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Making the best of days where it all goes wrong

Anne Rose Business Management, Services & Risk Management

Have you ever had one of those days where nothing goes right and everything goes wrong? No matter what you touch, there’s a screw-up. At the end of the day, you have nothing to show for your work and just wish you could have a "do-over." I had one of those days recently. Absolutely nothing went right. Total failure. Failed culinary skills. Failed computer skills. I was a failure. The day was a failure! The next morning it occurred to me what my biggest failure was: measuring my day by whether or not activities proceeded according to my plan.

Farms try to stay afloat amid troubled financial, commercial waters

Seth Sandronsky Food & Beverage

Farm cash flow is down, along with loans from big banks, as the China-U.S. trade war widens, Reuters is reporting. Beijing’s soybean tariffs are hurting American farmers, and spring flooding propelled in part by climate change is making bad matters worse. As farm cash flow slows, "JPMorgan and other Wall Street banks are heading for the exits," according to an analysis of the farm-loan holdings reported to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

Why meatless madness won’t be going away any time soon

Dave G. Houser Food & Beverage

There’s no doubt about it — we Americans love our meat. We eat more of it per-person than any country in the world except Luxembourg. Health experts and environmentalists tell us this is not a good thing. The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared that meat — red and white — contributes directly to heart disease, stroke, diabetes and various types of cancer. The heavy environmental impacts of conventional meat production are a major concern as well. Under such circumstances, it should come as no surprise that vegetable-based burgers that look like meat and taste like meat are winning over millions of skeptical consumers, taking Wall Street by storm and prompting Big Ag to jump into a potentially lucrative business that began on the vegan fringe.

LinkedIn: Considerations for military personnel transitioning to a civilian…

Roy Phillips Law Enforcement, Defense & Security

If you will soon be transitioning from the military, it may be a good idea to create a professional-looking LinkedIn profile. Understandably, many service members are wary of social media websites. This is especially true for anyone who has gone through the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) course. However, if you are all through with your military service, LinkedIn may help you land the right job. There are some very important considerations to make before you create your profile.

Your company’s biggest cybersecurity risks: Technology and processes

Terri Williams Science & Technology

A recent SANS survey of security professionals identified today's biggest cybersecurity risks. Among survey respondents, 61% chose people as the greatest risk, and Part 1 of this article examined why. However, 22% of security professionals identified technology as the greatest risk, and 14% selected processes and procedures. Part 2 of this article examines those risks in addition to ways to making your company more secure.

Are the good times over for marketers on Instagram?

Emma Fitzpatrick Marketing

In June 2018, Instagram hit a huge milestone: over 1 billion monthly active users. That's double the number of users the platform had just two years before. For now, it looks like growth on Instagram isn't slowing down anytime soon. It helps that there are still many people not currently on the platform. But a new report from Trust Insights warns that marketers may need to gear up for a battle they know too well already: dwindling organic reach. In early May, the average number of engagements on brand posts (namely likes) began declining. By the end of the month, engagements were down 18% compared to early in 2019.

The well-dressed board agenda

Robert C. Harris Association Management

The focus of a board meeting is the agenda. An agenda is the list of activities in the order in which they are to be taken up, beginning with the call to order and ending with adjournment. It usually includes specific items of business to be acted upon. It may, but is not required to, include specific times for one or more activities. A well-dressed agenda can achieve so much more, however. With a few reminders, the agenda can address IRS and FTC issues. The mission can be depicted to keep the board focused.

3 ways AR and VR are reshaping efficient work

Joseph Zulick Science & Technology

Some people believe that the entire concept of "work" will be reimagined and reexamined in the near future. In fact, "work" is already changing, and augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are playing a significant role in that change. There are already large corporations and small businesses that are preparing for this shift, too. Here are some of the ways in which AR/VR will change the way work gets done in the near future.

How you can provide a healing environment at your workplace

Lisa Cole Business Management, Services & Risk Management

When I think about a healing environment, rest, beauty and love instantly come to mind. Yet, how often do we encounter any of these three qualities in a typical healthcare encounter? Or in any workplace? Kate Strasburg and Traci Teraoka, co-founders of Healing Environments, spent 15 years creating environments conducive to healing. Let's take up their torch and put on our thinking caps.

What should we do about economic inequality?

Patrick Gleeson Civil & Government

In our increasingly fractured political sphere, one of the hot-button issues is "economic inequality." Some conservatives have expressed doubt that there’s a need to reduce it — that maybe some economic inequality is necessary for growth. That’s a minority view, however, even among conservatives. Many Republicans and almost all Democrats believe the current concentration of wealth among a small percentage of the population isn’t sustainable over the long run — that something must be done to lessen it. Predictably, however, Republicans and Democrats have very different ideas about what that something might be.

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