Formerly BNET.com
How mGive Used Texting to Raise $40 Million for Haiti
On Jan. 13 at 4:30 a.m., James Eberhard was awakened by a phone call from the U.S. State Department. A huge earthquake had hit Haiti and the government wanted Eberhard to put together a donation program as fast as possible.
Two hours later, his 25-person mobile software company, mGive,launched a national campaign that let people donate $10 to a number of charities via cell phone.
READ MORE
Blinds.com: How Empowering My Staff Powers My Business
After running two Houston window blind stores for more than a decade, Jay Steinfeld and his wife and business partner moved most of the business to the Web in 1996, founding Blinds.com, now a $50 million business and the No. 1 seller of blinds online. Yet after his wife's death in 2002, Steinfeld underwent a personal transformation that changed how he did business. READ MORE
For Boeing, It Takes a Village to Build a New Airplane
Imagine for a moment that you're launching one of the most important products in your company's history. You plan to spend more than $8 billion to develop it, and it will take five years to design, test, and launch. In a universe of high-pressure projects, this one is about as intense as they come. Now imagine this: In order to meet aggressive deadlines, stay within your tight budget, and meet your strict quality-control requirements, your company has decided to let your suppliers design many of the product's most critical components.
Sound crazy? Not if you're Boeing, the leading U.S. manufacturer of commercial aircraft. READ MORE
FruitGuys: How to Grow a Business and Stay Out of Trouble
Struck by the idea that healthy snacks can make office workers happier, healthier and more productive, Chris Mittelstaedt co-founded FruitGuys in San Francisco in 1998. A dozen years later, the fruit delivery company ships nationwide and has $6.5 million in annual sales. But Mittelstaedt, now the company’s “chief banana,” had to survive a tech bust and an early failed expansion before he could achieve sweet success. READ MORE
How to Start a Mentorship Program
How do you hang onto your brightest young talent and prepare
them to lead? Simple: Recruit your more experienced employees to help teach and
guide them. Not only can a mentoring program boost your bench strength for top
jobs, research proves that people who learn more on the job are far less likely
to quit, says Terri Scandura, a University of Miami management professor. "It
makes the job more interesting to be learning from a senior person,"
she says. READ MORE
How to Get Your Customers to Solve Problems for You
Crowdsourcing is a technique that sophisticated companies use to translate the enthusiasm of their most highly-engaged customers into valuable marketing, branding, or product-development insight. You can do it, too. Use these techniques to harness the intelligence of customers that love your business, talk about your business, and better yet, will do free work for your business in today's increasingly democratic, user-generated, social-networked, marketplace. READ MORE
How to Handle a Workplace Bully
If you run a typical American company — whether you have 10,000 employees or 25 — then you probably have a bully in your business. According to
a 2007 survey conducted by Zogby International, almost half of U.S. workers report that they have experienced or witnessed some kind of bullying on the job - insults, threats, screaming, or ostracism. It's behavior that drags down company morale and can be costly in innumerable ways: Think higher
turnover, lower productivity, more sick days, and more workmen's compensation claims, just for starters. Here's how managers can handle a bully in the office, keep costs associated with such behavior in check, and maintain a civilized workforce. READ MORE
How to Find Your Next CEO
Almost 1,500 CEOs quit or were fired last year – about six per day on average. Marquee names in the last year included Jerry Yang of Yahoo, Aylwin Lewis of Sears, Steve Jobs of Apple, and Dick Bond of Tyson Foods.
Small wonder, then, why finding a new CEO ranks as a top concern for corporate boards — yet only half of them have a plan in place to find a back-up boss. "This is the single-hardest job a board faces, but it's the one they fail at the most," says Nell Minow of The Corporate Library, a research firm focused on corporate governance. READ MORE
The NFL's Smartest Business Team
When Robert Kraft bought the New England Patriots football team for $172 million in 1994, he inherited the worst losing record, lowest attendance, and lowest revenue in the National Football League.
Fast-forward 14 years, and the Patriots have evolved into an NFL dynasty worth $1.3 billion, making them the third-most valuable team in the league, according to Forbes. Not only has the team won three Super Bowls and made it to the playoffs nine times in the past 13 years, the Patriots-owned Gillette Stadium brings in $282 million a year, with the average ticket price topping $100 — the highest in the league. The secret to their success? Surprise — it's not all about Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. Here's a look at the savvy management formula that has made the Patriots the league's top business team. READ MORE
How to Fire the Employee Who's Holding You Back
Donald Trump makes it look easy, but the words "you're fired" are always difficult to say. Letting an employee go is painful, and for many managers the process is fraught with sleepless nights and stomach-churning anxiety. But hanging onto the wrong people can ultimately make matters worse for you, your other employees, and your business. Here's how to break the news firmly but gently, so you can put the rest of your team back on track. READ MORE