Jan-Mar 2009 Business Archives

 

Firms honored for helping workers in reserve

(Tom Abate, San Francisco Chronicle) San Francisco plumber Bill Bragg considers it no big deal that the Department of Defense recently awarded his firm its top civilian honor for helping one of its employees, Naval reservist Edwin Floresreyes, when he gets called up for training or active duty. "That's what you're supposed to do," said Bragg, a 67-year-old San Francisco native whose five-person company was the smallest of 15 firms honored nationwide.

Hugmeez: An antidote for the post-recession blues?

(Alissa Figueroa, Christian Science Monitor) With all the sour economic news out there – the threat of a double-dip recession, falling housing prices, stubborn unemployment – many Americans are yearning for a little comfort. There's comfort food. Now there's a comfort toy: Hugmeez, recession's answer to the Beanie Baby. The plush stuffed monsters come with big outstretched arms and a wide smile. They're available in a variety of sizes, from 8 to 12 inches tall, at a recession-friendly price – $15 to $25.

Billionaire Paul Allen Pledges to Share His Wealth

(AP) Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen said Thursday that the majority of his wealth will go to philanthropy after his death. The Seattle billionaire says that has been his plan for years. A spokesman for the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, Aaron Blank, said the announcement was a response to last month's challenge from Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, who asked other billionaires to pledge at least half their wealth to charity. This is the first time Allen has publicly announced his intentions, Blank said.

How a Small Studio Pulled Off a Major 3-D Film Using Energy-Saving Technology

(Ariel Schwartz, Fast Company) Traditionally, only the mammoth Hollywood studios could afford to work with 3D—it's too expensive to build the necessary, air-conditioned 24 hours a day, server farms. The company behind Despicable Me decided to try something new, and cut the AC. Illumination Entertainment, the company behind Despicable Me, decided to try something new. Instead of using air-conditioned server farms to render images, the company asked IBM to built a customized server farm using the iDataPlex system, a processing system that cuts down on energy use by 40% compared to traditional server farms.

Google greenlights crowdsourced film project

(Caroline McCarthy, CNET) Sometimes Google takes a break from its mission of organizing all the world's information and decides to embark upon an artsy project that encapsulates ... organizing all the world's information. Late on Tuesday, the search giant posted an entry to the Official Google Blog announcing the creation of "Life In A Day," a film project that solicits video submissions from YouTube users around the world -- the criteria is that they must capture some kind of moment filmed on July 24. It's legit.

New global outsourcing hub - Wyoming?

(Lara Farrar, CNN) When it comes to call centers filled with English-speaking employees, India likely comes to mind. Not a tiny town in Wyoming called Ten Sleep, population about 300. What Ten Sleep has is not, exactly, a call center. Instead, the town is home to a teaching center that is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There, American teachers provide real-time video English lessons to thousands of students in classrooms across Asia via high-speed fiber optic networks.

A business course that puts personal growth on the bottom line

(Paul Van Slambrouck, Christian Science Monitor) As Greg Johnson was dealing with a serious illness in his family, the thought came to him, light as a feather, that along with his grief and worry, he was feeling bolstered by something powerful, but unexpected. Gratitude. Gratitude for all that this family member had taught him. Gratitude for the love and support expressed by close friends and colleagues. Then another realization dawned. That gratitude had grown up in an unlikely place. It had a lot to do with a class he had recently taken that allowed him to look at his life in a fresh way. The class, called "Creativity and Personal Mastery," is taught by Srikumar Rao. It's been known to change lives, as Mr. Johnson and many others can attest.

Panera to open more pay-what-you-wish restaurants

(Christopher Leonard, AP) As the first crowd of customers filed into Panera's nonprofit restaurant here, only the honor system kept them from taking all the food they wanted for free. Ronald Shaich, Panera's chairman, admitted as he watched them line up that he had no idea if his experiment would work. The idea for Panera's first nonprofit restaurant was to open an eatery where people paid what they could. The richer could pay full price — or extra. The poorer could get a cheap or even free meal. A month later, the verdict is in: It turns out people are basically good.

Small loans spark big change in Brazil's northeast

(Stuart Grudgings, Reuters) The peeling yellow cart seems like just another nondescript piece of junk in the tumble of shacks, but it is one that fills Maria Jacinta da Silva with pride and gratitude every day. Bought with a 300 reais ($170) loan, which left change to buy a few bottles of beer and liquor to sell to other slum residents, the box on wheels provided income that stabilized the chaotic life of the 53-year-old mother who lives on the outskirts of the northeastern Brazilian city of Recife. A year later, the beloved cart has been "retired" to make way for a permanent roadside stall where Da Silva sells barbecued meat and liquor and which was funded by more "microcredit" loans from the state-owned Banco do Nordeste, or Bank of the Northeast.

Green is the new organic in wines

(Leslie Gevirtz, Reuters) It's easy being green in Mendocino, California, where many of the county's 84 vintners are certified organic, biodynamic or carbon neutral. Tim Thornhill, a transplanted Texan who formed the Mendocino Wine Company six years ago in the county north of San Francisco, is one of them. Along with his brother, Tom, and former Fetzer Vineyards winemaker Paul Dolan he bought the Parducci Wine Cellars and revived the wine's reputation. He also used his background in horticulture to design a wetland area in the middle of the vineyard to reclaim wastewater, which is a byproduct of wine making.

Starbucks adds free Wi-Fi at 6,700 US sites

(Ashley M. Heher, AP) Starbucks Corp. will begin offering unlimited free wireless Internet access at all company-operated U.S. locations starting July 1, part of an ongoing effort to bring more customers in the door. The Wi-Fi access, which will eventually include a new network of news and entertainment content exclusively for customers, comes as Starbucks works to take business back from rivals like McDonald's Corp. and independent cafes that have long offered free Internet. The cafe chain, which recorded its first quarterly increase in customers in 13 quarters earlier this year, had previously offered two free hours of Web access each day to registered customers.

Warren Buffett lunch sells for $2.63 million on eBay

(Elinor Comlay and Jonathan Stempel, Reuters) A bidder has agreed to pay $2.63 million for a steak lunch with the billionaire investor Warren Buffett in a charity auction held on eBay Inc's website. The highest bid in the 11th annual auction topped the previous record $2.11 million paid in 2008 by Zhao Danyang, a Hong Kong investor. Wealth manager Salida Capital Corp of Toronto won with a $1.68 million bid in 2009.

Wells Fargo gives $8 million to Habitat

(Shelia M. Poole, Atlanta Journal-Constitution) Habitat for Humanity International has received an $8-million donation from Wells Fargo to help fund its Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative. The initiative builds, repairs and rehabilitates affordable housing for low-income families in areas heavily affected by foreclosures. According to Habitat, which has its administrative offices in Atlanta, many of the projects will focus on foreclosed and abandoned houses and use environmentally-friendly materials. It also includes efforts to winterize the homes and make them more energy efficient.

Buffett hopes lunch auction again draws big bids

(Josh Funk, AP) Billionaire Warren Buffett always tries to make sure that anyone who's willing to make a seven-figure donation just to have lunch with the investor gets their money's worth, so the meals often last more than three hours. So far, so good. "Nobody's asked for their money back," Buffett said. The Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO said he hopes the annual lunch auction will again draw multimillion-dollar bids to benefit the Glide Foundation, which provides social services to the poor and homeless in San Francisco.

Nokia unveils bicycle-powered phone charger

(Candace Lombardi, CNET) Nokia unveiled on Thursday a bicycle-powered phone charger. The Nokia Bicycle Charger Kit, which can be attached to any bicycle, powers up from the pedaling motion of the bike's rider. A dynamo--the electricity generator--is powered by the front bicycle wheel as a rider pedals and transfers electricity to a charger attached to the handlebar, which a phone plugs into. "To begin charging, a cyclist needs to travel around six kilometers per hour (four miles per hour), and while charging times will vary depending on battery model, a 10-minute journey at 10 kilometers per hour (six miles per hour) produces around 28 minutes of talk time or 37 hours of standby time. The faster you ride, the more battery life you generate," Nokia said in a statement.

Nonprofit uses discarded hotel soap to stop spread of disease in Africa

(Shelia M. Poole, Atlanta Journal-Constitution) Derreck Kayonga noticed something strange during a hotel stay in Philadelphia several years ago. His hotel room contained three bars of soap. On top of that, after just one use, the hotel's housekeeping staff replaced the used bar with a new one. He started hiding the soap in his luggage, but each day there was more soap. "All of a sudden, there was too much soap around me," said Kayonga, who had been in the United States a few weeks. When he asked what happens to all the used soap, Kayonga was floored by the answer: it's thrown away.

Compost Startup Helps Restaurants Cut Costs

(Avishay Artsy, NPR) A new green startup business in New Hampshire collects compostable material from local cafes and restaurants. The company's business model is to help restaurants be more eco-friendly — and save money on trash removal. At the Black Trumpet restaurant in Portsmouth, N.H., chef and co-owner Evan Mallett says he’s long wanted to compost, but no one could offer regular pickups, and their tiny restaurant has no extra space for storage.

Scotch distillery turns whisky into watts

(Matthew Knight, CNN) Creating renewable energy from whisky might sound like a harebrained scheme conceived at the end of a long evening drinking the amber nectar. But an independently-owned Scottish distillery is hoping that the installation of a new biogas generator will prove to be a lasting moment of environmental clarity and help solve their energy problems. This month, Bruichladdich -- one of eight distilleries to be found on the Scottish isle of Islay -- will take delivery of an anaerobic digester which will start turning their whisky waste into electricity.

Non-profit Panera cafe: Take what you need, pay what you can

(Bruce Horovitz, USA TODAY) Imagine walking into a Panera Bread and picking out anything you wanted to eat or drink — then, at the end of the line, instead of handing your money to a cashier, you faced a donation box. What would you do if you knew that some of the money you placed in the box would be used to train at-risk youths or to feed folks lacking funds to feed themselves? That's what Panera Bread is trying to find out this week in an outside-the-box experiment in St. Louis. It's a concept that has never been tested by a restaurant chain — and that marks a new career for Ron Shaich, who stepped down as Panera's CEO last week.

Brothers help Haiti with their elegant new shirts

(Ina Paiva Cordle, Miami Herald) Fashion-forward men (and the women who shop for them): If you care to buy an elegant shirt and help Haiti at the same time, now you can. Haitian-born clothing manufacturers Patrick and Fabrice Tardieu have launched a limited collection of men's dress shirts, sold at select Nordstrom stores, to raise money for Haiti earthquake relief. The brothers' Miami-based fashion company, Bogosse, will give 50 percent of their sales proceeds to Project Medishare, which support initiatives to rebuild Haiti.

Silly Bandz Success Anything But Silly

(Anthony Mason, CBS News) Silly Bandz are silicone bracelets that come in dozens of different shapes, from tree frogs to dolphins to geckos. They're hugely popular with kids, reports CBS News business correspondent Anthony Mason, and at about $5 for a pack, stores can't keep them in stock. "Does everybody in school have them?" Mason asked a group of kids. "Oh yeah!" the kids yelled. "There was this one girl who started wearing them and like next day everyone had them going up their arms," said one kid. Across the country, a new arms race is on. Some kids say they have more than 100 each.

Wal-Mart To Donate $2B In Aid To Food Banks

(AP) Wal-Mart Stores Inc. plans to significantly ramp up its donations to the nation's food banks to total $2 billion over the next five years, the retail giant said Wednesday. The retail giant is more than doubling its annual rate of giving as the number of Americans receiving food stamps has risen to one in eight, and food banks are straining to meet demand. Wal-Mart's plan comes in two parts: At least $250 million in grants over five years will go to efforts such as buying refrigerated trucks, which help fruits, vegetables and meat last longer to make it from store to charity, and programs to feed children during the summer when they're not in school and receiving government meals.

Why Amish businesses don't fail

(Geoff Williams, CNN Money) Want to find America's most successful entrepreneurs? Skip Silicon Valley and Manhattan; head to the rural Amish enclaves. Amish businesses have an eye-popping 95% success rate at staying open at least five years, according to author Erik Wesner's new book, Success Made Simple: An Inside Look at Why Amish Businesses Thrive. It's a statistic he backs up with a variety of academic surveys, drawing particularly on a 2009 report by Elizabethtown College sociology professor Donald Kraybill. Studying several Amish settlements, Kraybill found failure rates ranging from 2.6% and 4.2%; interviews with loan officers, accountants and industry professions in other Amish regions yielded additional anecdotal evidence of closure rates significantly south of 10%.

Green gyms: healthier grist for recycled treadmills

(Dorene Internicola, Reuters) It's not easy being green, but health clubs are finding that being good to the planet may also reward their bottom line. National fitness chains and boutique clubs alike are retro-fitting old centers and building greener new ones. "Health clubs worldwide are continuing to adopt greener practices," said Kara Shemin, of the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association (IHRSA), the industry's not-for-profit trade association.

L.A. County program helps jobless and struggling firms

(Cyndia Zwahlen, Los Angeles Times) A little-known Los Angeles County jobs program is paying $10 an hour to several thousand workers at temporary jobs in businesses around Los Angeles, including hundreds of small firms. Using federal economic stimulus funds, the county is hiring the jobless to work at these companies for up to a year. In exchange, the businesses provide training, build job skills and get extra workers at little or no cost.

Squeezing a lemon, er, lesson in business

(Jeannie Kever, Houston Chronicle) Sebastian Dominguez got help from a pro this weekend. That was good — he had plenty of customers, access to restaurant equipment and constant encouragement — but he also discovered something entrepreneurs have always known. Being the boss is hard work. Sebastian, 10, and his friends Will Schuster and Duncan Guinn ran one of thousands of lemonade stands operating across the city Sunday, part of a project to teach kids the basics of business.

Aspiring entrepreneurs learn how to build profitable businesses

(Courtenay Edelhart, Bakersfield Californian) The Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour is more like a concert or pep rally than a business conference. Energetic speakers hurl T-shirts into the audience and pop music blares from loud speakers. The idea is to convince young people that they don't have to wait decades to start a business, and to give them tools to convert their dreams into profitable enterprises.

Farm Volunteers See Benefit in Working for Free

(Tracie Cone, AP) The morning sun lights up the blue and magenta blooms of wildflowers as Erik Ramfjord and Andrew Riddle scoop soured milk into a trough, drawing delighted squeals from a dozen free-range pigs. A month ago, Ramfjord was an unmotivated biology major in Oregon, and Riddle didn't know what he wanted from Humboldt State University in northern California. Now they are energized, toiling from sun up to sun down for meals and a bunk on an organic ranch in central California, hundreds of miles from home. "I consider myself extremely lucky to have stumbled upon this," says Ramfjord, 20.

Feel-good plastic that fades away

(Brian Dumaine, Fortune) A thousand miles off the coast of California floats the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a mass of plastic trash whose exact size is unknown but some experts say is bigger than Texas. Where does it come from? Some of it can be traced back to the U.S. Only 7% of the plastic Americans consume gets recycled. The bulk is thrown into landfills or, worse, into our rivers, lakes, and oceans, where fish consume toxins that attach to the plastic. Then we consume the fish. Not good. Richard Eno, the CEO of Metabolix (MBLX), a small public company based in Cambridge, Mass., and spun out of MIT, thinks he can help fix the problem.

A $2.95 lesson for Wall Street

(Bob Greene, CNN) I wish the titans of Wall Street could meet Mark Dalton. Not that it would be likely to change anything. But I wish the leaders of Goldman Sachs and of the other big banking firms could talk to Mark Dalton for just a few minutes. They might learn a few things about how to better connect with the American people. I didn't know Dalton's last name until a few days ago. For almost two years, I've held onto something he mailed to me. There was no reason not to throw it out, yet I had a feeling that someday I'd want to refer to it.

The Art of Google Doodles

(John Blackstone, CBS) At Google's Silicon Valley corporate headquarters, the artists painting on digital canvases are producing works of art that will be viewed by millions . . . but disappear in just 24 hours. They are the creators of Google's Doodles, the often playful illustrations that regularly transform Google's home page to mark things like holidays . . . famous birthdays . . . and notable discoveries and inventions. If you happened to visit Google any time yesterday, you saw a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble space telescope.

At Idaho restaurant, worms served too

(Rebecca Boone, AP) For eco-restaurateur Dave Krick, it's not just about where his food comes from, but also where it's going. And in the case of his Red Feather Lounge and Bittercreek Ale House, some 100 pounds of it a day are feeding an extra 200,000 diners — Vermont red wiggler worms that live in the restaurants' basement, working around the clock to turn kitchen waste into nutrient-rich compost. That's a lot of worms, but it's a singular distinction.

One man's mission to turn all cars electric

(Anouk Lorie, CNN) Shai Agassi is a man on a mission -- an ambitious one to wean the world off its oil addiction and turn everyone into electric car drivers. The Israeli businessman is developing a global network of charging spots and "battery switch stations," which will effectively work as gas stations for electric cars. With his California-based company, Better Place, Agassi has partnered with car maker Renault-Nissan to produce the first generation of emission-free electric cars, known as the "Fluence," which Agassi says "will not be more expensive than your average Sedan."

Hotel offers "cycle for your supper" deal

(Peter Starck, Reuters) A Danish hotel is pioneering a pedal-power electricity generation scheme it hopes will catch on in other countries. The Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers, 15 minutes from the center of the Danish capital and five minutes from Scandinavia's main airport, is installing two exercise bicycles hooked up to generators. Guests will be invited to jump on and start pedaling -- and if they produce enough electricity they will be given a free meal.

Chevron offers 'Energy for Learning' grants

(Jorge Barrientos, Bakersfield Californian) Chevron is making available $80,000 starting today to area teachers, counselors, librarians and specialists in its 11th annual "Energy for Learning" classroom grant program. The program's expansion also has Chevron partnering with nonprofit DonorsChoose.org, a website where residents can donate directly toward projects school employees submit online. Educators from nearly 50 area school districts are eligible to apply.

Puma ditches shoe boxes in eco initiative

(Eva Kuehnen and Christian Kraemer, Reuters) Sporting goods maker Puma will launch eco-friendly packaging for its sneakers next year to reduce its carbon footprint, beating governments to the punch as it kisses old-fashion shoe boxes good-bye. Puma said it would roll out the new packaging in the second half of next year and that by putting its shoes in cardboard frames wrapped in reusable shoe bags, it would save 8,500 tonnes of paper -- the weight of more than 1,400 adult elephants.

Walls you can eat

(Eilene Zimmerman, CNNMoney.com) Mario Batali decided last year to install a garden between his adjoining West Hollywood restaurants, Osteria Mozza and Pizzeria Mozza. But a plain old backyard patch wouldn't do. Batali wanted something more visually striking, something more ... vertical? So he turned to Jim Mumford, the owner of Good Earth Plant and Flower Company in San Diego. Mumford, 52, had built a reputation as a nontraditional gardener.

2 friends build a company out of old sweaters

(Denise Gamino, Austin American-Statesman) Greg Goeken and Sean Saenger have a career that's unraveling. Yard by yard, they are gathering wool from old discarded sweaters and turning it back into fresh fiber ready to be fashioned into blankets, shawls, hats, mittens or even another sweater. Call it yarn 2.0. Their new Austin company, Yarn Harvest, is devoted to recycling and repurposing a valuable natural fiber before it ends up in a landfill or in the rag trade. It's a green company that deals in every color you can think of.

From frying chicken to moving students, reprocessed oil as fuel

(Christopher Quinn, Atlanta Journal-Constitution) The used cooking oil that sometimes clogs Cherokee County's sewer lines could be put to a good use, a Woodstock businessman believes. It could be collected instead of being illegally poured down drains. Then, at a plant he wants to build locally, it could be reprocessed into biodiesel and mixed with diesel to run school buses. Gary Martin, a representative of DSI Fabrication in Florida, told Cherokee County's commissioners Tuesday that using the biodiesel fuel produced by his plan could save the school system $75,000 to $150,000 a year compared to its current fuel expenses.

Brazil farmers shown how to profit by conserving

(Luciana Lopez, Reuters) Talk of ecological diversity or saving rare species does not fly very far in Mato Grosso. The state is Brazil's top soy producer, churning out an annual harvest of about 18 million tones. Fields of emerald green line the highways, stretching out to horizons so flat they look drawn with a ruler. The crops have helped fuel Brazil's economic boom of recent years but they come at a price -- the clearing of more than 130,000 square km (50,000 square miles) of Amazon rain forest in the state from 1988 through 2008, to the widespread condemnation of environmental groups.

Target puts recycling bins in all its stores

(Brad Dorfman, Reuters) Discount retailer Target Corp expects to have recycling bins in all its stores by Tuesday as it tries to gain "green" credibility from consumers looking to be more eco-friendly. The No. 2 U.S. discount retailer does not think the recycling stations will drive additional traffic to its more than 1,700 stores, but it hopes they will help improve satisfaction for the customers who come in, Shawn Gensch, Target vice president for brand marketing, said in an interview. The company, which says it will be the first major retailer to offer "multiple recycling options" for customers, already has taken steps like recycling or reusing items like packing boxes and hangers to reduce waste in its supply chain.

A Store Kept Afloat by the Generosity of Customers

(Peter Applebome, New York Times) The problem was as clear as the empty shelves in the town market, but it was not until the e-mail message spread around town that everyone was forced to take notice. “Merola’s, our anchor since before the time of the grandparents, needs us,” it read. “They have been serving us for more than 80 years, and we need to help them.” The market that Nicholas and Carmela Merola opened in 1930 in this tiny Long Island hamlet, at the east end of the barrier island that includes Long Beach, isn’t the only business these days depending on the generosity of its customers to stay afloat. And chances are residents would have done what they could to keep alive the only grocery in town no matter when the crisis arose.

Name Your Price store aims to help poor

(Courtenay Edelhart, Bakersfield Californian) Dave Assaly has a long, scraggly beard and is perennially caked in filth from rifling through trash bins, but few can say his name without smiling. Assaly runs what could loosely be called a chain of three thrift stores. At two of them, merchandise has no price tag. Customers just make an offer, and it's usually accepted. Or sometimes, Assaly haggles them down. Down. Not up.

Best job in the world: honeymoon travel tester?

(Tracey D. Samuelson, Christian Science Monitor) The next item on your résumé could read ‘honeymoon tester.’ Really. An Irish tourism company, Runaway Bride and Groom, is currently looking for a couple to travel to "the most romantic and ultimate wedding and honeymoon venues around the world." The gig lasts six months and pays €20,000 ($27,000 US). Required: good communication skills and a "romantically linked other half." Sound too good to be true? This is just the latest in a series of "dream job" postings.

Studying the Grateful Dead - in Biz School

(Jim Axelrod, CBS News) The Grateful Dead was one of rock and roll's most enduring acts - making records and touring constantly for 30 years, until 1995, when lead singer and guitarist Jerry Garcia died. With its roots in the 1960's counter-culture, the Dead improbably became America's most lucrative touring act. Now, the band's success is even being studied - in business schools. In many ways, Barry Barnes is a typical "deadhead," as the most loyal fans of the Grateful Dead have long been known. "I saw them 194 times over 21 years," Barnes said. "My best friends today - still 15 years after the band ended - are deadheads." But Barnes - a professor at Nova Southeastern University's Wayne Huizenga School of Business - keeps an uncommonly close eye on the band even for deadheads.

Rising auto sales could rescue Michigan, Big Three

(Mark Guarino, Christian Science Monitor) At last, auto sales of American-made vehicles are rising – and with them hopes that Detroit and southeast Michigan can start to dig out of the deep economic hole that swallowed the region in 2008. And what a hole it's been. For almost three years, Michigan has had the highest unemployment rate in the nation. Two of the Detroit-based Big Three automakers in 2009 needed billions in federal bailout money to stay in business and drastically downscaled their operations. Plants, dealerships, and parts suppliers closed.

‘Undercover Boss’ spurs shop-floor changes

(Bill Briggs, MSNBC.com) After each grueling day in the grime — his head whirling with revelations, inspirations and sanitation — Waste Management president Larry O’Donnell shed his fake jumpsuit and fake name, came home and dumped his thoughts into a legal pad. Like the five other corporate chiefs featured so far on the CBS ratings smash "Undercover Boss," O’Donnell said he picked up reams of business ideas, along with truckloads of trash. "I jotted them down every night before I went to sleep," he said, "so I wouldn’t forget."

Wall Street ‘Generosity Coach’ Stresses Focus, How to Say ‘No’

(Philip Boroff, Bloomberg) Kathy LeMay lives in the college town of Northampton, Massachusetts, with a mortgage and a 2005 Honda Accord hybrid that she’s paying off mainly by counseling billionaires and others on how to give away their money. LeMay is a so-called generosity coach. She advises donors large and small to identify the issues they’re passionate about and the nonprofits that address them.

Bay Area Foundation Teaching Companies To Do Good

(CBS 5) As Executive Director of the Entrepreneurs Foundation, Diane Solinger teaches companies how to be good citizens. Solinger helps businesses develop charitable giving and volunteer programs. She recently headed up a conference in Redwood Shores where businesses share ideas to improve their community giving. "I love it when you see an entrepreneur starting a company understand that a company isn't just about paying taxes and giving people jobs. That it has a role in broader society and that you can bring corporations and the corporate mindset to help solve social issues," said Solinger.

Generous billionaire inspires writer

(Christopher Adams, New Zealand Herald) Lucas Remmerswaal is a man on a mission - a mission to change the way a whole generation approaches its finances. But how does a Whangarei investment adviser and father-of-six plan on doing that? By writing children's books inspired by the ideas and principles of American billionaire investor and philanthropist Warren Buffett - the world's third wealthiest man. Remmerswaal is in the process of producing an illustrated book for five-year-olds, another for 12 year-olds and a teaching aid for parents and teachers.

In Nashville, a new microfund for entrepreneurs

(Dr. Jeff R. Cornwall, Christian Science Monitor) There is a new source of start-up capital in Nashville. Solidus Company announced today the formation of a microfund to support local entrepreneurs and to help accelerate the growth of start-ups in the Middle Tennessee area. JumpStart Foundry will focus on very early-stage concepts. Over the next 12 months, the microfund intends to select 10-14 entrepreneurs for the program who will receive financial, business, and technological support to accelerate the growth of their businesses.

3-D TV coming to a lounge near you

(New Zealand Herald) Samsung and Panasonic will start selling 3-D TVs in American stores this week, beginning what TV makers hope is the era of 3-D viewing in the lounge. Samsung Electronics announced yesterday that it was selling two 3-D models. With the required glasses and a 3-D Blu-ray player, the prices start at about US$3000 ($4250) for a 46-inch (116cm) screen. Panasonic has said it will sell its first 3-D set today.

Second Life's virtual money can become real-life cash

(Michael S. Rosenwald, Washington Post) Dana Moore sells rain. He sells a lot of it, for about a buck per reusable storm. "I don't know why people love buying rainstorms," he said, watching his product drizzle last week, "but they do seem to like them a lot." The attraction isn't rain, per se, but Moore's rain, which can deluge swaths of land on command. The rain falls not in Bowie, where he lives with his wife of 37 years, but in the virtual world of Second Life, the Web portal where he also markets snow, clocks, University of Maryland basketball T-shirts, Duke basketball T-shirts (grudgingly), two-story Tudor-style homes, pinup posters from the 1930s and the sounds of barking dogs.

In nod to deaf viewers, YouTube adds captions to millions of videos

(Matthew Shaer, Christian Science Monitor) YouTube will expand its auto-captioning service – currently available only on select YouTube channels – to tens of millions of videos, the Google-owned company announced on Thursday. In a blog post, YouTube reps said the move would make the entire library accessible to deaf and hearing-impaired users, and allow creators to reach "a whole new global audience." Last year, YouTube rolled out the auto-caps system, which uses Google's automatic speech recognition technology, to a handful of media outlets, including National Geographic and PBS. The technology scans videos, isolates speech, and churns out captions along the bottom of the screen.

Artist keeps Austin weird, one sign at a time

(Ricardo Gándara, Austin American-Statesman) In a shotgun-style metal building tucked behind others off South Lamar Boulevard, the owner and one-man show of Gary Martin Signs is hunched over his desk. South Austin just seems like the right place for him: Martin is listening to the Carter Family, the first family of country music. Yellow Rose incense from Oat Willie's burns near the heavily tattooed Martin, who is poring over pencil sketches on onionskin paper. He's agonizing over an idea — that's just part of his creative process — for a real-estate sign. 'I sometimes have to have nightmares about a design before I finally get it,' he says. Old-style sign painter. That would be Martin, who letters and paints all of his work by hand.

Professor's radical ideas on happiness have caught on in business world

(Cheryl Hall, Dallas Morning News) I typed in mih in a Google search a few days ago, and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's name fortuitously popped up in the drop-down box. When you write about an icon with a 16-letter last name, you want to get it right. Csikszentmihalyi introduced a radical concept 35 years ago that is used to teach management and organizational behavior and practiced around the globe. The 75-year-old professor of psychology and management at Claremont Graduate University in California is the father of flow, the notion that people are happiest and most productive when their work sends them into a state of nirvana.

Sap's Rising: Sweet Money for Maple Syrup Hobby

(Lisa Rathke, AP) Eric May wasn't too keen on the taste of real maple syrup when he first moved to Vermont but he tapped some trees anyway, borrowing buckets from neighboring farmers. After boiling the sap for 18 hours in a pot over an outside fire, he produced his first quart. Then he was hooked. "I thought it was the cat's meow," said May, 45. "Because it boiled. You take this liquid coming out of a tree that you think is just water but you can taste the sweetness in it, you just boil it down then all of a sudden after hours, you've got maple syrup. Since that first year, his backyard sugaring operation has grown from 20 taps 13 years ago, to 50 the next, then 300 and 800 this year on the hillside behind his house.

Galleria mall is giant greenhouse, raising organic crops in Cleveland

(Sarah Crump, Cleveland Plain Dealer) Millions have passed through the Galleria at Erieview, sun glinting on its barrel-shaped glass roof. But it took a nurseryman's granddaughter to look up and think: This place looks like a giant greenhouse. Now Vicky Poole, the Galleria's marketing and events director, who worked on her grandpa's farm as a child, expects that by late spring or early summer, there will be fresh tomatoes for sale among the shops and galleries at the downtown Cleveland mall. Very fresh -- as in vine-grown in bags and troughs hanging from steel stair banisters and ceiling beams in the shopping center that stretches between East Ninth and East 12th streets.

Woodstock man wins $10,000 iTunes contest

(Christopher Quinn, Atlanta Journal-Constitution) "Hello, Lou. This is Steve Jobs." So began the Wednesday night phone conversation between Louie Sulcer of Woodstock and the high-tech wizard who co-founded Apple, the maker of computers and all things iPod. Sulcer's end of the conversation went something like this: "Sure it is. Aw, who is this really? C'mon." The guy on the other end of Sulcer's line would not back off. It was Steve Jobs. Really. Sulcer, a 71-year-old country music fan with seven stents in his heart and artificial hip sockets, hit the Apple jackpot when he downloaded from iTunes a 1958 Johnny Cash song, "Guess Things Happen That Way."

Actress and Muslim Philanthropist Promote Women

(Edith M. Lederer, AP) What do actress Geena Davis, Britain's Duchess of York, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the head of the World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists have in common? They're all committed to empowering women. At a U.N. event Monday promoting gender equality, they were joined by heads of foundations, corporate leaders, academics, diplomats, representatives of voluntary organizations and several other celebrities, including Miss USA Kristen Dalton and Sweden's Princess Madeleine. The U.N. Economic and Social Council chose International Corporate Philanthropy Day to focus on women's rights and generate support for one of the U.N.'s Millennium Development goals — promoting equality between women and men.

New DNA test tells individual’s heritage

(Michael D. Pitman, Dayton Daily News) Those who claim to be Irish on St. Patrick’s Day but may not know for sure now can find out. AncestrybyDNA, which was launched by DNA Diagnostics Center in November, provides "a personal journey" into one’s heritage, said assistant laboratory director Leigh Hanna. "We’re all, as Americans, kind of mutts, and we think we know what our background is from things our parents told us, family bibles, all the oral history," Hanna said. "This kind of gives you another way to look at your past." The $295 DNA test evaluates four distinct genetic isolated population groups: European, East Asian, Sub-Saharan African and Indigenous American. The results indicate by percentage the heritage of a person, Hanna said.

Stephen Green: Bankers Need A Moral Compass

(NPR) With bank bailouts and executive bonuses in the headlines, it's hard to find the connection between banking and ethics. But it's an argument that Stephen Green, chairman of HSBC — one of the biggest banks in the world — makes in his new book about banking: Good Value: Reflections on Money, Morality and an Uncertain World. Green is also an ordained priest in the Church of England. In his book, he proposes a "new capitalism" that brings good business and good ethics together. He says moral and spiritual values should take precedence over immediate profit.

Oscar Mayer Wienermobile in search of 'hotdoggers'

(Michael Vasquez, Miami Herald) When your office is a 27-foot hot dog, and is manned by employees with names such as "Torey Toppings" and "C. Melton Cheddar," there are certain important questions that must be addressed. Salary and health benefits are of course relevant, but first . . . Is this a real job? At the University of Miami and Florida International University on Thursday, students learned that, yes, the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile is a bona fide workplace -- a "Bunderful" workplace if its current drivers are to be believed.

How Haiti's earthquake galvanized one US CEO

(Christine Arena, Christian Science Monitor) It was an unusually quiet plane ride home. Timberland CEO Jeff Swartz and Share Our Strength Founder Bill Shore had reached the end of a life-changing journey, after having spent several days in Haiti bearing witness to the unthinkable and helping to address earthquake survivor needs. "We finally let off our last two passengers, celebrity artist Wyclef Jean and a young orthopedic surgeon from Grand Rapids, a father of four who had been in Haiti since day three performing emergency amputations with borrowed farm equipment," Swartz recounts. "That gave me thirty-five minutes of one-on-one time with Bill, who I never get to be alone with. But I don’t think we said a word to each other the rest of the trip."

Founder of Bob's Red Mill Natural Foods transfers business to employees

(Dana Tims, The Oregonian) Scores of employees gathered to help Bob Moore celebrate his 81st birthday this week at the company that bears his name, Bob's Red Mill Natural Foods. Moore, whose mutual loves of healthy eating and old-world technologies spawned an internationally distributed line of products, responded with a gift of his own -- the whole company. The Employee Stock Ownership Plan Moore unveiled means that his 209 employees now own the place and its 400 offerings of stone-ground flours, cereals and bread mixes. "This is Bob taking care of us," said Lori Sobelson, who helps run the business' retail operation. "He expects a lot out of us, but really gives us the world in return."

White House asks US clothing companies to 'Buy Haitian'

(Ron Scherer, Christian Science Monitor) The Obama administration is asking the US apparel and textile industry to help Haiti get back on its feet. On Tuesday, the US trade representative, Ron Kirk, in Las Vegas at a trade show, asked US apparel and textile companies to source 1 percent of their production from the earthquake-ravaged nation. Haitian officials say the plan, called Plus One, could make a difference in helping the country, since the nation has a history of making garments and a workforce that already has some training. American consumers would be able to tell if their underwear or T-shirts are made in Haiti, because they would have a label with an H with a positive sign in the blue and red colors of the nation.

At Shared Offices, How Green Is My Work Space

(Sindya N. Bhanoo, New York Times) Hunched over their computers on a recent afternoon, two brothers were sketching plans to build a green roof for an elementary school in Brooklyn. One row and three desks away, a woman was working on an environmentally friendly fashion project, a little black dress that can be worn 365 ways. Nearby, an information technology consultant was briefing a client on how cloud computing could save her money while also saving the environment. And in a corner toward the end of the long room of desks and chairs, a young man was surrounded by stacks of jeans mailed in to his company for repair and reuse.

Angel investor's mission to share his knowledge

(Helen Twose, New Zealand Herald) In baseball parlance, angel investing is about being able to handle a cruddy batting average, according to a leading American angel investor. "The concept that you're going to lose 80 per cent of the time, that you're going to either lose all your money, or most of your money or make a little bit of money for the efforts you put into this venture is not acceptable to all people," said Bill Payne. Payne is in New Zealand for nearly six months, basing himself at the University of Auckland incubator The Icehouse as its entrepreneur in residence.

Big Crisis, Small Help: How microcredit can play a larger role in disaster recovery

(Mac Margolis and Lucy Conger, Newsweek.com) Hollywood couldn't have done it better. Late in the afternoon on Jan. 22, an armored car packed with $2 million in cash rolled out of J.P. Morgan Chase headquarters in downtown Miami, headed to the Homestead Air Force Base. Thirty-four bricks of bank notes packed into ordinary office supply boxes were loaded onto a C-17 transport plane redeployed from Langley, Va., and dispatched to Haiti, lighting up switchboards at the United Nations, the U.S. State Department, the Federal Reserve, and military rescue bases in Port-au-Prince.

YouTube 'brings sexy back' to charity work

(Doug Gross, CNN) The Los Angeles Regional Food Bank needed a way to tell the world about its work. Shawn Ahmed wanted to continue the video storytelling he'd begun on behalf of the poor in Bangladesh. YouTube wanted to bring them together. The result, YouTube's Video Volunteers page, pairs deserving but underfunded charities with creative video producers willing to help them. The page has brought hundreds of sometimes-offbeat fundraising and promotional videos to the same site that launched such Web celebrities as singer Susan Boyle and the "Leave Britney Alone" guy. "There are all these really big, sexy parts of YouTube, but we need people to know about this [project] because it actually matters," said YouTube spokesman Aaron Zamost, invoking pop star Justin Timberlake.

Continental Airlines honors its first black pilot by naming new 737 after him

(Cleveland Plain-Dealer) A black pilot who fought all the way to the Supreme Court to be allowed to fly for a major airline had the rare distinction this week of having a Continental Airlines jet named in his honor. Capt. Marlon Green was honored in a ceremony in Houston more than 50 years after he first approached Continental for a job. His six-year battle to fly for Continental ended with a 1963 Supreme Court ruling that forced airlines not to discriminate in their hiring.

How ShelterBox Helps Haiti Earthquake Victims

(As Told to William Lee Adams , Time.com) In 1999 I watched a disaster unfold on the evening news. As aid workers threw loaves of bread on the ground and people scrambled after them, I asked my wife, "Why can't they hand the bread to those people? They've lost everything. Why should they lose their self-respect too?" It was as if someone hit me over the head with a cricket bat. I got out a piece of paper and wrote down what I would need after a natural disaster: shelter, warmth, comfort, dignity.

Liquid gold: Olive oil the Tunisian way

(Ben Wedeman, CNN) For Tunisian olive oil producer Abdel Majid Mahjoub, making olive oil is a calling, not a job. At his family farm south of Tunis, he fashions the liquid gold the old-fashioned way -- slowly cold-pressing the olives and then ladling the oil by hand after it separates and rises to the top of the barrel. It's not the best way to make money off an olive grove. But it could well be the purest. "When people come here, the professionals, they say, 'Oh, you are losing a lot of money," Mahjoub told CNN during an interview at Les Moulins Mahjoub, his farm in Tebourba, just south of the Tunisian capital. "We say, 'Yes, we know it.'"

Secret recipe spawns salmon empire

(Brenda Bouw, Toronto Globe and Mail) With her mother's secret smoked-salmon recipe under one arm and a business plan under the other, Ellen Melcosky approached a handful of lenders looking for help to start her home-based gourmet food business. Nobody bit. Instead of giving up, Ms. Melcosky cast a wider net. Friends and family, who had tasted the special salmon made from a unique brining process, insisted on lending the former housewife money to get her business off the ground. After collecting nearly $100,000, including a $30,000 loan from the federally funded Women's Enterprise Centre, her company Little Miss Chief was founded and began distributing smoked salmon in 1996.

Bag Balm proves to be a slick cure-all

(AP) Winter is most definitely here. It must be. The phones are ringing at Bag Balm headquarters. Everyone wants a new tub of the gooey, yellow-green ointment. And all have a story about its problem-salving — they use it on squeaky bed springs, psoriasis, dry facial skin, cracked fingers, burns, zits, diaper rash, saddle sores, sunburn, pruned trees, rifles, shell casings, bed sores and radiation burns. Everything, it seems, except for cows. "Some, you don't really even want to hear, but they're gonna tell you anyway," said accounts manager Krystina McMorrow, who is half the office staff.

Track your goals bead by bead

(Krista Jahnke, Detroit Free Press) If you have a fitness or health goal, you are likely counting something -- reps, whole-grain servings, glasses of water, workout sessions per week, calories. That's the epiphany that came to Oakland University graduate Chelsea Charles Gossett seven years ago as she plugged away on a treadmill, reading a women's magazine advising people to journal to reach their health targets. "But that's not always convenient," she thought at the time. And so an idea was born: What if there was something women could wear that would serve as motivation and also keep track of their goals?

Burning rubber pays for entrepreneurs

(Tamsyn Parker, New Zealand Herald) The need to solve a problem for one invention has helped three entrepreneurs come up with an environmentally friendly way to recycle tyres - and now they are close to taking it commercial. Inventor Chris Newman was working on a synthetic fuel project in 2004 when he decided he needed an easy source of carbon - a key ingredient in the process. Thinking about places to find carbon he came up with tyres and began looking at ways to extract it.

Raising dough for Haiti: generosity comes in small slices

(Nancy Leson, Seattle Times) There's a reason they call it the service industry. Area restaurants -- large and small -- have reached out to Haiti, offering financial aid (with your help), as mentioned in previous posts. From pho stops to bakeshops, neighborhood bars to neighborhood bistros, its heartening to see the local aid effort take off and deliver. For those who feel Haiti would be better served if we all just sent a check directly to a charitable organization -- rather than help fund these fund-raising efforts by dining out -- I say, consider this: It's all about community, and if there's a more generous community than the local food community, I've yet to meet it.

Bubble Wrap celebrating its 50th birthday

(AP) People have walked to the altar dressed in it, protected their garden plants with it, even put it on display at highbrow art museums. Mostly, they like the sound it makes when they destroy it, piece by piece, which largely explains the appeal of Bubble Wrap, the stress reducer disguised as package cushioning that maintains an inexplicable hold on pop culture. The product once envisioned as a new type of wallpaper turns 50 this month, and enthusiasts' obsession with it has spawned more than 250 Facebook pages devoted to Bubble Wrap.

Groovy baby! MP3 player which plays music to unborn babies

(Daily Mail) A new music system has been designed to deliver soothing tunes straight to the tender ears of the most delicate of listeners - unborn babies. The Ritmo pregnancy sound system wraps around an expectant mother's tummy and plays music into the womb through four speakers. Its designers say unborn babies show signs of 'reactive listening' from just 17 weeks into the pregnancy.

Smart kid who beat the streets is now the brainy CEO of computer business.

(Clem Richardson, New York Daily News) George Williams Jr. knew he was destined for bigger things the day after he declined to head to downtown Manhattan with a bunch of his friends. This was a summer in the late 1970s. Jobs were scarce, especially for teens like Williams, who were living in the Davidson Houses projects on an edge of the South Bronx so rough in those days it was dubbed Fort Apache. His friends were headed downtown to sell marijuana. "Nine out of 10 guys I knew were going downtown to sell reefer," Williams recalled.

GPS helps farmers find higher corn yield

(Tracy Turner, Columbus Dispatch) John Davis doesn't use his GPS system in his car. The Delaware farmer instead uses the navigation system to determine where and how much fertilizer to use on the crops on his 4,000-acre family-owned farm. Technological advances like that last year helped Davis and other Ohio farmers set a record for corn production, while using less fertilizer and fewer acres than in past years. Ohio's corn crop in 2009 totaled 546 million bushels, and the average yield was 174 bushels per acre, despite a cooler and wetter than normal spring, a dry summer and a delayed, wet harvest.

Bellefontaine bistro provides training, hope

(Holly Zachariah, Columbus Dispatch) It was the cheese that messed him up. You see, Bryan Hudson requires order. Things have to be a certain way. So when he rolled the cart out to table No. 30 at Chattan Loch Bistro to deliver two sandwiches to the ladies having lunch on Tuesday, he took the plate from the upper right-hand corner of the tray and set it in front of the woman on his right. That's the system his boss has worked out. Bryan, whose medical handicaps and developmental disabilities have limited his job opportunities until now, always stands in the same location at every table, and the kitchen help always places the plate for each person seated at the table in the proper spot on the cart.

Airlines organizing Haiti earthquake aid

(Marnie Hunter, CNN) Airlines, uncertain about when commercial service to disaster-ravaged Haiti will resume, are organizing relief flights and offering incentives to customers who donate to aid organizations. AMR Corp., the parent company of American Airlines and American Eagle, sent three American Eagle aircraft into Haiti on Wednesday carrying 30,000 pounds of relief supplies, including food, water and other nonperishable goods, for airline employees and local hospitals and aid efforts, said American spokesman Tim Smith. The airline planned to send three more relief flights both Thursday and Friday.

Haiti Help: Corporations Join Aid Agencies to Bring Relief

(Charles Herman, ABC News) As the U.S. government and aid groups rush help to Haiti, some corporations have also announced plans to bring relief to the earthquake-ravaged island nation. Citigroup, which has eight branches and 45 employees in Haiti, said that it sent a team and medical equipment, humanitarian supplies and satellite phones to Port-au-Prince. "Their immediate task is to assist our colleagues in any way they can," Citi CEO Vikram Pandit said in a company memo. "As we have in the past, we will do whatever we can to support emergency response efforts in Haiti."

Financial products that aid the poor and beat the market

(G. Jeffrey MacDonald, Christian Science Monitor) For two years now, savers have had a tough slog. Rock-bottom interest rates have meant nominal returns for anyone holding extra cash. But those who believe their spare dough ought to do some good in the world have actually done better than their peers – a lot better in some cases. Low-risk, short-term commitments – supporting high-minded projects from affordable housing in the United States to microenterprise abroad – are generating enviable returns, sometimes as high as 6 percent.

BMW to expand labs to turn metro Detroit kids into scientists

(Tammy Stables Battaglia, Detroit Free Press) As the North American International Auto Show opens for the international automotive news media today, a single gathering could change the lives of hundreds of metro Detroit schoolchildren. That's where BMW is to announce a grant to expand a successful science program from 100 to 1,000 students. The $165,000 grant by the German automaker, including donations by metro Detroit's Eitel Dahm Motor Group and Erhard BMW, is designed to expand the EcoTek program to give students -- especially in Detroit -- a leap in science, engineering and research.

Detroit Entrepreneurs Opt to Look Up

(Susan Saulny, New York Times) With $6,000 and some Hollywood-style spunk, four friends opened this city’s only independent foreign movie house three months ago in an abandoned school auditorium on an unlighted stretch of the Cass Corridor near downtown. After the unlikely hoopla of an opening night, red-carpet-style event in an area known for drugs and prostitution, exactly four customers showed up to see a film. Since then, the Burton Theater has had a few profitable nights. But, the owners say, this adventure in entrepreneurship was never completely about making money. It was also about creating a more livable community.

Where Unsold Clothes Meet People in Need

(Jim Dwyer, New York Times) Good ideas have legs. One day in 1985, Suzanne Davis asked a friend, Larry Phillips, the president of the Phillips-Van Heusen clothing line, if his company had any excess inventory that could be used by homeless men. A few days later, Mr. Phillips sent 100 boxes of windbreakers to a shelter on the Bowery. Then he nudged friends, and 750 London Fog trench coats arrived, followed by crates of Jockey underwear. "All this merchandise they weren’t going to sell, so what were they going to do with it?" Ms. Davis recalled.

Local man invents better litter box

(Christy Mullins, Charlotte Observer) Cat litter once blasted the new wood floors of Paul Pettys' home. Beige and teal pebbles trailed through the kitchen and onto beds, leaving the stale fragrance of ammonia and days-old cat droppings. Until one day, like a cat, Pettys became curious. He invented a two-level, deluxe lavatory for his five cats. And for the past six years, he's helped hundreds of pet owners across the country avoid the scatter and cleanup of traditional litter boxes.

Cookie business gives shelter a lift

(Jim Tharpe, Atlanta Journal-Constitution) Some fans call them cookies with a cause. Barbara O’Neill churns out hundreds of hand-sized confections every day at her Decatur baking business, the Cookie Studio, near the Avondale Marta station on College Avenue. You can get Blueberry Granola, Coffee Toffee, Ginger, Chocolate Chocolate Chip and something called a Breakfast Cookie (granola, coconut, cranberries and pecans). It’s a growing business even in a bad economy — no small feat when you’re a small business trying to sell cookies for $1.35 each. It has a detailed business plan and an owner who works 12-hour days (seven days a week) trying to make it succeed.

American Airlines' holiday greeting video lands right on target

(Barbara Brotman, Chicago Tribune) I confess to a holiday secret. Every so often when I've been feeling a bit down, I have turned to a source of inner peace, meaning and inspiration: American Airlines' video holiday card. Please stop laughing. Yes, I know it's a marketing tool, not a meditation cushion. But, hey, stuff appears in your e-mail box, and if it's from your regular airline in late December, you open it just in case Santa is giving you 5,000 frequent flier miles. He wasn't. American was sending a seasonal thank-you to its AAdvantage Program members. I could have deleted it, but for some reason I played it.

Access to computers gives homeless hope

(Pat Gee, Honolulu Star Bulletin) The sight of a homeless woman sleeping on a park bench at 4 a.m. next to the Waikiki police station was an epiphany for Curtis Kropar. "I was instantly infuriated to think that this was the best option she's got," he said of the experience a few years ago. "I seriously could not tell the difference between her and my mother in Pennsylvania. She had the same build and same poufy hairstyle." The woman's plight so disturbed Kropar, a highly paid computer programmer at the time, that he grew determined to help people like her improve their circumstances.

Whole Foods CEO Talks About Going Back to Roots

(Sarah Skidmore, AP) The chocolate fountain is a symbol for Whole Foods CEO John Mackey of how business has changed. There's one in the store below his office at the company's Austin headquarters. Melted chocolate pours out of the machine, letting shoppers get any item fresh-dipped. It's definitely not the healthiest offering at Whole Foods — the organic grocer that Mackey co-founded almost 30 years ago. But like many things indulgent, its heyday is ending. Whole Foods is returning to its health-food roots, Mackey says, and he's determined to bring America along with it.

Generosity means free bathroom upgrade for man with cerebral palsy

(Carrie Weil, WAVE3.com) A 36-year-old New Albany man with cerebral palsy is getting a very special Christmas present this year. The layout of Jason Peppers' bathroom was too tight for his wheelchair so his father has had to lift him in and out of the shower. Thanks to Willz Construction and several southern Indiana contractors, he's now getting a handicapped accessible bathroom free of charge. Oakley Barger of Imperial Marble Inc. donated the marble for the shower and sink at a cost of about $2,000. "It's wheelchair accessible," Barger said.

Paint by numbers dress makes its mark on fashion scene for Christmas

(Daily Mail) Painting by numbers is perhaps something you'd normally leave to the children. But now a new dress is changing the way women co-ordinate their partywear. A unique 'colour-in dress', created by fashion designer Berber Soepboer and graphic designer Michiel Schuurman, comes with a variety of pens and allows women to create their own design - by colouring it in themselves.

Got (Good) Milk? Ask The Dairy Evangelist

(John Burnett, NPR) An Ohio dairyman is on a crusade to put cows back on pastures and bring the flavor back to milk. Warren Taylor owns and runs Snowville Creamery, and he's trying to make milk the way it was made 40 years ago, when, he insists, it tasted better. A lean, hyperactive 58-year-old dairy engineer, Taylor aspires to be "the Che Guevara of the American dairy industry." He bounds from place to place, pouring forth his philosophy of how he plans to transform the industry, starting here at his milk plant in Pomeroy, Ohio.

Lessons from microfinance

(Nils Blythe, BBC News) It is hard to imagine that a £12 loan can be life-changing. But for Margaret Chunga, living in the tiny village of Chipepete in central Malawi, a tiny loan has made a huge difference. She used the loan to buy wheat flour, salt and sugar in order to set up a road-side fritter stall. The income, she says, has enabled her to buy school uniforms for her children and she is well on the way to repaying the money she has borrowed. And when it's paid off, she plans to take another small loan to buy fertiliser for her maize field.

Yahoo! Launches Kindness Campaign

(Sumaiya Malik, Good News Gazette) This holiday season, Yahoo! is asking you to join it in marketing kindness and goodwill.

"You In?" That's the question the California-based company is asking its global audience of 600 million through its recently launched kindness campaign. Individuals are being asked to document their own acts of kindness at kindness.yahoo.com and share them with their social networks. The goal? Inspire others to join in and create waves of kindness and generosity throughout the world.

Richard Branson unveils Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo

(Chris Ayres, Times Online) A ticket costs more than 200 times the price of a round-trip flight from London to Los Angeles. But for the elite group of entrepreneurs, celebrities, and investment bankers who were making their way into California’s Mojave desert last night, the cost is largely irrelevant. The reason is simple: they will soon become the world’s first customers of a fully commercial space tourism company, blasted into near-earth orbit by a futuristic spacecraft owned by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic.

Just don't throw them out with the bathwater! (How putting babies in a bucket really will calm them down again)

(Angela Epstein, Daily Mail) They say you should be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And this cute bunch, relaxing after a baby massage class, will definitely be happy to stay just where they are. For these are no ordinary baby baths, but special 'Tummy Tubs', which are designed to make tiny tots feel snug and secure. 'Babies like to be confined - they are used to it,' explains a spokesman for the company. 'They instinctively go into a foetal position and they feel so at home. It's particularly good if they're colicky.'

KPMG staffers create thousands of holiday packages for children

(Denisa R. Superville, The Record) KPMG employees nationwide played Santa’s helpers on Friday, creating thousands of holiday packages for children as part of the company’s Operation Holiday Bear Hugs. In lieu of lavish holiday parties, employees took about an hour out of their day to create packages containing a new teddy bear, stuffed and dressed by a KPMG employee, a book and a holiday greeting. The books were provided by the company’s Family for Literacy program. The company was aiming to create about 22,000 packages for the children of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, hospitals and local charities.

Signs of Healing: Bonuses Reappear at Small Firms

(Joyce M. Rosenberg, AP) Bonuses are starting to reappear at small companies as business shows signs of picking up. Many companies had to eliminate employee bonuses last year as cash flow dwindled and banks began cutting or even shutting down credit lines. A yearend payout was also unthinkable at companies that were laying off staffers or slashing their costs so they wouldn't have to let anyone go. While there are still many firms struggling, some owners who had to forgo 2008 bonuses are reinstating them. But the checks are likely to be smaller than in the past.

No thanks necessary, say promoters of 'intentional act of kindness'

(Laurie Copeland, Santa Cruz Sentinel) A former Harbor High teacher and her business partner are using online social networking and a refurbished 1971 Volkswagen to promote year-round generosity and thankfulness. Mary Beth Campbell and Héléne Scott carry cards -- a deck of 26, in fact. On each is a unique call to action for an "intentional act of kindness," such as washing a friend's car or silencing a cell phone that rings mid- conversation. The entrepreneurs say they intend for the cards to be passed on to others, boomeranging the good deeds from one person to the next.

Fashion, hope and charity

(Carola Long, New Zealand Herald) For someone who runs her own fashion label, throws herself into promoting charitable causes, is married to the world's most prominent rock-star-turned-campaigner and has four children, Ali Hewson is very calm. Bono once said there was, "something so still about her," and apart from her visible coyness about being photographed - she asks nervously if she looks OK because she hasn't seen a mirror - it's true. It must be this composure that has enabled her to stay grounded while globetrotting, multi-tasking and generally throwing the metaphorical juggling balls higher than most.

Child entrepreneur gives back for holidays

(C. Garcia, NBCSanDiego.com) In the home of eighth-grader Jason O'Neill, teddy bears are everywhere. They're white, black or brown. Some have bow ties and some have ribbons. They sit on chairs, tables, counter tops and the floor. Thanks to O'Neill, a young entrepreneur who started his own company at age 9, they're all going to sick children for Christmas. "At Christmas I wanted to do something special, so I started a fundraiser this year to raise money for buying a bunch of bears," O’Neill said. All of the bears will be given to children at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego.

Wig shop gives customers reason to smile again

(Ben Sutherly, Dayton Daily News) Pauline "Polly" Taylor was used to receiving compliments on her hair. So after being diagnosed with breast cancer this summer and undergoing chemotherapy, "it was very traumatic to have my hair taken off," she said. When the 79-year-old Washington Twp. woman came to Oncolotech Prosthesis Co., she said Bill Gaver’s manner put her at ease. "He was so relaxed and matter-of-fact and reassuring," Taylor said. "It’s like he understood all about it without saying a word."

Hackers create tools for disaster relief

(Elinor Mills, CNET News) Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo may be tough competitors when it comes to Internet software and services, but they are putting their differences aside to build a developer community to tackle bigger picture problems like saving lives in emergencies. The companies have joined with NASA, the World Bank, and PR agency SecondMuse to organize the first-ever Random Hacks of Kindness event, which was held at a warehouse space-cum community center called Hacker Dojo this weekend. For two days, coders worked on ways to use technology to help solve real-world problems, such as how people can get information and find each other during disasters.

Teenage girl on stairlift to millions after stumbling on handrail idea for a GCSE project

(Claire Ellicott, Daily Mail) When Ruth Amos created a design for a handrail as part of a GCSE project, her main focus was to ensure she would get a good grade. The 16-year-old schoolgirl never expected that her design idea would be turned into a device that has helped change the lives of disabled and elderly people. Now, three years on, she is running an expanding firm - and in a few years could potentially earn millions. This week the teenager's achievements were honoured when she was presented with the Young Star award at the Women of the Future awards in Central London.

The Golden State of Fender guitars

(Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times) The sound of California business success came to my ears the moment I stepped through the door of Fender Musical Instruments Corp.'s 3-acre manufacturing plant in Corona. It reached me as riffs and scales on electric guitar, audible over the thud of metal stamping and the grind of band saws that one might customarily hear on a factory floor. But this is no ordinary plant. The last step in Fender's quality-control process requires an experienced musician to play every note on a finished guitar, listening for a stray vibration or tuning flaw to be corrected before any model, including the American Standard Stratocaster that is the plant's bread and butter, reaches a dealer.

Google: Free WiFi at airports this holiday season

(Andrew Heining, Christian Science Monitor) Thanksgiving in Boston? Christmas in Austin? New Years in … Kalamazoo? Google’s got a gift for weary wanderers as we go wheels-up on the busy holiday travel season: free Wi-Fi at 47 airports. From now through January 15, Google, king of free on the Web (just ask Rupert “the Grinch” Murdoch), is taking its show on the proverbial road to help ease some of the strain the FAA-estimated 100 million people traveling through participating airports will feel as they encounter crowds, delays, and rebookings.

Pepsi pays to 'refresh' communities

(AP) PepsiCo Inc., looking to freshen up the image of its namesake soda, is pledging to pay at least $20 million for projects people create to "refresh" their communities. The soft drink maker's "Pepsi Refresh Project" will be used throughout next year to market Pepsi soft drinks, including Diet Pepsi and Pepsi Max, and will have a heavy social media presence as consumers list their projects online and vote on the winners.

Battered Company Says 'No' To Job Cuts

(Jon Greenberg, NPR) The Hypertherm factory sits hidden in the woods not far from Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. Inside, in a testing room, a jet of superheated ionized gas slices smoothly through an inch of plate steel. Jim Miller, vice president of manufacturing, says that when the world is making big heavy things, Hypertherm does quite well. That's because the firm is one of the top manufacturers of plasma cutting tools. "Maybe a shipbuilder, automotive — any place you see flat steel, you would see an application for our products," he says. But late last year, production of ships and cars pretty much ground to a halt. And sales of cutting systems at Hypertherm dropped 50 percent. How many workers did the company lay off? None.

Solving hunger with understanding, without stigma

(Helen Graves, Boston Herald) Ellen Parker, executive director of Project Bread – The Walk for Hunger, believes that the path to solving hunger starts with understanding the hungry person. The problem begins with people – and the solutions have to be grounded in real experiences. "I don’t believe that pounds of food is the correct metric for understanding this problem," she says. Her view? Recognize hunger as a public health issue. Use data and analysis. Build on the existing infrastructure. Don’t run solely on emotion – but do let the stories of the hungry fuel a passion for creating solutions.

Nonprofit Groups Spin Off Green Ventures

(Liz Galst, New York Times) Mario Casasnovas was on the green roof of the Bronx County Building a couple of weeks ago, remembering the flowers there in the summer and offering some tips about handling the sedum that is the main plant on the roof. "The roots from the clover," a weed, "tend to wrap around the roots of a sedum," he said, nine floors above the Grand Concourse, near Yankee Stadium. "You’ve got to be careful not to pull out the sedum with the clover." Mr. Casasnovas, an employee of SmartRoofs L.L.C., was doing routine maintenance on the vegetative roof, which his company installed in June 2003.

Social network updates a friend to charities

(Benny Evangelista, San Francisco Chronicle) Got a tweet to spare? It could help the charity of your choice. A week ago, a record number of status updates on Twitter and Facebook using the phrase "#BeatCancer" helped raise $70,000 for four non-profit cancer organizations. Meanwhile, sales of a virtual crop for the popular Facebook game FarmVille raised nearly a half-million real dollars to feed poor children in Haiti. And a group called TwitCause used tweets to promote organic foods and a walk to benefit diabetes research.

Electric Bikes Trace Route of Car Executives to DC

(Matthew Daly, AP) An Oregon company that makes electric motorcycles thinks it has a home-grown solution to the nation's energy woes. To prove it, the company has sent two riders from Detroit to Washington, recreating the trip of auto company CEOs looking for government help. Brammo Inc., of Ashland, Ore., makes the all-electric Enertia, which sells for $12,000. The company's chief engineer and an advertising executive rode nearly 600 miles from Detroit in 45-mile increments — the distance the bike can travel on one charge.

Startup School: Tony Hsieh On Delivering Happiness

(Daniel Brusilovsky, TechCrunch) Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh has taken the stage at Startup School this afternoon to talk about company culture and delivering happiness. Hsieh started out by talking about his beginnings at LinkExchange, a company he sold to Microsoft in 1998. The reason LinkExhange sold to Microsoft was because of the company culture, according to Hsieh. After LinkExhange, Hsieh was an investor in Zappos, and two months after the founding of Zappos, Hsieh came in as the CEO. Zappos started in 1999 with no sales, and last year in 2008, had over $1 billion in gross sales.

Sacred Wind voted most-inspiring small biz

(New Mexico Business Weekly) Sacred Wind Communications Inc. won a national competition and was named the most-inspiring small business in America. The "Shine A Light" program, managed by NBC Universal and American Express Co., celebrates small businesses’ resilience and entrepreneurial spirit as an inspiration to everyone. The program invited the public to visit the competition Web site to nominate and vote for small business stories based on innovation, community spirit and customer service. As the winner, Albuquerque-based Sacred Wind will receive $50,000 in grant money and $50,000 in marketing support from American Express.

Coca-Cola campaign sends 3 bloggers around world

(Emily Fredrix, AP) Coca-Cola Co. is launching a new social media push that will send three bloggers to more than 200 countries in a year to uncover what makes people happy, as part of the soft drink maker's "Open Happiness" campaign. The effort, dubbed "Expedition 206," marks another venture by a big-name brand to delve deep into social media. Such efforts, which include blogging, posting updates on Twitter and adding videos to YouTube, can generate talk by consumers and sales, companies hope. The around-the-world journey is ambitious, involving stays of just a day or two in each of 206 countries, all where Coca-Cola is sold.

Special 'GreenBox' pizza box also serves as plates, container for leftovers

(Mark Lebetkin and Samuel Goldsmith, Daily News) Check out the GreenBox, the Swiss Army Knife of pizza boxes. No more jamming a huge cardboard box into the fridge or the lobby recycling: the top of the GreenBox comes off and separates into four plates, and the bottom folds in half and becomes a vessel for leftovers. "This is revolutionary," said Dan Richer, owner of Arturo's Osteria and Pizzeria in Maplewood, N.J., who tried out the 100% recycled GreenBox with fellow pie makers Monday.

Twitter gets in the winemaking business to help reading group

(Michelle Locke, AP) Everyone likes a wine with character. How about one with 140 of them? Yes, the people at Twitter -- the social media site on which users post messages no longer than 140 characters -- are getting into the wine business, putting together an ambitious project aimed at raising money for literacy. While others have used Twitter to raise money for various issues, the project, which launched Thursday, is the first official attempt by Twitter as a company to raise money for a cause, said Twitter spokeswoman Jenna Sampson.

Will solar speed up emerging cell phone revolution?

(Hereward Holland and Leonora Walet, Reuters) Watching his sons kick around a makeshift ball made from tightly bound plastic bags, Ugandan handyman Jackson Mawa marvels at the way business has improved since he bought a solar-powered mobile phone. "I am self-employed. Sometimes people call me and they find my (cell) phone is off. I have been having that problem a lot due to battery charging. So when (Uganda Telecom) brought out the solar phones, since I got it, that very day, I have never had any problem with my phone," said Mawa, clutching the device.

Caring for children in-store means doing so in the Third World, as well

(Kaya Burgess, Times Online) It is an unlikely marriage. On one hand, there is Unicef, the United Nations Children’s Fund, a non-governmental behemoth with a $3 billion income and a presence in almost 200 countries; on the other there is Ikea, which sells flat-pack cupboards. Yet for a decade a partnership has been flourishing between the two in an attempt to reduce child labour in the developing world — a corporate-charitable tag team formed amid concerns in the mid-1990s that child labour was being used by sub-contractors in Ikea’s supply chain of carpet manufacturers in India and Pakistan.

Teen T-Shirt Entrepreneur Wins $10,000

(NPR) The T-shirt reads "Caution: Educated African American Male." Kalief Rollins thinks it will be his next best-seller. The 17-year-old from Carson, Calif., near Los Angeles, took home a $10,000 grand prize from the National Youth Entrepreneurship Competition this week for his business selling custom T-shirts with inspirational designs. Rollins competed against 27 finalists and 24,000 initial high school entrants for the award, given by the nonprofit Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship.

100 brides chosen to receive free wedding gowns

(Laura Figueroa, Miami Herald) Her "happily ever after" won't have to wait. Rose Brill, 26, wept as she held a white satin gown with beaded bodice close to her body. "I'm one step closer to happiness," she said, wiping tears from her cheeks. After losing her job as a financial analyst, the Cornell University graduate shelved plans for a formal wedding. Filling out job applications took precedence over flipping through wedding planning magazines. "I couldn't even think about a reception," Brill said. "I just wanted to have a ceremony, just us finally being together." Her hopes of going forward with a wedding ceremony next year were restored this week.

Floating House Could Ride New Orleans' Floods

(Stacey Plaisance, AP) A house capable of floating atop rising floodwaters made its debut Tuesday in New Orleans alongside more than a dozen other homes built through actor Brad Pitt's Make It Right Foundation. Called the FLOAT House, the unique home aims to answer the challenge posed by the Big Easy's flood risk, starkly illustrated by the rising waters of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Former pro basketball player scores with volunteer work

(Tim Tresslar, Dayton Daily News) Dan Sadlier — a former pro basketball player turned banker — does a lot of things in retirement, but warming a bench isn’t one of them. Sadlier retired as president and chief executive of Fifth Third Bank’s Dayton area operation in 2005. Retired, but not idle, the Centerville resident continues to sit on corporate boards for Vectren Corp. and Premier Health Care Services, while also keeping a hand in banking by sitting on the board of Fifth Third’s affiliate in Cincinnati.

BankAtlantic To Help Homeless Become Homeowners

(Nicole Maristany, CBS4) It's a situation anyone could find themselves in; losing your job or poor money management can leave a person steps away from homelessness. It's a place Ron McDonald, a father of three, found himself in just a couple of years ago. "I will tell you as a man and not being able to provide for my family, I felt ashamed," said McDonald. "Today you can have it all and tomorrow it can all go away, especially with the economy how it is today." While living at a local shelter with his family, Ron learned about BankAtlantic's "Homeless to Homeowner" program.

Green goddesses

(Shelley Bridgeman, New Zealand Herald) Traditionally new businesses were set up primarily to provide their owners with a profit. Making money was the key motivator and other, more meaningful, altruistic considerations seldom figured. But today increasing numbers of women are going into business for much more wholesome reasons than merely making a buck.

Disney offers free admission to 1 million volunteers

(Beth J. Harpaz, AP) Disney is offering a free day's admission to 1 million guests who complete a day of volunteer work next year. The "Give a Day, Get a Disney Day" program will provide certified volunteers with a one-day ticket to any park at Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., or Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla., in 2010. Disney is partnering with HandsOn Network, a clearinghouse for volunteer opportunities, to connect people with projects and to certify that the work was done.

The Most Promising Young Company in America

(Brett Nelson, Forbes.com) Three engineers with a dream and an algorithm started a company that could change the world--but they are in Tennessee, not Silicon Valley, and they care about manufacturing, not social media. This is just the shiniest gem we turned up in our hunt for America's most promising young companies. Which of these 20 sprouts will bloom into the next Microsoft? General Electric? Google? And what, exactly, makes their fortunes burn so bright?

Gates Foundation CEO wants biz to house homeless

(Donna Gordon Blankinship, AP) The CEO of the world's largest charitable foundation on Friday urged Seattle business leaders to get involved in one of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's smallest initiatives. "When you're considering what kind of action to take on homelessness, don't think of it in terms of charity," Jeff Raikes told the 127th annual meeting of the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce. "It's also a great investment in the future of our community." The former Microsoft executive encouraged the hundreds of business people in the room to consider combatting homelessness as an economic opportunity.

Yes, We Speak Cupcake

(Anna Louis Sussman, New York Times) As a young student at the multinational Aramco school in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, Fadi Jaber, a son of Palestinian refugees, always preferred his American classmates’ cupcakes, brownies and chocolate chip cookies to his mother’s pastries: knafah, qatayef and baklawah. But when he tasted a vanilla-frosted vanilla cupcake from the Magnolia Bakery in Greenwich Village in 2004, it changed his life. He quit his marketing job at Unilever and used his savings to enroll in a baking and culinary management program at the Institute of Culinary Education in Manhattan.

Silicon Valley reinvents the lowly brick

(David Lawsky, Reuters) Forget microchips. Silicon Valley sees a profitable future in the humble brick thanks to a low-energy production process that illustrates the greening of the U.S. technology capital. Brick maker Calstar Products is heavy on PhDs and backed by venture capitalists whose vision is to create buildings less expensively and in a way that saves energy.

Spinning flywheels said to make greener energy

(Jay Lindsay, AP) Spinning flywheels have been used for centuries for jobs from making pottery to running steam engines. Now the ancient tool has been given a new job by a Massachusetts company: smooth out the electricity flow, and do it fast and clean. Beacon Power's flywheels - each weighing one ton, levitating in a sealed chamber and spinning up to 16,000 times per minute - will make the electric grid more efficient and green, the company says.

Adidas and Puma bury the hatchet for peace day

(Paul Casciato, Reuters) More than 60 years after a feud between brothers Adi and Rudolf Dassler resulted in the creation of the Adidas and Puma sportswear rivalry, the two companies are making peace ... for one day. A historic handshake between the chief executives of the two firms and a football match, which will see employees from both companies play on mixed teams, have been planned for Monday to celebrate International Peace Day, the companies said in a joint statement this week.

Trust makes the difference in $38 million bank deal

(John Cox, Bakersfield Californian) Bakersfield banker Bart Hill set out for his 25th wedding anniversary in India about a year ago, unaware it would turn into probably the most important business trip of his career. The two weeks Hill and his wife toured the country’s Golden Triangle were "a dream," he said. The two immersed themselves in Indian culture and cuisine — and through introductions by Hill’s Indian customers back home, met some very wealthy businessmen. These contacts proved valuable shortly afterward as Hill’s San Joaquin Bank came under pressure from federal regulators to raise a large amount of cash.

For Ford, Going It Alone Looks Like a Good Strategy

(Joseph R. Szczesny, Time) For many years, Ford Motor Co. was considered the sickest of Detroit's car manufacturers. But conventional wisdom was stood on its head last fall when Ford parted company with General Motors Corp. and Chrysler Group LLC by forgoing federal help during the most perilous times for automakers. By the end of that crisis, GM and Chrysler had received a total of $64 billion, while Ford got nothing — though like other automakers, it is receiving federal aid to develop green technologies.

Recycled glass used to make eco-friendly pavement

(Gerry Smith, Chicago Tribune) Drink beer. Help the environment. That could be the message of a Wisconsin-based company that manufactures eco-friendly pavement from recycled beer bottles and other glass. The pavement, known as FilterPave, is about 40 percent porous, so it can trap pollutants that would normally be swept away into drains and streams.

GM's fuel-cell program logs 1 million miles

(AP) General Motors Co. is now 1 million miles into its fuel-cell experiment and company officials say having everyday people drive a test fleet of pollution-free cars has convinced them that they are on the right track. The automaker on Friday said it passed the million-miles-driven mark in its fuel-cell Chevrolet Equinox vehicles, with about 5,000 people rotating in and out of more than 100 cars in the past 25 months.

Colorado businesses chasing a new "green"

(Margaret Jackson, Denver Post) When Xcel Energy opted to fork over thousands of extra dollars in rent each month to land new energy-efficient office space in Lower Downtown Denver, it was an affirmation that going "green" is today's business mantra. Companies are hot to position themselves in buildings certified for their energy efficiencies.

Miami entrepreneur makes right moves in board game industry

(Joel Poelhuis, Miami Herald) Generating revenue in a recession is a difficult game, but a Miami entrepreneur has made the right moves in a growing industry: board games. Eric Poses rolled the dice in 1997, when he founded All Things Equal and took off on a cross-country sales trip in his car. Since then, revenue has grown and he now finds himself in a countercyclical sales boom.

Lose Your Job? Follow Your Passion Instead

(Laura Hertzfeld, NPR) Some of the tens-of-thousands of Americans who have lost their jobs in the recession are turning crisis into opportunity. Instead of searching for a new job in the same field, they are turning their passion into a paycheck. Jamie Rubin returned from maternity leave to her job as an online news producer at Yahoo! earlier this year and was then laid off along with the rest of her department. The loss of income forced her to fire her nanny, but the time at home allowed her to work on an idea she had.

Midwest Factory Has Workers Paint, Garden And Sell

(Rich Egger, NPR) As thousands of businesses have been forced to cut jobs in order to ride out the recession, one factory in a small Midwestern town tried a different approach. It put its employees to work on tasks that it used to hire out — keeping them on the payroll during tough times.

Smoothie idea takes teen to entrepreneur finals

(David Markiewicz, Atlanta Journal-Constitution) Two more years of high school await Zicuria Ussery and, after that, college -- Georgia Tech, she hopes -- then maybe a career in industrial engineering. In the meantime, the 16-year-old junior at Maynard Jackson High School in Atlanta has another matter to attend to: building her business. Next spring, Ussery hopes to launch The Smoothie Shack, her idea for selling affordable healthy fruit drinks to fellow students after school and at extracurricular events.

He's a driving force in the world of electric cars

(Ken Bensinger, Los Angeles Times) He doesn't make the cars of the future; he makes the cars of the future go. As chief executive of AC Propulsion Inc., Tom Gage advances the technologies under the hoods of electric transportation. The high-tech batteries and drive systems made by the San Dimas company power a growing number of electric vehicles.

Needlepoint shop stitches together a community

(Melissa Dribben, Philadelphia Inquirer) Laura Stonecipher, a 28-year-old insurance account manager from Chicago, came to Philadelphia a few weeks ago on business. In the cab from the airport to her hotel, she passed the corner of 18th and Chestnut Streets and noticed a wave of script flowing across the wide glass windows: "Rittenhouse Needlepoint, instruction, coffee, conversation." Stonecipher's pulse quickened just a little. If she'd been a granny with a thing for stitching Home Sweet Home samplers, her fluttering heart might have been easier to understand. On the happening continuum, needlepoint has long occupied the same camphor-scented niche as carding wool and sarsaparilla socials. Until now.

Out of a job and finding work for others

(Kim Segal and John Zarrella, CNN) Ron Russell was a machinist at the Hav-A-Tampa cigar factory in Tampa for 3½ years. When he was hired, Russell remembers thinking, "There's no reason I have to look for a job again. ... I was thinking, here's a place I can retire from. I thought I was safe in a 100-year-old company." But Russell and his colleagues -- almost 500 workers -- recently lost their jobs when Hav-A-Tampa shut its doors in Florida to consolidate operations in Puerto Rico. The plant had been operating since 1902.

 

Green Denny's: New Joliet restaurant gets national recognition for saving energy

(Karen Sorensen, Chicago Tribune) Joey Terrell likes to joke that his path to enlightenment began when the light bulb over his head went out. It was six years ago and he was seated at a table in his Denny's restaurant in Mokena. When a light blinked out, he started to pop in a standard 100-watt replacement when it struck him: Maybe I should try a 12-watt compact fluorescent lamp bulb? CFLs were new to the market, and while they cost three times as much as a regular bulb, they use about nine times less electricity, last about five times as long and provide 20 percent more light.

For entrepreneurs, dorm is the new garage

(Jordan Valinsky, CNN) Susie Levitt's and Katie Shea's feet had had enough. Walking around Manhattan sidewalks between classes in their high heels was getting unbearable. Tal Raviv felt frustrated. While studying in Hong Kong in 2007, he found that adjusting to a new city was hard enough. Even more aggravating was trying to connect with friends on Facebook whose names were common. Jaun Calle and Adam Berlin were bored. Watching college football on television isn't as exciting as being there in person, they thought. Instead of just grinning and bearing it, all of these university students did something: They started their own businesses.

Fisker Karma Plug-In Hybrid Hits the Track

(Chuck Squatriglia, Wired) As sexy as the Fisker Karma plug-in hybrid looks in pictures, it’s better in person — and better still at speed. The super-luxe EV made its public driving debut Saturday during the Rolex Monterey Historic Automobile Races. It lapped Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca at about 100 mph, and it was wild seeing a car move that fast without making a sound. The lap of the historic track came just 19 months after designer and company CEO Henrik Fisker unveiled the car at the Detroit auto show.

The naturals: How Kiss My Face got started

(Eilene Zimmerman, CNNMoney.com) Bob MacLeod was a talent agent and Steve Byckiewicz a flight attendant in 1980 when they ditched city life for a farmhouse and a fresh start. Unlikely entrepreneurs, they were mostly interested in gardening and entertaining. But dwindling savings prompted them to launch a business inspired by their healthy lifestyle. Almost 30 years later their company, Kiss My Face, sells more than 200 bath and body products in 19 countries.

A New Test for Business and Biofuel

(Kirk Johnson, New York Times) An unusual experiment featuring equal parts science, environmental optimism and Native American capitalist ambition is unfolding here on the Southern Ute Indian Reservation in southwest Colorado. With the twin goals of making fuel from algae and reducing emissions of heat-trapping gases, a start-up company co-founded by a Colorado State University professor recently introduced a strain of algae that loves carbon dioxide into a water tank next to a natural gas processing plant. The water is already green-tinged with life.

Putting my make-up tips on YouTube made me a millionaire

(Liz Thomas, Daily Mail) She was stuck in dead-end jobs, having dropped out of school at 15 after she had a baby. But thanks to the power of the internet - and a little initiative - Lauren Luke is on her way to becoming a millionaire. The 27-year-old has made a career out of her passion for cosmetics and make-up artistry.

Chevy Volt to get 230 mpg rating

(Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNNMoney.com) The Chevrolet Volt, GM's electric car that's expected to go on sale in late 2010, is projected to get an estimated 230 miles per gallon, the automaker announced Tuesday. That exceptionally high government mileage rating could give the Volt a major boost. For the first time, car buyers will easily be able to compare electric cars with ordinary gas-powered cars.

What color is your hug?

(Jan Norman, Orange County Register) Orange County resident Molly Risak wondered what she could do for a friend diagnosed with cancer. Flowers and cards seemed inadequate. Hugs are great but they live too far apart. So Risak created a hug she could mail long distance. "They’re big, bright, warm, whimsical fleece shawls that are guaranteed to put a smile on anyone’s face," Risak says.

Carbon-eating "green" cement wins funds for UK firm

(Ben Hirschler, Reuters) A British start-up company developing a cement that absorbs carbon dioxide has raised 1 million pounds ($1.7 million) to fund its work, underscoring the growing interest in eco-friendly construction ventures. Novacem, a spin-out from Imperial College London, is one of a number of young companies tapping new technologies to reduce the cement industry's notoriously large carbon footprint

New York City Officials to Aid Business by Opening a Kitchen

(Patrick McGeehan, New York Times) City officials are gearing up for a big bake-off in East Harlem. In the latest attempt by the city to encourage entrepreneurs by providing low-cost space for start-up businesses, the Economic Development Corporation is seeking someone to operate a large, shared kitchen that would be available for rental by those with dreams of developing food businesses. "New York City is not going to wait around for the recession to end," Christine C. Quinn, the Council speaker, said at a news conference on Tuesday. "We’re going to help ourselves."

 

How Netflix gets your movies to your mailbox so fast

(Christopher Borrelli, Chicago Tribune) The Netflix warehouse in Carol Stream does not appear on any map. Your odds of finding it are slightly better than your odds of stumbling upon a rare insect in a field of weeds. One could drive to Carol Stream, stop in a random office park, climb from one's car and scream, "Reveal thyself, Netflix!" This is not advisable. But the temptation remains.

Vermont man opens Recession Taxi

(Joel Banner Baird, Burlington Free Press) You read it right the first time: the message on the taxi’s back window really reads, "Pay What You Want!" Eric Hagen, 46, an Essex resident and the SUV’s owner (and sole proprietor of Recession Ride Taxi) smiles a lot, but he isn’t joking. He’s making a profit. "Nobody has shortchanged me yet," he said Saturday. "Nobody’s stiffed me. I’ve decided to empower the customer; they like the fact they can decide." Hagen, who still works full time at the American Red Cross in Burlington, hatched his improbable business model in June.

6 ways to be happier at work

(Anne Fisher, Fortune) With widespread job cuts and a recession to deal with, it's not easy to maintain a positive outlook at work these days. But being upbeat, despite the stress, could actually help you thrive during a downturn. "Most people make the mistake of thinking that success leads to happiness. In fact, our brains work precisely the other way around," says Shawn Achor, head of Aspirant, a consulting firm that advises clients like Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500), American Express (AXP, Fortune 500), Credit Suisse (CS), and UBS (UBS) on how to keep morale and productivity up in these extraordinarily difficult times.

LEGO fanatic turns hobby into business

(Pam Cottrel, Dayton Daily News) Kyle Peterson’s new career started with the end of his "dark ages." The dark ages, he explains, begin when a teenager doesn’t want friends to know that he still enjoys building with colorful construction blocks. At this point, the teen’s collection is hidden away in one or two hard plastic suitcases in a back of the closet. Most adult miniblock enthusiasts come out of their dark ages in their early 20s. If they succeeded in keeping their mothers from selling the toys in a garage sale, they get the old sets out, add new stuff, and begin making bigger and better creations.

Warren Buffett to Teach Kids About Finance in Cartoon

(Lauren Coleman-Lochner and Allison Abell Schwartz, Bloomberg) Warren Buffett, whose market acumen spurred countless Americans to take their first steps as investors, is taking his insights to the online playground. The billionaire will tutor tots about finance in an Internet cartoon series scheduled to start this year or early next, producers A Squared Entertainment LLC and Time Warner Inc.’s AOL said in a statement.

Prosthetic designer delivers faster, higher, stronger

(Jason Blevins, Denver Post) Bob Radocy screws a black plastic hook into his prosthetic arm and delivers a ferocious roundhouse punch to the wall. "See how it absorbs the blow? That didn't even hurt," he says. Just another round of product testing for the Boulder prosthetic designer, whose expanding arsenal of one-of-a-kind tools enables amputees to pursue their passions. Name a sport, and Radocy has designed a prosthetic attachment that empowers the armless or legless athlete to not just play, but thrive.

Laid-off Wall Streeters find entrepreneurial spirit

(Ron Scherer, Christian Science Monitor) With thousands of Wall Street go-getters out of work, New York has a plan: Make it easier for them to channel their inner entrepreneur. The city is opening up a small-business incubator just a few subway stops from the financial district. This is where anyone who has a fledgling plan for a small business can apply to set up shop and get off the ground. What makes the incubator attractive is its low rent – far lower than the cost of most office space in New York City.

Hungry Girl delivers

(Rene Lynch, Los Angeles Times) Lisa Lillien considers the bowl of cocktail wieners simmered in a quick-fix barbecue sauce as if she were appraising a fine wine. First, she swirls -- to evaluate the richness. Then, she sniffs. Tasting a spoonful of the sauce, she nods approvingly. Then comes the moment of truth: She bites into a wiener. Wrinkles up her nose. And pronounces it awful.

Onions produce tears and energy at an Oxnard plant

(Tiffany Hsu, Los Angeles Times) After more than 20 years farming onions, Steve Gill still breaks out in tears at his processing facility. Only now he's crying all the way to the bank. He recently began using juice from his pungent crop to create energy to run his refrigerators and lighting. That's slicing $700,000 annually off the electric bill at his 14-acre plant in Oxnard. He's also saving $400,000 a year on disposal costs.

Silicon Valley nonprofit in spotlight after trip to White House

(Mike Cassidy, San Jose Mercury News) One of the amazing things about Silicon Valley is that every day some enterprise you've never heard of is working on something that could change the world, or a part of it. HopeLab, a nonprofit technology incubator in Redwood City, was one of those. And then the White House called. Could HopeLab executives, who are working on playful technology that helps kids manage health problems, join the president at a ceremony encouraging businesses, philanthropies and government to work together to find new ways to solve old problems?

 

O.C. surfer helps African women find a U.S. market

(Masha Goncharova, Orange County Register) Stewart Ramsey, a 24-year-old surfing guru, started a non-profit founded upon two ideas: love and crocheting. Two years into the venture, Ramsey's dream of expanding his organization is finally coming to fruition. Krochet Kids International was born in Ramsey's home town Spokane, Washington. With high school friends Kohl Crecelius and Travis Hartanov, Ramsey traveled to Africa to volunteer in an orphanage. After witnessing the awful conditions and impoverished people, the trio knew something had to be done.

Ad campaign wants you to think positive during recession

(Jesse Solomon, CNN) Amid ominous economic forecasts and repeated bleak reports about America's financial future, messages of hope can be hard to come by. One advertising campaign, dubbed "Recession 101," has hit the nation's roadsides with an array of slogans aimed at getting people to think optimistically during the recession.

Air Force vet turns to dogs for cash

(Ben Tinker, CNN) Lori Lawrence has been laid off twice since ending her 20-year career with the U.S. Air Force in 2001. But after losing her most recent job in February, she felt liberated. "I started thinking, I'm tired of going through this," she said. So Lawrence, who last worked at a staffing firm, contemplated what she would enjoy doing most. "It was obvious," she said. "Something with pets." Inspired by Cody, her 14-year-old Siberian husky, Lawrence set her sights on opening a dog-grooming business in the upscale Atlanta suburb of Peachtree City, Georgia.

Wal-Mart To Become Green Umpire

(Marc Gunther, ABC News) PepsiCo (PEP) buys lots of renewable energy, while a Coca Cola (KO) plant recycles plastic bottles. Should environmentalists drink Pepsi or Coke? Dell (DELL) is "carbon neutral."" Hewlett Packard (HPQ) says it designs for the environment. Whose laptops are more "green"? So many choices, so little reliable guidance: Clorox GreenWorks or Seventh Generation? Local or organic strawberries? Paper or plastic? Who's to say? Wal-Mart (WMT), that's who.

These baby blankets are made of bamboo?

(Jan Norman, Orange County Register) Lynda Drake and her daughter Erin Riddle didn’t start out to create an eco-friendly business. Lynda has been sewing most of her life so it was natural to sew some burp cloths when Erin gave birth to the first granddaughter Rylynn. Erin, an entrepreneur by nature, wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, so she and Lynda decided the burp cloths, blankets and bibs could be a good online retail business that Erin could run from home.

Twitter is for old people, work experience whiz-kid tells bankers

(Will Pavia and Soraya Kishtwari, Times Online) Just over a fortnight ago, Matthew Robson had never worked in banking. This was mainly because he was 15 years and 7 months old and attending a comprehensive school in South London. Today he is the talk of Tokyo, Wall Street and the City. Fund managers, CEOs and analysts are poring over his report, How Teenagers Consume Media, which he wrote last week while on work experience at Morgan Stanley.

How to Start a Company (and Kiss Like Angelina)

(Julie Creswell, New York Times) In their star turns in James Bond movies, Ursula Andress and Halle Berry perfected the art of emerging from an ocean swim and walking onto the beach in a dripping-wet bikini. For everyone else? Not so easy. But there are some tricks for aspiring Bond girls, and they involve, among other things, waterproof mascara, Vaseline and double-sided tape. There are some finer points, too, to pull off such a feat, and words can’t quite convey their subtleties. Sometimes — and this is a difficult sentence for a newspaper to print — it’s easier to learn from a video.

'YouTube-ing' All the Way to the Bank

(Momo Zhou, ABC News) Making YouTube videos is not just a hobby anymore, it's a way for some people to brand themselves and make money. Elle Fowler, 21, is one of the most successful YouTube beauty gurus, with her own channel of 100-plus, glitzy makeup tutorial videos. The college senior, whose YouTube moniker is "AllThatGlitters21," started doing them a year ago because she was bored for the summer.

Danone's yogurt strategy for Bangladesh

(James Melik, BBC News) When French dairy food firm Danone ventured outside the troubled business climate of Europe and the US, it was not expecting to start a business that deliberately avoids paying dividends to shareholders. But a meeting between Danone's Franck Riboud and the founder of Grameen Bank, Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, led to the opening of a small factory in Bangladesh that does just that.

Cincinnati 'portable' circus offers festival fun

(Lauren Bishop, AP) You know those stilt-walkers you've seen at Newport on the Levee? The person who made your kid a balloon animal at your church festival? The fire juggler you saw last Fourth of July? There's a good chance those entertainers all work for the same place: The Amazing Portable Circus, a 12-year-old company that started out as one guy doing a little juggling.

A green pioneer goes global

(Justin Martin, Fortune Small Business) Environmental businesses are everywhere these days, but Ecology & Environment (EEI) was eco-friendly long before green was a hot property -- or a viable business model. Based in Lancaster, N.Y., just outside Buffalo, the environmental consulting firm has spent nearly 40 years getting up to speed on issues such as global warming and alternative energy. Thanks to its breadth and depth of experience, E&E has been on a recession-proof winning streak. The federal stimulus package, which is overflowing with green provisions, may provide the company an even bigger boost.

Small start-up takes an idea and runs with it

(Scott Kirsner, Boston Globe) Last June, Leah Busque quit her job at IBM. It was the first job she’d had since graduating from college in 2001, and she was a software developer on the fast track there. But ever since she and her husband had run out of dog food a few months earlier, Busque had become obsessed with a start-up idea: creating a network of "runners" around Boston who would take care of errands for busy people for a small fee.

The Extraordinaries: Will Microvolunteering Work?

(Linton Weeks, NPR) Got five minutes? Got a cell phone? Want to do good? The Extraordinaries can help. It's one of a number of newly hatched social-media enterprises that champion speedy cooperation. Here is the 30-second elevator pitch: The Extraordinaries delivers microvolunteer opportunities to mobile phones that can be done on-demand and on-the-spot. Shazzam! Charity meets brevity. Crowdsourcing for the common good. Turning ADD into AID.

From bush to bike - a bamboo revolution

(Kieron Humphrey, BBC News) On the outskirts of Lusaka, Zambia, next year's crop of bicycles is being watered by Benjamin Banda. "We planted this bamboo last year," he says, "and now the stems are taller than me. When it's ready we'll cut it, cure it and then turn it into frames." Mr Banda, is the caretaker for Zambikes, a company set up by two Californians and two Zambians which aimed to build bikes tough enough to handle the local terrain. Co-founder Vaughn Spethmann, 24, recalls how it all started with a game of football.

T-Mobile adds printless coupons via cell phone

(Tamara Chuang, Orange County Register) Cell phone companies have been talking about offering coupons on mobile phones for years but have mostly left it up to third-party providers like Cellfire to offer the service. Today, T-Mobile jumped in, launching its own digital coupon service. Called "Green Perks," T-Mobile’s coupon program is intended to promote the company’s “green” efforts by offering discounts on environmentally conscious products from Method, Jamba Juice, Volcom, Roxy and Quiksilver.

Luggage Lost, but Kindness Discovered

(Grace Andrews and Joan Raymond, New York Times) I don't mind traveling. I’ve been doing it for some 20 years, and I can take whatever the airlines throw at me. Back in the day, I used to pack everything I owned. I had tons of suitcases. Nowadays, I pack so light, my bag weighs the same whether I’m on a one-day trip or a five-day trip. As long as I’m somewhat presentable, I figure that I’m O.K. But being presentable takes on new meaning when your luggage is lost.

Microsoft veterans aim to make philanthropy more personal

(Kristi Heim, Seattle Times) Microsoft veterans are launching two Seattle nonprofits aimed at encouraging a new generation of philanthropists by using mobile phones, social networking and online connections between donors and people in need. Each started by asking the same question: How could they involve more people, particularly the younger and less affluent, in philanthropy? They eventually came to the same conclusion: More people would donate if they saw the difference even a small amount of money could make in another person's life.

Discovering joy of microlending in Bentley program

(Jennifer Heldt Powell, Boston Herald) Linda Joy was understandably nervous when she went to a meeting last February seeking a loan to help grow her inspirational magazine for women. She wasn’t looking for much money, just $6,000, but the business desperately needed the cash. When she went into the room, her nerves subsided as she realized the young people on the other side of the table were even more nervous. This was their first time evaluating a loan candidate, and they hadn’t even graduated from college yet.

Facebook, Twitter and peers for sale _ privately

(Rachel Metz, AP) Scott Painter makes his living betting on startup companies, having played a role in launching 29 of them over the years. But with the bad economy choking initial public offerings and acquisitions, Painter is now backing an idea that makes it easier for insiders like him to sell shares in their companies even before they go public. SharesPost, which was founded by Painter's business partner, Greg Brogger, launched publicly in June. Through the SharesPost Web site, Painter is trying to sell shares in several companies he helped found, including car pricing startup TrueCar.com.

Small U.S. businesses thrive with Ethiopian woman's help

(CNN) Alfa Demmellash grew up on less than a dollar a day, and against the backdrop of torture and murder. But these days she's living the American dream and helping others do the same. "Entrepreneurs are at the very heart of what the American dream is all about," says Demmellash, a native of Ethiopia. And from her small office in Jersey City, her nonprofit, Rising Tide Capital, is helping small businesses flourish. Robin Munn, who runs a flower shop in Jersey City, says the skills she learned through Demmellash helped her transform the way she operates her business.

How Michael Cronan spells success

(Steve Rubenstein, San Francisco Chronicle) At the end of a winding street in the Berkeley hills is a bag of old Scrabble tiles that is changing the world. It's amazing how many important-sounding words can be made up by grabbing letters out of the bag and playing around with them. TiVo, for instance. When "tivo" came of the bag 10 years ago, it didn't mean anything. Now it means nothing less than the future of that great god, television. Michael Cronan made that word up, using his imagination and the Scrabble tiles.

Eight Dollars for Sore Feet

(Maeva Bambuck, ABC News) It’s 3am, you’ve worked the dance floor all night and your feet are sending distress signals. Your pumps are compressing/turning your toes into a pulp -- they’re not called killer heels just for their look -- and as you contemplate the way home, your patience evaporates. To your benefit, sore feet can turn any Cinderella into an evil stepsister. All you really need is a slipper that fits. Enter the Rollasoles, the shoes that roll into a ball, and fit into your purse.

Where celebrities dish -- relaxed, uncensored -- for hours

(David Sarno, Los Angeles Times) Kevin Pollak's live online talk show is supposed to run for two hours, but tonight it's going long again -- way long. That doesn't bother Pollak: He wants his guest to keep talking. Between sips of beer, former "Saturday Night Live" star Dana Carvey ranges through a series of strange and revealing anecdotes as Pollak nods from across a round wooden table.

Pair uses their power for good

(Sunshine Coast Daily) It might sound corny, but all Ajanta Willert and Simone Milasas wanted to do was create more happiness in the world. It doesn't sound like a sensible business strategy but it's become one, granting them a burgeoning global empire. The duo, who met at the Woodford Folk Festival and have both been stallholders at the Eumundi Markets, started their Good Vibes For You business two years ago, selling bottled water, organic cotton t-shirts and a range of stickers and magnets featuring positive sayings.

The cupcake van may be coming your way

(Jerry Hirsch, Los Angeles Times) It's hard enough resisting a fresh cupcake sitting placidly in the bakery case. Now that cupcake is coming after you. In what harks back to the heyday of the Helms Bakery neighborhood delivery truck decades ago, Sprinkles Cupcakes of Beverly Hills will use a "Sprinklesmobile" to sell red velvet, lemon coconut, banana dark chocolate and other cupcake varieties starting next week.

Pair bet on the future of independent films

(Joe Flint, Los Angeles Times) It hardly seems like the ideal time to launch an independent movie studio. If the kings of the business, Bob and Harvey Weinstein, are struggling, can anyone make it? Two industry veterans think they can, and they've persuaded several well-known producers, including Ted Hope and Anne Carey, and filmmaker brothers Ridley and Tony Scott to bet on them.

Bringing green home: One S.F. business

(San Francisco Chronicle) Back in April, I spent several hours with a very different kind of green business, Home Green Home, a San Francisco green cleaning service that general manager Derene Allen calls a "for profit sponsored by a non-profit." Let me explain: Home Green Home is a joint project of the East Bay nonprofit WAGES—which creates cleaning co-ops with the intent of providing low-income women with dependable, decent jobs—and Seventh Generation, a well established green cleaning products company whose visionary CEO, Jeffrey Hollender, sadly, just stepped down.

Holy Orders site sells monastery-crafted gifts

(Elizabeth Fernandez, San Francisco Chronicle) After spending much of her career in the film industry, Jeanne Cole was ready to tap her spiritual side. She knew she wasn't cut out to be a nun - too many rules - but following a weekend retreat at a secluded monastery in the redwoods of Northern California, and because of a humble jar of honey, Cole found a new life calling. The nuns at the monastery manufactured the honey as a sideline, to help support their lives of prayer. Cole was entranced by their monastic simplicity, and wanted to help financially.

String Theory: Investing in High-End Violins

(Jeremy Caplan) Facing volatile equity markets, investors often look to gold and silver. But an updated study of classical-instrument valuations by Brandeis economist Kathryn Graddy shows that violins may be among the most stable of investments. Graddy's data indicate that between 1850 and April of this year, the value of professional-quality instruments rose in real terms (i.e., after inflation) about 3% annually. High-end violins have appreciated at much higher rates — particularly rare instruments made by Italian masters like Stradivari, Amati and Guarneri del Gesù.

MBAs Without Borders donate skills to end poverty cycle

(Mark Tutton, CNN) Jon Ven Johnson is a Texan working in Laos, where he helps disadvantaged young people build a career. But Ven Johnson isn't an aid worker. He's an MBA with a background in management consultancy and what he's offering isn't charity -- it's years of business experience. Ven Johnson, 41, is working as a consultant for Digital Divide Data (DDD), a non-profit company that trains disadvantaged youths in Cambodia and Laos and gives them jobs carrying out IT services for international clients. He found the position through MBAs Without Borders (MWB), a Canadian not-for-profit organization that matches MBAs from around the world with small businesses and not-for-profits in developing countries.

Laid-off Auto Worker Opens Sweets Shop

(AP) Oh my golly, it's raining candy at Oh My Lolli! People passing by the 1,700-square-foot store can watch Oh My Lolli! owner Keith Karp and his staff cook, color and mold the candy into suckers, sticks and small pieces of candy Karp calls lollie rocks or lollies, for short. "What we're striving to be is the best hard-candy shop," the 36-year-old lollyologist said.

How Nintendo's boss rewrote the rules of the game

(Nigel Kendall, Times Online) Satoru Iwata is not your typical Japanese company president. When he talks about the games his company produces, the 49-year-old Nintendo CEO's eyes positively twinkle with mischief and excitement. Nintendo employees speak with hushed reverence about their occasional meetings with the man, about his inspirational qualities, about his power to make them believe in ideas they’d previously found far-fetched or plain stupid.

Can Computer Nerds Save Journalism?

(Matt Villano, Time) Word to those who think the Internet spells the end of traditional print media: "hacker journalists" have arrived to save the day. A cadre of newly minted media whiz kids, who mix high-tech savvy with hard-nosed reporting skills, are taking a closer look at ways in which 21st century code-crunching and old-fashioned reporting can not only coexist but also thrive. And the first batch of them has just emerged from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.

Greener homes = happier staffers

(Malika Zouhali-Worrall, Fortune Small Business) Susan Johnson always dreamed of volunteering abroad. In May, her wish came true when she flew to Rwanda to work at a vocational institute for low-income women. Although she will be away for four months, she'll receive her full salary from Seventh Generation, a Burlington, Vt. manufacturer of recycled and nontoxic household products. "I wouldn't be able to afford this if I wasn't being paid," says Johnson, 60, the director of education in the company's sales department. The sabbatical program is one of many benefits offered by the firm, which generated $150 million in revenue last year.

Wii at work

(Alec Foege, Fortune Small Business) When David Gray joined Daxko as CEO in 2003, the small software vendor's product line was unfocused and unprofitable. The former Fortune 500 executive recommended that Daxko concentrate on its most successful product: an operating and accounting system for nonprofit organizations, which at the time were an untapped market. He also wanted a more collegial workplace. "I'm a big believer in corporate culture as a competitive advantage," says Gray, 39. It worked. Within a year Daxko was profitable.

Building a community - and staff loyalty

(Ian Mount, CNN Money) Last year Vincent Stevens's church ran an experiment: 10 members were each given $100 to help their communities. Some gave the money away; others used it as seed capital to raise thousands more. Stevens, 40, a partner in the Bellevue, Wash., accounting firm Clark Nuber, wondered what would happen if his company did something similar. To find out, the company launched Caring, Serving and Giving, a program that lets employees apply for grants of up to $500 to fund community service projects.

Floating wind turbine launched

(Jorn Madslien, BBC News) The world's first floating wind turbine is to be towed out to sea this weekend. Statoil's Alexandra Beck Gjorv told the BBC the technology, the Hywind, to be put off Norway's coast - "should help move offshore wind farms out of sight." And it could lead to offshore wind farms eventually being located many miles offshore, away from areas where they cause disruption, Ms Gjorv added. This would benefit military radar operations, the shipping industry, fisheries, bird life and tourism.

Tweet at work, your boss may thank you

(Wallace Immen, Globe and Mail) Shannon Boudjema needed evidence - fast - to convince a skeptical manager and client of her marketing plan for a new product pitched to younger buyers. Had she gone traditional routes, "I would have needed to drop all my other work, spend days on the phone and have meetings or buy research," says the business manager for marketing communications company Maritz Canada Inc. in Mississauga, Ont. Instead, she had a brainstorm. Before leaving work one evening last month, she posted a message on Twitter, asking followers to steer her toward research on the preferences of young consumers. Arriving at work the next morning, she found a flood of tweets from dozens of contacts.

San Mateo students help Guatemalans prosper using microloans

(Kyveli Diener, San Mateo County Times) Many high school seniors are so wrapped up in college applications that helping anyone else may seem far beyond their capacity. However, with the help of the San Mateo Rotary Club, a dedicated teacher and an international nonprofit organization, nine graduating Hillsdale High School seniors are entering their adult lives with experiences and knowledge about directly assisting the impoverished that may resonate for years to come. The Hillsdale Effect was born with the nine students who raised nearly $14,000 to assist destitute women in Guatemala through microlending.

A Web Site For Borrowers

(John Blackstone, CBS News) In San Francisco, Jon Fast has found a way to make money from things like his bike -- and his Wii video game. "See I hit it a ton, the crowd is cheering for me, it's excellent," says Fast, demonstrating his Wii ability. When he's not using things instead of leaving them sitting in a closet he rents them. The Wii can bring in some real money. "I've rented it for $30. It's $30 for a day, $50 for a weekend," says Fast. Dorinda Vassigh rented it for a weekend.

Inspiration from the top revived DaVita

(Ann Schrader, Denver Post) People spend a large portion of their lives at work, and Kent Thiry believes those hours should be not only profitable, but stimulating, rewarding and, yes, fun. That belief has paid off for DaVita Inc., which has 1,400 centers that serve one out of three U.S. kidney-dialysis patients. DaVita last week said it will relocate its headquarters from El Segundo, Calif., to the Denver area. Thiry and other senior executives said they plan to make the move soon. Thiry's philosophy that every employee — which DaVita calls a "teammate" — is involved in improving quality of care contributed to a stunning turnaround of a struggling company, said John Donahoe, president and chief executive of eBay Inc.

Happy feet bring customers back in Mill Valley

(Carolyn Jones, San Francisco Chronicle) If the heart of Mill Valley is where the fog spills off Mount Tam, the soul is in a glorified closet off Throckmorton Avenue. That's where Misak Pirinjian holds court as proprietor of Tony's Shoe Repair, dispensing smiles, gossip and new soles to an unending stream of devoted customers, some of whom have relied on Tony's since it opened in 1950. Like shoe repair shops across the country, Tony's is one of the few businesses still crowded with customers these days as cost-conscious consumers opt to mend their old shoes - at a cost of $10 to $30 - instead of buying new ones.

Social website adding tools for digital moms

(Bridget Carey, Miami Herald) Multiply.com is taking the best of both social networking and photo sharing websites in its redesign launch Wednesday, hoping to become the top destination for moms to post family photos. The 5-year-old social networking site is adding advanced photo editing and sharing tools, along with a desktop-like drag-and-drop interface and a new design that makes it easier to share media and set privacy options.

Amazon's next revolution

(Jeffrey M. O'Brien, Fortune Magazine) On a bright May morning Jeffrey Bezos descended from atop Mount Seattle unto the press corps. He appeared casually on stage in a standing-room-only theater in New York City. Like another messenger of long ago, he carried a tablet. And he said unto the people: "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm excited to introduce Kindle DX." Keyboards tapped. Shutters clicked. And as the Amazon founder and CEO turned a 9.7-inch display toward the masses, they saw an inscription: The New York Times.

Site Will Sock It To Ya

(Ryan Nakashima, AP) Every week or so I undertake a rigorous mental challenge: matching my socks. The toughest ones are the black ones, because they're not all alike. Some fade bluish, others don't. Some have dimples, others ribbing. Elastics stretch and break differently, and I am regularly bamboozled by multiple fabrics and lengths. Sometimes I find loners and socks with holes and I don't even bother to throw them out. So when sock subscription service Blacksocks.com came calling, I answered, intrigued.

Cupcake truck hits New York

(Mythili Rao, CNN) New York is about to get a new street vendor with a sweet twist. Watch out, Mister Softee; the new kid on the block is a dessert truck calling itself "New York's first mobile cupcake shoppe." "This is a perfect addition to New York City's mobile vendors," said Lev Ekster, Cupcake Stop's founder. Ekster was a student six months ago, spending long hours at the New York Law School library in preparation for a legal career. But when the economic crisis dimmed the now-graduate's prospects of securing a full-time position with a firm, he turned to another passion: entrepreneurship.

Blue sky thinkers focus minds, spirits in quest for brainwaves

(Maria Slade, New Zealand Herald) People were strangely fascinated by the idea of getting 100 entrepreneurs in a room and letting them loose to come up with their best ideas for lifting New Zealand out of the recessionary mire. "Are you going on your Segway with your jet-propelled hat?" a colleague quipped as I made my way to yesterday's Entrepreneurs Summit. Those with visions of a function centre full of mad inventors would have been disappointed. The assembled were neatly pressed, congenial business people, universally enthusiastic about their common task of giving birth to five top ideas to lift the nation's productivity.

Every blog becomes a cinema

(Stephanie N. Mehta, Fortune) Former AOL executive Ted Leonsis was frustrated: He'd produced a critically acclaimed documentary called Nanking, a film that looked at some Westerners who had protected Chinese civilians during a brutal, six-week attack by the Japanese army in 1937. But he was pretty sure the film, which premiered in 2007 at the Sundance Film Festival, would reach a relatively small audience. Only a few hundred movie theaters in the U.S. will even show documentaries, and even those cinemas don't always give non-fiction films prime spots on their schedules. Distribution is a source of aggravation for many documentarians. Unlike most filmmakers, though, Leonsis, who stepped down from day-to-day management at AOL at the end of 2006, had the wherewithal to do something about the situation. Last year he launched SnagFilms, a company that aims to distribute documentary films via the Internet.

Microfinance Site Links Investors, Poor Borrowers

(Dan Bobkoff, NPR) When you invest your money, can you both do good and do well? A new online broker thinks you can by investing in microfinance. Perhaps you've heard the stories of how a loan as small as $100 helped a woman in the Third World start a successful business. Now MicroPlace.com wants to make it easy for ordinary American investors to make money off those loans.

'Green' beverage bottle in works at Coca-Cola

(Bob Keefe, Cox Newspapers) Coca-Cola Co. is developing a new type of bottle that could replace at least some of the environmentally harmful plastic it and other beverage-makers now use with more Earth-friendly material made from sugar cane and molasses. The company plans to announce details about the new package, called "PlantBottle," as early as this week. Coca-Cola North America is expected to test the bottle with Dasani, its leading water brand, and carbonated beverage brands later this year and with Vitaminwater in 2010.

At Burt's Bees, business is humming

(David Zucchino, LA Times) Logic suggests that boutique lip balms, hand creams and shampoos that cost double competitors' brands would be among the first luxuries jettisoned by strapped shoppers these days. But low-tech Burt's Bees is making money and advertising for more workers even here among the pines in North Carolina, a state with the nation's fifth-highest jobless rate. Burt's Bees, which uses natural ingredients almost exclusively, has averaged 25% compounded growth each year since its founding 25 years ago, according to Chief Executive John Replogle. He says sales have doubled in the last three years. With 400 employees, the company has hired 30 people this year and intends to hire 30 more by December.

Schoolboy lands every child's dream job... taster for a sweet company

(Daily Mail) A schoolboy has beaten thousands of other youngsters to land every child's dream job - official taster for a sweet company. Harry Willsher's chief responsibilities will be eating Love Hearts, Refreshers and Cola Bottles in the name of research to make sure they are up to the standard expected by the average confectionery connoisseur. The 12-year-old won the coveted post by emailing a description of his favourite sweet, the Drumstick lolly, to Swizzels Matlow, a confectionery company based in Derbyshire

Shoppers, Unite! Carrotmobs Are Cooler than Boycotts

(Jeremy Caplan, Time) Forget sticks, and stick with carrots instead. So says Brent Schulkin, founder of a fledgling movement of activist consumers employing a kind of reverse boycott that he calls a Carrotmob. The concept is simple: instead of steering clear of environmentally backward stores, why not reward businesses with mass purchases if they promise to use some of the money to get greener? "Traditional activism revolves around conflict," says Schulkin, 28, a San Francisco–based activist turned entrepreneur. "Boycotting, protesting, lawsuits — it's about going into attack mode," says the former Googler and onetime game developer. "What's unique about a Carrotmob is that there are no enemies." The focus is on positive cooperation, using the power of the casual consumer to help save the planet.

Free Lipitor, Viagra, 70 other drugs for jobless

(Linda A. Johnson and Matthew Perrone, AP) The recession might be a little less painful for some Americans, who won't lose their prescription medications if they lose their jobs. Pfizer Inc. said Thursday it will give away more than 70 of its most widely prescribed drugs, including Lipitor and Viagra, for up to a year to people who have lost jobs since Jan. 1 and have been taking the drug for three months or more.

Local women propel funding campaign to historic highs

(Kristi Heim, Seattle Times) A global campaign to get women to donate $1 million each toward non-profits that help women and girls surpassed its ambitious targets, thanks in part to a handful of Seattle philanthropists. As the Women Moving Millions campaign came to a close even in the midst of a bleak economy, organizers called it "an historic moment in the world of women's philanthropy." The event raised $177 million from individual women donors, more than its $150 million goal.

PG&E signs solar deal to light 530,000 homes

(Jason Dearen, AP) California utility Pacific Gas and Electric Co. has signed new solar contracts that are expected to produce enough electricity to power about 530,000 homes during peak hours. PG&E said Wednesday its partnership with Oakland-based BrightSource Energy is the nation's largest solar deal, and would produce a record total of 1,310 megawatts of solar thermal power. The deal includes seven solar projects, the first of which is slated to begin producing power in 2012.

'Green' repair shop gives new life to throwaway items

(Bob Crowley, CNN) Seth Barrett really enjoys his work. "I love the variety of projects," he says. "I love a new puzzle every day." He's at his workbench, chisel in hand, shaving bits of wood from one of several chairs brought into his repair shop by a customer. "She asked me to give them some attention and get them to stay together," Barrett says. His shop, "Village Green Renewal," will fix almost anything that can fit in the front door, as long as it doesn't require any kind of special licensing or permits. Barrett hopes that by getting people to repair items instead of replacing them with new ones, it will mean less trash heading for the landfill.

A Unique Solution To The Housing Crisis

(Bill Whitaker, CBS News) Ever see something so logical you say, "Why didn't I think of that?" CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker reports that when real estate agent Cathy Cardenas saw so many vacant houses for sale or in foreclosure and so many people unable to afford a house in these hard times, she thought, why not put them together? "It works out for everybody," Cardenas explains. "It's a win-win for everybody." So, she started Designer Home Tending, now in seven cities with some of the worst foreclosure rates.

Low-income mothers learn financial skills to realize their dreams

(Cindy Krischer Goodman, Miami Herald) Tracy Sellers, a Miami single mother of four, worried that she was never going to fulfill her dream of owning a home. Then one day she read about a program that would teach her to save money. Sellers, 36, was intrigued. Could she make room in her family budget to put money aside? For the next eight weeks, Sellers spent Wednesday nights learning how to open checking and savings accounts, clear up bad credit, cut expenses and apply for a home loan. "As a mother, I've learned how to squeeze blood out of a turnip," she said. "But while I knew how to get by, I didn't know how to get ahead."

Young entrepreneur has drive to succeed

(Angelique Soenarie, Arizona Republic) All the local and national recognition hasn't sunk in yet for Billy Jinks. Hours after being interviewed on national television for being one of the country's youngest entrepreneurs, the 19-year-old went back to work. "It's not every day you're on television," said the mild-mannered young man, who runs his own limousine company headquartered in east Mesa near Greenfield and McDowell roads. "It was good and gets the company's name out there." Jinks doesn't take many breaks running a full-service chauffeur company he started at 15. He works 12 to 15 hours a day managing 35 employees, attracting new clients and overseeing day-to-day operations at his Mesa and Tucson offices.

Taxi firm rolls out fleet of 'green limos'

(Jennifer Martin, Arizona Republic) Chris Okra wears a suit to work because he wants to make an impression on clients. Okra is a contracted cabdriver who refuses to drive any vehicle besides Discount Cab Co.'s signature "green limousine," the Toyota Prius. "We (as cabdrivers) have access to (a customer's) disposable income," Okra said. "I want my clients to feel like they are the only client I have." For Okra, his image is a marketing tool and the Prius gives his strategy a contemporary appeal.

An office where group anarchy works

(Chris Taylor, Fortune Small Business) The high-tech industry is a tough place to be a tyrant. Consider: When I started covering the industry 12 years ago, I was writing about how the mighty Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) was trying to rule the Web by strong-arming tiny dot-com startups. How quaint that idea seems now. Three years later I visited a startup that let engineers work on their own projects one day a week (the so-called rule of 20% time). That company, of course, was Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) - and today it credits 20% time for more than half of its total product launches. Recently I met a Web company that had staved off disaster with an even more radical notion than Google's: 100% time. That is, its employees always decide which projects the company will develop. And it works.

Bright Spot in Downturn: New Hiring Is Robust

(Steven Greenhouse, New York Times) Everyone knows the grim news — unemployment in the United States has jumped to 8.5 percent, a 25-year high, and is racing toward double digits. Since November, the nation has lost more than three million jobs. But not everyone knows the brighter side to the equation: deep in the maw of the deepest recession since the Great Depression, millions are still being hired. So, while 4.8 million workers were laid off or chose to leave their jobs in February, employers across the country hired 4.3 million workers that month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

At Lemonade Day, kids learn rules of business

(Andrea Lorenz, Austin American-Statesman) On a recent afternoon, 8-year-old Clark Simpler tried to persuade his brother Graham, 3, to lease his Game Boy for $10. That same day, their mother, Melissa Simpler, got a flier in the mail about Lemonade Day Austin, an event that encourages children to set up lemonade stands to learn about business. "I said, 'Clark, guess what?' " Simpler said Sunday at the stand Clark started with two friends from Bryker Woods Elementary. " 'You're going to start your own business for a good cause.' " More than 2,500 children in the Austin area participated Sunday in the city's first Lemonade Day, which was started three years ago by a Houston nonprofit group called Prepared 4 Life.

Green Fest: Buying into an ideal

(Anthony Bowe, Denver Post) Joining a green industry booming with innovation, Karl Wald's claim to sustainable fame the past four years has been elephant poop. During the weekend Green Festival at the Colorado Convention Center, Wald showed off his popular product — stationary paper and gifts made from 70 percent elephant dung and 30 percent post-consumer materials — by offering free samples to passers-by. Wald's initial sales pitch of "would you like a free piece of poo" perks people's ears, but it's his efforts to save elephants in Sri Lanka that drive sales, he said. Wald's company, Mr. Ellie Pooh, is attempting to save the massive beasts by making them an asset to local villagers. Wild elephant populations in Sri Lanka have been diminishing for the past 50 years as farmers kill grazing elephants that threaten their crops, Wald said.

Mom makes a splash selling ‘Tummy Tubs’

(Mike Celizic, TodayShow.com) It was bath time for more than a half dozen babies, and not one of them was crying or complaining. That’s because they were too busy discovering the joys of the Tummy Tub, a bathtub for infants that has made a big splash in Europe and has finally found its way to America. "It’s designed to mimic the mother’s womb," Janis McKellar told TODAY’s Matt Lauer, Meredith Vieira and Ann Curry Friday in New York. As she spoke, her 14-month old son, John, sat serenely in his Tummy Tub, flanked by other parents and their babies, who seemed delighted to be bathing in warm water while curled up in fetal position.

Father-son company makes fantasies move in Delaware

(Tracy Turner, Columbus Dispatch) Bob and Tyler Bower have spent the past seven years making your worst nightmares -- and sweetest dreams -- come to life. The father and son own and operate TB Visual Effects, a special-effects company based in Delaware. The company creates animatronics for haunted houses, amusement parks, museums, zoos, miniature-golf courses, fun centers and restaurants. The programmable, lifelike creatures range from the goriest monsters to the cuddliest polar bears, dogs and monkeys, designed either to scare the living daylights out of patrons or to delight them. Tyler Bower is the creative, artistic partner, while father Bob Bower handles the company's finances. Most of the company's creations are downright terrifying, but Tyler said he's recently developed an affinity for the warm and fuzzy.

REVOLT: The Segway-maker’s next move

(Gregory M. Lamb) General Motors perpetually promises to deliver its Volt electric car. Tesla Motors has the wealthy and trendy anticipating its luxury electric sports car. The Chinese say they will mass produce electric cars to help clean up their choking cities. But none of them is committed to do what Dean Kamen hopes his prototype REVOLT hybrid-electric car will do: Bring electricity to the 1.6 billion people who still live without it.

The Zappos Way of Managing

(Max Chafkin, Inc.) "What would make you happier in your life?" Tony Hsieh asks me this question as we sit at a booth with half a dozen young people in one of those absurdly lavish lounges that can be found only in Las Vegas. It's called Lavo, setting of recent Paris Hilton and Nelly sightings and the city's newest hot spot. The theme is an ancient Roman bathhouse, and so, in addition to the normal nightclub features -- thumping bass, low tables, dim lighting -- there's the distracting aspect of two scantily clad women performing a risqué bathing routine, complete with damp sponges and music. It's a strange setting for an interview -- especially for an interview with Hsieh (pronounced Shay). He's a thoughtful, low-key fellow who seems out of place in such a louche setting. Indeed, he seems oddly oblivious to his surroundings, which makes sense, given that he runs what is arguably the decade's most innovative start-up, Zappos.com.

Winery creates buzz with dream job offer

(Julian Guthrie, San Francisco Chronicle) The dream job offer is this: Get paid $10,000 a month for six months to drink wine, learn and talk about wine, eat good food, live rent free in Healdsburg and play the occasional game of poker with a laid-back staff. The ideal candidate must combine an engaging personality and an enthusiasm for all things wine with experience at tweeting, blogging, and keeping photo and video diaries.

G.E.’s Breakthrough Can Put 100 DVDs on a Disc

(Steve Lohr, New York Times) General Electric says it has achieved a breakthrough in digital storage technology that will allow standard-size discs to hold the equivalent of 100 DVDs. The storage advance, which G.E. is announcing on Monday, is just a laboratory success at this stage. The new technology must be made to work in products that can be mass-produced at affordable prices. But optical storage experts and industry analysts who were told of the development said it held the promise of being a big step forward in digital storage with a wide range of potential uses in commercial, scientific and consumer markets.

Best Buy turning the tables with vinyl

(Peter Lauria, New York Post) Best Buy is giving vinyl a spin. The consumer-electronics giant, which happens also to be the third-largest music seller behind Apple's iTunes and Wal-Mart, is considering devoting eight square feet of merchandising space in all of its 1,020 stores solely to vinyl, which would equate to just under 200 albums, after a test in 100 of its stores around the country proved successful.

Benefit Outsourcing founder's generosity survives tough times

(Sherri Begin Welch, Crain's Detroit Business) Larry Gelman's generosity to his employees is completely at odds with the epic tales of corporate greed that are a staple of today's news. Gelman puts his employees at Benefit Outsourcing Solutions Inc. first — even in the worst of economies and even at his own personal cost — while insulating his customers from pay hikes during these recessionary times.

Banker to the poor gives New York women a boost

(Michelle Nichols, Reuters) Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, known as the "banker to the poor" for making small loans in impoverished countries, is now doing business in the center of capitalism -- New York City. In the past year the first U.S. branch of his Grameen Bank has lent $1.5 million, ranging from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars, to nearly 600 women with small business plans in the city's borough of Queens.

Electric scooter hoping to spark eco two-wheelers

(Dean Irvine, CNN) Much has been made of the electric car driving to the rescue of ailing automobile manufacturers and saving the planet at the same time. But what if that eco-savior came on two wheels instead of four? A high price tag, a limited range, sluggish performance and the tendency not to work when they get wet, have meant that electric scooters are a rare sight on the roads. However, KLD Energy Technologies, an electric engine company based in Texas, believes that its new electric motor can overcome all these problems and kick-start the sector. It's teaming up with Vietnamese motorbike manufacturer Sufat to produce an affordable electric-powered scooter that has a performance just as good as a normal petrol-powered bike.

CEO Turns Trash Into Cash

(Imaeyen Ibanga, ABC News) On this Earth Day, when many people are thinking about recycling and deciding on just one thing they can do to become more eco-friendly, one 27-year-old entrepreneur has managed to turn his dreams of a greener Earth into money in the bank.

Where culinary dreams take shape, batch by batch

(Mary MacVean, L.A. Times) Chef's Kitchens and other incubator kitchens give cooks a place -- fully stocked -- to share and nurture their food-related businesses. In one kitchen, Bob Suchyta perfects his muffins and brownies, trying to build a business in case the economy costs him his radio job. In another, Chelsea Britt, a recent college graduate, bakes in hopes of keeping her dad's panfortepanforte business going. In a third kitchen, Robyn Chandonnet prepares vegan raw cheesecakes. There are dozens of stories behind the bowls and stoves and recipes at Chef's Kitchens, an incubator for food businesses. Stories of people shedding careers or adjusting to new and unexpected challenges. People with a dream and a cleverly decorated cookie or a family tamale recipe or the goal of owning a restaurant.

Free dog food for unemployed pet owners

(Jan Norman, Orange County Register) DOGSWELL, a Los Angeles maker of natural dog food, thinks dogs deserve a bailout as much as AIG Insurance and Fannie Mae. The toll on pets is just as big as on people, so DOGSWELL is offering a free bag of dry dog food to the first 10,000 unemployed pet owners who send in a Bow Wow Bailout redemption form. Because of the economic crisis, Americans are being ousted from their homes and, in many cases, forced to give up their pets for adoption, says DOGSWELL founder Marco Giannini.

The anti-iTunes: Forgotten rock for sale

(David Browne, CNN) In his compact New York City office, Anthology Recordings owner Keith Abrahamsson sits at his computer examining a list of recent customers. It seems that Monika from Denmark just spent $29.94 on three albums from his label, including Inside the Shadow by Anonymous. "That's an amazing record," he says, nodding approvingly. "I feel honored to work with a record like that." Anonymous was a 1970s midwestern band that played chiming folk rock not unlike the Byrds. This is obscure stuff, even for devout followers of vintage rock. But that's the point.

Hobby Lobby says: What recession?, gives employees a raise

(Maria Halkias, Dallas Morning News) Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. – one of the few retailers still closed on Sundays – says it’s giving all its full time workers a raise to $10 an hour. That beats the national minimum wage of $6.55 an hour. About 6,900 employees are getting raises. Some already at or above $10 an hour are being bumped up to $13.

A Little Microlending Goes A Long Way

(Daniel Siebert, CBS) If someone loaned you $100, maybe it wouldn't change your life. But in many countries, it could be the difference between prosperity and poverty. Tiny loans like these are called micro-financing. And last year, some $36 billion of them went to more than 99 million borrowers.

Twin Sisters Productions finds niche with products that help children learn using music

(Marcia Pledger/Plain Dealer Reporter) Twin sisters Kim Thompson and Karen Hilderbrand were just looking for a way to get elementary school students interested in multiplication. Thompson, a teacher, and Hilderbrand, an engineer, came up with "Rap With The Facts," which they expanded into an album of musical educational aids. That was 1987, and starting a multimillion-dollar business was the furthest thing from their minds.

Microsoft Offers Free Computer Training to Unemployed

(AP) Microsoft Corp. announced Monday it would be giving away more than 30,000 vouchers over the next 90 days to help unemployed people in Washington state get new computer skills. The vouchers will entitle them to take computer classes for free — either in person or online — and take Microsoft certification exams at no or low cost.

$80,000 for a Year Off? She’ll Take It!

(Susan Dominus, New York Times) This year may be a disastrous one for the global economy, but it’s shaping up to be one of the best that Heather Eisenlord has enjoyed in a good long while. Granted, that might not be saying much: For the past five years, Ms. Eisenlord has been an associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, a notably grueling place for a lawyer to work. But even by more stringent standards of fun, the coming year looks pretty good.

 

Ithaca prints its own mock currency to keep money in town

(Luke Rosiak, Democrat & Chronicle) It's a cross between a game of Monopoly with friends and a Great Depression throwback: A nonprofit group in Ithaca, Tompkins County, is printing its own currency in an effort to stimulate the local economy and keep money in the area. Residents trade U.S. dollars for "Ithaca Hours" at a local bookstore and use them to pay for a portion of goods from area mom-and-pop stores or services from neighbors, who then keep the notes in circulation.

 

Out-of-work execs taking advantage of downturn to reinvent themselves

(Lisa R. Schoolcraft, Atlanta Business Journal) Eric Taub left his banking career at Wachovia in 2006 to create and manage a hedge fund “at exactly the wrong time.” “I thought I could go back into banking/finance if it didn’t work out,” Taub said. “That was my Plan B. Plan A (the hedge fund) and Plan B went the way of the financial crisis.” When Taub, 40, shut down the hedge fund two years after its creation, there was no activity to go back to in banking, he said. He had to reinvent himself and his career.

 

U.S. institute names 99 top ethical companies

(Ilaina Jonas, Reuters) The Ethisphere Institute on Monday named 99 companies it says are the world's most ethical, its third annual listing designed to encourage ethical practices within the global business community. The 99 companies, which include Honeywell International Inc, Nike Inc, Patagonia, BMW Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, Johnson Controls Inc and HSBC Holdings PLC, come from 35 different industries.

 

Chocolate Sales: A Sweet Spot in the Recession

(Helena Bachmann, Time) It is just days before Easter and housewife Laure Bertini walks the aisles of the Manor supermarket in downtown Geneva, looking for holiday treats. "Chocolate will always be at the top of my shopping list, regardless of the economy," she says, filling her cart with gold-foil-wrapped chocolate bunnies from the Swiss maker Lindt.

 

Harvard Professor Develops Inhalable Chocolate

(Fox News) It may be a hoax, a sly artistic commentary, a vanity project or simply the greatest thing ever known to man. A Harvard professor has come up with what he call "Le Whif" — inhalable chocolate with zero calories.

 

Honda puts dogs in their Element

(AP) A new offering from Honda Motor Co. might get dogs more interested in checking out the inside of their ride rather than hanging their heads out the window.

 

For One Company, Fun Is Job Priority No. 1

(CBS) In this difficult economy, keeping spirits up around the office is more important than ever. And a company called Zappos has found ways to keep its employees' morale sky-high. At the corporate headquarters of this online shoe and clothing retailer based in Las Vegas, having fun is a priority. It's an office where weirdness is encouraged and spontaneous parades happen nearly every day.

 

Virgin gives U.S. mobile users who lose jobs a break

(Sinead Carew, Reuters) Virgin Mobile USA has taken inspiration from car makers with a promise to waive three months of cellphone fees for customers who lose their jobs, a move it hopes will attract new business. The company said on Thursday that new customers of its monthly service plans, including its latest offering -- a $49.99 (34.17 pounds) a month unlimited calling service -- would now be automatically enrolled in its "Pink Slip Protection" program.

 

'Green Machine' Debuted at Autoshow: First Luxury Plug-in Hybrid Car

(David Hastie, New York Post) Here's comes the green machine. Carmaker Fisker unveiled the Karma at the New York car show today -- the first luxury plug-in hybrid to hit the market.

 

GM and Segway Unveil New Two-Wheeled Urban Vehicle

(Bree Fowler and Dan Strumpf, AP Auto Writers) A solution to the world's urban transportation problems could lie in two wheels not four, according to executives for General Motors Corp. and Segway Inc. The companies announced Tuesday that they are working together to develop a two-wheeled, two-seat electric vehicle designed to be a fast, safe, inexpensive and clean alternative to traditional cars and trucks for cities across the world.

 

Plug-in electric vehicles on two wheels are poised for mass production

(Susan Carpenter, L.A. Times) When it comes to electric vehicles, the Tesla Roadster and Chevrolet Volt get all the love. But there are other EVs rolling around, and they’re balancing on two wheels.

 

Amid Downturn, Communities Sacrifice to Avoid Layoffs

(Paul Solomon, PBS NewsHour) Though the jobless rate continues to rise, workers across the country are making sacrifices to avoid more layoffs and "share the pain" of the economic slump.

 

Tech startups hire students on a shoestring through Ottawa program

(CBC News) Small, emerging technology companies are being matched with engineering students through a new program that aims to provide startups with staff and students who have some business know-how.

 

The iPhone Gold Rush

(Jenna Wortham, New York Times) Is there a good way to nail down a steady income? In this economy? Try writing a successful program for the iPhone. Last August, Ethan Nicholas and his wife, Nicole, were having trouble making their mortgage payments. Medical bills from the birth of their younger son were piling up. After learning that his employer, Sun Microsystems, was suspending employee bonuses for the year, Mr. Nicholas considered looking for a new job and putting their house in Wake Forest, N.C., on the market.

 

These shoes help others get a step up

(Shanon Cook, CNN) Step into Blake Mycoskie's shoes for a day, and you might wind up feeling enlightened. Not just because the shoes he wears are incredibly lightweight, but because they transport him to regions of the globe where footwear is a rare, precious commodity. So what are these magical slippers? They're called TOMS, and they're the foundation of Mycoskie's one-for-one business principle: for every pair of TOMS sold, the 32-year-old gives a pair to a child in need.

 

Hyundai to go ahead with eco cars

(Reuters) Hyundai Motor Group, the world's No. 5 automaker, will go ahead with plans to develop environment-friendly cars despite the segment's low profitability and an industry downturn, a senior executive said on Thursday.

 

New York Dry Cleaners Shows Act of Generosity

(Lauren Sivan, Fox News) Just think about it. You're out of work. You have a big job interview coming up, so you want to look your best.

 

Google shows alternative energy firms the way

(David R. Baker, San Francisco Chronicle) Picking the right place for an immense solar power plant or wind farm is a tricky business, one that can turn natural allies into enemies. An open stretch of desert might look empty to a renewable-power developer who wants to blanket a few hundred acres with solar panels or mirrors. To environmentalists, the same spot could be vital habitat for an endangered lizard or bird - an ecosystem too delicate to touch. Now, a collaboration between Google and two leading environmental groups intends to head off those fights.

 

Wal-Mart donates $423M for fiscal year

(AP) Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and its charitable foundations gave $423 million in cash and in-kind gifts for the company's 2009 fiscal year, a 25 percent increase from a year ago. The retailer said Thursday that Wal-Mart in the U.S. gave $378 million and that its international stores gave $45.5 million in cash and in-kind gifts.

 

Teenager invents YouTube music player

(Laura Parker, The Guardian) A 15-year-old programming whiz from Iowa and his father have created the world's first YouTube music player, mining the site's extensive library of music videos free of charge. David Nelson and his father, Mark, spent a year developing Muziic Player, a free downloadable player that allows users to organise, search, stream and create playlists from YouTube's catalogue of music clips. Since its worldwide launch last month, the player has been downloaded more than a million times, forcing them to add another server to handle the incoming requests for the player.

 

New exchange seeks funds for "green" start-ups

(Nichola Groom, Reuters) Seeking to breathe life into the bleak fund-raising environment for clean technology companies, a new private exchange wants to make it easier to invest in promising biofuels, solar or other green start-ups. Known as GREENDAQ, the new exchange goes live on Wednesday at www.greendaq.com. It claims to be the world's first equity and commodities exchange created exclusively for the green technology sector.

 

Facebook, YouTube at work make better employees: study

(Miral Fahmy, Reuters) Caught Twittering or on Facebook at work? It'll make you a better employee, according to an Australian study that shows surfing the Internet for fun during office hours increases productivity. The University of Melbourne study showed that people who use the Internet for personal reasons at work are about 9 percent more productive that those who do not.