Russia to Remain Banned From Olympics After Doping Scandal | ABC News

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Russian track-and-field athletes will remain barred from international competition over a doping scandal, the world athletics’ governing body announced today before this summer’s Olympics in Brazil.

After meeting in Vienna, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) decided not to reinstate Russia’s track and field federation, which has been suspended from international competitions after it was implicated in an elaborate alleged state-sponsored doping cover-up in November.

Russia is the first country to be excluded from the Olympics over doping. Its track-and-field athletes are banned from the Rio de Janeiro Games.

Read More

Opening the door to further opportunity online | The Startup Magazine

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Having a website means you have secured your piece of real estate online, you are present and ready to welcome customers. But part of the game is working to bring traffic into your storefront.

Cisco’s Visual Networking Index, released this month, predicts that internet traffic will almost triple in the next few years due to an increasing number of people coming online. The report forecasts that by the end of the decade there will be 3.4 devices and connections for each human being, an increase from 2.2 in 2015.[1] Within this scenario, each and every small business or startup hopes to be in a position to capture at least some of that incoming traffic.

Equipped with your domain name and website, it is time to start looking at ways to help ensure your online presence is performing to give you exposure to the growing internet population. Here are a few areas to consider working on:

Read More

Women Hold Nearly One Third Of Global Private Wealth | Forbes

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

For the first time in six years, the group’s annual global wealth report looked specifically at women and found that among those women with a private net worth of $100,000 or more, 44% were self-made, meaning that they were entrepreneurs or company employees and had grown their wealth independently. The other 27% received their wealth through inheritance, 15% through their spouse, 9% through divorce settlements, and 5% fell into a miscellaneous category. Boston Consulting Group partner, Anna Zakrzewski noted that the “gender pay gap is shrinking” for the high percentage of self-made women in the group. In total, women’s private wealth analyzed in the research adds up to $39.6 trillion globally, roughly the same as the Asia-Pacific region’s $37 trillion in combined private wealth holdings.

Read More

Is the On-Demand Economy Helping or Hurting Entrepreneurship? | Business News Daily

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

On-demand services like Uber are becoming increasingly popular with consumers, but they’re also having a significant impact on entrepreneurship, according to a new study.

Researchers at the University of Michigan, University of Minnesota and Temple University discovered that within one year of Uber and Postmates entering a new geographic location, entrepreneurial activity in those cities declined.

Read More

Whole Foods gets warning letter from FDA | Money CNN

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

When it rains, it pours for Whole Foods. Literally, it seems.

The Food and Drug Administration sent a warning letter to Whole Foods co-CEOs John Mackey and Walter Robb about what the FDA called “serious violations” it found after inspecting a Whole Foods food preparation facility in Everett, MA, in February.

The FDA said in the letter — dated June 8 — that it found various items, including pesto pasta, mushroom quesadillas, egg salad and couscous, were in areas where “condensate” was leaking from ceiling joints, a doorway and condenser fan.

Read More

 How Can Big Data Help You In Your Business | Getentrepreneurial.com

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Data is one of the most important things that your business can possess. It will tell you if your are making the most profitable choice for your company or whether you may want to think about adjusting how you complete a job for a client. What kind of data can be useful when creating and growing a profitable enterprise?

Know Where Your Customers Are

Let’s say that you want to start a grout cleaning business in your neighborhood. While there very well be a market for that, you don’t know unless you have the information that supports your hypothesis. For instance, you will want to know how many homes or housing developments are located in your area.

Read More

Better late than never? Microsoft missed a chance to buy LinkedIn for $1.5 billion | Mashable 

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Microsoft’s blockbuster $26 billion acquisition of LinkedIn on Monday may have come out of left field, but it was a courtship many years in the making.

From LinkedIn’s earliest days after launching 14 years ago, Microsoft was considered the only possible “logical buyer,” according to one LinkedIn insider.

The problem was Microsoft — like most of its peers — didn’t see the logic in buying LinkedIn.

“People never fully understood the value LinkedIn was creating until after they went public,” says Mark Kvamme, an early LinkedIn investor and former member of its board of directors. “No one ever truly understood the value of what Reid [Hoffman, founder] and Jeff [Weiner, CEO] were building.”

Read More

Startups Are Giving Unwanted Foods New Life | Co.Exist 

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Food waste isn’t a new problem. People have been grumbling about squandered produce for years. Now entrepreneurs are starting to do something about it: Recently we’ve come across several initiatives that attack the issue in new ways.

One of those is Cerplus, a marketplace for wasted food in the Bay Area. Set up by Zoe Wong in November 2015, it matches food that farmers and wholesalers can’t sell through conventional channels with buyers like restaurants and smoothie-makers. So far, about 16,000 pounds of zucchini, broccoli, strawberries, and the like, have been transacted through the system, she says.

Read More

Brexit Europe risk | Business Insider

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Everyone is suddenly talking about the coming Brexit vote.

With Britain preparing to vote in a June 23 referendum on whether to leave the European Union, the latest polls seem to suggest that Brits are leaning toward Leave:

The ICM phone and online poll: Remain 47% / Leave 53%

ORB phone poll: Remain 48% / Leave 49%

YouGov online poll: Remain 39% / Leave 46%

Read More