Everything You Need To Know About LinkedIn Endorsements | Forbes

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downloadSince LinkedIn introduced its endorsements feature more than two years ago, we’ve all received  endorsements for skills we didn’t know we had from people we didn’t know we knew.

Though I think I could do a good job of writing about food, I’ve never done it, so I was mystified when  five people endorsed me for “Food Writing.” Another mystery endorsement came from someone who checked off “Celebrity,” whatever that means.

Should I just let those endorsements stand, assuming any positive mark on my profile will help me? Or is there some way I can edit endorsements to make them reflect better what I do? What should I do when I get an endorsement out of the blue from someone whose name doesn’t ring a bell? Should I be in touch with and endorse the people who endorse me?

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Israeli Moms Mentored by Google for Women Making Startups | Bloomberg

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Women cradle newborn babies in their arms and dangle soft toys in front of older infants on colorful mattresses, all in a room in a Tel Aviv high-rise strewn with strollers and oversized bean bags.

It’s not a play facility. It’s the location of Google Inc. (GOOG)’s first baby-friendly school for startups. Called Campus for Moms, the program involves a series of nine weekly classes designed to give women on maternity leave a boost toward opening their own ventures in a country whose economy is dependent on innovation.

“The course helped me realize that this is who I am,” said Nira Sheleg, a 37-year-old mother of two who founded Wizer.me, a teacher-resource company, during the program. “I am an entrepreneur, not just a mom with an idea. Now I have a support group, and the mothers around me are amazing.”

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10 Things Your Kids Will Live Without | Fox Business

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Fifty years ago photos were black and white, music players were mono, phones were rotary, TVs had maybe five stations, milk came to your door, and if you wanted to send someone a message, you had to put a stamp on it and drop it in the mailbox.

If you could somehow go back to 1964 and show someone a video of a day in the life of a modern teenager, the guy would probably become catatonic and you’d have to literally dial the operator for help because 911 didn’t even exist yet.

Now, I’m no futurist but if you’ve got little kids, I’d be willing to bet they’ll be living in a world without these 10 indispensable things you and I grew up with:

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Are You More Productive At The Office When Your Team Includes Both Genders? | Forbes

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imagesIn one of my first jobs out of college I worked in a small San Francisco public relations firm, Horne, McClatchy & Associates, whose eight employees were all women. Now defunct, the firm raised money and staged special events for non-profit groups like UNICEF and the Exploratorium science museum. I liked my executive assistant job and I especially liked my boss, a kind, creative woman who was also a published poet.

But the longer I worked there, the more I realized I didn’t like that there were no men in the office. I feel like a bad feminist saying this, and it’s hard to put my finger on exactly what it was about the atmosphere that grated on me. A former colleague recalls a kind of “mean girls” targeting of one of the managers, who wasn’t as efficient and well-turned-out as the other three, and there was a competitive atmosphere that I found unpleasant, which seemed tied to the fact that we were all female. Hastings law professor Joan Williams, author of What Works for Women at Work, has called the competition between women at work the “tug of war.”

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For Entrepreneurs, Is Impatience a Blessing or a Curse? | All Business

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downloadI have never been a patient person; it’s the way I’m wired. Once I have an idea of where I want to go, I want to get there as soon as possible … even if it means getting out of bed at 3:00 a.m. I don’t see the point in waiting.

I know this internal sense of urgency can annoy others and my haste has stung me a few times in life. But I firmly believe an entrepreneur needs some level of impatience in order to succeed. Over the course of my career, impatience has been my friend – but like anything, moderation (or management) is the key.

Many smart people never succeed as an entrepreneur. We often chalk this up to risk aversion, fear of failure, or just plain old bad luck. However, I think the worst thing you can do as an entrepreneur is wait for things to come to you.

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Why Entrepreneurs Are Important for the Economy | Investopedia

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imagesEntrepreneurs are frequently thought of as national assets to be cultivated, motivated and remunerated to the greatest possible extent.

Entrepreneurs can change the way we live and work. If successful, their innovations may improve our standard of living. In short, in addition to creating wealth from their entrepreneurial ventures, they also create jobs and the conditions for a prosperous society.

The following are six reasons why entrepreneurs are important to the economy.

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This bike path is made entirely of solar panels | Public Radio International

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If you could get up on the roof of our offices in Boston, you’d be standing amongst a bunch of solar panels. That’s not so unusual.

But in The Netherlands, they’re experimenting with putting solar panels in a much more unusual place: Bike paths.

A bike path made of solar panels opened today in a suburb outside of Amsterdam. Just 230 feet of it exist. Designers say it’s enough to power three homes.

But is it worth the cost? Many in this cycling crazed culture say yes.

“It’s incredible. It’s the world’s first ever public, solar cycle path,” says the BBC’s Anna Holligan. “There are actually more bikes than people in this country. It’s famous for cycling. So it’s the right place to be testing this pioneering technology.”

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Amazon’s Bargain Button Could Actually Be Good for the Economy | Businessweek

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Amazon (AMZN) is now taking bids. Venders who sell on Amazon can enable a “make an offer” feature that allows customers to offer a lower than list price. The seller can accept, reject, or counter the offer. If one makes a counteroffer, buyer and seller can haggle over e-mail and—if they reach an agreement—pay Amazon its commission. So far, the option is available only for 150,000 goods on the website, mostly art and collectables.

Amazon may extended the option to hundreds of thousands of items for sale within the next year. Amazon calls the offer process a “game-changer.”While that’s probably an exaggeration, bargaining does have the potential to change American retail, quite possibly for the better.

In plenty of countries, people negotiate for nearly everything. Not so in the U.S., where bargaining on price tends to be limited to cars, real estate, and cable service. Research suggests that Americans are uncomfortable with the little haggling they do. In a LinkedIn (LNKD)survey of 2000 professionals in 2012, Americans (especially women) reported being more anxious than any other nationality when it comes to negotiating. (Indians feel most confident, followed by Germans.)

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