3 Ways to Make Sure Your Next Virtual Meeting Runs Smoothly| Mashable

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When done right, virtual video meetings — specifically Google Hangouts — can bring distant teams together, make sure everyone is on the same page, and allow everyone to be involved without the dim conference room atmosphere (who doesn’t love chilling out on the couch for a meeting?).

But when done wrong? Google Hangouts can be a huge waste of time, not to mention extremely distracting and awkward 15-second pauses are never fun.

Want to have an efficient and successful Google Hangout that doesn’t drive everyone crazy? Here are a couple of key things to keep in mind.

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Goodwill is a Good Thing | Business-Valuation.biz

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As suggested earlier, there are multiple interpretations of goodwill which extend beyond the SBA’s formulaic definition of “Selling Price Less Book Value of Acquired TangibleAssets”. Although there is some consistency between new GAAP rules on goodwill accounting, the IRS’ “residual method” and this “formula” method, the general shortcoming with the line of thinking put forth by the SBA to restrict or monitor goodwill-based lending is that goodwill should NOT be considered a negative feature or outcome or the reason why businesses default on their loans To the contrary, only successful firms will generate the profits needed to foster the presence of substantial goodwill however defined. In fact, the more profitable successful a firm becomes, the greater the firm’s goodwill value becomes all other things equal. The more profitable an asset-heavy manufacturing firm becomes, the greater the portion of value that is attributed to goodwill – is this a bad thing? In short, “goodwill” is a “good thing”.

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  Wham, Bam, Thank you SPAM. #entrepreneurfail | Getentrepreneurial.com

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As alluring as social media is, it is fleeting and many people never see the posts more than once if at all.

Email provides one of the highest conversions in online marketing because everyone checks their emails – even if only looking at the subject line, and it is always in their inbox until deletion. Catching folks on social media is hit-or- miss.

Unfortunately, the state of email marketing generally consists of the following:
Too much email
Not enough email
Unclear calls to action
Irrelevant information
Too selly sell

The way to combat the “Wham bam, fear of SPAM” blues, here are some tips and tricks to nurture your email subscribers, and not be an entrepreneur fail:

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Coinbase Launches A More Secure Bitcoin Storage Option Called ‘Vault’ | TechCrunch

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One of the amusing things about the fast-maturing Bitcoin ecosystem is how the better-funded start-ups in the space are offering products that increasingly resemble services proffered by banks, the very entities they arguably are trying to disrupt.

With Bitcoin, transactions can be handled anonymously and irreversibly without the need for a third-party mediator. Yet that ability also has made Bitcoin historically prone to theft.

So many bigger Bitcoin start-ups have stepped up to offer different tiers of security. Today, Andreessen Horowitz-backed Coinbase jumps into the ring with a new product called Vault. It is complementary to Coinbase’s wallet, which is intended for day-to-day spending like a checking account.

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The SBA Does Not Loan Money | Peter Mehit

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The SBA Does Not Loan Money

 Q. Should I get a loan from the SBA?

A. You can’t get a loan from the SBA, but you can get a SBA loan guarantee.

Come again?

Well, first off, the SBA does not loan money, so you can’t get a loan from the SBA.  Only banks loan money.  The SBA writes guarantees to limit the losses a bank will experience if your loan goes bad.  This is important to know, because it means you will have to qualify under the bank’s rules.

These can be very different from the SBA’s.  For example, it is not a requirement for you to collateralize the full loan amount to get an SBA guarantee.  Under SBA rules if you run out of assets, but have pledged what you have available, you can be approved.  Right now, we know of no bank that will make a loan without collateral equal to our greater than the amount you’re borrowing.

Each bank’s rules are slightly different, with the large banks having the most restrictive and the local and regional banks being the most liberal.

Continue reading “The SBA Does Not Loan Money | Peter Mehit” →

Could Color Wheels Make for Easier, More Secure Passwords? | WIRED

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The password as we know it is in critical condition. These days, with big-name security breaches popping up seemingly as often as Justin Bieber scandals, we’ve had to try to find new ways to secure our online identities. One finger in the dike has been the “strong” password, or the practice of sprinkling numbers, symbols and capital letters into our codes. If “spike” could be guessed with a simple brute force attack, perhaps “Spike!” leaves us a bit safer.

Of course, strong passwords have the same inherent problems as all passwords. As WIRED writer Mat Honan, himself the victim of a devastating hack, evocatively put it, they’re a “Band-Aid that’s now being washed away in a river of blood.” Still, in the here and now, there’s another problem with these so-called strong passwords, according to design student Renee Verhoeven. It’s something much simpler. “People can’t remember them,” she says.

That’s precisely what she tried to tackle with “ID Protocol,” her graduation project at the Royal College of Arts in London. For the project, Verhoeven created a conceptual series of password tools that scrap letters and numbers in favor of personal, mnemonic codes. Mnemonic memory devices have been around in some form or another since the ancient Greeks, and include basic everyday memory tricks like acronyms and rhymes. Teachers love them: Remember committing My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas to memory, to remember the order of the planets?

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5 Things to Consider When Hiring Friends | Entrepreneur.com

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We’ve all seen the boundaries between our personal and business lives all but disintegrate. More and more, we’re becoming friends with coworkers. But what about employees and bosses? Should they be friends?

5 Things to Consider When Hiring Friends

Over the years I’ve had loads of friends that were also employees. I’ve even called a few CEOs friends. While I’m still on good terms with many of them, there are only a few I would still enjoy hanging out with, and vice versa. And I’m definitely not alone in that regard.

There’s no single reason for the phenomenon, but if I had to boil it down to one sound bite, I’d call it drama. When you work closely with someone there’s always going to be some drama. In time, that adds up to a lot of water under the bridge. And when it’s over, you’d both just as soon put it behind you and move on.

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The Value of Handwritten Notes | The Simple Dollar

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Whenever I happen to stop in a Hallmark store, I’m just astounded as to the wide variety of greeting cards on display in there. There are cards for birthdays, wedding anniversaries, bridal showers, engagements, weddings, new babies, job promotions, new jobs, good-byes, graduations, passing a big test, recovering from illness or surgery, sympathy, apology, christenings, baptisms, bar mitzvahs… and that doesn’t even touch the seasonal cards, like Veteran’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Christmas, and so on. All of these cards are there to express the same basic sentiment: that you’re thinking of someone during some special occasion.

Don’t get me wrong, that sentiment is a great thing. It’s wonderful when people take the time to think of each other on important occasions. My trouble is that the sentiment that they express can just as easily be expressed without spending money on a greeting card. It can be written as a letter or on a very inexpensive blank card.

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