Author: knjohn

5 Benefits of Switching to a Paperless Office | BusinessTips.com

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paperlessIf you’ve been to a thrift store recently, you might have noticed a surplus of briefcases. Lots of people are getting rid of briefcases because they’re relics of a time before laptops, iPads, and smartphones ruled the workplace.

Briefcases made sense in the era when you hauled dozens of papers to work each day, but that era is over. So why hasn’t your business made the shift away from paper? There are dozens of benefits of a paperless office. Here are five of the most important:

1. You’ll diminish your environmental impact. A single sheet of paper might seem innocuous, but its production requires an incredible amount of energy. The papermaking process is resource-intensive. After trees are harvested — usually by machine — they’re taken to a factory and transformed into paper through a process involving harmful chemicals. The resulting paper is then bundled and transported to the front door of your office. Then it ends up in a recycling bin after it jams your printer.

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The Middle Class Is Worse Off Than You Think | Bloomberg View

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If you worry about the declining fortunes of the U.S. middle class, take heed: It might be worse than you realized.

Tracking the middle class can be difficult, because the group is hard to define. Typically, researchers look at households with incomes or net worth in the middle of the entire population. This approach, though, might provide a falsely rosy picture. It doesn’t, for example, capture the fates of families that start out in the middle and — due to a job loss or other setback — end up in the bottom.

Two economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis — William Emmons and Bryan Noeth — sought to address this shortcoming by focusing on households’ demographic characteristics, rather than income or wealth. Specifically, they looked at families whose breadwinner was at least 40 years old and had achieved a level of education that would typically allow a middle-class standard of living. Whites and Asians needed exactly a high-school diploma to qualify. For blacks and Hispanics, it took a two-year or four-year college degree — a stark recognition of persistent racial inequality.

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Why the middle class is still getting snared by the ‘wealth tax’ | Money Cnn

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You may vaguely recall that in 2012 Congress “fixed” the Alternative Minimum Tax — or what the Tax Policy Center dubbed “the epitome of pointless complexity.”

But that doesn’t mean the so-called “wealth tax” was simplified or eliminated.

The AMT is still alive and complicated. What lawmakers did was permanently tie the amount of income exempted from the AMT to inflation.

Those income levels, however, are still fairly low ($52,800 for singles this year; $82,100 for married couples filing jointly).

And the set of rules that governs what can and can’t be deducted under the AMT means it’s still hitting a fair number of people for whom it was never intended — those in the middle class and upper middle class.

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3 ways small businesses can use video marketing | Mashable

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In an age of ubiquitous viral photos and videos, 2015 is the veritable heyday of self-promotion.

Generation Y has become so adept at personal marketing — managing their personal brands everywhere from Twitter and Facebook to Instagram and YouTube — that they have turned the field into a form of entertainment and even surpassed small businesses in their ability to create a personal brand.

Despite brands’ ability to connect directly with consumers on Twitter or other social media platforms, only 22% of companies see the value of creating a personality for their brand marketing.

So why are young people so much better than brands and businesses at connecting with people online? The answer is simple: Individuals have learned to live and breathe their personal brands, whereas many professional marketers still view growing a brand as, well, a job.

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The Stupid Loop: Why Your Stupid Idea Could Become The Next Big Thing | Page19

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Foot-1000Next time a friend labels your idea as stupid, don’t be so quick to listen! Your “stupidest” idea might also be your most genius. If someone writes you off, remember these tips from Richie Norton’s new book.

Think back to that one time you had an amazing idea and couldn’t wait to spill the details to your friends. When you finally did it, their reactions were…not what you’d hoped for. Just as quickly as you formulated your brilliant plan, they shot it down and crushed it into a million tiny pieces.

Here’s the truth: you shouldn’t take their opinions to heart. Why? Because some of the world’s leading innovations and companies have begun from a seemingly stupid idea.

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Co-Working Spaces: What Small Businesses Should Consider | Business News Daily

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For some startup founders, working from home or out of someone’s living room is fine when you’re first getting off the ground. Eventually, though, most companies graduate to an official headquarters where their employees can report every day.

When you’re ready to take this step, you may be intimidated by the prospect of finding and leasing office space. Good commercial real estate can be difficult to find, and it’s even harder to find something in an affordable price range if your business is strapped for cash. One alternative is a co-working space, a shared office where multiple businesses all work together under the same roof at a lower cost than that of a traditional office lease.

Co-working spaces aren’t right for everyone. If you value privacy for your business and would like the ability to design and change your own office layout at will, a traditional office-space lease might be a better choice. But if you don’t mind having neighbors and sharing resources like Wi-Fi, bathrooms and kitchens with other businesses, co-working can be a cost-effective, beneficial option for growing companies.

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12 Industries to Keep An Eye On | Small Biz Trends

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As technology evolves and startups jump on these advancements, a few industries are fundamentally changing. And as these industries push forward, they create even greater advancements of their tech.

Curious what market sector is most likely to be disrupted in the next few years, we asked a group of startup founders the following question:

“What industry do you believe is going to have the biggest advancements in technology in the next five years, and why?”

Here’s what YEC community members had to say:

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Is Your Small Business at Risk for a Cyber Attack? | All Business

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Cybersecurity is in the news lately, with President Obama recently proposing legislation that would set federal standards for notifying consumers about data breaches. Consumers aren’t the only ones worried about a cyber attack: Small business owners, too, are concerned, says a recent report from the National Small Business Association (NSBA).

More than nine out of 10 small business owners in the study cited cybersecurity as a concern. This is not an unfounded fear: Half of them report they’ve already suffered a cyber attack, with 61 percent of those attacks taking place in the last 12 months.

What happened to these entrepreneurs as a result of the attack? A service interruption was the most common problem, followed by the business website going down. In addition, 19 percent had either their business credit cards or bank account hacked.

The cost of cyber attacks is also on the rise. In 2014 the average cyber attack cost a small business $20,752, a substantial increase from the average of $8,699 an attack cost businesses in 2013.

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Why We Give Great Advice To Others But Can’t Take it Ourselves | Forbes

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imagesWe’ve all had friends in toxic relationships that came to us for advice. As a third-party observer, we generally have a decent perspective from which to give our thoughts. But many of us have also been that friend—the person in the toxic relationship. In those situations, it’s much harder to give ourselves good advice. At least, it’s much harder to do what we know we should. Why is that? Why are we capable of giving reasonable advice to others but struggle to apply good advice in our own lives?

My colleague Ethan Kross and I ran a series of studies using Qualtrics to answer that very question. Our research disproved long-standing philosophical claims that wisdom comes solely through age and experience. As it turns out, looking at our own situations from an outsider’s perspective can help us channel the wisdom we need to make good choices for ourselves.

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