Clear Channel spent a quarter million dollars to do some basic safety improvements to the pool in 2005 to allow for the use of the space as a concert venue, but it would eventually take $50 million of city funds to fully rehabilitate the pool and return it to something close to its intended purpose. Though a wintertime ice rink had been part of the rehab plan since it was approved by the City in 2008, its opening had been delayed a year, after a rocky first summer for the newly-renovated pool. During the summer of 2012, many longtime locals still questioned the wisdom of re-opening a facility they remembered less-than-fondly, and a few violent incidents between swimmers and lifeguards, and later with police, gave fodder to the critics. But security was boosted and the problems subsided. People began to enjoy their shared pool again, and the Parks Department decided to move forward with the ice rink that had been included in the rehab plans from the beginning. Almost 80 years after its inaugural year, the pool has once again fulfilled its promise to the surrounding areas and to visitors from all over – plus some. Robert Moses has been improved upon, with ice. And if something was lost with the end of McCarren as a concert venue – and something was: I saw the Beastie Boys play their first and only Brooklyn show ever there, with the very junior high I had been introduced to them in serving as backdrop – something else was regained in the process. McCarren Park now belongs to its neighborhood again, against all odds. The McCarren Park Pool Ice Rink is open seven days a week, from 11am to 10pm, through the end of January. Admission: $8 adults, $5 seniors, $5 children. Skate rental is $5. The owners behind neighborhood faves Anella, Jimmy’s Diner, and No. 7 Sub run the concession stand that sells fancy hot dogs and grilled cheese sandwiches to warm up chilled hands and hungry bellies. 776 Lorimer St., Brooklyn.
7d3a647680b4453db80f59d14075f450	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngiuffo/2014/03/17/ellen-carmodys-irish-soda-bread-is-better-than-yours/	Ellen Carmody's Irish Soda Bread Is Everyone's Favorite	Ellen Carmody's Irish Soda Bread Is Everyone's Favorite Every family with Irish roots has a favorite version of soda bread, but of all those I’ve tried, the recipe passed down from my great-grandmother, Ellen Carmody, is the best I’ve had. If you’re the reasonable sort, you’ll agree. Few stories of Irish emigration begin well, but my great-grandparents fled their home in Listowel, County Kerry, in the early ‘20s with little more than my infant grandmother and their traditions. One of those is this recipe for soda bread, which has survived war, forced emigration, and the fog of time. Ellen passed it on to her daughter Theresa (my great-aunt), who then passed it to her daughter Theresa (you know how we do…), and so on. One of the first things on my Facebook feed this morning was a cousin’s photo of her soda bread. It was the same soda bread I made last night, when I drove out to Long Island and finally convinced my father to teach it to me the same way he learned it as a kid, when he would climb up to his grandmother, Ellen's, fourth-floor walk-up from the first-floor apartment on Metropolitan Avenue in Williamsburg that he shared with his parents and brother. Ellen Carmody's Irish soda bread. Photo: John Giuffo Soda bread is peasant food, originally. It represents the best of what people can do with very little. Baking soda was introduced to Ireland in the early part of the 19th century, when almost no one had an oven, which was needed for yeast-based breads. But baking soda mixed with buttermilk was all the leavening agent needed to cook a loaf in a cast-iron pot with a lid. It’s make-do bread, but its ubiquity is a testament to the inventiveness of the Irish and the deliciousness of such a simple recipe. So is the Great Suffolk County Buttermilk Shortage of 2014. I learned the hard way: unless you want to waste gas driving from supermarket to supermarket, don’t wait until March 16th to shop for your ingredients if your father lives in a place where every Irish-American in the area is shopping for the same ingredients (Side note to central Suffolk County’s mega-supermarket dairy department managers: up your game, slackers! March 17th falls on the same day every year. You lost a lot of money for your bosses this weekend). Irish soda bread is easy to make, and easy to mess up. Baking, more so than other forms of cooking, is chemistry, and even small mistakes can make huge differences in results. My aunt Eleanor, Ellen’s youngest daughter, remembers her mom making huge loaves of the stuff, much larger than what you’d typically see, but that’s because they didn’t have money for multiple pans. With nine mouths to feed (four boys, three girls, mom and dad), even the apple pies were made in large rectangular roasting pans. This recipe, adjusted for modern demographic trends, will give you two loaves, a little less than 8” in circumference, so you’ll need to grease up two pans with butter in preparation. Leave the butter out for 10-15 minutes so that it softens. You don’t want it too soft, however, but you won’t be able to work it into the dough if it’s too cold. You’ll need four cups of white flour. Sift two cups into a large mixing bowl. Then sift in one teaspoon of salt, one tablespoon of baking powder, one teaspoon of baking soda, one-half cup of sugar, and then the rest of the flour. Cut a quarter cup of butter into pieces, and, one by one, mash them into the mixture with a fork until there are no more buttery clumps. Add two cups of raisins (or currants, if you want to keep it real) and mix well. Some purists swear that traditional soda bread doesn’t need raisins or sugar. Don’t listen to these people unless they helped pay for Irish independence with familial exile. Whisk one egg in a bowl with 1 ¾ cup of buttermilk, add one teaspoon vanilla extract, because the Potato Famine is over and we can afford nice things now, make a crater in the center of the powdery mixture, and pour the buttermilk mixture into the center. Fold the dry ingredients over with a fork and slowly mix by hand until the batter is evenly-blended. It should be heavy, thick, and slightly sticky. Sprinkle flour on the counter – don’t be shy, and make sure to powder your hands, as the batter will stick otherwise, and knead the dough very lightly – two minutes, max. The goal is to knead it as little as possible, because you don’t want it too thick. Keep a small mound of flour nearby and keep your hands dry. The dough will be mixed when none of it sticks to your hands. Separate and mold into two loaves, slightly larger than softball-size, and powder the outside with the remaining flour. Run a knife about an inch-deep into the center of the loaves vertically, about four inches long, then do the same horizontally (you’ll have a cross that not only touches on the role the church played in Irish history, but that also helps the heat reach the thickest parts of the bread). Place them into the greased pans, cover with a damp, warm towel for ten minutes, then put into a pre-heated 350-degree oven for 40 minutes, or until a toothpick pushed into the center comes out clean. Geography, altitude, ability to follow instructions well: these will all affect cooking time. You’re aiming for a light brown crust that gives a firm thump when flicked, almost as if the center was hollow. When you’re satisfied that you’ve done right by Ellen Carmody, remove the loaves from their pans, place on a drying rack, and let cool for 15-20 minutes. Slice and serve with butter. Yes, there’s sugar in there, and yes, there are raisins, too, but soda bread without butter feels sad. Don’t make sad soda bread. And don’t make the same mistake I did by going rogue, falling in love with your ego and culinary skills, and thinking you can just pull a recipe off the Internet and make good soda bread. You can’t (unless, of course, you’re pulling this recipe off the Internet). You’ll end up with something dry, or with less flavor, or, at the very least, something that wasn’t passed down over five or more generations. Heritage is wonderful, but it’s not enough to get hundreds of people excited for raisin bread every March if it wasn’t delicious. I’m just lucky enough to have the great-grandmother who locked down the world’s best soda bread recipe. It would be stingy not to share it.
2ef988d85600ed3ed0d9be12501c472e	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoglia/2013/04/25/ntsb-787-battery-hearing-leaves-certification-questions-unanswered/	NTSB 787 Battery Hearing Leaves Certification Questions Unanswered	NTSB 787 Battery Hearing Leaves Certification Questions Unanswered LOS ANGELES, CA - JANUARY 17: As Boeing 787 Dreamliner jets remain grounded, signage is seen on a... [+] Boeing building near Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on January 17, 2013 in Los Angeles, California. The Federal Aviation Administration has grounded all U.S.-registered Boeing 787 Dreamliner jets for the repair of batteries believed to be linked to a fire risk following a number of related 787 aircraft incidents this month. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife) No one expected the two-day NTSB hearings that concluded Wednesday to answer the question why the Boeing 787’s lithium ion batteries dangerously overheated and in one case caught fire after only 52,000 hours of flight when Boeing had predicted that possibility as one in ten million flight hours. That answer is likely months, if not a year or more, away. But one could have expected an answer to why Boeing failed to use the standards developed by an independent advisory board – an advisory board that Boeing co-chaired - to re-assess the batteries before the aircraft was approved for passenger use. And why the FAA failed to mandate that re-assessment. Despite sharp questioning from NTSB Chair, Deborah Hersman, both the FAA and Boeing witnesses failed to give satisfactory answers. In what was described by observers as smooth, obviously prepped performances, FAA and Boeing witnesses artfully dodged responding to why they didn’t take the time to re-test these batteries against a standard the FAA asked to be developed after a fire broke out at SecuraPlane, the Arizona manufacturer of the 787’s battery charger. The best these witnesses seemed able to muster were that the standards developed were too severe. Minimum Standards Should Have Been Addressed But how severe could they be if they’re termed “minimum standards”? The document prepared at the FAA’s request is titled Minimum Operational Performance Standards for Rechargeable Lithium Battery Systems. According to RTCA, the developer of the standard, the document is “a comprehensive standard that addresses large rechargeable lithium battery systems installed on aircraft used as a power source…” The standards cover the gamut of certification issues from safety to design to production to quality assurance and even proper shipping. RTCA is a private, not-for-profit association that serves as a federal advisory committee to the FAA for certification of avionics products used in aircraft. The FAA’s own advisory circular recommends compliance with RTCA-developed standards. If the public is to have any faith in FAA certification, it needs an answer to why industry developed minimum standards were not used when new technology was introduced into our nation’s airliners. The implications for future certifications is obvious – and of tremendous concern.
5fd0583e13c3d0686cc1357b9ce5f9f8	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoglia/2013/07/27/air-india-787-smoke-in-galley-why-didnt-crew-make-emergency-landing/	Air India 787 Smoke In Galley: Why Didn't Crew Make Emergency Landing?	Air India 787 Smoke In Galley: Why Didn't Crew Make Emergency Landing? This file photo taken on September 8, 2012 shows Air India's first Boeing 787 . (Image credit:... [+] AFP/Getty Images via @daylife) While it’s not clear from preliminary reports whether an Air India domestic flight from New Delhi to Kolkata last week experienced a fire inside a rear galley oven or whether the fire was in the area around the oven, it seems clear that smoke filled the rear galley and that the crew used fire extinguishers to douse the oven. Of further concern, are reports that this particular oven overheated on two other occasions. What is also clear from news reports is that the crew did not make an emergency landing. The question is why not? At least since the Swiss Air Flight 111 crash in 1998 off the coast of Nova Scotia, it has been standard operating procedure for airline crews to make emergency landings as soon as smoke is detected in the cabin of an aircraft in flight. I was an NTSB Board Member at the time of Swiss Air accident. Although the crash was investigated by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada because of where the accident occurred, the NTSB was a major participant in the accident investigation in accordance with ICAO procedures because the aircraft was American manufactured, an MD-11. The probable cause of the crash was ultimately determined to have been an electrical fire that started in the wiring of the entertainment system. What was noteworthy to investigators, was the Flight 111 cockpit voice recorder which indicated that the crew spent some time troubleshooting smoke that was coming into the cockpit and cabin through the air conditioning system. By the time the crew decided to declare an emergency and attempt to land, it was too late and the aircraft crashed in the Atlantic Ocean. It is not clear whether an immediate decision to land would have had a different result, but it is certainly possible. And that is why it has become standard procedure to put an aircraft on the ground as soon as smoke is detected. It is disconcerting to read that this is not what happened with the Air India flight in question. While the fire extinguishers may have appeared to rectify the problem of the smoking oven, there is no way to know that for sure except on the ground.
5c76978948883fd7f85b4aff9e8d9dea	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoglia/2014/07/30/does-delta-airlines-finally-understand-kid-seat-safety-rule/	Does Delta Air Lines Finally Understand Kid Seat Safety Rule?	Does Delta Air Lines Finally Understand Kid Seat Safety Rule? In an incident dismayingly similar to one involving American Airlines, a Delta Air Lines commuter, Shuttle America, refused to allow a passenger traveling with her 9-month old son to use an aircraft-approved infant car seat even though she had specifically purchased a seat so her child could fly safely. In this case, Katie Kinnane bought a ticket for her infant on Delta Air Lines for a trip on July 11 from LaGuardia Airport to Indianapolis. Unfortunately, the crew on that flight was not as educated on FAA rules for flying safely with children as Ms. Kinanne was. The crew thwarted her attempts to use an aircraft-approved car seat in what appears to be another violation of federal rules by an airline. Those rules require that an airline allow a parent to use an approved car seat if a seat has been purchased for the child and is weight-appropriate. In spite of the passenger showing the crew that the seat she wanted to use was FAA-approved and carried all the appropriate markings, she was not allowed to use the seat because of Shuttle America’s – and Delta’s - misinterpretation of the FAA rules. Although the rules are clear enough for the mother of the infant (with no apparent aviation background) to understand, the same could not be said for Delta and its employees. In fact, it appears that Delta had misstated the rule on its infant seat webpage and may have similarly misinformed its flight attendants and other employees. The webpage was corrected after this reporter contacted the FAA to ask whether it met federal requirements. A response to a request for comment from Delta Airlines has not yet been received but correcting its webpage is a step in the right direction. According to Ms. Kinanne, the flight attendant told her she could not use her car seat because the label did not have an "e in a circle" on it. Delta’s webpage - before it was corrected - indicated that in order to be legally allowed on board, an aircraft seat had to have an “e in a circle.” In fact, that is not true for US-manufactured seats which are required to bear a label that contains the following statements: this child restraint system conforms to all applicable Federal motor vehicle safety standards, and this restraint system is certified for use in motor vehicles and aircraft. According to FAA spokesperson, Alison Duquette, in an email response to Forbes questioning Delta's website information, the “e” is “one way to tell if a [child restraint system] is approved…but not the only way. I think the way it is presented by Delta on their website is a bit confusing so we will talk to them about that to see if they can make it clearer.” To the FAA's credit, it looks like it did just that and Delta corrected its website in response. In my opinion, Delta’s website was not only confusing but incorrect and was being interpreted by both its flight attendants and corporate employees contrary to federal law. At one point in a lengthy email exchange with the passenger, Delta’s Corporate Customer Care specialist informed Ms. Kinnane that “the technology of car seats has changed…and with it our requirements for what constitutes a safe car seat on our flights. Our flight attendants were correct when they stated your car seat was not acceptable under Delta’s policy and would not allow you to use it during your travels.” In fact, the only thing that affects whether an airline is mandated to allow a particular car seat to be used on a flight is whether it is properly labeled for aircraft use (and is weight appropriate for the child). In this case, Ms. Kinnane’s car seat bore the appropriate label and Delta’s insistence on an “e in a circle” was contrary to federal requirements. So, while Delta informed Ms. Kinnane that it was refunding her the price of her son’s ticket, Ms. Kinnane remains unsatisified. And rightly so. Her son was not allowed to fly safely during the most critical phases of flight - landing and taking off. These are her questions and I believe Delta owes her and all its passengers with young children an answer. What training improvements are being made so this particular issue does not occur again? What steps are being taken to ensure your passenger’s safety on future flight? When will the policy be corrected online and subsequently updated in all on board manuals? In the meanwhile, stay tuned. I will be following up with the FAA to see what enforcement and other actions the agency takes on both the American and Delta incidents. Also on Forbes: Gallery: The Best Airlines For Business Travelers In 2014 4 images View gallery
7a871acc246ff886d53b8bf558bdbe3a	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoglia/2014/12/03/airport-workers-at-10-airports-to-join-with-15-hour-fast-food-strikers-december-4/	Airport Workers At 10 Airports To Join With $15 Hour Fast Food Strikers December 4.	Airport Workers At 10 Airports To Join With $15 Hour Fast Food Strikers December 4. Airport workers at 10 major airports – including JFK, LaGuardia, Newark, Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Seattle – have written to the CEOs of the six major US Airlines – Delta, American, JetBlue, United, Southwest and Alaska – stating that “as airport workers we have pledged to stand together with people who work in home care and fast food to fight for $15 an hour wages. Like fast food workers and home health care aids in this fight, we face a struggle to survive while making poverty wages.” These workers include baggage handlers, ticket agents and aircraft and airport cleaners. While they are not directly employed by the airlines, they are employees of airline contractors and subcontractors. The fast food workers they are standing with have called for a strike for December 4. According to a Bloomberg report, “fast food workers in dozens of cities are planning to walk off the job [December 4] as they continue pushing for higher wages and union rights.” Whether workers will demonstrate or walk off their jobs at these airports is unclear at this time. I have long been concerned about the wages paid to these airport workers. While they do not perform the glory jobs of the airline industry, they are critical to the safety and security of the system. Recently I wrote about my concerns that some of these front-line workers were not properly trained or given appropriate protective gear to prevent the spread of Ebola via airline transportation. Airport ground worker training and experience on safety issues is one I am personally familiar with as a former airline employee and Member of the National Transportation Safety Board. Airline cost-cutting measures over the years have resulted in airlines contracting out work that was once performed by the airlines themselves. Often, these contracts go to the lowest bidders, who in turn pay their workers very low wages. These low wages result in high worker turnover at many facilities as employees change jobs frequently for even a small increase in salary. In addition, low wages frequently result in employees working two or even three jobs, making them vulnerable to fatigue and fatigue-related mistakes. I hope the airlines sit down and talk with these workers as improving pay will help increase the level of experience of these workers and cut down on the number of jobs they need to hold in order to make ends meet. Among other things, inexperience and fatigue play major roles in the number of costly incidents and accidents on the ramp between ramp vehicles driven by these airport workers and aircraft and clearly can affect an airline’s bottom line.
929fcdc47cd12a62036a73929f4e677a	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoglia/2015/02/13/faa-says-commercial-drone-operators-need-exemption-but-doesnt-prosecute-those-flying-without-one/	FAA Says Commercial Drone Operators Need Exemption. But Doesn't Prosecute Those Flying Without One.	FAA Says Commercial Drone Operators Need Exemption. But Doesn't Prosecute Those Flying Without One. If you visit any social media website devoted to drone operators, you're likely to see discussions of whether to apply for an FAA exemption to fly commercially or just keep flying and hope you don't get caught. Recently, commenters have noted that despite the FAA's public statements that commercial drone operations are illegal without specific FAA approval and its issuance of "cease and desist letters" to commercial operators, it has reportedly never taken legal enforcement action against a drone operator solely for operating commercially. A request to the FAA for comment on its enforcement cases against commercial drone operators was not responded to. Intrigued by the reported divergence between what the FAA says is illegal and what it actually enforces, I decided to probe a little further. Below is what I found. 1. The FAA has stated numerous times in numerous places - including its June 2014 interpretative rule - that commercial drone flights, including those incidental to a business, cannot operate under model aircraft rules. The FAA believes that commercial drone flights are covered by manned aircraft requirements and the only way to legally operate civil unmanned aircraft systems for business purposes is to apply for and obtain 1. a special airworthiness certificate - experimental category, 2. a UAS type and airworthiness certificate - restricted category or 3. petition for a so-called 333 exemption, named after the section of the statute authorizing it. Because of the cost and expense of obtaining UAS certificates, the only real option for small businesses and individuals is the 333 exemption process. 2. While cheaper and easier to obtain than a type or airworthiness certificate, getting a 333 exemption is still time-consuming and expensive with attorney fees reportedly ranging from $5,000 to $50,000, depending on the complexity of the proposed operations. But the requirements of the 333 exemption - once granted - are giving many people who want to operate legally significant pause. The Washington Post's article this week laying out the 33 requirements that real estate agent Douglas Trudeau - the first real estate agent to receive a 333 exemption to fly a Phantom 2 Vision + quadcopter - needs to meet to legally take aerial photos or video of homes around Tucson, Arizona is a must-read for any small business considering a 333 exemption. In addition to requiring the drone operator to hold a private pilot's license and third class medical - which I've pointed out in the past is absurd - he's required to have an observer for each flight, operate away from congested areas (which under FAA interpretations include open air assemblies of people and small groupings of structures in relatively remote areas) and at least 500 feet from non-participating people, vessels, structures and vehicles. ( I wonder how many properties listed for sale in or around Tucson can meet this requirement?) Mr. Trudeau, like other recipients of 333 exemptions, is also required to have an Air Traffic Certificate of Authorization and file a Notice to Airmen before each operation. 3. Weighing against the cost and expense of applying for a 333 exemption and then complying with its numerous restrictions, is the FAA's enforcement policy which to date has resulted in zero cases against commercial drone operators for flying commercially. Not only has the FAA chosen thus far not to take any legal action, it's unlikely that it will. In an enforcement policy bulletin issued to its inspectors and lawyers this past October, the FAA makes clear that legal enforcement action is to be taken only for "a violation that poses a medium or high actual or potential risk to safety, " such as "when a UAS operation has a medium or high risk of endangering the operation of another aircraft or endangering persons or property on the ground." It's hard for me to imagine that the commercial nature of an operation - in and of itself - would meet this standard. So there's the landscape as I see it. If you want to fly a drone commercially and legally according to the FAA, there's a a time-consuming and expensive application process you can follow. Plus severe (and expensive) restrictions once you get the exemption. On the other hand, if you fly safely, albeit commercially, the FAA appears to have no interest in going after you. While I applaud the FAA for not penalizing safe, commercial operations, the better course would be for the FAA to allow all very small drone operations (2 kilos and under) to operate under the same requirements as model aircraft regardless of the commercial or hobby nature of the flight.
f0e523b61da5feafe7ea6610a767e90f	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoglia/2015/05/04/ntsb-issues-safety-recommendations-on-wrong-airport-landings/	NTSB Issues Safety Recommendations On Wrong Airport Landings	NTSB Issues Safety Recommendations On Wrong Airport Landings Based on the NTSB's investigation of two recent airline flights that landed at wrong airports because of confusion with other near-by airports, the agency today issued two recommendations to the FAA intended to help avoid those situations. The recommendations ask the FAA to clarify air traffic controller landing clearances when multiple airports are in the vicinity and to modify air traffic control software which warns air traffic controllers when aircraft have descended below a minimum safe altitude. This software is intended to alert controllers when an aircraft gets too close to terrain or objects in the aircraft's flight path. The NTSB last year issued warnings to airline pilots on maintaining vigilance to avoid wrong airport landings, giving pilots specific recommendations of what they could do. Today's recommendations are addressed to the FAA as the agency responsible for air traffic control. The most recent wrong airport landings that prompted these recommendations are Southwest Airlines Flight 4013, a Boeing 737, that mistakenly landed at the wrong airport in Branson, Missouri on January 12, 2014 and Atlas Airlines Flight 4241, a cargo flight, that landed at the wrong airport in Wichita, Kansas. The Southwest flight landed at M. Graham Clark Downtown Airport, 6 miles north of its intended destination, Branson Airport. The runway the Boeing 737 landed on was only 3,738 feet long, instead of the runway it was supposed to land on at Branson which was 7,140 feet. The Atlas incident occurred on November 21, 2013 and involved a Boeing 747 cargo flight destined for McConnell Air Force Base and cleared to land on a 12,000 foot runway. Instead, the aircraft landed at Colonel James Jabara Airport on a runway that was only 6,100 feet. In addition to the significantly shorter runway length, the NTSB report noted that several other airport operations occurred during the time the 747 was on the wrong runway, further negatively affecting safety. No injuries were reported in either incident. Based on these incidents, as well as other military and civilian wrong airport landings in the last 3 years, the NTSB recommends that the FAA "amend air traffic control procedures so that controllers withhold landing clearance until the aircraft has passed all other airports that may be confused with the destination airport" and "modify the minimum safe warning altitude (MSAW) software to apply the MSAW parameters for the flight plan destination airport to touchdown" rather than change the airport based on the observed (and possibly incorrect) flight path. Although the MSAW criteria was not a factor in the Southwest Airlines incident because the aircraft was below the radar coverage area, in the Atlas Airlines incident if the software had been programmed to the destination airport, it would have alerted controllers that the aircraft was below the expected glide path. The FAA is required by law to respond to the NTSB's recommendations within 90 days, indicating whether it will accept the NTSB's recommendations in whole, or in part, or not at all.
b5f347bc3f6c77989178d3edfca1882f	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoglia/2017/02/23/faa-finally-shows-skepticism-with-latest-drone-sightings-report/	FAA Finally Shows Skepticism With Latest Drone Sightings Report	FAA Finally Shows Skepticism With Latest Drone Sightings Report A drone hovers over Petrie Island park in Ottawa, Canada during a demonstration flight on August 21,... [+] 2013. MICHEL COMTE/AFP/Getty Images The FAA’s latest list of “pilot, air traffic controller, law enforcement and citizen” reports of potential drone sightings has been prepared for the time period February through September 2016. What’s refreshing for a change is that the FAA finally appears to have some healthy skepticism of some of the drone reports – something many, including me, have pushed for. According to the FAA’s press release today “although the data contain several reports of pilots claiming drone strikes on their aircraft, to date the FAA has not verified any collision between a civil aircraft and a civil drone. Every investigation has found the reported collisions were either birds, impact with other items such as wires and posts, or structural failure not related to colliding with an unmanned aircraft.” According to the FAA’s data – which it still has not posted on its website – reports of possible drone sightings to FAA air traffic control facilities increased to 1,274 for this period in 2016 compared to 874 for the same time period in 2015. Of course, just as the claims of actual aircraft strikes by drones are suspect, it’s likely that the pilot reports of drone sightings are also suspect and just as likely to be birds, as anything else. I have requested the sightings report from the FAA and will analyze it further when I receive it.
d480cf578939c2258743092a4d5fffe1	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoodman/2013/04/10/how-small-businesses-can-handle-obamacares-suffocating-costs/	How Small Businesses Can Handle Obamacare's Suffocating Costs	How Small Businesses Can Handle Obamacare's Suffocating Costs (Photo credit: Images_of_Money) The best way to understand the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is to realize that it confers large benefits on some people and imposes large costs on others. If you are one of the ones who will qualify for expanded Medicaid, you will get something for nothing. Although there are quality issues and access problems, including rationing by waiting, Medicaid will probably spend $8,000 on an average family of four over the course of a year. Enrollment is like an $8,000 gift from the government. If your income is a tad too high for Medicaid, you will get something even better. In a newly created health insurance exchange you will be able to obtain, say, a $15,000 family plan for no more than about a $600 premium. This is almost something for nothing. Things will be very different if you have a job, however. Consider a typical hotel. Almost everyone you see is earning about $15 to $20 an hour — the maids, the waitresses, the waiters, the busboys, the doorman, the porters, the custodians, the groundskeepers, etc. The cost of family coverage is equal to between one-third and one-half of these workers' annual earnings. The goal of ObamaCare is to force them to obtain this insurance with no extra help from government. And this is true even if the maids are already enrolled in Medicaid! The economic literature on this type of mandate is clear. Although government can offer people something for nothing, the labor market does not. Employee benefits are not gifts from employers. They are substitutes for money wages and other benefits. The cost of the employer mandate will surely be borne by the employees themselves. We can be fairly certain that low-wage workers and their employers will be searching for ways to avoid the mandate. Why? If the employees were willing to spend half their income on health insurance they would have done so already. That they have not indicates they would rather spend the money on something else. Here are some options: Stay Small. As long as employers restrict their workforce to no more than 49 employees the mandate doesn't apply. We are already seeing news reports of this type of response. But here is a warning: the IRS has signaled that if an individual owns, say, three separate businesses, it will treat them as one business — not three! ObamaCare will not only discourage small businesses from growing, it will discourage entrepreneurs from acquiring other businesses. Use Part-Time Labor. Another option is to move employees to part-time status (fewer than 30 hours a week) rather than full-time. One firm I talked with, managing about 100 fast food restaurants, had an average work week of 38 hours last year. This January they shifted to an average of 25 hours. Why in January? Because in January, 2014, the IRS will employ a 12 month look back to determine whether an employee is full-time. For those who try to use part-time labor to stay under the 50 employee mark, the IRS has an answer to that strategy as well. It will count two 20-hour-a-week employees as equivalent to one full time employee in determining how many employees the firm employs. However, even if the mandate applies, the employer does not have to offer insurance to part-timers. Use Non-Employee Labor. Independent contractors by definition are not employees. As long as they don't work regular hours, workers can retain their status as contractors even if they work at the employer's establishment. The temp business is booming in anticipation of this. Another approach is to turn employees into self-incorporated businesses. As one business owner has explained, "there is almost nothing that cannot be outsourced." Charge Employees the Maximum Allowable Premium. This I think will be the most attractive strategy. Under the ACA, health insurance is deemed "affordable" if the employee's premium does not exceed 9.5% of the employee's wages. Take an employee earning $30,000 a year. Insurance is affordable so long as the employee pays no more than $2,850. So let's suppose the employer's individual coverage costs $4,500. Then the employer only has to pay $1,750. He can ask the employee to pay more than half the cost. Under the law, the employer doesn't have to contribute anything for the employee's dependents. Let's say the employer offers family coverage that costs $15,000. The employer can ask the employee to pay $12,150, with the employer (again) paying only $1,750. If the employee accepts the offer, the employer is only out $1,750. [Remember: the employer fine for not offering any insurance is $2,000.] If the offer is rejected, the employer is off the hook — no health insurance costs and no government fine! To add insult to injury, the employee's contribution will be made with after-tax dollars. This is in contrast to the employer's offer, which if accepted will be paid with before-tax dollars. Now here is the cruel upshot of all this. Once the employer has offered "affordable" insurance (even though it really isn't affordable), the employee and his family are no longer entitled to a subsidy in the exchange! If they buy insurance, they have to pay the full, unsubsidized premium. Yet it's in the self-interest of the employer to do what I have described in order to avoid a $2,000 fine. Pay the Fine. Employers can drop health insurance coverage altogether (or never provide it in the first place) and pay a fine equal to $2,000 per employee. That's a stiff price to pay. But it's less than the cost of health insurance. If the employer chooses this option, the employees will be eligible for subsidized insurance in the exchange. One reason why many employers won't want to get out of the health insurance business altogether is that everything said here reverses for high-income employees. Someone making, say, $90,000 will never quality for Medicaid. If he goes into the exchange, he will get no subsidy. But if he gets insurance at work, the employer's premium payments avoid a 25% income tax, a 15% payroll tax and state and local income taxes as well. ObamaCare retained the subsidies in the current tax system, under which government effectively pays almost half the cost of insurance for higher-income employees. How can employers avoid providing health insurance to below-average wage workers while providing insurance to those who earn above the average? That will be a challenge.
e10dd2421e0c73faa9b0458159b1886b	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoodman/2014/06/30/how-much-should-your-health-insurer-know-about-your-health/	How Much Should Your Health Insurer Know About Your Health?	How Much Should Your Health Insurer Know About Your Health? Coordinated care, integrated care, managed care – these are just some of the buzz words surrounding the health insurance industry these days. This is what makes modern health insurance different from the indemnity insurance of years ago, when patients went to any doctor they liked and the insurer passively paid the bills. The modern insurer wants to be involved in your health care. At a minimum they want to steer you to providers and facilities that …. well, that might have higher quality care, but for sure will cost less money. What insurers don’t know. There’s just one problem. The health insurers who are enrolling folks in the newly created health insurance exchanges don’t have any more information about the health condition of their enrollees than Blue Cross had about its enrollees back in the 1950s. Why? Because of health reform. (ObamaCare.) Until this year, insurers who sold individual and family coverage in most states asked people to answer questions about their health status, just the way sellers of life insurance and disability insurance do. The answers to those questions determined the premium, led to exclusions for certain types of care and may have precluded the applicant from getting coverage at all. This year things are different. In the health insurance exchanges insurers are not only precluded from discriminating against applicants based on their health status, they aren’t even able to ask about health status in the first place. That’s frustrating the health insurers in two ways. First, without knowing who is sick and who is well, they can’t do any of the coordinating, integrating and managing they think they are supposed to do to keep costs down. But even worse, now is the time of year when they are supposed to be setting their rates for re-enrollment during open season later in the fall. And they have no idea how to price their plans because they have so little information about the likely health costs of the people who they have as enrollees. Health Care Cost (Photo credit: Tax Credits) How they are finding out about you. Not to be deterred, some insurers are following the lead of some large retail stores and using the Internet to find out what they want to know. Take U.P.M.C., a Pennsylvania nonprofit that owns an insurance company as well as hospitals, including Pittsburgh Medical Center. As Natasha Singer at The New York Times explains: … the insurer recently bolstered its forecasting models with details on members’ household incomes, education levels, marital status, race or ethnicity, number of children at home, number of cars and so on…. In a more-data-the-merrier culture, patients may ultimately be unable to choose whether their health insurers know they prefer organic foods, hunt big game or own a dog. If it's on the Internet, it isn't private. (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey) If health insurers mistakenly peg certain people as dog owners, patients probably won’t find that out, either. (Acxiom, one of the sources for the household information U.P.M.C. used in its prediction models, has publicly acknowledged that its details about consumers can be out of date or just plain wrong.) So what can insurers do with all this information? Predict utilization of care. For example, a person who buys furniture using an Ikea catalogue might be a person who is homebound or lacks transportation. Such a person is more likely to seek care at a hospital emergency room than a (less expensive) doctor’s office visit. U.P.M.C. discovered that mail order shoppers and Internet users overall are more likely to use the emergency room. To see just how far data mining can take you, consider my previous claim that “Target Knows You Are Pregnant, Even if No One else Knows”: Target (Photo credit: kevin dooley) As Pole’s computers crawled through the data, he was able to identify about 25 products that, when analyzed together, allowed him to assign each shopper a “pregnancy prediction” score. More important, he could also estimate her due date to within a small window, so Target could send coupons timed to very specific stages of her pregnancy… Pole applied his program to every regular female shopper in Target's national database and soon had a list of tens of thousands of women who were most likely pregnant. If they could entice those women or their husbands to visit Target and buy baby-related products, the company’s cue-routine-reward calculators could kick in and start pushing them to buy groceries, bathing suits, toys and clothing, as well. When Pole shared his list with the marketers, he said, they were ecstatic. Soon, Pole was getting invited to meetings above his paygrade. Eventually his paygrade went up. At which point someone asked an important question: How are women going to react when they figure out how much Target knows? Will all this snooping help control costs? That’s the goal of the insurers, of course. But the same technology that is available to the insurers is also available to hospitals and other providers – whose interest is in more spending and more revenues. MedSeek, a software and analytics companyin Birmingham, Ala. … offers a “21st-century tool kit” that can refine health care marketing pitches based on sex, age, race, income, risk assessment, culture, religious beliefs and family status. One client, Trinity Health System in Michigan, used MedSeek’s services “to scientifically identify well-insured prospects,” among others, and encourage them to schedule screening tests and doctor visits, a company case study said. And what’s wrong with that? Natasha Singer explains the down side: The pitches might encourage the worried well to have unnecessary screening tests, for instance, potentially putting them at risk for false alarms and unneeded biopsies. And by devoting so much attention to pulling in low-risk or well-insured patients, health providers could end up overlooking — or not having timely appointments available for — ailing, poorly insured patients. In other words, the same technology that can enable an insurer to better manage the care of the sick could also be used to induce more spending on the part of the healthy and the wealthy. John C. Goodman is the author of Priceless (Independent Institute).
81d24b524dc80f50afb11231b8fb9e26	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoodman/2015/08/26/dont-repeal-the-cadillac-plan-tax-replace-it/	Don't Repeal The Cadillac Plan Tax--Replace It	Don't Repeal The Cadillac Plan Tax--Replace It Beginning in 2018, high-cost, private sector health plans will be subject to a special levy, popularly known as the "Cadillac plan" tax. Under a provision of the Affordable Care Act, health plans must pay a tax equal to 40 percent of each employee’s health benefits to the extent they exceed $10,200 for individual coverage and $27,500 for family coverage. In many ways, the Cadillac Plan tax is a stealth tax. It doesn’t even become effective until eight years after the Affordable Care Act passed Congress. And back in 2008, the thresholds were so high that it must have seemed like the tax would apply only to a handful of employers. But health care inflation has a way of escalating base line costs through time. So much so that a Kaiser Family Foundation study estimates that the first year it is applicable, one in four employers will be subject to the Cadillac plan tax unless they change their benefits. Going forward, the thresholds are indexed to the rate of general inflation – which historically is well below the rate of medical cost inflation. As a result, the study estimates that the share of employers potentially affected could grow to 30 percent by 2023 and 42 percent by 2028. Ostensibly, the purpose of the Cadillac plan tax was to help pay for the cost of Obamacare. But that can’t have been its real purpose, since employers can easily avoid the tax by spending less on health benefits and more on something else – like more generous pension contributions. The more persuasive argument for the tax is to thwart the way the current tax system encourages us to overinsure and spend too much on health care. As is well known, employers today can purchase health insurance with pre-tax dollars. Whereas wages are subject to income and payroll taxes, money spent on health insurance is tax free. For all practical purposes, 150 million Americans who get their health insurance through a place of work, can always lower their taxes by taking more of their compensation in the form of health insurance rather than as wages. Take a worker in the 30 percent tax bracket (income and payroll taxes combined). If an employer tries to give this worker a dollar in wages, Uncle Sam will take 30 cents – leaving the worker with only 70 cents in take-home pay. But if the employer spends the dollar on health insurance, Uncle Sam gets zilch. That means the health insurance could be worth only 71 cents on the dollar and still look attractive. No wonder our health care system is so wasteful. The Cadillac plan tax is a way of putting limits on wasteful spending. But it is a crude and highly ineffective way of combatting the core problem. For one thing, it only affects those plans that are at the thresholds. At every other place of work, the perverse incentives are just as bad as they were before. For another thing, even among plans that are subject to the tax, it only affects the last few dollars spent (those above the threshold). For spending below the threshold, the perverse incentives remain. How could we eliminate perverse incentives in a better way? Suppose an employer health plan costs $30,000 in 2018 for a worker in the 30 percent tax bracket. Under the pre-Obamacare system, this worker’s tax subsidy is $9,000. However, the Cadillac Plan tax is 40 percent of the last $2,500 of spending – or $1,000. That reduces the government’s implicit tax subsidy for the worker to $8,000. Let’s now contrast that approach with something I have been advocating for a long, long time. Replace the tax exclusion system with a dollar-for-dollar credit against the first $8,000 spent on family coverage and nothing beyond that. Under both approaches the total tax relief is the same. However, under Obamacare the worker and his employer have an incentive only to change the last $2,500 of benefits (to avoid a 40 percent tax). Under the tax credit approach, the change in incentives is almost 10 times as great. The tax credit approach pushes the tax subsidy to the first dollars spent – the first $8,000 in this example. That means the last $22,000 in health insurance costs is all effectively after tax. Suppose the employer and the employees now consider a more economical way to purchase health insurance. Suppose that by choosing a narrow network and shedding benefits of marginal value they manage to cut the $22,000 in half. Then the worker can potentially have an increase in take-home pay of $11,000! More generally, beyond the first $8,000 of spending, the employer and the employees get to keep 100 percent of every dollar of waste they eliminate. Conversely, they have to pay 100 percent of the cost of every dollar of waste they don’t eliminate. Under the tax credit system, all of us get to keep the full benefits of every good decision we make and bear the full cost of every bad one. An incentive system just doesn’t get any better than that.
a9fd433e65fa59a6d37dedeeb2a37f75	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoodman/2015/10/22/the-employer-mandate-is-having-no-effect-on-the-percent-with-health-insurance-at-work/	The Employer Mandate Is Having No Effect On The Percent With Health Insurance At Work	The Employer Mandate Is Having No Effect On The Percent With Health Insurance At Work You must have heard the scary scenarios. I have repeated some of them myself. Obamacare threatens to impose a burden on the workplace that is the equivalent of a $6.00 an hour health minimum wage. Employers will lay off workers. Employees will lose their jobs. Failure to provide health insurance will result in a $2,000 or $3,000 fine for every employee affected. The survival of entire industries – fast food restaurants and hotels in particular – will hang in the balance. So what’s really happening? Not much. The employers and their consultants were smarter than the Obamacare bill writers on Capitol Hill and all the commentators combined. They figured out a way to comply with the law and hold down costs at the same time. How did they do that? As Andrew Puzder (CEO of CKE restaurants) and I explained in separate Wall Street Journal editorials, employers are making employees offers that they cannot afford to accept. Take the Golden Corral restaurants in Jacksonville, North Carolina. When owner Billy Sewell sat down to calculate the costs of adding new employees to the company health plan in accordance with the Obamacare mandate, he figured the cost would be in excess of $1 million a year. In fact, only two new employees joined the plan. Sewell’s experience is not unusual. The law allows employers to charge employees a premium that equals 9.5 percent of wages for self-coverage and the full premium for dependent coverage. The law also allows out-of-pocket costs that this year can be as high as $6,600 ($13,200 for a family), although Sewell’s deductible is only $2,500. When young, healthy, low-income families are confronted with such a choice, they almost always turn it down. Industry consultants say that among employees like those who work for Sewell, a take up rate of 1 to 2 percent is the norm. And here is the sad upshot: once employees turn down an offer that Obamacare considers “affordable,” they are ineligible for subsidized insurance in the (Obamacare) exchanges. The employer mandate to provide health insurance begins applying to companies with 100 or more employees this year (it kicks in for businesses with 50 to 99 employees next year). Yet according to a Mercer survey of nearly 600 employers conducted last month: [T]here was virtually no change between 2014 and 2015 in the average percentage of all employees — full-time and part-time — enrolled in employer-sponsored health plans… While there was a 1.6% increase in the absolute number of employees enrolled, that was the result of a 2.2% increase in the size of the workforce, rather than the changes required by the ACA. Among respondents in food and lodging businesses, the industry sector most affected by the 30 hours rule due to high concentrations of part-time workers, the average percentage of employees eligible for coverage rose from 57% to 60%. But overall growth in the percentage of employees enrolled rose by less than one percentage point, to 34%. A study by the payroll processing firm ADP sheds light on this phenomenon. Even before Obamacare, the study found that: Among employees who earn between $40,000 and $45,000, the participation rate in employer health plans reached 82%, with employee premium contributions averaging 2.5% of pay for self-only coverage. But among full-time eligible employees, with base pay between $15,000 and $20,000, only 37% participated and the employee contribution to premiums averaged 5.7% of total pay for self-only coverage. And the firm says not much has changed since the law took effect. Earlier in the year I reported on a study I made of more than 100 fast food restaurants and how the owners reacted to Obamacare. The first step was to make all hourly workers part time. That may seem like an easy thing to do, but it’s not. In the fast food business it’s not uncommon for employees not to show up for work. That means other employees are asked to work additional hours to prevent the restaurant from shutting down. By year end, 58 employees (out of 1,700) had crossed the line and were eligible for mandated health insurance the following year. For these employees, the companies offered Obamacare compliant health insurance (Bronze plans), but they asked the employees to pay the maximum premium the law allows: 9.5 percent of their annual wage. For a $9-an-hour employee working 30 hours a week, the maximum monthly premium is $111. Employees are being charged the full premium for dependent coverage, however. For a family of three, the employee faces a premium of $805 a month – almost 70 percent of his monthly wage! (See the chart below.) The result: out of 58 employees, only one enrolled in a Bronze plan. Prior to the Obamacare mandate, these companies offered their employees a standard Blue Cross plan and a mini med plan for a much lower premium. No one signed up for the Blue Cross plan. About 200 signed up for mini med insurance. Self-insured employers can still do something similar. They can offer a Minimum Essential Coverage (MEC) plan -- basically insurance that covers preventive care with no annual or lifetime limits and very little else (no hospitalization, no specialist care, etc.). The employers in my study offered MEC plans for free to the employees and they had an economic reason for doing so: the Bronze plan costs the employers about six times the cost of an MEC plan. And here is something strange. Employees who sign up for MEC coverage escape the threatened Obamacare fine for being “uninsured.” The employers are also off the hook for any fine because they offered all full time employees a Bronze plan, even if the employees turned it down. But dependent coverage is not free. In fact, the employee has to pay about 25 percent of his income to cover a spouse and kid. Sadly, If they don’t pay it they will face a fine next April 15th.
a5443a58108bdb19a98ded788db7fcd4	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoodman/2015/11/09/what-everyone-should-know-about-rationing-by-waiting/	What Everyone Should Know About Rationing By Waiting	What Everyone Should Know About Rationing By Waiting Americans like to think that our health care system is very different from “socialized medicine” in Canada. In fact, the two health care systems are far more similar than they are different. In Canada, when people go to the doctor the visit is free. In America, it’s almost free. On the average, every time Americans spend a dollar at a doctor’s office only 10 cents is coming out of our own pockets. The rest is paid by an employer, an insurance company or government. Like the Canadians, we do not primarily pay for health care with money. We pay with time. According to a Merritt Hawkins survey: The average wait time to see a primary care doctor in the United States is almost three weeks. In Boston (where we are told there was universal coverage even before there was Obamacare), the average wait is more than two months. Compare that with how long you have to wait to get your cellphone repaired. Waiting in the US is becoming more like waiting in Canada and in some cases it can be worse. For example: In Winnipeg, one in ten patients leave the emergency rooms without ever seeing a doctor – because they get tired of waited. The average in California is much lower, but at some hospitals one in five leave without being seen. Health care in both countries is dominated by the idea that people should never have to choose between money and other goods and services. As a result, we have completely suppressed the market for medical care – year after year, decade after decade. Ideal health insurance, we have been told, is insurance with no deductible or copayment. Ideal insurance is insurance that makes health care free at the point of consumption. Yet when you suppress the market, you elevate the importance of non-market barriers to care. When you suppress prices, you elevate the importance of non-price barriers. How long does it take you to make an appointment with a doctor? How many days or weeks must you wait before the visit takes place? How long does it take to get from your home or place of work to the doctor’s office and back again? How long do you have to wait once you get there? These are all non-price or non-market barriers to care. And there is ample evidence that even for the poor these barriers are more important obstacles to care than the fee the doctor charges. The conventional assumption by health policy commentators is that the rich have money and the poor have time. This assumption turns out to be wrong – at least as far as time is concerned. The rich can buy nannies and housekeepers and drivers. They can hire lawyers, accountants and other professionals to advise them. They can generally take off from work without losing pay. For the poor, things are different. In a fascinating article in The New York Times, Maria Konnikova reports that lack of time may be even more important than lack of money for people at the bottom of the income ladder: The poor are under a deadline that never lifts, pressure that can’t be relieved. If I am poor, I work or I churn until decisions like buying lottery tickets begin to seem like attractive alternatives. I lack the time to calculate the odds and think of alternative uses for my money. Konnikova quotes Eldar Shafir, a psychologist at Princeton who has been studying poverty for over a decade, as saying: When people are juggling time, they are doing something very similar to when they’re juggling finances. It is all scarcity juggling. You borrow from tomorrow, and tomorrow you have less time than you have today, and tomorrow becomes more costly. It’s a very costly loan. Which is a bigger barrier to health care for low-income patients: time or money? One piece of evidence comes from a study of the North Carolina Medicaid program. (See my commentary here.) Although most states try to limit Medicaid expenses by restricting patients to a one-month supply of drugs, North Carolina for a period of time allowed patients to have a three-month supply. Then the state reduced the allowable one-stop supply from 100 days of medication to 34 days and at various times and places the state raised the copayment on some drugs from $1 to $3. Think of the first change as raising the time price of care (the number of required pharmacy visits tripled) and the second as raising the money price of care (which also tripled). The result: A tripling of the time price of care led to a much greater reduction in needed drugs obtained by chronically ill patients than a tripling of the money price, all other things remaining equal. Another piece of evidence comes from a report from the Center for Studying Health System Change on the effects of the Great Recession on access to care. (See my commentary here.) The study found that middle class families responded to bad economic times by cutting back on their consumption of health care. They postponed elective surgery, avoided care of marginal value, and made more cost-conscious choices when they did get care. This reduction in demand freed up resources which were apparently redirected to meet the needs of people who faced price and non-price barriers to care. From 2007 to 2010: The percent of the population experiencing an unmet health care need actually fell from 7.8% to 6.5%. The percent of people who say they delayed care fell from 12.1% to 10.7% over the same period. And this is in the middle of one of our worst recessions! (See the graphic here.) During the recession, the money price barrier to care actually rose among the uninsured, although the increase was not statistically significant. The number of uninsured people reporting access problems because they were “worried about cost” rose from 91.5% to 95.3%. (Translation: virtually everybody who is uninsured worries about cost.) Yet over the same period, the number of people experiencing access problems because of waiting and other non-price barriers was almost cut in half (falling from 40.3% to 24.1%). A third study illustrates the role of paying higher prices in expanding access to care. The study found that enrolling children in the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) does not result in their receiving more medical care. But when CHIP pays higher fees to doctors, the children do get more care. Suppose the state is strapped for money and can’t afford to pay higher fees? A common sense answer is to let the parents add to the CHIP reimbursement rate and pay a higher price. There is an obstacle to common sense, however — it’s illegal for parents to do this. (See my commentary here.) Lack of time is not just a problem for the poor. Time constraints are also burdensome for the middle class. A Pew Research Center study finds that in almost half of two-parent households, both parents are working full time. And the stress from having too little time seems highest for white, college educated parents. Some of the most interesting innovations in health care (reported from time to time by yours truly) are time conserving: telephone and email consultations, video consultations, walk-in clinics, Uber-like house calls, etc. Interestingly, the walk-in clinics in CVS pharmacies are called MinuteClinics. The market understands that you value your time as well as your money.
152f270ea2af50c622c4a190568942d7	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoodman/2016/01/14/one-hospital-tells-you-what-you-will-have-to-pay-before-the-surgery/	One Hospital Tells You What You Will Have To Pay -- Before The Surgery	One Hospital Tells You What You Will Have To Pay -- Before The Surgery This editorial was written with Charles Sauer. Don’t take our word for it. You can try this out yourself. Just google Surgery Center of Oklahoma and here is what you will find. For Achilles tendon repair, you will pay $5,730. That’s not an estimate with a huge variance around it. It’s a package price that includes doctor, nurse, anesthesia, room, drugs, supplies – everything. For rotator cuff repair, the price is $8,260. For carpal tunnel release, it’s $2,750. All these prices are posted online for everyone to see. For more examples, see the table below. The center is owned by Dr. Keith Smith, an Oklahoma anesthesiologist who started posting prices about the same time the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) was enacted. Since then he has adjusted his prices (downward!) five times. As Steven Brill so eloquently explained on 60 Minutes and in his book, America’s Bitter Pill, the average patient has no idea what anything is going to cost when he enters a hospital and no idea what he is being billed for when he leaves. Based on what payers actually pay, there is a three to one difference in spending for essentially the same services among the 306 hospital referral regions across the country. Within those regions, the differences are even greater. At the hospital level, there is a twelve to one difference across the country in what payers pay for an MRI scan of lower limb joints! How refreshing, therefore, to find a hospital that quotes package prices in advance and is willing to compete for patients based on price and quality. Why are they doing it? For the simplest reason of all: to attract patients. Five years ago, Dr. Smith was frustrated. His surgery center had the best surgeons, the best outcomes and the lowest prices (sometimes by as much as 80 percent). His lobby should have been packed. Patients should have been beating down his door. But they weren’t. In fact, the patient flow was stagnant. He was outperforming his competitors, yet no one knew it. So, Dr. Smith started posting his prices online, while at the same time calling his center “free market-loving, price-displaying and state-of-the-art.” So what happened? Nothing happened. At least not initially. Nothing? Nothing. Like other cities around the country, Oklahoma City is a place where employers routinely complain about health care costs. But not one of them bothered to notice that they could improve outcomes and cut their costs in half by choosing Dr. Smith’s center instead of the alternatives. In fact, it took two whole years before the employers realized a huge opportunity was located right in their own backyard. It began with Jay Kempton, a third-party administrator whose company contracts with many of the local banks. Fast forward to today. Not only are Kempton’s clients using Dr. Smith’s surgery center, but so is Oklahoma County and soon (if not already) Oklahoma State employees will be using it as well. The Alaska Teachers Union has offered to fly teachers and an escort all the way to Oklahoma for their surgeries. Canadians are also customers, choosing to travel to Dr. Smith’s surgery center rather than endure lengthy waits for free care back home. There is more good news. Dr. Smith is no longer alone. Other surgery centers around the country are also posting prices, including Monticello Community Surgery Center in Charlottesville, Virginia, Ocean Surgery Center in Torrance, California, Orthopedic Surgery Center of Clearwater, Florida, and newer centers in Ohio and South Carolina. Here is something surprising. The prices that these centers are posting are all competitive with each other. Some of Monticello’s prices in Charlottesville are lower than Dr. Smith’s Oklahoma City prices, while others are higher – just like the price differentials you’d expect to find between grocery stores in the same town. But all of these prices are lower than the expected costs at nearby large hospital systems. The centers seem to be aware that they are all within a quick plane ride of each other and therefore they are all potential competitors for the medical tourist market. Then again, maybe that’s not surprising. That’s the way markets are supposed to work.
36aa1cb3f43d06c83f36bc94c72e2cad	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoodman/2016/01/25/let-employers-decide-how-health-insurance-should-be-subsidized-at-work/	Let Employers Decide How Health Insurance Should Be Subsidized At Work	Let Employers Decide How Health Insurance Should Be Subsidized At Work There are two things almost all health economists are in agreement about: (1) you cannot have successful reform of the health care system if you ignore the 150 million people who get health insurance through an employer and (2) the way we currently subsidize employer-provided health insurance is very wasteful and inefficient. There have been a number of suggestions for change: Sen. John McCain’s proposal to switch to a fixed-sum tax credit, the Affordable Care Act’s “Cadillac plan tax” and various versions of the same idea in proposed Republican alternatives to the ACA. Yet there is one big problem with all of this. Every proposed change has been vigorously resisted by management and labor. The most recent example of the political power of the resistors is the two year delay in the imposition of the Cadillac plan tax. Many are predicting that the tax will be delayed indefinitely. Does this mean that fundamental health reform is impossible? Not necessarily. If the economists are right about the waste in the current system, we should be able to make the same number of subsidy dollars available in a way that leaves both employers and employees better off. Further, we don’t have to convince every company and every union to go along with the change all at once. We could give every health plan a choice: stay in the current system or switch to a non-wasteful alternative. If people have the choice to remain in the current system, no one should feel threatened and no one should resist the proposal. But as I show below, it will not take long before just about everyone switches. Why is the current system so wasteful? When an employer pays an employee a dollar in wages, that dollar is subject to federal, state and local income taxes, in addition to the (FICA) payroll tax. Yet if the employer spends that same dollar on health insurance, the dollar gets spent tax free. Suppose the employee is facing a 15 percent payroll tax and a 15 percent federal income tax. If the employer pays a dollar of wages, the employee gets only 70 cents in take-home pay. That can make additional health insurance attractive even if it is worth less than the premium the employer pays. The health insurance market offers us all kinds of tradeoffs. Do you want a network that includes every doctor in town or would you accept a narrower network? How much are you willing to pay to have the former rather than the latter? These are the choices that the tax law biases. Moreover, the higher the marginal tax rate, the more wasteful health insurance can be and still be preferable to wages. High-paid Silicon Valley employees facing California’s state income tax, for example, are actually paying less than half the cost of their insurance – after the tax breaks are taken into account. These folks are likely to prefer a dollar of insurance to a dollar of wages, even if the insurance is worth less than 50 cents! The ACA’s Cadillac plan tax and the Republican versions of the same idea are designed to address this problem by limiting the tax subsidy for health insurance. Under the ACA, for example, there is to be a 40 percent tax on high-cost health plans, to the degree they exceed certain thresholds. Unfortunately, this is an eat-your-spinach reform that is all pain and no gain for the private sector. Every business or union that pays the tax loses; yet no one else gains other than the IRS. No wonder management and labor hate the idea. Suppose, however, that we give the employer (or the union) a choice. They can continue under the current tax regime, or they can have a dollar-for-dollar tax credit up to an amount equal to the average subsidy under the current system. The current subsidy averages about $1,800 per person, but to save readers from having to reach for a pocket calculator in the following examples, let’s round that up to $2,000. If the employer chooses the credit approach, the first $2,000 is tax free to the employee and any expense beyond that must be made with after-tax dollars. The credit approach pushes the tax benefits up front – presumably funding the core insurance we want everyone to have. All additional insurance is purchased with after-tax dollars and is on the same footing with take-home pay. This means that workers on the average can have the same tax relief they had before without perverse incentives to over-consume health care at the margin. My prediction: almost every employer and every union will choose the credit. Here’s why. Case 1: The credit equals the current subsidy. Suppose an employee with a family of three is getting insurance (all paid by the employer) that costs $20,000 a year. Under the current system, the implicit subsidy is $6,000, given a 30 percent marginal tax rate. Under the tax credit approach, the family gets same tax benefit ($2,000 X 3). Since the next $14,000 of spending is effectively done with after-tax dollars, that spending is on a level playing field with take-home pay as far as the tax law is concerned. Over this entire range, there is no more tax reward for waste. Suppose the employee and the employer find a way to cut that $14,000 in half – say by choosing a narrow, but high quality provider network and getting rid of some benefits of marginal value. Then the employee potentially can have $7,000 more in take-home pay without paying any additional taxes. Case 2: The credit is more than the current subsidy. Suppose the employee has a really lavish plan, costing, say, $30,000. The implicit subsidy under the current system is $9,000. But the tax credit subsidy (again) is only $6,000. A switch to the credit with no other change would increase the employee tax burden by $3,000. On the other hand, a switch to the credit system liberates $24,000 – which now will potentially trade dollar for dollar against take home pay. If the employer and the employee can‘t find at least $3,000 of waste (to be converted into cash to pay the employee’s new tax burden) in a plan like this there is something seriously wrong with both of them. Beyond, that any additional savings can be converted dollar-for-dollar into take-home pay. Case 3: The credit is less than the current subsidy. If the employee’s plan costs only $15,000, the current system subsidy is $4,500 versus a $6,000 tax credit. With the credit, the employee could have a $1,500 tax refund next April 15th. Or, the funds could be deposited in a Roth-type health savings account to be used for medical expenses not covered by the health plan. Funds remaining in the account at year end could be withdrawn tax free. Remember, in all these examples the cost to the Treasury is the same (based on static forecasting). The ability to convert a very wasteful tax system into one with much better incentives can solve a huge social problem and at the same time leave just about everyone better off. When Mark Pauly and I described the tax credit approach in Health Affairs more than 20 years ago we called the subsidy a “fixed dollar tax credit.” And although many of us object to a lot of the particulars, this is the way the government subsidizes private insurance through the (ObamaCare) exchanges. In a health insurance exchange, the subsidy available to an individual is determined by his income and the premium for the second cheapest silver plan. The individual is free to choose any plan. But the tax credit remains fixed, regardless of the choice. So why not extend the idea to health insurance at work? We would if we followed the advice of the president’s chief economic advisor, Jason Furman. And we would if we followed the advice of Ezekiel Emanuel, the White House medical doctor who helped create the Affordable Care Act. Given widespread support across the political spectrum, perhaps this is one type of health reform on which all sides can come together and agree.
2ac41ab0d5052775669c96e85b509cd4	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoodman/2016/05/02/can-the-government-make-doctors-better-doctors/	Can The Government Make Doctors Better Doctors?	Can The Government Make Doctors Better Doctors? You can take this to the bank. Every innovation in the production of every good or service – anything that lowers costs or increases quality – originates on the supply side of the market. There has never been a successful innovation that originated on the demand side. This principle applies to health care in spades. For as long as I have been in health policy – more than 30 years – I have been dealing with non-doctors who have a deep, abiding desire to tell doctors what to do. Yet I don’t know of any example anywhere in the world where this approach has ever worked. If the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again and each time expecting a different result then “insanity” is the appropriate word here. The Obama administration has spent millions of dollars on pilot programs and demonstration projects in a fruitless attempt to discover how to better practice medicine. It has spent millions more trying to herd Medicare patients into Accountable Care Organizations – super HMOs with financial incentives to hit quality measures. That hasn’t worked either. So what does the Obama Administration propose to do about all of this? More of the same. How Medicare Pays Doctor Today. Unlike every other professional, Medicare pays doctors by task and most private payers piggy back on the system and pay the same way. There are about 7,500 of these tasks. One problem with paying this way is that the payer will inevitably leave important procedures off the list of tasks – since none of us can think of everything. For all practical purposes, Medicare doesn’t pay doctors to talk to patients by phone – the way lawyers, accountants and other professionals do. Nor does it pay for email. Or consultations by Skype. Or patient education. Or “social work” – no matter how beneficial or cost effective. So right off the bat, we are dealing with an extremely inefficient payment system. Then there is the complexity of it all. Writing at the Health Affairs blog, Thomas Saving and I made this calculation: Let’s say that the 50 million or so Medicare enrollees average about 10 doctor visits per year and let’s conservatively assume that each visit gives rise to only one procedure. Then considering all of the ways a procedure can be correctly and incorrectly coded [by the nation’s 800,000 doctors], Medicare is regulating 3 quadrillion potential transactions over the course of a year! (A quadrillion is a 1 followed by 15 zeroes.) Is there any chance that Medicare can make the right decisions for all these transactions? What does it mean when it makes the wrong decisions? All too often that means doctors face perverse incentives to provide care that is too costly, too risky and less appropriate than the care they should be providing. It also means that the skill set of our entire supply of doctors will become misallocated, as medical students and even practicing doctors respond to the fact that Medicare is over-paying for some skills and under-paying for others. New Payment Method: Pay-For-Performance. The current plan is to create two new payment systems. One, called the merit-based incentive payment system (MIPS), would continue payment by task. But as Mary Agnes Carey explains at Kaiser Health News, Medicare would increase or decrease the payment based on [F]our performance categories: cost, quality, how doctors use electronic health record technology in their daily practice and share that information with other providers, and activities that improve care, such as care coordination or how much beneficiaries are engaged in their care. That composite score is used to determine a positive, negative or no adjustment to a provider’s Medicare Part B payment for a medical service. New Payment Method: Pay-For-Performance on Steroids. The second method of payment is largely an extension of Accountable Care Organization approach, under which a team of health professionals provides coordinated care centralized around a “medical home” and doctors, hospitals and other health care providers form networks to provide integrated, coordinated care. Under this model, providers take more risks, but if they hit the performance measures, they can make more money. The Pursuing What Doesn’t Work. There have been many, many studies of pay-for-performance both in this country and abroad. None of them are positive. See Does Pay for Performance Work? And Bad News for Obamacare: Pay for Performance Doesn’t Work and the links to the relevant academic research. Ignoring What Does Works. Meanwhile there are places where pay-for-performance techniques do work. But these are not systems designed by government bureaucrats or anyone else on the payer side. They are systems designed by doctors – most often working in Independent Doctor Associations, usually in the Medicare Advantage program. Coordinated care, integrated care, team care, medical homes – all that can apparently work when it is developed on the supply side of the market. So why is the Obama administration ignoring these private sector innovations? Maybe it’s because they weren’t invented in Washington DC.
1c04490b626352993f2bc18ef85841cf	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoodman/2016/08/10/the-most-powerful-force-for-reducing-health-care-costs-the-marketplace/	The Most Powerful Force For Reducing Healthcare Costs: The Marketplace	The Most Powerful Force For Reducing Healthcare Costs: The Marketplace This Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2014 photo shows the Anthem logo at the company's corporate headquarters in... [+] Indianapolis. Formerly known as WellPoint, the nation's second-largest health insurer changed its corporate name to Anthem to reflect a label familiar to consumers shopping for coverage. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings) A massive experiment in California is proving embarrassing to the health policy community. It’s showing that one of the most common and doggedly held beliefs of the experts is completely wrong. Readers who don’t mix and mingle with the health policy types may wonder why anyone should care what policy wonks think. The short answer is that how the “experts” think affects you and me. When they get things wrong (which is about 90 percent of the time), the rest of us must cope with a health care system in which costs are higher, quality lower and access more difficult than if the wonks had chosen a different profession altogether. Gallery: What Does Your Doctor Make? 9 images View gallery So, what’s happening in California that’s so unusual? The giant insurer WellPoint (Anthem) handles health care for California state employees, retirees and their families (Calpers) and historically it did what other insurers do – use its bargaining muscle to get big discounts from hospitals throughout the state. This reflected the conventional view that it takes a large entity to obtain prices that individual patients could never achieve on their own. Yet with all its financial power representing a huge number of patients, WellPoint was still paying bills for hip and knee replacements that ranged all over the map – from a low of $15,000 to a high $110,000. So WellPoint entered an agreement with CalPERS to pay for these procedures in a different way for about 450,000 enrollees. WellPoint encouraged them to go to only 41 hospitals for their joint replacements. These were hospitals that provided good quality care and routinely charged $30,000 or less. Patients were free to go to elsewhere and initially about 30 percent did so. But they were told in advance that WellPoint would pay no more than $30,000 for a joint replacement outside the “network” (At all the hospitals, patients pay a 20% copayment up to $3,000.) So if a hospital charged, say, $40,000, the patient would have to pay the extra $10,000 out of pocket. Note: under the new arrangement, WellPoint didn’t negotiate with any hospital. It didn’t send a letter. It didn’t make a phone call. It didn’t plead. It didn’t beg. It didn’t threaten or cajole. If any of that went on, it would be the patients doing it, not the insurer or their employer. What happened next was remarkable. As confirmed by Berkeley health economist James Robinson and his colleague Timothy Brown, within one year, the out-of-network cost fell by one-third and by the end of the second year the average out-of-network cost was below $30,000. Because that experiment went so well, WellPoint and Calpers decided to quit bargaining with providers over a great many other services and see what the enrollees could accomplish on their own. Writing in The New York Times yesterday, Austin Frakt summarized the results of these experiments: Prices for [hip and knee replacements] fell by an average of more than 20 percent, saving Calpers and its patients $6 million over two years….[F]or cataract removal surgery, the average price paid also dropped by nearly 20 percent, saving $1.3 million over two years. For colonoscopies, $7 million was saved — a 28 percent drop. And for knee or shoulder arthroscopy, prices fell by about 17 percent. Over the same two-year period, employer costs for health care rose by 5.5 percent. What Frakt doesn’t mention (and what very few health economists other than yours truly are ever going to mention) is that the California experiments completely upset the paradigm that dominates conventional health policy thinking. Truth be known, most health policy wonks think the way Bernie Sanders thinks. They have believed for their entire professional careers that bureaucracies are far superior to individual patients in bargaining with providers. Clearly they are wrong. None of this is surprising to my colleagues and me, however. We have been observing for years that wherever patients control the marginal dollars, health care markets work and they work very well. If third parties were paying all the bills, Rx.com would not exist . Nor would MinuteClinic or Teladoc. Nor would Uber-type doctor house calls or uber-type home care visits. There would be no transparency and no price or quality competition in the market for cosmetic or laser surgery. The list goes on.
4f3b989c862fd5840d4b287a31310bdd	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoodman/2017/05/02/high-risk-pools-worked-just-fine-before-obamacare/	High Risk Pools Worked Just Fine Before Obamacare	High Risk Pools Worked Just Fine Before Obamacare Priscilla Martinez (C) sits with her three week old son, Elias, in the waiting room at Inner City... [+] Health Center in Denver, Colorado on March 15, 2017. Inner City Health Center was founded in 1983 and offers medical, dental, and mental and behavioral health services to the uninsured and underserved populace of Denver County and surrounding Colorado communities. Services are offered to patients based on a sliding scale, and 65% of the patient population is below 200% of the federal poverty level. ICHC serves more than 22,000 patients annually. / AFP PHOTO / Jason Connolly (Photo credit should read JASON CONNOLLY/AFP/Getty Images) This editorial was co-authored by Dr. Linda Gorman, who did almost all of the work. Dr. Gorman is the Director of Heath Care Policy at the Independence Institute. The latest Republican plans for replacing Obamacare are focused on financially separating patients with high health care costs from all the rest. If a separate source of funding can be found for the expensive enrollees, competition for the healthier ones will keep premiums more in line with free market pricing. The vehicles are risk pools, “invisible” risk pools and reinsurance. In the latter two cases, the enrollees are generally unaware of the arrangement. Before Obamacare, 35 states had risk pools – available to people in the individual market who had been turned down for private insurance because of a health condition. For several years prior to the exchanges, there was also an “Obamacare” risk pool, funded by the federal government. These arrangements were not perfect. Lack of funding created waiting lists in some states and even the federally funded risk pool closed its doors to new enrollees when it ran out of the money that had been budgeted. Although the federal risk pool charged a premium no higher than the rate paid by healthy enrollees, state risk pools tended to charge 50 percent more and no distinction was made between applicants who were uninsured through no fault of their own (victims of a layoff, for example) and those who had been willfully uninsured, just to save money. Nonetheless, these arrangements worked well. Much better, for example, than the individual market today. Prior to Obamacare, for example, premiums tended to be less than half of current ones, networks were large, and carriers offered such a variety of policies that there was something available to fit most family budgets. It was illegal to cancel an individual health insurance policy once it was in force unless purchasers stopped paying their premiums or committed material fraud. Policies renewed automatically and when an individual became ill her premium could not be raised any more than the annual premium increase for everyone else. Most policies were medically underwritten, which means that applicants were required to fill out forms answering questions about their health. Insurers quoted prices for coverage based on their assessment of medical risk, which is generally the estimate of future medical costs applicants were likely to generate. Medical risk pricing protected existing customers from premium increases caused by people who waited until they were sick to buy health insurance. Policies were flexible. For those with significant health problems, there were sometimes “riders,” excluding certain medical conditions from coverage for a period of time. On rare occasions, carriers would refuse to provide a policy. (Despite much misleading rhetoric, people who are completely uninsurable are estimated to be less than 1 percent of the population.) Risk pooling was efficient and insurers used actual experience to evaluate medical risk. The low rates charged to low risk people encouraged younger people to purchase coverage. Most people who were higher risk could still get coverage, including those who were higher risk because they were older. People who bought health insurance through their employers were not subject to medical underwriting, provided they had maintained continuous coverage. Even if they were previously uninsured, employers were required to accept them, with no differential premium, after a short period. Medical risk did not go away, however. Large employer groups were, and still are, medically underwritten (as a group) when an employer applies for reinsurance. The problem with group insurance is that it’s not portable. People with individual insurance can keep their policies as long as they pay their premiums, regardless of who they work for or if they work at all. By contrast, people in a group plan could rely on it, develop a health condition that makes them potentially uninsurable, and then lose their insurance because they were laid off, quit their job, or chose early retirement. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 required states to find their own solutions to this problem. States expanded existing high risk pools, created new ones, or reached an agreement with an existing insurer to be the insurer of last resort. Two states, New York and New Jersey, tried the Obamacare solution. They had the same sky high costs and premiums that have made Obamacare so destructive. Obamacare tries to solve this problem by requiring insurers to accept all applicants for the same premium. The premium can vary by age and a few other factors, but it cannot vary by health status. The high-risk pool solution cost far less and targeted subsidies far more efficiently than Obamacare. CoverColorado, the Colorado high risk pool, provided full coverage at application for people who had tried to purchase individual coverage, met federal continuous coverage requirements, had been turned down by a carrier, and were ineligible for government coverage. People who were uninsurable and had no insurance because they waited until they were ill to purchase coverage could also get coverage. But they were required to pay expenses related to their pre-existing condition for up to 6 months. This reduced the incentive to delay the purchase of coverage until expensive care was needed. Premiums were determined by the market and set at 147 percent of the average premium for similar insurance. The higher premium further reduced incentives to game the system and helped to keep the high-risk pool solvent. In Colorado’s sensibly regulated individual market, a healthy 20-something Denver man could purchase a basic HMO plan with drug coverage for $82 a month. Like the premiums, the policy structures copied the market. Deductibles started at $1,000 and a variety of policies eligible for health savings accounts were available. The network included any provider in the state. Rather than means test the subsidy for everyone (with all the work, uncertainty, and invasion of privacy that entails) people were offered the opportunity to apply for subsidies to lower their premiums if their income was less than $40,000 a year. Premiums covered about 50 percent of CoverColorado’s costs. Revenues from the Colorado unclaimed property fund covered 25 percent, and up to 25 percent of remaining costs were funded by assessments on each policy issued by insurance carriers. Insurers received tax credits worth about $5 million to offset some of those assessments, and they added their assessment to policy holder premiums. In 2011, the assessment was $38.69. One problem that CoverColorado needed to address was its relatively low lifetime cap on policy payouts. It was limited to $1,000,000 at a time when typical commercial policy caps were $3,000,000. Because Colorado law limited the lookback period for medically underwritten policies to 10 years, people whose medical problems were resolved could cycle back into the individual market. By 2013, Colorado’s population was 5.3 million and there were 13,670 policies in force. CoverColorado ended operations on December 31. Its 2013 budget was $57 million and it employed around 8 full-time people. In the same year, Colorado’s Obamacare exchange spent $58.6 million to provide enrollment services and spent $2.1 million on a payroll of around 350 people. Federal taxpayers spent $180 million more for premium subsidies. The premium subsidies were less help than commonly believed, since the premiums they were applied to were 35 to 100 percent higher than they were before Obamacare. The small number of people attracted to the Obamacare Pre-existing Insurance Plan (the federal risk pool) shows how well the state’s high risk plan worked. Designed to provide coverage for people Obamacare supporters said could not get insurance, its enrollment was miniscule until it set premiums at the same price charged for healthy people in the individual market, a rate that was a third lower than CoverColorado. Despite intensive marketing, it had signed up only 2,227 Coloradans by the first part of 2013. High risk pools like CoverColorado channeled subsidies more efficiently and at a far lower cost than Obamacare’s clumsy mix of guaranteed issue, community rated premiums, health exchanges, and congressionally designed insurance policies that make actual medical care hard to get. Reforming Obamacare by replacing it with the high-risk pools that preceded it would be a good place to start.
e2a25093fed2427e67e4d613d98f3dca	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoodman/2021/04/02/who-pays-the-corporate-income-tax/?sh=2e2fe28b58ab	Who Pays The Corporate Income Tax?	Who Pays The Corporate Income Tax? The Congressional Budget Office estimates that workers pay 25 percent of the corporate income tax. getty President Biden is proposing to finance his infrastructure spending proposal by increasing the corporate income tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent. What difference will that make? If there is one thing that virtually all economists are united about, it is this: corporations don’t pay the corporate income tax. Why is that? A corporation is not a person. It is a relationship – a relationship between workers, managers, stockholders, consumers and others. You can tax relationships. But relationships don’t pay taxes. The sales tax, for example, taxes a relationship between buyer and seller. But sales don’t pay taxes. People do. The burden of the sales tax must fall on the buyer, the seller or both. In competitive markets, economists think the full burden falls on the buyer. This conclusion makes sense to most people because they see the tax nominally added to the prices of the goods they buy at the cash register. But what we see with our own eyes isn’t necessarily good economics. Take the payroll tax. This is a tax on wages. But wages don’t pay taxes. The burden must fall on the buyer (the employer) or the seller (the worker) or both. In practice (and by law), half the tax is deducted from the worker’s wages and the employer sends a check for the whole amount to the government. So, it looks like the worker is paying half and the employer is paying half. However, careful studies by economists over many years show this is not the case. The burden of the tax is not determined by who writes the check to the government. It is determined by how the market adjusts to the tax. In this case the evidence is quite convincing: the full burden falls on the workers. That means that for every dollar of payroll tax the government collects, workers’ pay will be a dollar lower than it otherwise would be. MORE FOR YOUIran And Russia Are Testing Biden: Is Our National Security At Risk?New Earmarks Costing Taxpayers Nearly $10 Billion Proposed By 324 Members Of Congress – Is There Wasteful Spending?Bombings Outside A School In Afghanistan Kill Over 68 People, Mostly Children With all this in mind, let’s turn to the corporate income tax. Who pays it? When all adjustments are said and done there are several candidates, including consumers, workers and stockholders. How is the burden distributed among those three groups? The surprising answer is that economists don’t know. That’s an answer that should give pause to all progressives. There is something very unprogressive about advocating a tax without knowing who actually pays it. An earlier generation of progressives understood this very well. Under the leadership of such liberal economists as John Kenneth Galbraith, the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) set the left-of-center policy agenda for decades. Their early position on the corporate income tax: abolish it and tax shareholders on their share of corporate earnings. Of course, in those days most shareholders paid income taxes. Today, shares of stock are often owned by entities (or financial vehicles) that don’t pay income taxes – including IRAs, 410(k) plans, pension funds and nonprofit organizations. Foreign owners of stock pay a dividend tax, but they don’t pay U.S. capital gains taxes. In fact, today only 24 percent of shareholders are fully taxed. Some economists are forced to give their best estimate on who pays the corporate income tax because it is required by the nature of the work they do. The Tax Policy Center (a joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution), for example, estimates that 20 percent of the corporate income tax is paid by labor. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) puts the worker’s burden at 25 percent. Since the Tax Policy Center leans left and the CBO is the score-keeper for Congress, these estimates have to be taken seriously. Joe Biden may say that raising the corporate income tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent will not result in a tax on anyone earning less than $400,000. But when members of Congress vote for the measure, they will be instructed by the CBO that they are voting to take one out of every four dollars of increased government revenue out of the pockets of ordinary American workers. Bad as that sounds, the reality could be much worse. It’s possible that the entire burden of the corporate income tax falls on labor. How could that happen? Imagine that the rate of return on capital (adjusted for risk) is determined in the international capital market. Beginning in equilibrium, suppose the United States imposes a tax on corporate earnings. Since this lowers the return on capital invested in the U.S., capital tends to flow out of our country to other countries, where the rate of return is now higher. The most important factor determining a country’s average wage is the amount of physical capital to combine with it. As financial capital flows out of the country, there will be less physical capital than there otherwise would be. (Companies will buy fewer factories, fewer machines, fewer structures, etc.) As financial capital becomes scarcer, its rate of return begins to rise and continues to do so until it reaches the previous international average. In the new equilibrium, the rate of return on capital will be exactly as it was before the tax. But because there is less physical capital than there otherwise would be, wages will be lower than they otherwise would be. In this way, the entire burden of the tax ultimately falls on labor. What does the evidence show? The most sophisticated model of international capital flows ever developed has been produced by Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff and his colleagues. (Full disclosure: my own organization helped fund the model’s development.) The model took three years to develop and it’s being continuously updated. It has 3½ million equations. It takes several computers operating up to 6 hours to do a single run. Based on the findings of the model, Laurence Kotlikoff and his colleagues published a seminal study at the NBER Working Paper site in 2014. The study found that international capital flows are very sensitive to corporate taxation and wages are very sensitive to the amount of capital available. This finding applies not just to this country, but everywhere else around the world. Based on the study, Kotlikoff wrote a column for the New York Times NYT arguing that the surest way to raise the wages of the American worker is to abolish the corporate income tax. Alternatively, a sure way to lower wages and reduce family income is to tax corporate earnings. If Kotlikoff and his colleagues are right, then almost all of the revenue designated so far to fund the Biden infrastructure spending bill will come out of the pockets of people who make less than $400,000 a year.
5444d16440e85f4eea177a382c5dd57c	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoodman/2021/04/19/the-health-problem-congress-created-and-cannot-solve/	The Health Problem Congress Created And Cannot Solve	The Health Problem Congress Created And Cannot Solve For 70 years, the U.S. tax system has treated group insurance differently. getty It’s hard to solve a problem unless you first acknowledge it exists. And it’s hard to acknowledge the existence of a problem if you created it yourself. That in a nutshell summarizes a unique feature of the American health care system. Since the end of World War II, the U.S. tax system has treated group insurance obtained through an employer differently from insurance purchased by individuals For the past 70 years, premiums paid by an employer have been tax-free to the employee. From time to time, individual purchases have benefited from one tax break or another, but they have never been treated as generously as insurance obtained at work. Even though Blue Cross group insurance might be identical to Blue Cross individual insurance, the tax law encourages us all to prefer the former to the latter. All we need is an accommodating employer to pay non-taxed premiums instead of additional taxable wages. Competition for labor ensures that virtually all employers of any size are more than willing to do that – even though most employers these days would rather not be involved in health care matters at all. Here is the problem. Suppose an employee has been paying premiums (through an employer) to a health plan for 30 years. Then he gets too sick to work, has to quit his job and turns to the individual market for health insurance. Since his expected health care costs are quite high, an actuarially fair premium would also be quite high. In fact, it might be so high that the individual would be just as well off paying his own medical bills directly. This creates a fairness issue. This individual did the socially responsible thing. He paid premiums to the system every year – rather than forgo health insurance and indulge in additional personal consumption. Yet when illness struck, the fact that he had been paying into the system for 30 years was of no consequence because he was no longer on the employer’s plan. He would have been better off if he had never paid an insurance premium at all. MORE FOR YOUAutism Employment-May 11,2021: God Bless AmericaFlorida Sheriff Harasses Public With Program Where All Are Innocent Until Predicted GuiltyBombings Outside A School In Afghanistan Kill Over 68 People, Mostly Children To many on the left, the solution is to force insurers in the individual market to accept such high-cost enrollees for the same premium as healthy enrollees. What difference does that make? All insurance involves pooling. In health care, those who stay healthy subsidize those who get sick. But here we have two different pools – one that collects 30 years of premiums from a healthy enrollee and one that is stuck with all the medical bills. That’s not fair to the new insurer. But suppose you don’t care very much about fairness for insurers. There is another reason why you should care. Every health insurer must collect enough in premiums to pay its claims. So, it’s not really the new insurer that is penalized by this solution. It’s every buyer in the individual market – who must now pay higher premiums. As it turns out, the individual market is quite small. It’s only about 6 percent of the population. So, if everyone who gets too sick to work migrates to the individual market and that market is required to insure everyone with no regard to health status, a small minority of the population will be saddled with the full burden of that migration. The solution favored by the left doesn’t just impose an inequitable burden on a tiny slice of the public, it encourages the problem to get worse. Some older workers with chronic health problems remain at work only because of health insurance benefits. If they can retire early and get the same benefits in the individual market many will do so, putting an even larger burden on the small number of individual payers. Remember, Congress (representing all of us) encourages people to join an employer’s group plan. Yet when we leave our employer, eventually we must also leave the health insurance group. The solution favored by many on the left is to take a social problem (created by Congress) and then make the folks in this tiny individual market pay the cost of solving it. Is that fair? Yet that is what Obamacare does. It’s the main reason why premiums in the individual market doubled in short order after Obamacare was enacted, why deductibles are three times what they are in a typical employer plan and why narrow networks exclude the best doctors and the best hospitals. So, what can be done? The most rational place to start is with root causes. If employers were able to buy individually owned insurance for their employees, the insurance would travel with the employee from job to job and in and out of the labor market. As long as employees aren’t forced to leave their insurance plan when they leave an employer, most of the problems of “pre-existing conditions” would vanish in a heartbeat. So why aren’t we doing that? Some employers once did purchase such insurance for their employees. However, 1996 legislation made the legality of that practice unclear. Then, the Obama administration threatened employers with large fines if they engaged in it! The Obama fines, however, were imposed by executive order. Those orders were reversed by a Trump executive order. As of January 1, 2020, employer-purchased, individually owned insurance is now legal. A second solution is post-retirement health benefits, which are still provided by some large employers. With this arrangement, employees stay in the employer’s health plan from the time of retirement until they are eligible for Medicare. Unfortunately, Obamacare encourages employers to drop these plans. Even if the retiree doesn’t get a subsidy from Obamacare, premiums for older enrollees are kept artificially low (offset by artificially high premiums for younger buyers). It may be cheaper for the employer to pay some or all of the Obamacare premium rather than provide the same coverage privately. Good public policy would encourage employer-provided health care benefits after retirement rather than discourage them. For employers who chose not to buy individually owned insurance and who chose not to offer post retirement care, there is a third solution. They should pay a small premium to a state risk pool, or reinsurance pool. The pool would have only one very limited purpose: to pay for any extraordinary costs that migrate from the group to the individual market. Note that under all three solutions, the group market would no longer be dumping costs on the individual market. We would no longer be forcing 6 percent of the population to pay for a social problem created by government policy. We would solve the problem of “pre-existing conditions” without causing premiums and deductibles to soar in the individual market.
415cd87ef13e0fbd2b368f7023e53ebe	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngreathouse/2012/11/19/unlock-these-4-secrets-to-professional-success/	Unlock These 4 Secrets To Professional Success	Unlock These 4 Secrets To Professional Success Citrix's CEO, Mark Templeton, recently shared his insights regarding achieving personal and professional success as part of UC Santa Barbara’s Distinguished Lecture Series. The underlying theme of Mark's talk was: "Success Isn't What Happens To Other People - It Can Happen To You." Mark knows a bit about success and what it takes to reach the top of one's industry. Mark began his career at Citrix as a middle manager in its Marketing Department, eventually rising to the ranks of CEO. He was later fired from this role, only to be re-hired as CEO a couple years later. During Mark's tenure, Citrix has grown from 50 employees and few million dollars of revenue to a company 7,000 employees strong, generating revenue in excess of $2.4 billion. Success Is (Mostly) In Your Hands Mark began by stating that success is not entirely in your hands. He then went on to identify four approaches entrepreneurs can take to enhance their chances of achieving success. 1. Make A Difference - Not A Fortune Mark explains that, “If you set out to make a fortune, you probably won't. If you set out to make a difference in the world, you will and you might make a fortune.” 2. Connect The Dots Or Paint By Numbers - Know What's Right For You Mark encourages emerging entrepreneurs to become self-aware. The earlier they define their strengths and weaknesses, the sooner they can begin to leverage their attributes and shore up their shortcomings. One step in this process is identifying a strategy for conducting your life that is based on your proclivity to either connect the dots or paint by numbers. Mark explains that, “There are two fundamental strategies... connecting dots and paint by numbers. You have to be realistic about who you are. Once you have this model in your head, it sets you free. It's a strategy. (With) paint by numbers... if I follow a prescribed course, I'm going to get a good picture. That's the picture of your life... the picture you're trying to create in your life. Scientists, professionals like doctors, lawyers, this is the core strategy in a life like that... matching the numbers with the colors. The other one is connecting the dots. Starting in a place and getting to the next place and then figuring out what the next place is (after that). To do this, you have to do a lot of things that are not digital, they are analog. Because of its relevance to entrepreneurs, Mark outlined several tactics required to successfully execute the connect-the-dots strategy. Choose Well - Which dot should you connect next? See the next tactic... Passion & Principles - Follow your passion when looking for the next dot, bridled by a consistent set of principles. In Mark's words, "the only way to make good, sequential decisions is to have a common set of principles you're always going back to." Persistence & Practice - When it comes to gaining the skills required for success, Mark makes it clear that, "there is no shortcut, (success requires) thousands of hours" of practice. He also notes that if you choose the next dot based on your passions, it will be relatively easy for you to maintain the persistence required to gain the expertise required to achieve success. Family & Mentors - "A family is the people who believe in you... and make it easier (for you) to be persistent. Mentors are the people you are copying. Mentors and role models are a shortcut to become something you believe in." Most parents hate this (the connect-the-dot approach) because it's ambiguous. 'Hey, I didn't pay all this money for you to go to college, to get out there and wander around. What are you going to be?' Often, parents want you to be a paint-by-numbers person because its less ambiguous, seems more certain... and therefore lower risk." However, the risk of failure of either strategy is almost guaranteed if it is incongruent with your personality. 3. Good Fortune Matters Mark reinforces that entrepreneurs should acknowledge when good fortune shines upon them and not internalize all of their successes. “Blessings... are things you cannot control. I can be persistent. I can be curious. But I can't possibly control blessings and good fortune. If you attribute over 50% of the outcome that you will see in your life to good fortune... it will keep you humble and it will help you focus on the things you can control. When you focus on the things you can control, it’s amazing how much good fortune you will have.” 4. Always Be A Student - Success Is A Work In Process Mark notes that a precursor to success is to, “Always see yourself as a student and always understand that success is a work in process, always." Curious students remain grounded, never take their successes for granted and are always learning. I'm Still The Same Guy I Was In College During one of my first meetings with Mark, when Citrix was courting Expertcity (creator of GoToMyPC and GoToMeeting), he showed me a photo of himself in college and said, "I am still that person." This same photo is shown at the outset of this article. This sentiment stayed with me for years, as it reinforced that despite his success, Mark had remained grounded. At heart, he was still a state college kid who grew up in a lower-middle class home, the son of an electrician. At my request, Mark incorporated the college photo in his UC Santa Barbara talk, telling the students that although his body had aged, he still had the same passion, optimism and propensity to smile that allowed young Mark Templeton to ascend to the helm of one of the most successful software companies on the planet. Success may not happen to everyone, but it sure is gratifying to see it happen to an authentically good person like Mark. Follow my startup-oriented Twitter feed here: @johngreathouse. I promise I will never tweet you about rainbows, unicorns or tell you about that killer burrito I just ate. You can also check out my blog for emerging entrepreneurs HERE.
d6a071e0d27af8e9c3471f4b7d9b0880	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngreathouse/2013/01/22/five-reasons-most-mbas-fail-at-startups/	Five Reasons (Most) MBAs Fail At Startups	Five Reasons (Most) MBAs Fail At Startups MBA Students at lecture (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Startups Need Execution, Not Administration Despite the proliferation of entrepreneurial courses within Business Administration programs, business schools are essentially vocational training grounds for consultants and investment bankers. There are a variety of reasons many MBAs struggle at startups. The five most lethal challenges are as follows: 1. Tool Users - Startups often have a long gestation period in which the team is in discovery mode, defining the company's value proposition, target market, pricing, business model, etc. Thus, startups need people who can identify and prioritize problems, not just solve those that are already defined. MBAs graduate with an analytical toolkit that can be readily applied to solve known problems in a deliberate manner, especially when reams of data are available. Thus, it is no surprise that Harvard recently reported that 25% of its 2012 graduates accepted jobs as consultants, while 52% opted for careers in financial services. 2. Limited Entrepreneurial Experience - The admission process of top business schools emphasizes undergraduate grades and standardized test scores. As noted in Startup Advice From College Dropouts, successful entrepreneurs are often poor students. Additionally, just as MBA graduates gravitate to consulting and investment banking, the majority of business school enrollees are also drawn from these industries (along with public accounting). Thus, relatively few MBA candidates enter B-school with meaningful entrepreneurial experiences. 3. Golden Expectations - Top MBA programs are expensive and their graduates have astronomical salary expectations. Per the 2012 Global Management Education Graduate Survey, the median debt of 2012 MBA graduates was $45,000, while the debt from top schools averaged $90,000 (e.g., Wharton graduates averaged more than $114,000 of graduate school loans). This same report notes that MBAs will be granted a median starting salary of $90,000, plus an average signing bonus of $15,000. Unfortunately, the 2012 QS TopMBA.com Applicant Survey notes that, on average, MBAs expect to earn $153,000 upon graduation. When I graduated from Wharton in 1989, I was one of the few in my class who shunned the investment banking / consulting path for the life as an initially unpaid entrepreneur. I was able to follow the startup path because I had no school debt and my wife had a stable, well-paying job. Sadly, relatively few entrepreneurially minded MBA graduates can now afford to accept a below-market salary at a startup. 4. Action vs. Analysis - Although its use is in decline, many MBA classes are still taught via the Socratic case method. This approach is effective when reviewing historical scenarios in which abundant data is available and a menu of potential decisions are readily evident. Outside of the classroom, startups seldom have enough time, information or money to view the world through the rearview mirror. As such, much of the benefit derived from the case study methodology is inappropriate in an entrepreneurial setting where greater value is placed on execution, rather than analysis. I recall a lengthy Harvard case from my days at Wharton that explored a large company's convoluted decision process to move from wood to fiberglass skis. At the time we reviewed the case (the late 1980's), the transition from wooden skis was nearly 20-years in the past. 5. Attitude - I have numerous friends who also happen to have earned an MBA. However, my friends notwithstanding, the reality is that many graduates from top Business Schools are tools. They are often more focused on building their careers, rather than building collegial teams. This proclivity for a cutthroat, rather than a collaborative culture, is detrimental to startups, which require everyone to row in the same direction with a low drama quotient, lest the startup boat will sink. Look For MBA Outliers Top business schools are effective at identifying intelligent, ambitious people. Entrepreneurs should leverage the screening performed by B-schools and not dismiss MBA applicants outright. Thus, if you encounter an action-oriented MBA who has practical startup experience, is willing to accept equity in lieu of a market salary and exhibits a collaborative attitude, ignore their MBA handicap and hire them immediately. Follow my startup-oriented Twitter feed here: @johngreathouse. I promise I will never tweet about MBA hating or that killer burrito I just ate. You can also check out my hands-on startup advice blog HERE.
7dbdc77b0f195bccecb87819e9611dca	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngreathouse/2014/04/21/do-you-have-founderitis-in-denial-check-out-these-7-symptoms/	Do You Have 'Founderitis'? In Denial? Check Out These 7 Symptoms	Do You Have 'Founderitis'? In Denial? Check Out These 7 Symptoms Everyone around you knows that you have it, but you are in denial. You say things like, “I am open to giving control to the right person at the right time”. However, the reality is that the “right person” does not exist and the “right time” never arrives. Founderitis, Founder’s Disease, Founder’s Syndrome; by any name, this my way or the highway approach to running a business is the same affliction. When Founderitis strikes, the founder’s drive, energy and vision, characteristics crucial to the startup’s initial success, become a hindrance to the company’s maturation into a self-sustaining entity. Founderitis All too often, one or more founders become afflicted with Founderitis, a my way or the highway approach to running a business that can destroy a startup. When Founderitis strikes, the founder's hard-charging, reactive demeanor, which was crucial to the startup’s initial success, becomes a hindrance to the company’s maturation. A founder exhibiting one or more of following symptoms likely is a victim of Founderitis: Inability to delegate Anger when not included in every decision Paranoia derived from a sense that the venture is “slipping out of their control” Ignoring input from subject-matter experts Expressing prescient knowledge, even when lacking subject-matter expertise Lack of respect for formalized planning Subterfuge of efforts to institute procedures, processes and controls which would decentralize decision making Ten Step Program As with most mental illnesses, there is hope. The following Ten Step program will put even the most resolute cases of Founderitis into remission. Step One - No surprise, the first step to recovery involves the founder admitting he has a problem. For most founders, this is a challenging admission. Their high self-esteem makes it difficult for them acknowledge their deficiencies. As such, an intervention is often necessary to force a founder to recognize that they have a problem. The company’s Board should initiate the intervention, supported by the cofounders and other key employees. It is important that the founder understand that he is valued, and that the intervention is not a coup. The Board should make it clear to the afflicted founder that the goal of the intervention is to help him define an appropriate and constructive role in which his skills can be properly channeled and leveraged as the company moves through its maturation stages toward its ultimate exit. Step Two - Once the founder acknowledges that he has a problem, he then needs to accept that the issue is bigger than he is, and that he must enlist the power of the Board and his fellow employees to set him on the road to recovery. To facilitate this acceptance, the Board should present a plan to the founder in which he can continue to play a key role within the company. This step involves a heavy dose of tough love. If the founder believes that he can simply apologize for the past err of his ways, without modifying his behavior, the situation may improve for a short period, but he will eventually return to his destructive tendencies if the root of his Founderitis is not resolved. All too often, the key to forcing the founder to change his ways is the Board’s willingness to force the afflicted founder out of the organization if he refuses to acknowledge and treat his illness. Step Three - The next step requires the founder to accept his new, more conscribed role within the company. He needs to understand that it is inevitable for everyone’s responsibilities to become more focused as the startup matures. Such enhanced focus of key roles should be viewed as a sign of the company’s success, not a cabal designed to reduce the founder’s autonomy. At this stage, the founder needs to understand that it is inevitable for everyone’s role to become more focused as the startup matures. The early-stage Sales VP who initially dictates the company’s marketing decisions must eventually turn over these duties to a marketing specialist. Such enhanced focus should be viewed as a sign of the company’s success, not as a cabal designed to reduce the founder’s autonomy. Step Four - At this stage, the founder must demonstrate a deep understanding of his strengths and weaknesses by identifying how those characteristics can be best deployed to further the company’s overall mission. Step Five - Unfortunately, the road to recovery often becomes more difficult at this stage because victims of Founderitis must identify and analyze their past wrongs. This challenging task requires the afflicted founder to perform an honest post mortem of his past behavior and acknowledge how his Founderitis has detrimentally impacted his company. As with each of the ten-steps, the Board and the key employees need to assist the founder in this process by ensuring that such analysis includes examination of the mistakes made by all parties. In addition, the discussion should be impersonal, and focus on how the organization can avoid such missteps in the future. Step Six - Once the founder has confronted his past wrongs, he must accept that the Board can help him address the defects in his personality that have caused him to put his self-interest in front of the company’s interest. As stated previously, the key to the successful completion of these steps is to ensure that the founder properly and honestly separates his self-interest from the company’s best interest. Step Seven - Central to the founder’s recovery is the process of reparations. This requires the founder to swallow his pride and make a list of the employees, Board members, and other stakeholders whom he has alienated or otherwise negatively impacted. Recovering founders must repair the damage caused by their past actions, and make appropriate amends to the impacted parties. This might involve reassuring an executive that his opinions really are valued, and that they will be heard in the future. It might also include a public admission of one or more significant mistakes, and a commitment to change the underlying behavior that led to such mistakes. In whatever form it manifests itself, it is vital that the founder heal the wounds caused by his destructive Founderitis activities. Step Eight - Once amends have been made, the founder must diligently monitor his actions for future signs of Founderitis. Acknowledging the err of his past is only part of the problem. During tranquil times, recovering founders can often keep their Founderitis in check. However, as soon as the stress level is heightened, they are apt to go into a maniacal crises style of management. Thus, he must be especially careful to not slip into his old ways during the inevitable fire drills his venture will encounter. The board can assist the founder at this stage by gently reminding him that he is edging toward the Founderitis precipice. After pointing out the slippery slope that he is flirting with, the board should help him refocus on the aspects of the business in which his skills are best suited – in other words, help him get back into his "proper position" on the volleyball court. If a particular problem is outside the scope of his "position," the founder should be reminded that the company faces a variety of challenges, and that his time is best spent managing the responsibilities encompassed in his newly defined role. Step Nine - At this point, the recovering founder must stay in close communication with the board. If he has fully accepted that the board has the company’s best interest in mind, then their guidance will help him stay on the path of recovery, and avoid actions that may lead to a return of full-fledged Founderitis. Step Ten - It is important that the recovering founder never forget that "once a victim of Founderitis, always a victim." One way to ensure that the evils of Founderitis remain top-of-mind is for the recovering founder to counsel other afflicted founders who are either in denial, or at the early stages of recovery. Founder status should be celebrated throughout a startup's lifetime. However, founder status does not equate to veto rights over key decisions. As a startup matures, the Founders must be comfortable proving their abilities, on a daily basis, just like everyone else. They must also understand that the scope of their role will narrow over time, just like everyone else's. If a founder's performance is not meeting the company's expectations, they should be treated like everyone else. If their performance remains suboptimal after they have been put on notice and given a chance to meet the challenges laid before them, they should be asked to leave the organization - again, just like anyone else in a similar situation.
777e98966879ba0fb00a1016ddf6e3fd	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngreathouse/2014/05/18/want-113000-rabidly-active-twitter-followers-check-out-this-gurus-surprising-path/	Want 113,000 Rabidly Active Twitter Followers? Check Out This Guru's Surprising Path	Want 113,000 Rabidly Active Twitter Followers? Check Out This Guru's Surprising Path You might be surprised to learn how Steve Farnsworth earned over 113,000 highly engaged Twitter followers. His bonafides reflect his followers' hyperactivity. Steve was named by Forbes contributor Haydn Shaughnessy as a Top 50 Social Media Influencer, cited by LinkedIn as a Top 25 Social Media Market Expert and proclaimed by AdWeek to be a Top 50 Person Re-Tweeted By Marketing Leaders. A Humble Maven In addition to Forbes naming Steve a top Social Media Influencer, the publication also noted that he has the highest percentage of "good" (95% non-fake) Twitter followers among public relations professionals. This is a remarkable percentage, given that Steve has nearly 115,000 followers. To put this into perspective, I have less than 8,000 Twitter followers, yet even so, 3% of them are classified as "fake" by StatusPeople's online forensic tool. One of the parameters by which authenticity is measured is the activity level of one's followers. Unfortunately, authenticity matters online, due to the nefarious activities of certain status seeking individuals who manipulate their social media standing by purchasing fake followers. These non-human followers are auto generated en masse by "bots.” These "followers" make the status seekers appear influential, even though there are no humans behind their fictitious Twitter minions. Such spurious accounts are inactive, never issuing tweets or re-tweeting others' messages and thus relatively easy to identify as fake. As noted in Social Media Faking It - Cheaper Than You Think, you can purchase 1 million Twitter followers for about $1,750. Given the relatively low cost of social media fakery, I was especially impressed that Steve has created his online persona the old fashion way. Steve shared a number of his straight-forward, practical social media tactics during our recent discussion. In addition to the tips discussed below, you can observe Steve in action, by following him on Twitter (@steveology). You can watch my 14-minute conversation with Steve below. John Greathouse: Let me start with an obvious question. How the heck did you attract such a large, and more importantly, such an active Twitter following? Steve Farnsworth: "Well, part of the reason... (is by) just not buying followers, not using bots <laughs>. If you have that kind of strategy, you're not going to have a very active group. The other thing I do is go through and (remove) people who become inactive. I'll take them off. It lowers my number (of followers) but I don't care. I'd rather have a more active group." Greathouse: Do you use a specific tool or do you cull your followers manually? Farnsworth: "A couple times a year I launch a thing called TweetAdder. I can actually point out all the people who aren't... active in a period of time. If they're dead weight, then I unfollow them. I do that once, maybe twice a year. It just takes me a few days to go through and drop all the dead weight and then start clean." Greathouse: What was the journey that led you to become a leading social media marketer? Was this an objective you explicitly pursued or did it happen organically? Farnsworth: "My background is in direct marketing, lead generation, PR and corp com. I was using social personally, because I really loved the tools. Between YouTube and bookmarking sites (which) were the big thing at the time, (such as) Reddit, which is still going strong. So I was using these tools and Twitter was one of those things where I tried a couple times, and I couldn't really quite see the point of it. At the same time... about '07... in this period, you started seeing a lot more ability to have active communities, more robust than the old bulletin board type communities As a marketer, I was always into creating content as a way to communicate because if you can provide good information, you have a chance to be in front of people. You have a chance to... (define) your company or product views. So I got very excited to have more direct conversations with an audience (and) I started sharing... stories on Twitter... and... it was something I felt passionate about. I would just share this content... and the Twitter thing hit a nerve, the articles that I was sharing. So... I didn't set out to have a big following or anything like that. I set out to pursue things I found really interesting... that I read and I really liked and (my followers) thought, "This is pretty cool." Greathouse: I work with a lot of young people and they often ask me for advice regarding managing their professional, online profiles. Do you any tips and tricks you can to pass along to someone who is at the outset of defining their online persona? Farnsworth: "Put things out that create conversation, and then, at the same time, also go to real events and talk to people who are talking at these events. Whatever you're into like... share that kinda stuff. Be passionate about that. Connect with others who are like-minded. It really is that simple and that hard. There's not one thing you can do. You can't sit down and turn something on ten minutes a day and be a rock star. So you sit down and you spend a half hour a day connecting with people that you really like, reading the bloggers in your area that you really like." Steve went on to encourage young people to seek mentors, expressing sentiments similar to those described in Don’t Do Tequila Shots With Your Mentor, commenting that, "I think we should all have mentors. I don't think we should go and say,'Hey, will you be my mentor?' (Instead), what we do is we go find people we think are interesting. They don't have to be well connected, they don't have to be anything... (other than) interesting and (they should) challenge you. Start surrounding yourself with smart people, you're gonna start meeting other people who will gravitate towards you, if you happen to keep (up) those conversations. So if you want to be an influencer, find people who share your passion on that topic." Steve also cautioned against overly relying on online relationships. Instead, he challenged entrepreneurs to use social media to open the door to new relationships and then foster them offline. In Steve's words, "Connect with people in the real world who are passionate about... (the same things that excite you.) I spend easily an hour or so a day just doing non-cash-producing activities around social. That is not everybody's cup of tea, but that's what it took me to get where I am. It was an outgrowth of what I was already excited by. It's really (about) being passionate and connecting with people that you enjoy talking with and keep doing it regularly." Greathouse: Yes, consistency is key and it is something that I do not do well. You are consistent in two ways, quality and focus. Your social media shares do not discuss sunsets or cute kittens. You're on point. Your content is about online marketing, it's about PR, it's all stuff that's relevant. Farnsworth: "You're so right. You know, it's really funny. Between all the blogging and the Twitter stuff that I do, none of my business comes from that. Literally none of it. My business comes from meeting people in real life. When they go (online and) look at me... they see a blogger, and a guy who seems to know what he's talking about. He seems to kind of walk in his talk. That helps me, social proof. But none of my business... it all comes from meeting people, having conversations with them. I don't go to trade shows because I'm looking for business. I go to trade shows that I find interesting and I go to the workshops that I find interesting. That sounds so cliché, but that's really where it comes from. I go and I talk to people and I use my blog as an opportunity to meet really interesting folk and share ideas." Follow my startup-oriented Twitter feed here: @johngreathouse. You can also check out my hands-on startup advice blog HERE.
668f3ed866f5733c094515f8a0b24d32	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngreathouse/2014/08/26/shock-too-few-entrepreneurs-have-a-personal-pitch-whats-yours/	Shock: Too Few Entrepreneurs Have A Personal Pitch - What's Yours?	Shock: Too Few Entrepreneurs Have A Personal Pitch - What's Yours? Accomplished entrepreneurs appreciate the importance of crafting a succinct, well rehearsed description of their venture. This concise summary can be comfortably told during the duration of a reasonably brief elevator ride. Hence the term "elevator pitch." In contrast, a Personal Pitch differs from the classic elevator pitch, as the focus is on you and not your venture. Going Down? Elevator pitches are great vehicles for communicating with potential investors and other professional stakeholders. However, the Personal Pitch is more appropriate in less formal networking environments. Too often in social situations, entrepreneurs launch into a diatribe about their companies, when the person they are speaking with is more interested in better understanding the person with whom they are chatting. I learned this firsthand, as my wife frequently elbowed me in the ribs early in my startup career, as I was prone to drone on about my startups, long beyond the point that even the most gracious listener had glazed over. Acquaintances in social situations want to help other people. They don't want to suffer through a startup pitch. Thus, exposing who you really are can lead to significant relationships that can further your career and otherwise help your startup succeed. Who knows? You might also make some lifelong friendships along the way. The three components of an effective Personal Pitch are: 1. Who you are – your interests, experiences, education, why you are so bloody interesting 2. Where you are going – your bombastic, fascinating entrepreneurial dreams 3. How you plan to get there – your short-term tactics and long-term strategies for turning your dreams into reality Force yourself to answer these questions in a contemplative manner. You might be surprised with the results. Once you have sufficiently answered these questions, rehearse your responses with friends and family. There is no substitute for such role playing, as it will ensure that you will be ready when opportunity knocks at your next networking gathering. Businesses are built upon a series of conversations. In order to ensure your interactions are as productive as possible, make it easy for people to help you. If the people you meet don't know who you are, where you are going or how you intend to get there, it will be nearly impossible for them to assist you. Follow my startup-oriented Twitter feed here: @johngreathouse. I promise I will never tweet about cuddly puppies or that killer burrito I just ate. You can also check out my hands-on startup advice blog HERE.
7963ae0c1a77c7b2891bb904fee1a989	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngreathouse/2014/09/14/startup-wars-uc-santa-barbara-beats-wharton-and-harvard/	Startup Wars: UC Santa Barbara Beats Wharton And Harvard	Startup Wars: UC Santa Barbara Beats Wharton And Harvard Want to be an entrepreneur? Don't go to Wharton or Harvard. Instead, grab your surfboard and head to UC Santa Barbara. According to a recent Forbes article, UC Santa Barbara's Technology Management Program offers students a superior startup education over the University of Pennsylvania (home of Wharton), as well Harvard, Northwestern and even its acclaimed southern neighbor, the University of Southern California. In addition, Entrepreneur Magazine recently included UCSB in its Top 50 Schools For VC Backed Entrepreneurs at number 37. A decent showing, but well below a number of larger schools, as the ranking is based on the number of graduates who secured VC funding. Although UCSB has room to grow with regard to the total number of VC-backed startups it generates, the Santa Barbara region fares well when its relative size is taken into account. As shown below, it was recently ranked as the fifth most active metropolitan area in the US, in terms of venture deals and dollars, on a per capita basis. What is most surprising about UCSB's national entrepreneurial ranking is that it doesn't even have a business school. Instead of a traditional business school's case study and textbook approach, UCSB's Technology Management Program (TMP) emphasizes experiential learning. Organic Academia The TMP is an example of lean academia. Unlike most university programs that are over architected and underfunded, the TMP evolved organically, based on the demands of its students and input from the local community. This allowed the curriculum to efficiently find its product / market fit. I watched the process firsthand, as I have been an entrepreneurial Instructor in the Program for the past eight years. The TMP began in the late 1990's as a single class inside the Engineering College. However, just as Uber pushed its way into recalcitrant East Coast cities because of intense customer demand, the TMP marshaled a critical mass of the University's resources due to tireless student activism and the resoundingly positive feedback (and donor dollars) from the parents of TMP graduates. In addition to an Undergraduate Certificate, the Program is launching a Master of Technology Management degree in 2015. According to Bob York, Chair of the TMP and a tenured professor of electrical and computer engineering, evaluation for acceptance to the masters program will include a, "demonstrated potential for leadership," a criteria that is traditionally missing when graduate programs assess technical students. York reinforced the role that leadership will play in the graduate program by further stating that, "This program will propel students with advanced technical qualifications to successful careers as business leaders and entrepreneurs." Techpreneurs Brad Feld points out in his widely-read book Startup Communities, that business schools within universities are generally devoid of innovation and thus are not engines of entrepreneurship. Brad believes that by placing entrepreneurial programs within Business Schools, "...a university creates a dynamic by which the business people wait for the innovators to come to them, while the innovators are heads down in their labs..." He goes on to note that, "In most cases, this innovation is outside the business school - in engineering, computer science, life science departments and the labs." UC Santa Barbara has avoided this mistake by placing its Program within the Engineering department. Although the classes are open to students of all disciplines, the Program's primary focus in on educating "techpreneurs." All-Star Alumni Am I biased? Of course. However, my hometown favoritism does not diminished the fact that the TMP offers a highly effective curriculum, as evidenced by the dozens of successful companies spawned by the Program, including the following: Inogen (NASDAQ: INGN) - With a market cap in excess of $376 million, Inogen created the portable oxygen concentrator market. Inogen's products have allowed hundreds of thousands of housebound lung disease patients to leave their homes without the fear of running out of oxygen. Lettuce - After taking orders on a homemade inventory app at a tradeshow, my former students realized that their app was generating more excitement than the company's dog toys. The company quickly pivoted to create a SaaS solution and in less than two years later, it was acquired by Intuit for $30 million. Sirigen - The company has commercialized High Sensitivity Fluorescence polymers that are utilized by a variety of industries. The company was acquired by Becton, Dickinson and Company during August of 2012, for approximately $65 million. Apeel Sciences - Founded in 2012, after winning $10,000 at UCSB’s New Venture Competition, the company closed $1.25M in funding during 2013. Derived from uneaten plant material, the company has developed an invisible "peel" that significantly improves produce quality and shelf life. Recognizing the potential of the technology to enhance the welfare of impoverished farmers, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded Apeel $100,000 to explore applications in regions which lack access to refrigeration. iCracked - Founded in 2010 by UCSB and Cal Poly-SLO graduates, iCracked is now the largest on-demand network for smartphone repair and trade-in. With over 700 certified iTechs nationwide and abroad, the company's 2014 revenues are rumored to surpass $30 million. PhoneHalo - The company's TrackR product is a coin-sized device that easily attaches to valuable items and allows them to be located within seconds via a smartphone. If you lose your phone, you can find it by clicking on a TrackR device. Because of Hope - The TMP does not solely focus on the creation of tech companies. Because of Hope is a non-profit which empowers Ugandan widows and orphans to emerge from poverty through sustainable micro-startups. Salty Girl Seafood - Another focus of the TMP is the recruitment and mentoring of women entrepreneurs. A great example of this initiative is Salty Girl Seafood, which is the brainchild to two startup-minded women. The company provides chefs, restaurant managers and consumers the provenance of the seafood they purchased; how and when it was caught and what species it is, which eliminates the possibility of eating tilapia when you purchased red snapper. Follow my startup-oriented Twitter feed here: @johngreathouse. You can also check out my blog for emerging entrepreneurs HERE. Image Credit: University Of California, Santa Barbara
593ccb32b3d280281a97993bbe0da9c1	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngreathouse/2015/04/20/a-vapid-startup-mistake-hiring-a-pr-firm/	A Vapid Startup Mistake: Hiring A PR Firm	A Vapid Startup Mistake: Hiring A PR Firm A rookie mistake some startup make after raising a bit of money is to hire a public relations (PR) firm. This is akin to asking a marriage counselor to propose to your long-time partner on your behalf. Sound crazy? This is the approach many startups take when they communicate their story to the market. Rather than directly explaining their value proposition with all the passion and heartfelt stridency that only an entrepreneur can deliver, they outsource this communication to a PR firm. Keep the Passion In-House In addition to passion, any function at your startup that involves iterative learning and/or close proximity to your customers should be performed in house. Beyond PR, such roles include: Sales, Product Development, Strategic Planning and Fund Raising. Photo by Rey Del Rio/MLB Photos via Getty Images There are a number of reasons why it makes sense for a startup to not outsource PR in its early days, including: PR Is Sales - Have you ever met a successful, yet dispassionate, salesperson? Thought not. PR is not order-taking. It involves persuading jaded media gatekeepers that your venture’s story is compelling enough to warrant their audience’s valuable mindshare. Most journalists have been burned by wantrapreneurs who did not let the facts get in the way of a good PR story. Thus, without trust, the media gatekeepers will not risk their hard-won reputations promoting your venture. People buy from people they like and trust. Journalists are no exception. Morphing Message - During the early stages of your venture, your value proposition, and thus your messaging, will be fluid, as you assess the market’s reaction to your evolving story. This reality makes it especially difficult for a dispassionate, third party to promote your story. It also causes an inefficient relationship, as you spend much of your time with your PR firm simply updating them on the latest tweak of your story. You Are Not Really The Client - A PR agency’s true allegiance is not to you. Rather, it lies with the journalists with whom they work with on a daily basis. If a journalist rejects a particular client’s story, an agency will not risk its relationship with the writer by aggressively countering the rejection. An in-house PR person is not hampered by such media allegiances and will thus launch an aggressive campaign to ensure that your story is heard. As depicted in the following schematic, a PR agency will readily sacrifice a relationship with a client before it will risk damaging a valued gatekeeper relationship. New clients are much easier to obtain than industry connections, which can take years to cultivate. Your initial in-house PR personnel should be a relatively junior person who will execute your straightforward strategy – to economically gain as much market validation as possible. The best person to carry out this mission is a “doer” who will roll up their shirtsleeves and hit the phones. This person should have many of the same characteristics of a good salesperson: be verbally engaging, charming and doggedly persistent. They will sell your story to a variety of media outlets, so they must be able to craft a compelling yet believable story to fit the various journalists’ biases and interests. The Shill Game - Another reason in-house personnel can be more effective than hired guns is that PR agencies are often viewed by journalists with a jaundiced eye. Given that they are paid to get their clients media coverage, their credibility may be specious. Even when they are genuinely excited about a particular client’s solution, it may be difficult for them to convince journalists of the sincerity of their excitement. This phenomenon is aptly described by Christopher Locke, one of the authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto. Christopher came to PR from the engineering world and thus was not tainted by the industry’s rampant hucksterism. Working for a small software company, he discovered that something interesting occurred when he abandoned the company’s talking points. According to Christopher: “Something amazing happened. As soon as I stopped strategizing how to ‘get ink’… as soon as I stopped seeing journalists as a source of free advertising … I started having genuine conversations with genuine people.” “Then something even more amazing happened. The company started ‘getting ink.’ Lots of it … in places like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Business Week.” What Christopher discovered is that real conversations in the PR world are rare. Thus, his genuine enthusiasm and willingness to engage journalists in non-agenda-driven dialogs was infectious. He effectively bro’ed up with the otherwise jaded journalists, just by being genuine and real in a world in which such behavior is rare. Right Time, Right Place Clearly, as your company matures and your story stabilizes, it can be appropriate to work with a third-party PR firm. Your messaging might lose some of its inherent passion, but the trade-off will be corporate communications that are more strategic and methodical. However, in the early stages of your venture’s journey, it is unwise outsource your promotional pleas, just as it would be foolish to ask a friend to propose to your significant other on your behalf. PR agencies are expensive and largely ineffective versions of Cyrano de Bergerac. Their best attempts to woo the media will never equal your ability to sing your own praises. Ultimately, at a startup, PR does not stand for “Public Relations.” Rather, it translates into “Passionate Relationships” and passion can never be outsourced. Follow my startup-oriented Twitter feed here: @johngreathouse. I promise I will never tweet about killer burritos or cuddly kittens. You can also check out my hands-on startup advice blog HERE. Image: AP Photo/Francois Mori
69695b5bd983e2aed8cdf9e14c0a5ef5	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngreathouse/2016/08/15/customer-success-the-elusive-metric-most-companies-miss/	Customer Success: The Elusive Metric Most Companies Completely Biff	Customer Success: The Elusive Metric Most Companies Completely Biff My venture firm, Rincon Venture Partners recently teamed with Jason Lemkin, Founder of SaaStr, to host the first SaaStrX event. I had the honor of moderating a panel of three SaaS CEOs who have collectively raised nearly $40 million of venture capital and are on their way to breakout success: Reed Shaffner of Workpop, Jerry Jao of Retention Science and Ara Mahdessian from ServiceTitan. L/R: John Greathouse, Reed Shaffner, Jerry Jao & Ara Mahdessian Image credit: Drew Haines of Devco The Most Important Metric We had a spirited discussion regarding a number of issues related to blowing past $10M in annual recurring SaaS revenue, in front of a sold-out crowd of about 400 entrepreneurs. The evening would not have been possible without the generous support of Rainforest QA and Cornerstone onDemand. Near the conclusion of our discussion, I asked each CEO to name any non-obvious metrics by which they guide their businesses. All of the answers were insightful, but I found Ara’s reply to be especially instructive. He started by stating, “We track customer success.” My initial reaction was, “Great, but I am not sure that qualifies as non-obvious” but then he quickly knocked it out of the park, adding, “We define ‘customer success’ as enabling our customers to generate more prospects and close more sales. In other words, are we measure whether or not we are truly making our customers more successful.” Ara went on to note that ServiceTitan has been experiencing negative churn, netting 120% annual revenue growth from existing customers. As Ara’s customers thrive, they deploy even more of ServiceTitan’s solutions, which in turn spurs their growth even further. By properly defining and tracking customer success, Ara’s team has tapped into a powerful virtuous cycle. Subscribe Now: Forbes Entrepreneurs & Small Business Newsletters All the trials and triumphs of building a business – delivered to your inbox. When Ara concluded his definition of customer success, it was clear that his approach is anything but obvious. Sure You Track Satisfaction, But Whose Success Are You Monitoring? Many companies create customer success teams to onboard and upsell customers. These teams gauge customer satisfaction by tracking net promoter scores, customer churn, renewal rates, etc. However, these metrics measure your company’s success, not that of your customers. In contrast, entrepreneurs who want to build sustainable businesses which blow past $10M in annual recurring revenue, should track metrics tied directly to their customers’ achievements. Such metrics will obviously differ. In ServiceTitan’s case, its appointments and service calls. If you sell a cost savings tool, measure the actual costs saved by your customers. If your solution increases efficiency, determine a proxy by which you can estimate the effectiveness of your tools within your customers’ organizations. The key is to focus on your customers’ metrics, not your own. Irrespective of your products’ value prop, if your customers’ accelerate the achievement of their goals by deploying of your solutions, you can be assured that your own success will follow. You can follow John on Twitter: @johngreathouse. You can also check out his hands-on startup blog HERE.
853542fddb0c44279d9164523ffe6a70	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngreathouse/2017/06/17/xboxs-co-father-serves-up-5-intrapreneurial-lessons/	Xbox's Co-Father Serves Up 5 Intrapreneurial Lessons	Xbox's Co-Father Serves Up 5 Intrapreneurial Lessons I was recently honored to interview Robbie Bach, Co-Father of the Xbox, as part of UC Santa Barbara’s Distinguished Speaker Series. Robbie shared some interesting insights during our discussion, many of which were drawn from his book Xbox Revisited. You can listen to our discussion in the background, while you work, run or play Super Mario Odyssey. If you’d rather download Robbie’s talk for free on iTunes, you can do so here. Robbie Bach - Co-Father of the Xbox UCTV For those who don’t have the time to listen to our entire talk, I’ve outlined five lessons, along with the corresponding video timestamp, to facilitate quick access to issues of particular interest to both entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs. The Top-Down Principle: 3, 30, 300 & (3,000) When mapping out what the Xbox would ultimately become (note: “Xbox” was an internal code name that stuck), senior management created a three page executive summary. This was then passed to a team of 15 mid-level executives who crafted a 30-page document, which was later translated into 80 PowerPoint slides. The PowerPoint slides served as a roadmap for the detailed hardware, software and service specifications. Robbie's goal was to capture the specifications in 300 pages, but ultimately the document ballooned to 3,000 pages. As Robbie noted, [at 16:10] “… the cool thing about it was (the) management team didn't have to do any of that work because it was based on the three pager, we knew that the right types of things were getting done and decisions move down into the organization.” Purpose, Principles And Priorities Leading such a large team at Microsoft forced Robbie to boil down his messaging into bite-size portions. On smaller teams, leaders have time for detailed discussions with individual contributors. Though effective at startups, this approach doesn’t scale within large organizations. According to Robbie [17:06], “I learned early in my college freshman year that I was a good extemporaneous speaker. If you're good at that, what you do is somebody gives you a topic and you come up with three things to say. You say (them) very clearly, you repeat them and you summarize them. What you discover, if you do it enough, is you realize that people don't remember more than three things anyway. You're lucky if they remember them exactly. So if I'm trying to communicate something, there's only three things I'm trying to say: purpose, principles (and) priorities.” Find Your Anti Doppelgänger Robbie was fortunate to begin the Xbox project with a strong team, including J. Allard, who was polar opposite of Robbie’s button-down, corporate approach to management and problem solving. J. brought a diversity of thought and free-flowing creativity to the team that was simultaneously vital and challenging. Per Robbie [19:18], “When I first met Jay he had hair and he would… color it every other week a new color. One week it would be orange… but it would (constantly) change. J is sort of the anti-Robbie, he's a very smart technical guy, a visionary, who could see around corners. Xbox is J’s creation… (Yet) I wanted to fire him two or three times and he tried to quit two or three times. We had to figure out which one of us had which superpowers and focus on those. When it came to talking to publishers, I mostly did the work… when it came to talking about software architecture, I might go to one meeting in a year on that. The lesson for me… was if you surround yourself with great talent, you have to let the talent be great right and you have to be humble enough to know that you're a great talent yourself but only in certain ways… like the Avengers, you’ve got to know your superpower and you’ve got to know your kryptonite. J was the solution to my kryptonite.” Intrapreneurs Must Protect Their Team One of the biggest challenges of acting entrepreneurially within a large organization is keeping the executives of the mothership at bay. The temptation is for these executives to smother the entrepreneurial team with love and attention – mostly in the form of endless meetings, useless updates and turf wars over resources. Thus, an intrapreneurial leader must vigilantly shield their organization from the parent company to allow a nimble, innovative culture to develop and thrive. Robbie was no exception in this regard, as he notes [29:03], “(there was a)… meeting called the Valentine's Day Massacre… this was a four hour fight with Bill Gates with Steve Ballmer in the conference room at Microsoft that went until 8:00 or 8:30 at night. The topic was are we going to use Windows are we gonna use all the same playbook for Microsoft or not. At the end of the day… (I) had to say, ‘If you want us to do that we're not the guys to do it so we'll just go back to our old jobs.’ (We) then we argued for another hour about what that would mean and at the end of the day, to their credit, Bill and Steve said, ‘Go do it and do it your way, and we will support you 100%’ and they did. There were other people in the company who didn't like it and Bill basically told them ‘Hey, these guys are on a mission and we're gonna support them to get it done right.’… so my job was really protecting the team in some respects from the rest of Microsoft.” Job And Family – Be A Leader, Not A Manager Immediately prior to Xbox’s initial launch, Robbie submitted his resignation, due to the stress and the detrimental impact his long hours were having on his family. Rather than accepting Robbie’s resignation, his boss encouraged him to take a ten week sabbatical, which included sessions with an executive life coach. Robbie recalls that during his sabbatical, he [32:58]“…got out of my head that I had to choose between my job and my family and got into my head that that's an 'and statement', job and family, and that if you make conscious choices and you're thoughtful about it, you're disciplined, you can make both of those work. So I came back and… told the team, ‘I won't take a trip unless it's planned nine months in advance.’ Suddenly I could plan the trips around my family, my wife knew when I was leaving and when I was going to be back. The trips were better, they were jam-packed, I was busy every day. (I) realized that I could again be a leader not a manager. I left meetings in midstream at 5:30, (and said) ‘Hey, I told you I was going to be done at 5:30. I've got to coach at 6:00. I'll be back on email at 8:00. Thank you very much drive home safely.’ … people realized that meetings had an end and they had to come prepared. If they wanted an answer that day, they had to get to the answer. Meetings started to start more on time, people started to have better conversations (and) we got to answers. I was still able to go coach which I loved doing. (I realized that) people are incredibly good at taking cues. They watch what happens in the office and in a day or two they figure it out… so what you have to recognize is that everything you do communicates and so you have to … be really thoughtful and conscious about… setting the culture of the place. The Xbox team worked incredibly hard… so that was never the issue. The question was whether we were working smart or not and whether we were using our time efficiently and effectively and whether it was gonna lead to people getting divorced in the group… People get caught up in their work and they can't get to the rest of their life. Leaders have to set that example. I don't know whether I did it perfectly or not, but it did change the way the team worked… and it certainly changed the way I felt about my job. Like I said, (it) gave me my ten best (working) years.” You can follow John on Twitter: @johngreathouse. You can also check out his hands-on startup blog HERE.
f4e4b4d1e71a76cc78f74538c5965cfe	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngreathouse/2018/01/11/the-unlikely-unicorn-from-garage-to-1-3-billion-acquisition-by-linkedin/	The Unlikely Unicorn: From Garage To $1.3 Billion Acquisition By LinkedIn	The Unlikely Unicorn: From Garage To $1.3 Billion Acquisition By LinkedIn I recently interviewed Bruce Heavin, Co-Founder and Head of Innovation at Lynda.com, as part of UC Santa Barbara’s Innovator Stories series. Bruce, along with his wife Lynda, created a learning company from their garage, initially by holding in-person classes and later selling VHS tapes via mail order. Under Bruce’s innovative guidance, the company was an early adopter of the Internet, creating online videos long before platforms such as YouTube became ubiquitous. Bruce and Lynda eventually grew their startup into a global powerhouse, offering 5,700 classes and 255,000 video tutorials to over 4 million users. In 2015, LinkedIn purchased Lynda.com for $1.5 billion, making it a bonafide unicorn. The outcome was especially impressive, as the company was entirely self-funded for its first 17-years. You can listen to our discussion in the background, while you work, run or play. If you’d rather download my talk with Bruce for free on iTunes, you can do so here. For those who don’t have the time to listen to our entire talk, I’ve highlighted several key takeaways below, along with the corresponding video timestamp, to facilitate quick access to issues of interest to entrepreneurs. Frustrated Students Create A New-Fangled Learning Company The book Summerhill School greatly impacted Lynda as a child. Like a true entrepreneur, even though she was young, she took control of her life and pursued an alternative education. Bruce also experienced a challenging time at school, struggling with the limitations of a 1970’s public school education which emphasized conformity over creativity. [3:27] “I had all kind of disabilities that I didn't understand and I was failing in third grade. I had problems with reading and writing and comprehension and a lot of social abilities. While the kids played in the playground, I was in the trailer learning speech, how to write my letters the right way right and that was really hard because I did really well at everything, but then there are areas where, no matter how hard I work, I'd I'd fail and… it just made me really hate going into the school every day. I would go there knowing that I can't get through certain things and that was very frustrating.” Because of their unstatisfying academic experiences, Bruce and Lynda shared a desire to create an alternative learning organization by which students would only answer to themselves. In 1995, Lynda wrote one of the first books on web design, Designing Web Graphics. The success of her initial book established her as a thought leader and made it clear that a sizable market existed to educate non-technical enthusiasts about the then-emerging Internet. [04:29] “What I've learned, in time, is that there are different ways and styles of learning. We don't have any units, we don't have any credits, we didn't have any tests. It's just like, ‘Oh, I'll learn something, I’ll learn it for the sake of learning.’ You don't have to prove to anyone else but yourself.” Lesson: Identify a problem that you passionately want to solve. Self Taught Is Well Taught Both Bruce and Lynda were both self-educated technologists. In Bruce’s case, he was fortunate that his father was a rocket scientist, which afforded him access to computers at an early age. [8:54] “My dad was literally a rocket scientist. He worked for Boeing… I had access to computers in 1977 in (my) home. They wouldn't let me have Videogames, so I'd program my own. I learned programming, Basic and, God forbid, COBOL and later Fortran. These really were things I did that built the bedrock for going in other directions and understanding computer graphics, even when they weren’t that great. Just understanding these things early… (was important because) when they started coming out on the consumer level it was a lot easier to explain to the consumers what they're getting into.” Lesson: Be curious and never stop seeking new knowledge. The Failed Knife Salesman Bruce attempted to pay his way through art college by selling knives. He didn’t last long. Interestingly, when she was a teenager, Lynda worked at a hotdog stand, making $80/month. In this interview, she told me that this failure taught her, “That doing something you hate makes for an unhappy life. That there is always a way to get what you want, for me, it was to pay for a private education, even when it seems like there is no possibility.” Similarly, Bruce’s short-lived career in sales reinforced that his talents were better applied creating technology, rather than trying to sell it. [10:10] “I completely failed. I did not do well. I lasted about two weeks doing it and I just learned I was a horrible salesperson. I don't have it in me to pressure people. I'm not a high-pressure person. I don't push myself on people and what they wanted out of me is not who I was. It's very important to understand what you are not… (it) is one of the hardest things as our company is growing. When you start your own company, you do everything. You take out the trash, you wash the windows, you go buy office supplies. If it's just you and your wife, or you and five others, there's almost no organizational level with that small size. You're doing everything. You have to keep giving your jobs away as you get bigger and bigger and bigger, but it's understanding how to surround yourself with the people that are really smart that can help you with your deficiencies.” I then pointed out the obvious fact that you must be self-aware to recruit people who can shore up your weaknesses. Bruce agreed, stating, [11:29] “It’s painfully hard (to be self-aware). I just thought I was good at everything but it's horrible how many things I just couldn't do. Certain things like sales was a good example. I am NOT the salesperson.” Lesson: By understanding what you are not, you’ll get one step closer to discover what you are. The Opposite Of Work Is Boredom Bruce also shared that he was taken aback by how quickly the deal came together, causing him to initially become bored, once the sale was consummated. [15:30] “(Initially) there's a lot of boredom, not as much now, but you know, I didn't have a plan B and I didn't think the company was going to sell so fast. From the initial, ‘Maybe we'll buy you’ to, ‘we'll buy you’ was under a month and, when they said they would buy us to when it sold, was under a month. Things went by very fast, so even up to the last minute I'm like, ‘I don't think this is going to happen.’” We then explored how Bruce initially dealt with the company’s sale. Given the rapidity with which the deal closed, he didn’t have enough time to consider what life after Lynda.com would entail. Per Bruce, the day after the transaction closed, [16:50] “I just sat home on the couch. I was kind of dumbfounded. It wasn't my goal, it wasn't my endgame. I thought there's some bigger goals within what I was doing. I thought I could take this much further, so I was just kind of shell-shocked, to be honest. You know it's a first-world problem when you actually sell. I had a lot of self-worth in what I was able to do there. I'm more of a maker and a creator, so I am more happy when I am doing it, when I'm making, and when I had that taken away from me, I was like, ‘Wow.’ I think I just invested so much in that company that when I left it, I didn't know what I had, so it took a little while for me the kind of find my feet.” Lesson: Don’t dwell on your potential exit, but invest enough time to thoughtfully consider life after your venture. You can follow John on Twitter: @johngreathouse. You can also check out his hands-on startup blog HERE. Image credit: UC Television
5bd2ad42d17f7a4109aa98f00f11fe75	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngreathouse/2020/04/07/coffee-with-a-black-guy-this-social-entrepreneur-is-keeping-his-community-talking-despite-social-distancing/	Coffee With A Black Guy: This Social Entrepreneur Is Keeping His Community Talking, Despite Social Distancing	Coffee With A Black Guy: This Social Entrepreneur Is Keeping His Community Talking, Despite Social Distancing James Joyce III is a social entrepreneur. When he moved to Santa Barbara, California to serve as the District Director for State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, he quickly realized that something was missing… namely, black folks. Santa Barbara, like many Southern California communities, once had a small, but thriving African American community. However, the 1970’s and 1980’s stratospheric increases in home prices prompted many older African Americans to sell their homes, cash out and moved to less expensive communities to retire. As of the last census, Santa Barbara’s African American community was approximately 1.5% of the city’s population. During the summer of 2016, James launched Coffee with a Black Guy (CWABG), to an audience of seven people, in the hopes of sparking a community conversation on a variety of topics. Since that time, James’ events have grown considerably. He now routinely hosts over 100 community members at his quarterly conversations and enjoys the support of several corporate sponsors. James Joyce III, Co-Founder, Coffee With A Black Guy Ricardo Harris-Sanchez (@picture_me_roaming) Building A Community, One Cup Of Coffee At A Time I attended a recent Coffee With A Black Guy conversation and I was struck by the honesty and positive energy which James, and his team, engender. Wanting to learn more, I reached out to James to discuss the group’s origins,the craziest question he’s been asked and his ultimate goals for the project. (Note: James’ remarks have been lightly edited for brevity and readability.) John Greathouse: Hey James, thanks for taking the time. I love the name of your community conversations. How did you decide to go with “Coffee with a Black Guy” and what was the original impetus behind the idea? MORE FOR YOUMeet Hugo Obi: Nigerian Entrepreneur Changing The Video Gaming Landscape In AfricaEntrepreneurs Are Bringing Transparency To Home Buying And Empowering The BIPOC CommunityHow UiPath Turned Into A $37 Billion Powerhouse James Joyce: Although I’d love to claim genius for the name, the truth is it was ripped from Coffee with a Cop. I knew about that program, which started in Hawthorne, California in 2011, and the idea behind it — to not be judged by their uniform and to connect with the community — was something that resonated with me as a black man. I woke up one morning with the idea. A few hours later I owned the coffeewithablackguy.com domain name with my business partner (Jarrett Brown) and that sat dormant for a few months. But it wasn’t until July 2016, following the back-to-back events of the killing of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota by law enforcement, that we decided to launch. These traumatic cultural events were leading the national news, yet walking down the streets of Santa Barbara I sensed an avoidance to address it. So, on my Facebook page I offered to have Coffee with a Black Guy. Greathouse: Hey, like Picasso supposedly said, “Good artists borrow, great artists steal.” It’s a great name, irrespective of the source. How many people showed up to your first event? Joyce: Thanks, I like that. Despite the raving initial social media response, seven people showed up to the first event. Among them, my boss, State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson. For obvious reasons, it was important to have her support and buy-in early on. Greathouse: I consider entrepreneurs to be anyone who creates something from nothing. (It) can be a non-profit, a commercial enterprise or even a philosophical movement. I recently finished reading Parting The Waters, about MLK’s early days and he had to be very creative and clever to manage all the constituencies at hand. Do you have any advice for young people who want to initiate a cause or begin a movement in their local communities, but don’t know where to start? Joyce: Just do it. Yeah, it’s borrowing from Nike, but there is truth in just taking that first step. Usually, that starts the momentum. More practically, build your network or create your own personal board of directors, your sounding board, people that you have developmental conversations with. Both of my business partners in CWABG (Jarrett Brown and Ernest Smith) were people who I grew up with, maintained a relationship with, talked through life’s ups and downs and ultimately helped in making major life decisions. So yes, develop your personal board of directors. When I woke up with the idea of Coffee with a Black Guy, I called Jarrett to share the concept, he is the one who took the step to purchase the domain name. Greathouse: Do you plan to hold any community conversations during the current era of social distancing? If so, how do you plan to engage the community in the near term? Joyce: We've been experimenting with some things via Instagram Live (@coffeewblackguy) and exploring what other platforms might work. It’s my belief that race is a foundational element to this country, so it’s important to adapt or pivot and keep the conversation going. I mean, there is also a racial lens to COVID-19 that is certainly worth addressing as well. Early demographic data of those infected with the virus and those who have died, indicate that COVID-19 disproportionately impacts black people and other people of color. That could be reflective of health disparities, it could be a product of other lifestyle issues such as high-density housing, higher representation in some front-line professions. There is certainly plenty to unpack there. And that doesn’t even address issues about cultural skepticism towards vaccines or perceptions of “experimental medicine.” There is certainly an ugly history in America of that as seen through more well know examples like the Tuskegee syphilis experiment or even the more uncomfortable reality, the roles that enslaved blacks have played in the development of modern American medicine. It’s all part of the conversation. With that being said, we’re working towards doing something online in early May (2020). So, follow us on social media for those updates and details. Greathouse: I look forward to having a virtual coffee with you! You grew up in Baltimore, relatively near my old High School. The greater Baltimore / Washington D.C.’s African American population is significant, while in Santa Barbara, it is in the low single digits. What sort of adjustments did you have to make, when you first arrived in Santa Barbara, that would likely not be evident to the average white Santa Barbarian? I'm asking, in the hopes that people reading this might be a little more culturally sensitive to minority populations in their hometowns. Joyce: Well, first of all, let me rep my city-city. I grew up in Westminster, Md., which is very different from Baltimore, although not geographically far (about 30 miles). So, by the time I got to Santa Barbara I knew how to seek out community elders and introduce myself. Tap into established black cultural networks, churches, NAACP, my fraternity and more. But in high school I started cutting my own hair, so that as I have moved around the country I haven’t had to struggle to find a barber who can cut black (people’s) hair, that is usually the biggest adjustment for black folks. But also, there is a yearning for the culture, the laughter, the joking, dancing and supporting one another, there is indeed something special when black folks get together in our excellence. With a small population like we have in Santa Barbara, as a black person you have to specifically seek out these environments. So, cultural isolation can definitely be an adjustment. Greathouse: What’s the most surprising questions you’ve been asked during one of your CWABG sessions? Joyce: Well, surprising in the way that it was phrased, and it was at the first of the larger crowds –over 100 people— which was, “I’m curious on what you think is worse, conservative racism or liberal racism.” I had never really thought of racism as conservative or liberal, but I get the concept and I definitely think that the liberal racism is more detrimental. I’m just turning 40 this year and I have been face-to-face with a member of the Klan in their costume. I know who that is. I know their thought process and thus I know how to treat that individual and so conservative racism is generally more blatant. While I would prefer to not have to deal with any racism, liberal racism is more difficult to address. It’s microaggressions, the things that you can’t always address because it’s in a work setting or social setting, the general lack of awareness of privilege. Greathouse: So, you’ve been at it for several years now. I attended an event during February and there was an impressive number of community members in the house. What are some real-world changes that you've seen come out of the discussions? Joyce: We’ve seen a growth in awareness of others’ experiences. We’ve seen community members building relationships that they might not have otherwise had. Dinner invitations for deeper conversations. People have connected for jobs, professional development... I guess what we’ve seen is community building at a pure and genuine level. Greathouse: Yea, one of the audience member’s comments struck me. He was talking about white folks who love to say, “I have black friends…” and he said his usual response to this is, “When was the last time you had a black ‘friend’ on your couch? You don’t know someone until they’ve been on your couch.” I’m paraphrasing from memory here, but I thought he made a great point. Your day job is politics, but it’s clear that you realize the government can’t solve all our problems. You and I are working with a great team of volunteers to enhance Santa Barbara’s Diversity and Inclusion (led by Henry Ventura). Do you have any suggestions for other cities that want to make their communities more welcoming of folks from underrepresented groups? Joyce: Yes, and I love that the (Santa Barbara) County is leading the convening. That kind of buy-in and leadership on these issues is vital. But for our group and others, lean into what you don’t know. When things start to feel uncomfortable, explore that. Listen. That is so important, to listen to others’ experiences, see them, hear them. That comes from engaging in meaningful, but often uncomfortable conversations. Greathouse: Agreed, you often learn the most when you’ve entered an area of discomfort, if you have your heart and ears open. Are there contemporary or historical folks from whom you're drawing inspiration? Joyce: A whole host of them; people like Dr. Tyrone Bledsoe (Founder, Student African American Brotherhood), Brian Heat (Speaker, Author), of course my mom who raise my older sister and me by herself. People that are doing work like Colin Kaepernick (Professional Athlete, Activist), Marc Lamont Hill (Professor, Activist), Angela Rye (CEO, Political Commentator), my fraternity brother Roland Martin (CEO, Author) and so many more. Figures like Malcolm X (Author, Activist) — the 1992 movie changed me — Paul Robeson (Entertainer, Activist)... Coffee With A Black Guy sells merchandise to offset its costs Ricardo Harris-Sanchez (@picture_me_roaming) Greathouse: I know you sell coffee mugs, because I’m a proud owner. In addition to buying merch(andise), what are other ways people can help your organization grow? Joyce: Thank you for your support! The mugs are a part of the movement, they are certain conversation starters and that's what it's about. If people, organizations, businesses like the CWABG concept and want to host a conversation, we are available for bookings for a modest honorarium that includes travel. People can hit us up on our site to learn more or support what we’re up to. Greathouse: You noted at the event I attended that there was a larger number of older African Americans in the audience. I didn’t think about it, but you’re having to win over not just whites and Hispanic folks, but also long-standing black residents. How does your message or approach differ when you’re interacting with black community members who are twice your age? Joyce: Oh, for me that’s just like dealing with family or growing up in the black church, both are full of characters. But also, CWABG is a platform for those twice my age, as well. The elders of our communities carry a lot of our history and in that, trauma. Sharing those experiences and with their perspective it's invaluable to the interactive experience. But as you saw, I do have to remind of one of the tips, "don’t seek to dominate with your story." Other general ground rules for the conversations are to be respectful, be genuine, be willing to listen, and be willing to feel something. Greathouse: What are your ultimate goals for Coffee With A Black Guy? What will your organization look like in five years? Joyce: Ultimately, the vision is for the platform to continue to grow. Having conversations sponsored in cities across the country, facilitating conversations for groups or corporations willing to get uncomfortable with their Diversity and Inclusion initiatives. We also have a vision for an app component to further enhance the interactive experience — of the in-person conversations — and possibly even an avenue for other black men to host in their own communities.
fbb81af61ddd63dd81e41fdfa02d3503	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhall/2012/09/12/the-value-of-transparency-evaluating-your-blind-spots/	The Value of Transparency: Evaluating Your Blind Spots	The Value of Transparency: Evaluating Your Blind Spots Blind spots - we all have them. By David Neagle, President of Life Is Now, Inc. You’ve built your business from the seed of an idea to a competitive venture with sizable profits and valuable service. You’ve had success, but feel stuck in a rut. It can be tough to step outside yourself and evaluate your strengths and weaknesses. In these situations, it’s time to break tried-and-true rules to find your blind spots. What are Blind Spots? Blind spots are issues you can’t see because you’re too close to your business. Nearly everyone dedicated to a venture has them, due to that very diligence. You can see the results of those blind spots in goals that are not met, or missed opportunities. It’s crucial that you recognize these factors and actively begin to change them. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs believe they have valid blind spots when they really have a resistance to self-evaluation and change. You find solutions to obstacles when you focus on what your ideal outcome looks like, rather than finding the path to that outcome. Many entrepreneurs get frustrated calculating every detail of the process, rather than visualizing the perfect result. Resistance to change causes your business to become static and, soon, outdated. New Perspectives Before the Theory of Relativity crystallized in Albert Einstein’s mind, he had to imagine traveling at the speed of light. What would happen in such a scenario? How would time and perception change? From that, he could find the theoretical and mathematical path to that outcome. While assessing your goals might not lead to astonishing breakthroughs, it can have amazing results on your daily practices and profit margins. The first step toward this goal is the most critical – and the toughest. Admitting that you need to change and pinpointing the methods to adjust require a great degree of reflection. You should say to yourself, “Here’s the outcome I’m visualizing. What’s different between what I’m currently doing and what would produce my desired outcome?” From that question, the roadmap to new methods of success can be drawn. Remember, great ideas start as just that: ideas. The Value in Coaching Sometimes, change requires assistance. Professional coaches can help you define your goals and construct a plan to reach them. Teamwork has facilitated some of the greatest breakthroughs in science and business, so don’t overlook it as a solution. In seeking a coach, look for someone who is already where you want to be. That coach has found the trail to success. If you want to make one million dollars a year in profit, find someone who’s already pulling in five or ten million. That coach has seen the possible landmines along the way. When I worked with my first coach, he told me, “I can’t coach you your way. I can only coach you my way; if I coach you your way, I become your assistant, and we both get a result we don’t want.” You have to be willing to hear input you don’t want and accept challenges. Your future success depends on “surrendering” to your coach and allowing him to guide your growth. Once you have followed through on those insights, it is your focus and determination that will drive you to get growth for yourself. Being transparent with yourself to identify and eliminate your blind spots can be difficult. You are the closest one to your business and have invested time and effort to see it grow. To continue on the road of success, be open to reflection, change, and help from an entrepreneurial coach. These tools can help you gain perspective on your accomplishments – and your blind spots. David Neagle is The Million Dollar Income Acceleration Coach, and President of Life Is Now, Inc. He mentors entrepreneurs in over 7 countries to quantum leap their current businesses past the 7-figure sales mark in just 12 months. For more information on how David can help you achieve your goals in life, contact him here .
b55875a89d4a713fca284949905f54ff	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhall/2012/11/28/the-unique-job-perks-that-employees-love/	The Unique Job Perks That Employees Love	The Unique Job Perks That Employees Love In a recent national survey, 95 percent of Americans consider a job’s perks and benefits before  deciding to either stay in a position or accept an offer. Attracting top talent with just a higher salary is something of the past. Leaders overcome this hiring hurdle by creating and implementing unique perks to differentiate themselves from other companies. Here are 25 companies that are leading the way with creative perks that keep their employees more than happy. Company Beer: Threadless is best known for its T-shirts designed by independent artists and designers. CEO Tom Ryan wanted to do something unique as a perk, so he went to a friend that owns Finch’s Beer and had them brew a special Threadless IPA. Tom said, “It was a great collaborative project that brought together the Threadless Design community and the staff.” In the Threadless kitchen, there is always a keg full of Threadless Pale Ale. Throw a luggage party: Freeborn and Peters is a law firm that knows how to get employees out of the office for a little R&R. Each year the company holds a “luggage party.” Every employee is eligible, and each associate that wants to be part of the drawing brings a packed bag into the office on the day of the party. Four names are drawn, and the winners are whisked away by limo to the airport for an all-expenses paid weekend trip to Las Vegas. Encourage play: Red Ventures is a technology company that works with various businesses as a strategic marketing and sales partner. Their headquarters houses a full-length indoor basketball court, gym, locker rooms, and a putting green. Employees are encouraged to take a break and enjoy the amenities. Just as an additional perk, the Charlotte Bobcats practice on the court in the off-season. Strategize over drinks under the sun: Findr Interactive is a part of a group of separate companies. However, the individual agencies still make time to get to know one another’s staff. They have an annual retreat in the Caribbean to talk strategy and clients. But mostly, the staff finds time to relax under the tropical sun and build relationships over some much-needed fruity rum drinks. Give away the car keys: InDemand Interpreting employs interpreters to work with hospitals and medical offices The CEO, Daniel Pirestani, awards an employee who exhibited extraordinary performance with a “Box Lunch.” This isn’t what you think. The selected staff member is given the keys to the CEO’s Porsche Boxster to drive to a company-paid lunch. It’s a way his employees know that he trusts them — even with a prized possession. Encourage sleep, and vacations: It’s one thing to offer a flexible work schedule or a relaxed vacation policy as a job perk. Today’s employees almost expect that in a position. The people at Magoosh take this benefit to a whole new level by encouraging workers to complete tasks at (literally!) any time of day and, to date, no vacation time has ever been denied. Encourage competitive play: Fundable NBA Happy Hour Every day at about 5:30 p.m. the Fundable team turns off computers, ends  client phone calls, and gathers together for a happy hour featuring a giant  NBA Jam tournament. It's a great reward at the end of a productive day, and it is one of the best ways to allow co-workers from different departments to catch up or get to know each other. A masseuse could help your employees relax: Veterans United employees spend their days finding ways to provide veterans with home loans. One of VU’s perks is that professional masseuses are there everyday to help employees take a break from their hectic work day. After the employees finish their massage, they’re welcome to can grab a bite from a selection of fresh fruit and health snacks. Travel together: Barton Publishing’s focus is on providing product and information on health and nutrition. Keeping active is a core value, so they plan company trips around outdoor adventures to bring the team together. The staff has gone whitewater rafting and zip-lining in Banff National Park, mountain climbing in Arizona, and they will soon be setting off to race dune buggies in Baja. Host Puppy Fight Club (the nice kind): Puppy Fight Club at The Nerdery The Nerdery doesn’t just open their doors to coders and digital natives. All employees can bring their dogs to work and Nerd Support will even arrange for a mobile groomer appointment for any overly shaggy pup. Each Thursday, the Nerditorium is opened for Puppy Fight Club, where the nerds’ fluffy friends can frolic unleashed. Open the books: Tagged CEO Greg Tseng described one of their most important perks as their transparency. Once a month the company shares their financials (revenue, expenses, profits, etc.) with their employees. “Before we make any major acquisition or decision public, we inform everyone in the company,” Tseng said. When someone joins the Tagged team, they know that they will always know where the company is and what’s next. Provide your team with necessities, for free: Merchandize Liquidators provides surplus merchandise to the masses, but it also uses this as a perk for employees. Purchasing the necessities in life can put a huge dent in your wallet. The company provides staff with cosmetics, shampoos, cleaning products, toothpaste, cell phones and a variety of other products. All that saved money definitely adds to the bottom line of an employee paycheck. Allow flexibility and promote change: MorrisCore employees basically have the run of the place, and the CEO, Benji Rabhan, and the rest of management even encourage it. If an employee gets bored with his job, he has the opportunity to change or shape it into something else entirely. Furthermore, all employees only have to log 35 hours per week to receive a full-time salary. Give the gift of fitness: HZDG is a full-service integrated creative agency that doesn’t encourage its employees to stay glued to their computers all day. HZDG’s president, Karen Zuckerman, had such a great experience with a personal trainer that she added it as a job perk for her employees. Now her personal trainer comes to the office twice a week and does a free boot camp. Mani/Pedi Budget: 2HB, a company that provides Systems Engineering and Software Engineering services, includes standard of living expenses in their employee benefit packages. One of the most unique perks is a $50 grooming perk each month. Employees can use it for a mani, pedi, or just getting a nice hair cut to get that extra confidence boost. Put the Boss to Work: An affordable perk that has worked in the past is having a “Boss Does Your Chores” perk, said Andrew Schrage of Moneycrashers.com. If the staff reaches a certain sales goal or other benchmark, then the management team is responsible for performing the more menial duties of its staff members. Please reach out via Twitter if you know any additional perks that deserve recognition. John Hall is the CEO of Influence & Co., a company that assists individuals and brands in growing their influence through thought leadership and content marketing programs. Influence & Co., one of the leading providers of high quality expert content to the world’s top publications, is the creator of Contributor Weekly. Connect with John on Twitter or Google+. Gallery: Most Outrageous Perks 11 images View gallery
31afd254c89c0ee5803c14b11a961754	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhall/2012/12/19/8-companies-that-make-the-holiday-season-merrier/	8 Companies that Make the Holiday Season Merrier	8 Companies that Make the Holiday Season Merrier With the holiday season in full swing, it's time to enjoy the company of family and friends — not to mention give and receive a few gifts. But in the corporate world, it's also a great time to show your philanthropic side and use your resources to give back to the community. Whether it's giving employees paid time off to go volunteer or providing unique experiences for those in need, plenty of companies are doing incredible things to make this season brighter for others. Alex Douzet, CEO and co-founder of The Ladders, catered lunch for the entire staff of 100+ people for the month of November, specifically patronizing a dozen neighborhood restaurants in New York City to help them get back on their feet for the holidays after being closed for more than a week due to flooding and power outages. Health Care Service Corporation/Blue Cross Blue Shield, the nation's largest customer-owned health insurer, gave back by having 170 members of their executive leadership team donate time to assemble 800 food boxes that will provide 3,000 meals to families in the Chicago area this holiday season. CEO Scott Lazerson and his employees have decided this year to send out a Stop Hunger Now dinner party in a box to their friends, clients, and business colleagues as a way of thanking them for successes and great times in 2012. “We want to give them the experience of beholding in a creative way the unimaginable blessings they have in their lives compared to the millions throughout the world who are unable to feed their families,” said Lazerson. “We want them to see the small miracle in a simple meal of rice, soy protein, and dehydrated veggies — a gift that is provided by Stop Hunger Now to starving families and school lunch feeding programs throughout the world.” This year, Wrapports, an investment group that owns the Chicago Sun-Times, carried out the annual Letters to Santa program. The paper works with teachers at local shelters and Chicago Public Schools to ask the region’s neediest children who would otherwise not get a gift for their letters to Santa. The Chicago Sun-Times leverages its reach to millions of readers each week in the Chicagoland area with a request for Santa's helpers. Readers call in and ask for a letter or make a monetary donation to the empty stocking fund. Then Santa's helpers mail the letter to the school or drop it off. SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment closes down the SeaWorld Orlando park for 1,500 underserved or medically challenged children and families. The free private event allows children who might not ordinarily get a chance to enjoy SeaWorld access to VIP private shows, a special Shamu spectacular, live animal meet and greets, dinner, visits from Santa, and gifts. Christmas Decor, the largest holiday lighting company in the U.S., donates times and resources to decorate the homes of military families across the country. With some soldiers medically disabled or deployed, families are not always able to decorate their homes. Spreading a little Christmas spirit with holiday décor is their way to say thank you to our nation's heroes. BestBuzz is leveraging technology to give back this holiday season. For each person who scans the QR code with the BestBuzz scanner app, BestBuzz is donating eight meals to feed America’s hungry through Feeding America. Users can buzz in daily through December 31. GeekWire held a competition to encourage local startups to pull together and raise money to help fund students around the world. They raised more than $32,000 for Vittana’s education-oriented student loan program, with various companies in town pooling their funds in a bit of friendly philanthropic competition. While this list is a great starting point, it’s important to find a philanthropic tradition that works for your company. Whether it’s helping small businesses, donating time to local charities, or sharing your resources with others, even a small gesture can make a big difference during the holidays. Not only is it a positive reflection of your brand, but it can also impact people’s lives in incredible ways. What does your company do to help others? Let us know in the comments section below. John is the CEO of Digital Talent Agents, an agency that specializes in helping companies, entrepreneurs and business leaders build their brands by getting quality content published from them in reputable online publications that reach their target markets. Connect with him on Twitter or Google+.
b5e5d4a72394ead962b4d2172c7f9d9e	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhall/2013/03/04/5-lifestyle-tips-to-be-a-healthy-entrepreneur/?sh=5f4acbb35d18	5 Lifestyle Tips to Be a Healthy Entrepreneur	5 Lifestyle Tips to Be a Healthy Entrepreneur Let’s be honest: Living the life of an entrepreneur can take a huge toll on your health. Amid the long days of work and erratic scheduling, it’s difficult to find time to exercise or plan a healthy meal. However, it’s incredibly important to make a healthy lifestyle a priority, especially for entrepreneurs. You’ll find that your mood, productivity, energy levels, and happiness will all improve as a result. With that in mind, here are five strategies to get you back on track. 1. Don’t be chained to your desk. It’s easy to get stuck at your desk, but it’s actually a big problem if you don’t find a way to watch your diet and activities during the day. Wendy Chant, in a recent contribution to SheKnows, said that sitting all day causes your body to pick up on the wrong kinds of signals. She says, “The body thinks it’s in an emergency state because of high blood sugar and high cortisol — and it’s thinking something major here, like famine — causes the liver to signal the body that more consumed calories should become fat, and that this fat should be stored mostly around the belly as an easy energy resource when the perceived emergency comes.” Changing your diet can help prevent these problems. Chant says nuts, seeds, and raw vegetables are great choices, as are protein shakes and oolong tea. 2. Skip the energy drinks. Not only are energy drinks harmful to your health, but they can also make you more tired in the long run. While they may seem like a quick pick-me-up at the time, the negative effects can outweigh the positives. James Hamblin says in The Atlantic that the government has gone even further recently to warn people about the dangers. He writes: “The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA, a government behavioral health agency) issued a report … that called energy drinks ‘a continuing public health concern.’ Yes, energy drinks like Red Bull, 5-Hour Energy, Monster, Full Throttle, CHARGE!, Neurogasm, Hardcore Energize Bullet, Facedrink, Eruption, Crakshot, Crave, Crunk, DynaPep, Rage Inferno, SLAP, and even good old Venom Death Adder.” Not only that, but Hamblin says energy drinks can have hidden caffeine — in the form of guarana. While many energy drinks advertise that they have the same amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee, he says they fail to include the caffeine found in this additive. That’s one more reason to skip the energy drinks — you could be consuming more caffeine than you think. 3. Stay active during the workday. Work can be incredibly busy and stressful, but it’s important to make time for physical activity throughout the day. Joe Barton, CEO of Barton Publishing, offers some great tips on managing the sedentary nature of office work. He says: “Humans weren’t created to sit motionless for hours in front of a digital screen. When we become sedentary and inactive, problems start to occur. Our eyes become strained, our back and neck get out of whack, and we gain weight.” That’s why Barton recommends taking a physical break every hour for at least five minutes. He says you should “get up and walk around, get a drink of water, stretch out, breathe deeply, and do some jumping jacks or push-ups to get your heart pumping and blood flowing. You’ll feel energized and it’ll kick start your metabolism, while releasing endorphins.” 4. Make meetings (and phone calls) active. Chuck Cohn, CEO of Varsity Tutors, tries to take all of his phone calls standing up (or even walking around). It’s a great idea because it improves alertness (so you can pay better attention to the call) and helps incorporate physical activity while you work. Cohn also tries to make all of his meetings active. He says: “Many people with whom I work — like our accountants and lawyers — want to meet with me over lunch at a nice restaurant, which almost always results in an unhealthy meal. I’ve started requesting that we grab a coffee instead at a local Starbucks. Once we grab a coffee, we usually just walk around the block while we talk. We both get exercise and get out of the office, and it tends to make the meetings more efficient.” 5. Manage your stress levels. Stress can be the gateway to myriad other problems, including fatigue, depression, and anxiety. Failing to manage this all-too-prevalent component of an entrepreneur’s life can lead to some devastating consequences. As Diana Rodriguez wrote in this Everyday Health article, managing stress is just as important as diet and exercise. Rodriguez wrote: “Being busy is sometimes inevitable, but regularly taking on more than you can manage can cause unwanted and unwelcome stress. Tell yourself that it’s okay to say no to activities at your child’s school or to extra projects at work — you are not obligated to accept every request made of you. Additionally, don’t take on more financial responsibilities — such as a new car or a bigger house — if you think they’ll be a stretch. Being realistic about your finances is an important strategy for managing stress.” It’s true that entrepreneurs have some of the worst health habits — this happens because our lives can be extraordinarily busy, and we don’t have set schedules to accommodate routines, like regular exercise. However, these five tips are great starting points to reducing stress, eating healthier, and getting active. The better your body runs, the better you’ll be able to run your company. John Hall is the CEO of Influence & Co., a company that assists individuals and brands in growing their influence through thought leadership and content marketing programs. Influence & Co., one of the leading providers of high quality expert content to the world’s top publications, is the creator of Contributor Weekly. Connect with John on Twitter or Google+.
070e1c48eb5abfcd7327ce73b2d5df84	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhall/2013/04/09/what-every-leader-needs-to-know-about-seo/	What Every Leader Needs to Know about SEO	What Every Leader Needs to Know about SEO For many companies, it’s a constant battle to stay at the top of search results. Search engine optimization is always changing, whether Google calls the latest edition a penguin, a panda, or a pterodactyl. Even if you don’t think search results are the main business driver for your company, good SEO is important for building credibility and authority. SEO is also an important part of positioning your company as an industry leader, so it’s vital to keep abreast of the latest news from leaders in SEO techniques. Here is some recent advice I’ve gotten from SEO experts that will help you think strategically about growing your Web presence. Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz: Combine SEO with other marketing tactics For many years, SEO was, very nearly, a strategic marketing practice in its own right. That’s becoming less and less true for a number of reasons. Search engines are no longer the only source of organic traffic on the Web. Social networks, blogs, email, RSS subscriptions, and word-of-mouth all compete to drive substantial visits. Also, while search is very often one of the paths people use to discover and research a purchase or engagement, it’s almost never the only one. Success in SEO today necessitates appealing to the emerging signals search engines are using — content analysis, brand metrics, user and usage data, social networks, new forms of markup, etc. SEO is a powerful tactic, but one that needs to fit into a broader set of inbound marketing channels. The combination of these channels into an inbound strategy can be very powerful, as visitors from these sources tend to be high-loyalty and have a lower cost-to-acquire. Stephan Aarstol of Tower Paddle Boards: Use SEO to your advantage Don’t see SEO through tunnel vision. If you’re at the top of the search results, you’re also assumed to be an industry leader. In addition to freely generating direct sales, you earn media attention, attract business development deals, and very effectively build positive brand awareness. ABC’s “Shark Tank” chose Tower Paddle Boards out of over 100 more established paddle boarding brands, and Mark Cuban invested based on my SEO expertise. How’s that for ROI? Phil Laboon of Eyeflow: Don’t fall for easy “tricks” to improve SEO Many people are saying that Google’s new Panda and Penguin updates are making SEO more complicated, but in reality, they are just eliminating all the “tricks” and making SEO easier. At its core, SEO is the same as it’s ever been — high-quality natural links and high-quality original content. The issue many people have is they don’t know how to generate links outside of bulk, low-quality web directories or e-zine sites, so they freak out. My suggestion to all my clients is to create high-quality content (infographics, white papers, eBooks, how-to guides, and educational videos) and push it out through as many channels as possible. If you do this, the links will come, and so will the organic rankings and traffic. If you want to see all the factors that search engines use to “grade” your site, there are many tools that can give you a snapshot of your SEO vitals. I created a site called SEOzio so people could see those factors without logging in or downloading software. Stephen Woessner of Predictive ROI: Focus on conversions What most business leaders don’t realize is that you can not only measure SEO’s return on investment, but you can — and should — predict it before you implement any optimization strategies. In the end, rankings don’t matter. Traffic doesn’t matter. Only conversions matter, because they can be measured in dollars and cents. You should absolutely, unequivocally insist that either your in-house team or your vendors provide ROI predictions based on conversions, and they should be held accountable for those results with a guarantee. Why should you be the only one with “skin in the game?” Michael Marshall of Search Engine Academy: Study your competition Competitive intelligence has great value for business leaders in many areas. It can help counter competitive threats, seize otherwise unseen opportunities, benchmark leaders in your competitive landscape, and identify your strengths and weaknesses and those of your competitors. Competitive intelligence in SEO is no exception, and you need to learn all you can about the Internet marketing strategy of your competitors for all these same reasons. In SEO, you not only need to know what competitors are doing, but also know how the industry is changing. Since the world of Internet marketing is constantly growing, it is of vital importance to stay ahead of the competition by keeping up on the industry’s latest strategies and best practices, through reading articles or at conferences like Pubcon and Digital Summit. Search results have historically been full of “black hat” (read: shady) practices for years, but Google and other search engines are catching on and fighting those techniques. SEO is an increasingly valuable tool to build your business if you do it the right way, and it’s important to take advantage of all that it has to offer. If you naturally position yourself as an industry leader and follow these useful expert tips, the search engines will reward you. John Hall is the CEO of Influence & Co., a company that assists individuals and brands in growing their influence through thought leadership and content marketing programs. Influence & Co., one of the leading providers of high quality expert content to the world’s top publications, is the creator of Contributor Weekly. Connect with John on Twitter or Google+.
86f559975ac86cad7cd705145c427e44	https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhall/2013/06/12/4-tips-for-choosing-a-philanthropic-partner/	4 Tips For Giving To The Right Nonprofit	4 Tips For Giving To The Right Nonprofit If you’ve decided you want your business to make a positive social impact — and I hope you have — you’ve most likely struggled with a few questions. Who do you give to? Why? How do you incorporate this into your business model? We have recently started giving to Reading Is Fundamental (RIF), the nation’s largest nonprofit children’s literacy organization, and I’ve learned a bit about choosing the right philanthropy to give to throughout this process. Here are four tips on what to do (and what not to do) when choosing a charity: 1. Find an organization that fits with your company mission. The first step is finding something that you are not only personally passionate about, but that also fits with your business. We chose RIF because we’re in the business of content. Supporting literacy campaigns is a natural extension of our mission to help clients educate, engage, entertain, and influence an audience through written content. If you’re in the food industry, perhaps supporting a campaign to fight hunger makes more sense. Looking for something that jives with your organization will make it much easier to get buy-in from your team, clients, and partners. However, it’s easy for cause marketing to go bad — take KFC’s (in)famous “Buckets for the Cure” campaign back in 2010. They supported the Susan G. Komen Foundation to raise money for cancer research. While donating money to SGK isn’t a bad thing by any means, KFC drew instant criticism for the hypocritical nature of the campaign. After all, fast food certainly isn’t good for your health. Picture Smith & Wesson partnering up with the World Wildlife Fund or a barbecue sauce company joining forces with PETA — these pairings simply wouldn’t work. 2. Evaluate the organization using a charity-rating tool. Not all charities are created equal. Some are amazing organizations that do good to help millions of individuals per year, and some (as recently uncovered about a few athletes’ nonprofits) hardly accomplish anything. To make sure you’re donating your company’s hard-earned dollars to the former, evaluate the charity you choose using CharityNavigator.org or GuideStar.org (or both). These online tools allow you to see an easy-to-understand star rating of the charity and full financial reports — you’ll know exactly where the money you’re donating is going. One charity I really admire, charity: water, is very open about its financials and actually promotes its Charity Navigator 4-star rating on its site. 3. Get buy-in from your team. A big mistake that a lot of companies make is having a CEO or founder choose a charity, and then expecting the rest of the team to be passionate about it without having any input in the decision. Make sure to get buy-in and hear opinions from your team before finalizing a philanthropic donation. Understand what those on your team are passionate about, and potentially even vote on a charity to determine which one has the most passion behind it within your company. We discussed what made sense for our company (a literacy campaign), and then we asked team members to send us the names of any organizations they were personally passionate about for consideration. We make sure to draw a distinction between what we donate as a company and what our employees choose to donate on their own. Drew Marshall, founder of Think Primed, a client of ours, makes sure his company’s charitable donations are on-brand. He says: “One of the ways I remain connected to my community is by giving back. While my company donates thousands of dollars to local nonprofits each year, nothing beats the connection to community that is achieved through volunteer service. Time on the ground is much more personally meaningful to me, and I recommend it to any business.” 4. Choose a donation you can sustain. This last step is extremely important. Verify that what you’re promising to an organization can be sustained — whether you have a great year or a terrible one. This is one reason that the one-for-one concept (popularized by TOMS Shoes) has taken off. This is when you promise a specific amount of money or other donation per good or service that you sell. This ensures that you have the revenue coming in to afford the donation. Another way to verify you can sustain your giving is to promise a percentage of your profits. Nonprofits rely on budgeting for the year and base some of that on what corporations promise, so make sure not to overpromise and under-deliver; you could be putting the philantrophy in a bad position. I’d love to hear about the charities your companies have chosen to give to. This article was coauthored by Influence & Co. President, Kelsey Meyer Because this article was published, a donation will be made to Reading Is Fundamental so a book can be given to a child. John Hall is the CEO of Influence & Co., a company that assists individuals and brands in growing their influence through thought leadership and content marketing programs. Influence & Co., one of the leading providers of high quality expert content to the world’s top publications, is the creator of Contributor Weekly. Connect with John on Twitter or Google+.