Three years ago, I joined the U.S. Small Business Administration with a mission to help small businesses succeed. Leading the SBA team in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, South Dakota and North Dakota felt like the role of a lifetime. This region is unique — it’s one of the largest and most rural in the nation […]
I keep a favorite “Pearls Before Swine” comic strip by Stephan Pastis taped to my desk as a reminder of the challenges that sometimes arise with my job. The first panel of the comic strip depicts two characters talking. “Where were you last weekend?” one asks. “I went to a writers retreat,” the other answers. […]
There’s an old saying attributed to Groucho Marx that basically says (since no one is sure of the exact wording): “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members” Oh how I wish that were true for the 546 people in Washington, D.C., who believe they — […]
If you want to become overwhelmed by an online search, type “business lessons from 2020.” The list of results is lengthy, to say the least. I combed through an assortment of entries and found four offering value: Trust. Writing in the St. Louis Business Journal, Scott Scully, chief executive officer of Abstrakt Marketing Group, cited […]
What’s a wage? A fixed, regular payment by an employer to an employee, especially to a manual or unskilled worker. The wage represents the value an employee brings to the job. What’s minimum wage? The minimum amount per hour the government requires employers to pay employees. So what’s the problem? First, government should never mandate […]
And now for something completely different … . Those familiar with “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” will recognize the line from the old British TV show. The line served as the frequent transition between one absurd situation and something not only completely different, but also more absurd. A dead parrot and murderous cars. A cross-dressing lumberjack […]
It’s amazing what a difference a few years can make in parenting situations. I’m not just talking about the fact I never — or rarely, but they escape memory — had political conversations with my parents during my formidable years. But as my daughters have grown, political topics have became more and more frequent related […]
A recent alert grabbed my attention. It made the bold statement the most important issue facing businesses today is managing their reputation. And this wasn’t about splashing on a bright, new coat of PR paint, issuing self-serving press releases or running TV ads featuring happy and grateful employees. More than ever, consumers align their dollars […]
I’m haunted by the ghosts of Christmas. It’s an experience that’s delightful, not frightful — one of fond memories, grateful appreciation and optimistic expectation. To plagiarize a bit more, I’d like to imagine I’m like Ebenezer Scrooge, the protagonist of the famous Charles Dickens tale. Not the miserly recluse, mind you, but the benevolent extrovert […]
For years, Christmas came early for Mesa County businesses. And we’re not just talking about the holiday shopping season and retailers. Annual reports invariably forecast continued economic growth in the year ahead. The report for 2020, for example, characterized the outlook as not only positive, but exceptionally positive. That didn’t happen, of course. But who […]