Corporate & Securities Law

Olympic Medals? Let Me Count the Ways

Posted on August 22, 2008
The Washington Post reports that every day since the games began, the Olympics medal chart has dominated the front page of China's main state-run newspapers. China is always ranked first based on the number of gold medals won. The U.S. media trumpets the total medals tally...

Expand the Pie Before Dividing It Up

Posted on August 21, 2008
"Many managers who view themselves as the heroic guardians of shareholder interests?the no-nonsense, tough-as-nails guys who run their businesses by the numbers, who pride themselves on their hypercompetitiveness, and who think that "organizational culture" and "shared values" are irrelevant fantasies concocted by out-of-touch academics?may be inadvertently running their companies into the ground and systematically destroying the wealth of their investors...

Who's Winning in Your Workplace?

Posted on August 21, 2008
"Are competition and cooperation at play in your work environment? The Olympic Games are a great example of how dynamic forces balance and reinforce each other in large systems. At the same time that national pride pushes countries to compete aggressively from sport to sport, so too is a spirit of cooperation in evidence as individual athletes demonstrate sportsmanship and countries agree on standards regarding everything from scoring practices to drug testing...

In The Mountain

Posted on August 17, 2008
Chilled in Old Tingri, we awake after restlessly tossing the night in the ramshackle motel ruled by a green-haired Tibetan princess. Darling daughter and I fondly recall the proprietor?s response to my earlier inquiry about the availability of showers...

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So You Want to Take Your Company Public?

Posted on August 08, 2008
"The following are among the most important matters to be addressed by IPO candidates in the six-to-twelve months before an IPO. "Pricing Option Grants: For a venture-backed company that grants employee stock options (as almost all do), the SEC will review during the IPO registration process the company's determination of fair market value...

How Do You Define Success?

Posted on July 30, 2008
Today's quotation from livinglifefully.com:"It takes courage to buck the tide, but once you start to experience the freedom that comes from actively creating your own interpretation of success, you?ll find it easy to move on from people who haven?t yet figured out that having it all or spending long hours at an unsatisfying job will never define who they truly are, no matter how high the pay...

Consider Garden Leave Employment Termination Clauses

Posted on June 05, 2008
"'Garden leave' has become a common tool in English employment contracts for curtailing a departing employee's ability to work for the competition. Anecdotal evidence suggests that American employers, primarily on the East Coast, have begun inserting garden leave clauses into employment agreements...

Templates for Small Business Owners

Posted on May 18, 2008
Templates from Microsoft for Small Business OwnersBusiness plan for startup businessBank loan request for small businessProjected balance sheetPersonal financial statementFour-year profit projectionStart-up expensesOpening day balance sheetFinancial history and ratios12 month profit and loss projection12 month sales forecastCompetitive analysis

You Go Girl - Women Boxing in the Early 1900's

Posted on May 05, 2008
The Library of Congress posted this 1910 photo on Flickr recently of the Bennett sisters boxing. "What is this?" I wondered. I searched around and found that women's boxing is much older than I thought. The site, womenboxing.com explains:"While women's boxing can loosely trace it beginnings to London in the 1720's, throughout the ensuing decades, there were various exhibitions and scattered bouts until the 1950's when several fighters, most notably Barbara Buttrick, JoAnn Hagen (Verhaegen), and Phyllis Kugler staged professional fights...

Rhino Party Rah Rah Rah

Posted on May 01, 2008
The Parti Rhinocéros, AKA the Rhinoceros Party, was registered in Canada for more than 30 years. They issued ?A promise to keep none of our promises.? Members of the party claimed to be the ?spiritual descendants? of Cacareco, a Brazilian rhino that was elected to São Paulo?s city council in the 1950s...

Where Does Creativity Come From?

Posted on April 27, 2008
Novelist Amy Tan digs deep into the creative process, journeying through her childhood and family history and into the worlds of physics and chance, looking for hints of where her own creativity comes from. It's a wild ride with a surprise ending.

Overcoming Resistance to Change

Posted on April 27, 2008
Want to start a business or make some other personal change? Something holding you back? Perhaps you will recognize yourself in this list from How to Save the World. It is a top ten list of obstacles to making changes and ideas for how to overcome them:"1...

an Entrepreneur State of Mind

Posted on April 25, 2008
Being an entrepreneur is more than just starting a business, says Shutterfly CEO and dot-com veteran Jeff Housenbold. Entrepreneurial thinking involves an innovative mindset to create new products, new markets, and new ideas within any set of circumstances - from an existing Fortune 500 to a mom-and-pop shop...

Checklist for Forming a Partnership

Posted on April 04, 2008
From Findlaw:If you are thinking of starting a partnership, below is a checklist of steps to take before you open for business. Keep in mind that your partnership's startup requirements might vary from the list below, depending on the specific type of business you are in, and where your business is located...

Systems Thinking Applies to Software Development

Posted on April 02, 2008
"The Systems Thinking Laws from Peter Senge?s book ?The Fifth Discipline? applied to Software Development.1. Today?s problems come from yesterday?s solutions...2. The harder you push, the harder the system pushes back...3. Behavior grows better before it grows worse...

Sharpen Your Skills

Posted on March 28, 2008
Sharpening Your Skills (from HBS Working Knowledge) brings together articles on ways to improve your business skills.Questions to be answered:Should I keep control of my company?How do I turn potential into profit?How can a resource-challenged start-up grow?What legal mistakes should I watch out for in starting a new company?Should I keep control of my company?Rich or Royal: What Do Founders Want? It's a fundamental tension many entrepreneurs face, the conflict between wanting to become rich and wanting to keep control of their new company...

St. Francis Hospital Implosion

Posted on March 24, 2008
To make say for the new Pittsburgh Penguins arena, old St. Francis Hospital bit the dust on Saturday. Here is a video of the implosion from StartPoint Media

Overconfidence in Sheep's Clothing

Posted on March 05, 2008
"What else can psychology tell us about running a business? "One example... [is] 'the illusion of validity.' This is the sense that you have that you understand somebody and you can predict how they will behave. The reason I call this the illusion of validity is that we knew from the statistics that we were actually not able to predict how people would behave...

Myron Cope: Rest in Peace

Posted on February 27, 2008
"Myron Cope, the screechy-voiced announcer whose colorful catch phrases and twirling Terrible Towel became symbols of the Pittsburgh Steelers during an unrivaled 35 seasons in the broadcast booth, has died. He was 79... Cope's tenure from 1970 to 2004 as the color analyst on the Steelers' radio network is the longest in NFL history for a broadcaster with a single team...

Rosie the Riveter

Posted on February 26, 2008
"Rosie the Riveter is the female icon of World War II. She is the home-front equivalent of G.I. Joe. She represents any woman defense worker. And for many women, she's an example of a strong, competent foremother...the woman in the bandanna rolling up the sleeve on her raised bent arm...

Hope for Strummers

Posted on February 25, 2008
I still strum my guitar after all these years, mostly Beatles tunes. I never learned to play lead. Judging by the gaping hole in his worn guitar on display during last night's performance of the Oscar winning song "Falling Slowly" Glen Hansard is a strummer too, from way back...

Strategic Decision Making Traps

Posted on February 25, 2008
"There are a series of traps that people fall into [in making decisions], that lead to incorrect judgements being reached, whatever the quality of the preceding analysis. The incidence of this is high. The cost, given that these are strategic decisions, is commensurately large...

Just Do It

Posted on February 20, 2008
Message to me:"Most of us have had the experience of tackling some dreaded task only to come out the other side feeling invigorated, filled with a new sense of confidence and strength. The funny thing is, most of the time when we do them, we come out on the other side changed and often wondering what we were so worried about or why it took us so long...

Who are You When No One is Looking?

Posted on February 19, 2008
"Any nuts-and-bolts leadership primer will explain that one of the key leadership competencies is holding others accountable...While this is an important dimension of leadership, it is easy to slip, when it comes to accountability for our own behavior...

What Investors Want

Posted on February 13, 2008
From Educators Corner come new podcasts well worth a listen:Podcast: Angel Investing Revealed Ron Conway, Angel Investors LP Mike Maples Jr., Maples Investments 60 min. 13 sec. Experienced angel investors, Ron Conway, Founder of Angel Investors LP, and Mike Maples, Founder of Maples Investments, provide a rare look into the ins and outs of angel investing...

So Want to Be Acquired by Google?

Posted on February 06, 2008
This article from Fenwick & West is written for the directors and executives of emerging technology companies (referred to as TechCos) who are considering selling their company to a larger, more sophisticated company (referred to as LargeCo). TechCos are privately held companies that exploit something new (technology, products or niche markets), experience rapid change (growth, market, profitability or cash flow) and typically are short on infrastructure and capital resources...

My Favorite SuperBowl Ad

Posted on February 04, 2008
The screaming grasshopper rocks even though you can barely hear it.

Tyree-fic Catch of the Century

Posted on February 04, 2008

No Decision is Perfect

Posted on February 01, 2008
"People usually make decisions in one of two ways: They analyze the pros and cons, or they go with their gut instincts. In psychology and business journals, writers who you'd think have better things to do use up gallons of ink arguing about which approach is better...

the Fine Art of Schmoozing

Posted on February 01, 2008
This article by Bruce L. Katcher offers valuable tips for making the most of your networking meeting opportunities, including the following:"Your professional network is one of your most valuable assets. Professional networking meetings are one of the best ways to continually revitalize and grow your network...

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