Do you have employees on your staff approaching retirement? If so, you’ll be interested in this BusinessWeek article, which reports how American Express started a program to help its older employees transfer their knowledge to younger workers before they leave the company.

As any small business owner knows, much of what you need to keep your company running is stored inside the heads of your employees. That’s all well and good until someone leaves. Read the rest of this entry »

Berkeley restaurateur Amanda West says it’s only natural that East Bay consumers start demanding more of their fast food.

The 2005 Stanford University M.B.A. graduate is offering them a helping hand, opening Amanda’s Feel Good Fresh Food in downtown Berkeley July 28 – the first of what she hopes will be two dozen locations.

Her endeavor is part of a small, but growing restaurant industry trend nationwide toward healthier fast food and emphasis on purchasing locally produced fruits, vegetables, meat, poultry and dairy products.

Many of the usual menu items found at traditional fast-food eateries are available at Amanda’s – burgers, fries and sodas – but are made of natural and organic ingredients and prepared in healthier fashion.

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One of my current obsessions is the TV show “Mad Men”, a drama revolving around the lives of people who work for an (entrepreneurial) ad agency in 1962. It is fascinating to watch this slice of history, to see how smoking and drinking alcohol—during work hours—was standard operating procedure. But what really has me transfixed are the women. This was a time when women were housewives, secretaries or sluts. There were good girls and bad girls and nothing in between. Women with ambition were scorned by the other “girls” in the office and objectified by men.

Life has changed so much for women—it sometimes amazes me that those beliefs and behaviors existed in my lifetime. And so here we are, 46 years later, in the midst of a political season that almost saw a woman nominated for President of the United States and has the second woman in our history running for vice president.

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When she opened her home furnishings store four years ago, Dawn Adamec was looking forward to putting her 15 years of interior design experience behind her to focus more on selling.

But Adamec learned quickly that funky pillows, scented candles and fancy stationery don’t pay the bills for her store, Urban Abode, in downtown Waukesha, Wis.

“Looking back, I had some really goofy inventory picks,” Adamec said. “Now I really watch my inventory and have had a great turnover rate. I don’t buy it unless I’ve already got half of the load sold.”

By returning to her interior design roots, Adamec has not only been able to make a profit, she has a growing list of clients who want to tap into her expertise in home decor.

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The other day one of my partners sent me two articles that really hit home with me and, I bet, with lots of you. One reported on how an increasing number of workers are eating lunch at their desks instead of taking a real lunch break—worried about being perceived as “slackers” and maybe even losing their jobs if they step out for an hour. The other said that stress and hunger lead to poor food choices. Read the rest of this entry »

Wendy Selig-Prieb watches nearly every Milwaukee Brewers baseball game, thanks to the cable and satellite network package available to her home in the Phoenix area.

Selig-Prieb, former president and chief executive officer of the Brewers, also attends games at Miller Park when she’s visiting family in Milwaukee.

“I am still emotionally tied to the team,” said Selig-Prieb, who took over the reins of the ballclub from her father, Bud Selig, the Brewers’ former controlling partner, in 1998 when he became commissioner of Major League Baseball.

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I talk a lot in my columns here about owning a business. But I know many of you are not entrepreneurs — yet. To help encourage, well, actually push you in that direction, let’s talk about one of the first things you should do once you’ve decided to start a business — build a web site.

First, let me say that I am one of those firm believers that every business, no matter how big or how small, whether part-time or full-time, needs to have its own web site. Whether you plan to sell products (an e-commerce site) or use the site as a promotional tool, you shouldn’t start a business without one. Read the rest of this entry »

Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain has picked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate in the presidential race.

Palin, 44, is conservative on social, tax and economic issues. She supports more offshore drilling, as well as drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

This is the first nomination of a woman for vice president in the Republican Party and comes after Democratic nominee Barack Obama, a U.S. Senator from Illinois, picked U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden as his running mate and not U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Several other women were considered by McCain for the vice presidential slot, including U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina.

Palin had the support of conservatives and those in the GOP camp looking to garner support from women and swing voters.

NY Times: McCain Chooses Palin as Running Mate
bizjournals.com: Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is McCain’s choice for GOP running mate

Getting venture capital remains a struggle for many female entrepreneurs. So how did Alexandra Wilkis Wilson and Alexis Maybank get $5 million in venture capital before their business was even profitable? The women own the Gilt Groupe, a web site that sells luxury clothes and accessories at sample-sale prices. There’s a viral component to the site, since members must be invited to join by other members. (I was invited as a good friend and shopping buddy to join.) On Ladies Who Launch, an organization that offers resources for women entrepreneurs, the founders of Gilt Groupe offered some tips about getting financing: Read the rest of this entry »

Forbes has named Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, the world’s most powerful woman for the third year in a row.

The rankings measure power as a combination of public profile and “financial heft,” according to Forbes, determined by the number of press mentions and the amount of money the woman controls.

The rest of the top 10 on this year’s Forbes Most Powerful Women list are:

Sheila C. Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
Indra K. Nooyi, chairman and chief executive of PepsiCo
Angela Braly, chief executive and president of WellPoint
Cynthia Carroll, chief executive of Anglo American
Irene B. Rosenfeld, chairman and chief executive of Kraft Foods
Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state
Ho Ching, chief executive of Temasek Holdings
Anne Lauvergeon, chief executive of Areva
Anne Mulcahy, chairman and chief executive of Xerox Corp.

For the full Forbes list, click here

For bizwomen’s coverage of last year’s Forbes list, click here