I came across an article written by Dr. David M. Anderson about Design for Manufacturability where he talks about The Rule of 10.  He claims that it costs 10 times more to find and repair a defect at the next stage of assembly, and then it costs 10 times more at each subsequent stage of assembly. So

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The clinic is open to boys and girls ages 9-17. Cost is $50. $5 of each registration will be donated back to the school/program associated with the registrant! Visit www.showcasebasketball.com

Register now! Space is limited.

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As a small business owner, you may never see the need to grow your company so that you have more than a few employees. Or maybe you never plan to hire even one employee. So, does this mean that you will never have to develop a training plan? Probably not.

Even if you never hire a single employee, at some point you may need to hire a contractor to take over a few tasks or to help with a project. More than likely, you will need to train him or her in some aspect of your business. Get full info…

Drydens basic point is about the nature of adversarial contexts. Hockey, like commerce, is a fundamentally adversarial context that also happens to be socially beneficial. That is, the rest of society benefits from the fact that both hockey players and business executives regard the other team as the enemy, and try their best to outdo them.

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But businesses still have an opportunity to market to this generation, which will have the most buying power in about five years’ time, one analyst says – they only need to be more subtle and advertise through a variety of different channels.

“There’s a recognition in the marketing community now that you can’t do forced marketing,” says IBISWorld senior analyst Naren Sivasailam. “Generation Z

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Have you ever seen a “roof certification” sample? They’re interesting.

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Attorney:

Most business owners already have an attorney whom they trust.  Often, this person has been advising the seller for many years.  The real issue is that law, like medicine, is a specialized practice.  You would not want your family practice physician surgically removing your gall bladder.  Similarly, you would not be well advised to have a general practice attorney handling a complex M&A transaction. My br

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The proposal is the latest hit at the direct marketing industry, after the Do Not Call register was established in 2006.

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So what makes a good marketing plan? Recently on Tim Berrys AmEx OPEN Forum blog, the Bplans.com founder explained how you can tell the quality of a marketing plan:

You can measure it by the decisions that follow, the business it generates and how well its implemented. A brilliant marketing plan that is not executed is worth much less than a mediocre marketing plan thats carried out.

The plans value is in the success of the business.

Tims piece is a great introduction to marketing plans.

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The first and most obvious thing is that Facebook is a helluva lot bigger than Twitter. When this data was collected Facebook had five times as many users at 500 million vs. 106 million for Twitter. The figures right now are a little closer with Twitter growing to 300m users against Facebook’s 800m.

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The main charge here seems to be some form of hypocrisy. Critics suppose that theres some sort of contradiction involved in a sporting event being sponsored by a fast-food chain. But there is, of course, no contradiction at all — at least not for those of use who take both our sports and our junk food in moderation. True, a diet that includes frequent trips to McDonalds seems inconsistent with a lifestyle aimed at maximal athletic output. Theres a real conflict there. B

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As outlined in SmartCompany this week, just half of Australian small and medium-sized businesses have a website, despite international studies showing companies with a “high web presence” have higher revenue growth and generate more jobs.

Global marketing expert Professor Wagner Kamakura says there are plenty of ways for companies to create buzz about their products, without a massive advertising spend.

Kamakura, a researcher and teacher at the Duke University Fuqua School of Business in the US, revealed these key insights to SmartCompany:

1. You

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Recently Google has been working over-time adding new services and features to its search engine and altering their algorithms, while at the same time integrating data from a range of their other services such as Google Plus and Google Maps. This is now starting to show in their search results which are no longer restricted to organic links, but also a range of ‘tailored’ information displayed through Google itself.

Chances are that when you search online you are looking for a website written by an individual that contains the information you are looking for. The

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The newly offered accelerated RN to BSN program now enables qualified students to complete the nursing courses in three semesters, after completing the prerequisites. A capstone course includes the required clinical experience.

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But wait.

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Franchise opportunities are plenty so long as people have dreams that address other peoples needs.  A unique product or special service could be a great concept for a successful business if only you can find a financial partner.  Financing that is where the difficulty lies.  Lending institutions, particularly large banks, should extend more loans especially to small businesses.  This was and still is one of the major challenges the franchising industry faces in 2012.

Franchises connect with their markets by networking through the Internet.  Customers, on the other hand, can easily and in a timely manner, search, identify, locate and contact franchise companies that they are interested in.  Even franchises that are home-based can be competitive with the help of networking partners.  The Internet sort of levels the playing field for all.

Through social media, non-IFA (International Franchise Association) companies can air their offerings and concerns as broadly and widely as IFA members.   The public can likewise be aware of the goods and services offered, developments, trends and issues in the franchise world.

For this year, franchise growth will continue to struggle as the US economy has not moved forward.  The IFA for its part is targeting two sectors – professional athletes and military veterans – to consider franchise opportunities.  Veterans returning from overseas assignments are suited to be franchise owners because of their discipline, leadership skills and technological know-how.  Some IFA members are even offering incentives like discounted fees and free training to interested veterans.

Professional athletes, on the other hand, do not have much problem as far as financing is concerned.  The industry will greatly benefit from the publicity brought by their involvement in franchising.

SmallBizTrends.com has more on what to expect of the franchising industry this 2012.

There’s certainly no shortage of dynamic concepts to explore in franchising in 2012. Finding opportunitie

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In the last two days there has been an avalanche of economic data, including two business confidence reports, job ad data, car sales and official statistics on company profits.

SmartCompany has sifted through the latest takes on the economy to extract the good things about the economy and reasons for caution.

First, the good news:

Profit, sales expectations on the rise

This week’s Dun & Bradstreet national business expectations survey – of 1200 business owners and senior executives – shows that sales expectations have climbed 15 points, to be more than 13 points above the ten-year average index.

Profit expectations are also recovering, D&B says, seven points above the ten-year average index.

Growth, not closure, is on SMEs’ minds

The latest Sensis Business Index finds fewer small businesses are planning to sell or close. The survey, of 1800

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