How Do You Cultivate Innovation ?

Being innovative means solving a problem in a unique and creative way. Companies like Google, Apple, GE and Facebook have made billions because innovation is a principal value in everything they do. Given the positive associations with it, every organization likes to think it fosters innovation, but unfortunately, the truth is often much different. This week's Culture Beat explores the qualities of truly innovative cultures. How does yours stack up?
Promoting Pride in the Individual and the Organization
According to research recently published in the Journal of Business Venturing, which looked at two decades of data on 62 countries, both individualistic and nationalistic cultures support innovation. While it’s not a major surprise that individualism is strongly associated with innovation, a more intriguing finding is that cultures that value the success of the group and have high degrees of patriotism also encourage innovation in their people. Countries like Japan and Sweden, for instance, are traditionally more collectivist but are also extremely innovative.
Employing Transformational Leadership
Transformational leadership is a management style that seeks to positively impact the attitudes and behaviors of followers. Frequently described as high-energy and high on passion, transformational leaders are focused more on success of the people responsible for the outcome than the success of the outcome itself. Such managers promote intellectual curiosity, open communication, performance rewards and professional development. They are able to articulate a clear vision for progress and, by appealing to the moral high ground, serve as an inspirational role model for employees. Michael Dell of Dell, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Lou Gerstner of IBM and Martin Luther King Jr. are oft-cited examples of transformational leaders.
Giving People Permission to Fail
True innovators know that hitting upon a successful idea is a process of trial and error, and more often than not, you have to experiment with several approaches before finding one that works. Cultures infused with innovation are not risk-averse and don’t hold people back by always insisting on a revenue-winning outcome. By giving employees the freedom to fail, organizations also open themselves up to spectacular wins. Sounds a bit like transformational leadership, doesn’t it? And one need only to look at Microsoft to see it in action.

Don’t Restrict the Focus to R&D
Throwing some budget at research and development departments, or launching a siloed “innovation committee” will not definitively move your culture in the right direction.  Instead, employees in all areas of the business must be encouraged to weave innovative thinking into everyday tasks and projects, and should be rewarded for doing so.
Innovative Cultures Don’t Need Gatekeepers
Fast Company Co.Design bloggers Jens Martin Skibsted and Rasmus Bech Hansen claim that there is a new type of professional in American businesses specifically tasked with innovation. “Innovation custodians” are middle managers assigned to oversee innovators and their processes. “Innovation word-slingers” are external consultants who lead in-house innovation workshops. The problem with innovation professionals, say Skibsted and Hansen, is that they rarely have the maverick outlook that it takes to innovate in a substantive way. Also, innovation should be an attitude that organically runs through the heart of an organization and cannot be easily implemented by a manager with a to-do list.
Do you think your culture breeds innovation?  What advantages and disadvantages do small businesses have in this regard?
Alexandra Levit is a former nationally syndicated business and workplace columnist for The Wall Street Journal and the author of Blind Spots: The 10 Business Myths You Can’t Afford to Believe on Your New Path to Success. Money Magazine’s Online Career Expert of the Year, she regularly speaks at organizations and conferences on issues facing modern employees.

12:49 by Robert dawne · 1

Finding Your Small-Business Calling on Vacation

Most tourists enjoy shopping, but two former corporate executives took it a step further by importing the products they discovered on vacation.
Debby Ruth, an executive on the fast track at a major cable television company, fell in love with Hester van Eeghen’s quirky and colorful handmade leather bags on a shopping trip to Amsterdam in 2004.
“I was absolutely mesmerized and spent half a day in Hester’s boutique,” recalled Ruth, who is now the exclusive U.S. importer of van Eeghen’s handbags, gloves and wallets via Hester van Eeghen U.S.
Ruth admits she never planned to start a small business. But when she was laid off in 2008, she decided to invest her severance package in her own venture: selling van Eeghen’s goods in the U.S.
Amsterdam or Bust
Contacting van Eeghen to discuss the potential business venture was the first challenge. “It took eight months to reach her,” Ruth says. “Hester is one of the busiest women you’ve ever met. I finally hopped on a plane and flew to Amsterdam—without even having an appointment.”
When they finally met over dinner, they explored ways to sell the Italian-made purses, gloves, wallets and briefcases to American fashionistas. Van Eeghen’s hand-sewn bags are pricey, retailing for around $900 for a purse and $300 for leather gloves.
But Ruth’s persistence paid off and so far, the relationship has been positive, according to van Eeghen.
"Working with Debby on the HVE US online boutique was a natural way to have a greater presence in the United States,” said Hester Van Eeghen via e-mail. “We have found the American customers in our Amsterdam shop to be very enthusiastic about my designs. I thought creating the online boutique first would be an ideal way to reach as many people as possible but in a way that was organic."
A Walking Billboard
Soon after van Eeghen made Debby Ruth her exclusive U.S. distributor, Ruth tapped her husband, Tim Lenz, to help her design the sophisticated, minimalist website. Lenz also shot all the photos of van Eeghen’s wares.
Launched in 2010, sales have grown steadily. Ruth said she and van Eeghen split the revenue on the bags sold via the U.S. website. She declined to reveal the financial details of the arrangement or share annual revenues for the privately held U.S. company.
“Our goal is to get big enough to open physical locations,” Ruth says. Meanwhile, she is a walking billboard for her product. “Whenever I’m carrying one of Hester’s bags, people stop me to ask where to buy it.”
Boutique Bubbly
While Debby Ruth found a new career importing handbags, Ruth Frantz, a beverage industry executive, also had a life-changing experience while vacationing abroad. She was visiting several small, mostly family-owned vineyards in France when she was inspired to import the boutique champagne into the U.S. Frantz felt confident she could pull it off, having worked on the global marketing of Ketel One Vodka for a major liquor distributor.
“There are about 4,000 champagne producers in France, yet most Americans only know Moet and Veuve Clicquot,” Frantz says.
Her mission is educating Americans to enjoy the sparkling wine more freely. It’s a challenge, because most Americans drink champagne only for special occasions, Frantz says. Europeans, however, drink champagne to kick off an evening of eating and drinking.
She created a character called Henri and founded Connecticut-based Henri's Reserve about two years ago. For sale is a gift package called the “Guaranteed Seduction Kit” for $300, which includes truffles and candles. One top seller is the $160 "tasting kit" featuring three bottles of champagne and pre-printed cards for making notes about the different wines.
Scaling Up
Frantz depends on food writers, wine bloggers, Facebook and other social media platforms to spread the word about Henri’s Reserve. “We started very small and now it’s all about scaling up,” she says.
Because importing liquor to the U.S. is highly regulated and complicated, Frantz relies on Robert Houde, a Chicago-based wine expert, to manage the logistics. “I source the wines and get them into the country for Ruth,” Houde says. “Our customers really like that these are real wines from real vineyards, versus mass blended wines from big companies.”
Small restaurants looking to set themselves apart from the competition by offering a selection of unique, boutique champagne are a growing percentage of Henri’s Reserve's sales. The privately held company does not release revenues, but Frantz says that although she started the business during the recent recession, sales are growing.
Have you ever drawn business inspiration from a vacation?

12:43 by Robert dawne · 1

How to Pave the Way for Innovative Thinking.

A fun part of owning a business is dreaming up new ways to make money. It can be an immensely satisfying creative process, and the payoff is very tangible. But the rules aren’t obvious. Here are two coaching tips that can help make your team succeed at the innovation game.
Think Big But Accept Small Successes 
As a college student in the early ‘60s, I worked for a company that created programmed learning texts. Out of curiosity, I worked through one of the courses, Introduction to Computing, and had something akin to a religious experience. It quite literally changed my life. I became an evangelical proponent of what computers could do, and sought salvation for my over-drawn bank account as a disciple of IBM.
My plan was to start the first computer service bureau in Albuquerque. I dreamed of leasing a computer, renting a building, and hiring programmers. We’d offer innovative automated accounting services to companies with bookkeepers that punched the keys and yanked the handle on mechanical adding machines.
One major problem: in those days, the cheapest computer I could find cost $2,000 a month. Compared to the $35 a month I was paying for a used Nash Rambler, the cheapest car I could find, that was a fortune.
I had big dreams, but a small success helped me start my first business. I took my newfound computer expertise to a business school, and landed a job teaching programming.
When I asked if I could use their computer during the hours it was idle, management agreed out of nothing more than pure goodness. I lost a lot of sleep writing a payroll program, landed a contract with the Village Inn Pancake House when I figured out how to handle tips, and Business Computer Services was born.
I learned you don’t have to swing for the fence. The arrangement I had with the school wasn’t a base hit, more like an intentional walk, and it was far from my original grandiose plan. But I was in the game.
Don’t Hobble Your Team With Strict Rules
Bill Veeck, twice owner of the White Sox and other teams, is best known for “Grandstand Manager Day” when he gave yes/no cards to fans in the bleachers allowing them to vote on decisions usually reserved for managers—steal, change pitchers, bunt, walk. The team won 5-3, and broke a four-game losing streak.
More than a publicity stunt, giving people control is a huge motivational factor. Conversely, the best way to hobble an innovation opportunity is to follow a policy of “we'll do it the way we've always done it.”
In the ‘80s I took a job as head of an intrapreneurial division of a computer company. We were charged with creating new products that would use a bleeding-edge technology called CD-ROM. HR rounded up an extraordinary selection of existing employees and talented potential hires. Before long, we had a team of brilliant people that could have taken us to the moon if we’d decided that was the direction to go.
But I had two problems: the head of the IT thought I was encroaching on his turf and management didn’t understand that rigid rules stifle the innovation process.
Nevertheless, we prevailed and three of seven new products highlighted in the company’s annual report came out of our division.
Moral of the Story
Innovation needs to be nurtured, encouraged, and protected from politics. A hush-hush division of Lockheed, unknown to everyone else in the company (and the world) and free from the usual corporate rules, built the U-2, the highest-flying aircraft in the world and the SR-71, the fastest aircraft in the world. Today, the Skunk Works is a synonym for innovation.
In a rapidly changing world, innovation is fundamental to business success. Everyone on your team has to be an innovator, and you have to both encourage it and remove obstacles to creativity.
Tom Harnish is a serial entrepreneur. Always on the bleeding edge of technology, he learned what works (and what doesn't) leading projects, products and companies to success (mostly). He can't play a lot of musical instruments.

11:51 by Robert dawne · 2

Microsoft Launches Office 365 For Government

Google scored an important win over Microsoft a few weeks ago when it won a $35 million U.S. government contract to bring its cloud-based office solution to the Department of the Interior. Microsoft’s legacy solutions, of course, remain a staple in government offices, but as more and more agencies want to move their productivity and collaboration services to the cloud, Microsoft is running the risk of losing out in this lucrative market. Today, however, the company is launching a new service that should give more of its government customers, which tend to have very strict data security and privacy regulations, the option to move to the cloud. Microsoft’s new Office 365 for Government is, in the company’s own words, “a new multi-tenant service that stores US government data in a segregated community cloud.”
Google touted its ISO 27001 certification for Google Apps for Business last week, which Office 365 for Government also qualifies for. Just like its predecessor, the Business Productivity Online Suite Federal, Microsoft’s new service also supports a plethora of other certifications, including SAS70 Type II, the US Health Insurance Portability, Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the US Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA). Microsoft also plans to support Criminal Justice Information Security policies soon. The service will soon offer support for IPv6 as well.
The major difference between Microsoft’s enterprise solution and this government cloud is that the government data lives on its own segregated infrastructure. Besides this – and the additional certifications – Microsoft’s government solution includes virtually the same services as the enterprise version, including Exchange Online, Lync Online, SharePoint Online and Office Professional Plus. Given that Microsoft’s enterprise solution is also now FISMA certified, this new service is mainly meant for agencies that have requirements beyond this certification.

11:05 by Robert dawne · 1

9 Steps for Getting Kickstarter Dollars

These days, more Kickstarter campaigns are achieving success than we can keep track of. The iPhone-friendly Pebble watch earned $7.6 million more than its $100,000 goal. And the Galileo iPhone platform closed its Kickstarter campaign at $702,000, far surpassing its $100,000 goal.
Not to mention, Kickstarter recently reported it has raised $200 million from over 2 million backers.
How does one cash in (literally) on the Kickstarter craze? For starters, it helps to have a unique concept, wicked ambition and one unforgettable pitch. We've read all of Kickstarter's guidelines, FAQs and tips, and have researched testimonials from successful campaign alums to compile a set of tips that will help launch you into the Kickstarter hall of fame.
1. The Scope
Kickstarter projects are just that: projects. And Kickstarter has strict parameters to define a project. It's "something finite with a clear beginning and end." In other words, Kickstarter is not meant to help you earn money to launch a business. Rather, it’s about earning money to complete a finite goal, whether that’s releasing your band’s latest album, completing a book, etc.
Now, if that project just so happens to coincide with the launching of your business, so be it. However, don’t expect to use Kickstarter funds toward anything related to general business–you can use the money towards the development of your project and in paying the necessary people to get your work off the ground. So, set very specific and measurable project goals. Not only will Kickstarter approve your project, but potential backers will have a firmer understanding of what they’re funding.
2. The Timeline
One of the biggest factors to take into account is your project’s timeline. This will dictate how long your Kickstarter campaign should run and how long it will take to deliver the finished product.
You can set a Kickstarter campaign to run anywhere between one and 60 days. Keep in mind, however, that projects lasting 30 days or less have Kickstarter’s highest success rates. A project’s momentum climbs in the beginning and the end, but can lag during a too-long middle time period. Find a happy medium between your timeframe and your audience’s attention span.
A timeline is also important so that you can set mailing dates for your backers’ rewards, another essential piece of the Kickstarter experience. Be sure to give yourself enough time to complete your project once the Kickstarter campaign has been funded; that way, you won’t disappoint your backers with late or rushed rewards.
3. The Money
Once you have a clearly defined project, it should be relatively straightforward to define a funding goal. It’s as simple as putting together a budget.
Take into account the following: production, manufacturing, labor, packaging and shipping costs. Factor in your “salary,” too; if you’re using Kickstarter to help you complete a book, backers are paying for your time. (Just be sure to make that clear in your project description.)
The most important thing to remember is that Kickstarter uses an all-or-nothing funding model. If your project doesn’t reach its financial goal within the specified time period, you’ll receive no money. Therefore, don’t set the bar unreasonably high. On the other hand, if you’ve accurately budgeted the project and are fully transparent to potential backers, you should see healthy returns.
4. The Tiers
Hand-in-hand with your budget, you’ll need to determine the proper rewards to return to backers once the project is completed. Rewards are tangible returns for a backer’s money, and can vary widely from project to project. A popular example is rewarding your backers with something made by the project itself, like a copy of a newly recorded album.
Rewards are determined by different funding tiers. Let’s take the CD example: You might estimate that a backer who pledges $20 deserves a copy of the CD. However, if a backer pledges $50, maybe he or she receives a signed copy of the CD. And if he pledges $100, it’s two signed copies plus a concert ticket.
Kickstarter data shows that the most popular pledge is $25, but the average pledge is around $70. Kickstarter also shares that projects with no reward succeed 35% of the time, while projects with a reward less than $20 succeed 54% of the time. Don’t be afraid to vary your pledge tiers widely to accommodate all budgets.
5. The Video
Kickstarter projects with a video component succeed at a significantly higher rate than those without (50 percent vs. 30 percent). So yes, a video is important. According to Kickstarter, this is what makes a killer vid:

• Tell us who you are.
• Tell us the story behind your project. Where'd you get the idea? What stage is it at now? How are you feeling about it?
• Come out and ask for people's support, explaining why you need it and what you'll do with their money.
• Talk about how awesome your rewards are, using any images you can.
• Explain that if you don't reach your goal, you'll get nothing, and everyone will be sad.
• Thank everyone!

Finally, be sure that your video thumbnail is strategic, inviting and piques the visitor’s curiosity. Consider featuring a prototype or a design element. After all, it’s the first image people will see when they visit your project page.
6. The Project Page
Now that you’ve defined your project’s parameters, it’s time to communicate them to potential backers and supporters. Kickstarter emphasizes the most important thing to remember is to be transparent at all times.
That means clearly defining your project’s scope and how you will achieve your goal. It’s also imperative that you explain precisely how you plan to use backers’ money.
Then, explain why you are the best person, company or group to complete this project. Why is your team qualified? What are your past experiences and accolades? Also, create a sense of urgency and timeliness–why do people need this project right now?
Remember to be concise but thorough. Ask yourself, "What questions would people have about my project before pledging money and support?"
7. The Community
Now that you’re ready to launch your project, it’s time to call on your community. Kickstarter recommends tapping your social media followers, but advises a gentle approach. Don’t spam your friends and goad your followers with self-promotion. Consider several different kinds of outreach so as not to overload one network.
And remember: Your community isn’t enough. Consider drafting a pitch document for media coverage, no matter how small the outlet. And ask for help from your local community so they can share in the success–pass out fliers in local businesses and make nice with your town’s radio DJs.
An often overlooked tactic is to tap your backers’ networks, too. Once a person supports your project, he or she is obviously invested in its completion. So ask backers to share the project among their communities.
8. The Updates
Your backers are the lifeblood of your project. They deserve to be updated frequently and thoroughly, as if they were on the team alongside you.
You may choose to either make updates public, or share them privately to backers. To make them feel invested, consider e-mailing updates that include video and photos of your progress, important milestones and team events.
9. The Rewards
A project’s completion means you need to start mailing backers their rewards. You’ll be able to send backers a survey upon completion of your Kickstarter campaign, in which you can ask them to provide their contact information and other requests (T-shirt size, color preference, mailing address, etc.) Kickstarter offers a spreadsheet tool to help you keep all of this information organized.
Staying organized is key. Many Kickstarter alums share that the most challenging part of the process was meeting the mailing dates for rewards. But the process should be pretty straightforward, as long as you account for every step of the process: collecting surveys, calculating shipping costs based on package weight and backer location, purchasing supplies, printing shipping labels, packaging, transporting and finally mailing your rewards.

08:01 by Robert dawne · 0

5 Lessons Your Mother Taught You About Business

It’s the annual rite of spring: the celebration of Mother’s Day. It’s that one day of the year that no matter how busy a small business owner is, they take time out to celebrate the contribution of their mother. Most owners have been influenced by their mothers more than they will ever know. In fact, some of the tried-and-true advice our mothers gave us also contains some valuable business lessons. Here's five pieces of motherly wisdom that no doubt served you well in the business world.
1. “You can do anything.” Not many mothers probably told their children a generation ago that they should grow up to be an entrepreneur. The typical “reach” goal was a doctor or maybe even president. These days, more mothers would probably tell their children to grow up to be Steve Jobs than to be President Obama. However, your mother’s insistence that you could accomplish anything and were “destined for success” was the essential ingredient in building your confidence to start a company. There simply is no other way to explain setting a goal that is so difficult to achieve as starting a company.
2. “Failure not an option.” Although there is failure in every entrepreneur’s future (many times more than once), the non-quitting spirit your mother repeatedly taught formed the basis for not giving up when your business hits a pothole. You can thank your mother for helping you form the key entrepreneur gene: resiliency.
3. “Patience is a virtue.” The lesson of patience is an essential characteristic that small business owners need to learn. Most "overnight successes" took 7 to 10 years. The rapid rise to financial fortune is only a fairy tale that is primarily realized only after the exit event. By their very nature, entrepreneurs are not a patient group, but they need to take a longer-term view in order to be successful. Most entrepreneurs are not successful on their first try (or second).
4. “Don’t be late.” Punctuality and getting tasks done on time are critical skills for small business owners, because what you do, your employees will also do. In other words, if you are never on time or don’t complete tasks in a timely manner, your staff won’t either.
5. “Stop complaining.” Your mother taught you to stop “bellyaching.” In business, while you can’t control the outcome, you can control your response. Learn what you can from the current result, but then move on by taking an action that gives another chance of success.
Although my mother taught me well, she did give me two pieces of advice that ended up not being true in the world of business:
1. "Good things come to those who wait." Most small business owners get tired of just waiting. They go out there and make things happen. To be successful, value proactivity over reactivity.
2. "Do what you love and the money will follow." Mothers got this one mixed up as well. It should be, "do what you love and it does not matter if the money follows." To be successful in building a company, an entrepreneur needs to be driven by passion, not financial reward. While making money is a way we keep score (and is important), most small business owners find a way to be “happily” successful.
As you can tell, I didn’t always listen. My mother told me I should also marry someone rich.

07:39 by Robert dawne · 0

8 Ways to Cultivate Serendipity in Business and Life

When Facebook acquired Instagram for an unprecedented $1 billion three weeks ago, many pundits chalked it up to luck. Two individuals, though, saw it differently.
Thor Muller and Lane Becker, co-founders of Get Satisfaction, the community platform that lets companies participate in an ongoing online conversation with their customers, saw it as not just dumb luck, but rather a series of strategic moves on the part of Instagram leadership that led to the historic acquisition.
Muller and Becker have published a new book called Get Lucky, which outlines the skills and elements we need to begin cultivating luck.
"Luck is a fundamental part of how the world works," according to Muller and Becker. "Open any history book and you’ll find stories of curious people looking for one thing and finding another."
The Search for Luck
When asked about the secret of Google’s meteoric rise, company co-founder Sergey Brin replied that "The number-one factor that contributed to our success was luck." Muller and Becker maintain that Brin wasn’t saying this to dismiss his accomplishments. Instead he was arguing that it requires more to happen than any one person can fully take credit for in order for something to succeed with the scale and speed that Google did.
"What Brin can take credit for," they say, "is being open to serendipity, and being willing to use it to his advantage." They add that Brin combined a passion for his work, a commitment to his organization’s purpose and a willingness to do whatever it takes to find the best way to put those qualities to work in the world.
Planned Serendipity Explained
Those qualities are all part of the skills of what Muller and Becker term "planned serendipity." Muller and Becker believe that planned serendipity is the only way to succeed in our fast-changing world, where so many things are out of our control.
"Accidents happen," they say. "There’s nothing mystical about them—but it’s our practical ability to take advantage of the best accidents that transforms these from forgettable moments into incredible opportunities. This is the essence of planned serendipity, the kind of luck you make for yourself."
That's good news, since most of us have at one time or another envied a competitor who seems to win by sheer good fortune while we keep working tirelessly without ever realizing that sudden overnight success.
The real question is, how can we introduce serendipity into business and life and put it to work? Muller and Becker offer these eight suggestions:

• Motion. Maximize physical and conceptual movement in your workspace.
• Preparation. Focus on breeding and feeding obsessive curiosity.
• Divergence. Minimize fixed plans and goals to allow for changing circumstances.
• Commitment. Choose from all your options the right ones to focus on.
• Activation. Create new activities to open up your awareness of all the possibilities.
• Connection. Optimize the number and quality of connections with others.
• Permeability. Replace the rigid walls most organizations put up to keep themselves separate from other people and organizations with an open exchange of information.
• Attraction. Project your purpose out into the world to draw the best and most valuable events, people, ideas and opportunities toward you.

Making Your Luck
But how do you begin creating a life and workspace open to serendipity?
"Break out of your routine!" they implore. "Routine is the enemy of serendipity."
Muller and Becker add that to take advantage of unexpected surprises, you have to put yourself in a position to encounter the unexpected. This is what they call "the essence of motion," putting yourself in unfamiliar situations, but within familiar environments, to engage with previously unfamiliar people and ideas that are connected to your job, your projects or your interests.
As a practical example of how anyone working away at a job might do this, the authors offer the following advice.
"Visit a different department inside your company. Attend a conference in an area related to your job, or even pick a different place to sit for lunch in the cafeteria each day."
"Here’s a little secret," they add. "No one succeeds without an assist from the unexpected. But every successful person on this planet employs the skills of planned serendipity."
How do you change up your routine? Have you had a stroke of good luck happen lately?

12:43 by Robert dawne · 0

Yahoo Escalates Patent War With Facebook

Yahoo just took its war of lawsuits with Facebook to the next level, adding two more patent-infringement claims to the 10 it filed for back in March.
The company also accused Facebook of not having a good-faith belief in the counterclaim it filed almost a month ago.
“Today Yahoo! filed additional claims against Facebook in U.S. District Court related to two additional patents on which Facebook infringes,” Yahoo said in an emailed statement.
“As we have stated previously, Yahoo!’s technologies are the foundation of our business that engages over 700 million monthly unique visitors and represent the spirit of innovation upon which Yahoo! is built. We intend to vigorously protect these technologies for our customers and shareholders.”
In the face of the new claims, Facebook was more succinct: “We remain perplexed by Yahoo’s erratic actions,” a Facebook spokesperson said, also in an emailed statement. “We disagree with these latest claims and we will continue to defend ourselves vigorously.”
With the “erratic” dig, Facebook seems to be depicting Yahoo as the tech-company equivalent of a crotchety old man. Considering Yahoo specifically calls out Facebook for using recently acquired patents as the basis of its lawsuit — even though some of the patents in Yahoo’s claim were acquired as well — the image may well stick.

A quick recap: Shortly after appointing former PayPal executive Scott Thompson as CEO, Yahoo warned Facebook that the social network was infringing on its intellectual property — specifically, 10 patents that relate to Internet technologies.
It then went ahead and sued Facebook a few weeks later, becoming something of a tech-industry pariah in the process.
Facebook, rather than try to end the suit with a quick settlement, set out to arm itself for a retaliatory strike. The social network quickly acquired many patents from both IBM and Microsoft. Facebook also countersued Yahoo — saying that it, too, was guilty of patent infringement.
The whole affair would be funny if it wasn’t a symptom of a wider, all-out patent war. In the last year we’ve seen Apple, Google, Microsoft and a host of others sue the pants of each other, and a company that barely does anything can claim to hold a patent on the web itself.
So this latest salvo in the Facebook-Yahoo patent war likely won’t be the last. What’s your take on the ongoing dispute? Sound off in the comments.

10:32 by Robert dawne · 2

How to Get Your Business Involved in a Charity

Being a part of your community means giving back. Businesses that give time, money and other resources to their communities reap many benefits. They have employees who are more involved and productive who are willing to stay. Being involved in the community improves brand visibility and facilitates networking.
"It’s a great way to retain and recruit quality personnel," says Pete Parker, managing director at NPcatalyst, a Reno consulting firm that helps business and nonprofit interactions. "If you let me volunteer a couple of hours a month or week and carry the company name, that makes me proud to be a part of the company."
Here are some suggestions for businesses that want to start giving back.
Think local
Look around in your town, city or region to see which charities need help. Think about small charities, nonprofits and local chapters of larger organizations.
James Coburn, owner of Harbor Consulting IT Services, has set a goal of donating 20 percent of his company's profits each year. Much of that goes to local organizations.
"It started out with local charities like animal shelters, and now we’re pretty involved with a cancer program," says Coburn. "Always remember where you came from."
Do your research
It's vital to research charitable and nonprofit organizations to make sure they're reliable, responsible, open and honest. Nonprofit consultants like NPcatalyst can help you filter out the better ones. You can also research organizations through sites like CharityNavigator and GuideStar.
Consider what matters to you
Find nonprofits that speak to you in some way. This might mean choosing nonprofit organizations related in some way to the mission and expertise of your business. Or, choose groups that speak to your own concerns, or the interests of your employees.
“If you’re going to do it and are able to do it, find something that means something to you," emphasizes Coburn.
Give employees free choice
Some businesses give employees the chance to donate time or money to nonprofits. When employees are allowed to choose which charities to contribute to, employee satisfaction with the charitable-giving program is greater. Employees like having a personal investment in the process.
Keep records
Remember to track all charitable projects for tax and other purposes. Record what money and time is given, as well as when, how and to whom the company donates. If you don't have the resources to do this record-keeping in-house, hire an outside firm or consultant to handle this part of charitable giving for you.
Getting help with the administrative side of charitable work and donations will give you and your employees more time to devote to the charitable work itself.
Gang up
When groups of employees get involved in charitable giving, they build teams. Consider giving time for the whole office, or designated teams, to volunteer at a local event or charity. This practice brings more help to the organization and increases the team spirit of your employees.
One of Parker's clients is a bank that encourages groups of seven to 10 people to work on a project together. It might be clearing trails or packaging food at a food bank.
"The benefit there is employee bonding, and there are a lot of benefits that come out of that," says Parker. "And it’s free—you don’t have to pay for a ropes course."
Though small businesses might not think they have the resources to devote to charitable activities, often they have more resources than they realize. It's a matter of setting aside time or money and understanding how charitable involvement can benefit the business's bottom line as well as the community.

19:18 by Robert dawne · 0

4 Big Business Secrets for Finding New Customers

Let’s face it: most big companies aren't known for being trendsetters. But they are pioneers when it comes to finding new customers. Because large companies operate on such a large scale, mistakes can be very costly. This forces them to carefully choose, refine and innovate to find the best sales techniques. Here are four big business tactics you should put to work.
1. Go mobile
People everywhere have adopted the mobile phone as their device of choice. There are more than 6 billion mobile connections in the world, compared to under 2 billion PCs. Big companies have seen the light and are scrambling to take advantage of mobile’s potential. Small businesses can do the same.
Consider creating a mobile-friendly website if you haven’t done so. More businesses and consumers are looking for products and services on mobile phones, and websites designed for PCs typically don’t work well on small screens. You may want to develop a mobile app to make interactions with customers and prospects easier. Also investigate mobile barcodes—known as QR codes. People are increasingly using these codes, which can provide an instant link to businesses and their offerings.
2. Research your market
A big company tends to be detached from its customers, so it must go the extra mile to learn what makes them tick. It must continually investigate its market and learn how customers perceive it, how it compares to competitors and how it can expand its products or services.
Small businesses are closer to their customers, so they frequently underestimate the importance of research. It’s easy to take customers for granted and not delve into information that could dramatically improve your offerings or reveal how to find new customers.
Try to take advantage of every personal encounter to gather information, and consider organizing events that can increase that interaction. For example, an auto dealer might host a customer appreciation day several times a year. Also take advantage of social media like Facebook, Twitter and online directories to learn what customers have to say about your business.
3. Go digital
Industry researchers continue to predict dramatic increases in spending on online marketing—via e-mail, desktop computers, laptops, smartphones, tablets and other devices. Online ad spending in the United States is expected to grow 23 percent to nearly $40 billion in 2012, according to research firm eMarketer. Big businesses have found that online marketing allows them to offer easy purchasing through e-commerce, forge deeper customer relationships and reach consumers and businesses all over the globe.
To help ensure you make the most of online marketing, take a closer look at your company’s website. Can users search for your products and understand your services easily? If you engage in e-commerce, is the buying process smooth and intuitive? Do you regularly refresh the site with new information and special offers?
Also, are you taking advantage of interactive tools to establish a dialogue with prospects and customers? For example, are you using banner and search engine advertising to get the word out, and are you using e-mail to promote marketing offers? Finally, are you making your company and its products or services easy to find by posting business listings on online directories?
4. Plan and track
Planning and tracking may sound antithetical to innovative marketing, but it is key to hitting the mark and closing sales. You’ve probably heard the saying attributed to merchandising king John Wanamaker: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted—I just don’t know which half.” Well, now you can. Analytics tools allow you to track responses to your online marketing, and fortunately many of them are free or relatively inexpensive.
You can help get the best results from your online advertising by tracking the click-through rate. Test different ads and adjust your efforts to focus on what works best. Also look at performance data for your website, mobile messaging and social media activities. Metrics to examine include:

• Who’s visiting and what they do
• Who’s buying and what they buy
• Who clicked on an invitation or offer
• How much time they spend on your site
• What they say about your products or services

AT&T offers a number of tools and services to help your small business adopt these and other big business tactics. In particular, consider AT&T’s mobile marketing, interactive and Web hosting services.
Alice Bredin is an internationally renowned small business expert. She is founder and president of Bredin Inc., a marketing consultancy that helps Fortune 500 firms develop profitable, long-term relationships with small and medium businesses. She has advised millions of business owners over the last 20 years through her books, syndicated newspaper column, radio commentary and forums.
Photo credit: iStock

12:27 by Robert dawne · 0

Sony Shakes Things Up Under New CEO, Reorganizes For The Post-PC Era

Sony enters a new era April 1st. On that day Kazuo Hirai will replace Sir Howard Stringer as Sony’s president and CEO. The challenges ahead are massive; Sony is facing a financial and organizational calamity. Sony is simply too big and has fallen too far and Hirai is tasked to bring Sony back to glory.
Sony just announced a new corporate organization that shows drastic change is underway. Under this strategy, dubbed One Sony, separate Sony divisions will share management, hopefully streamlining decisions and creating a more unified end-user experience that better utilizes Sony’s content offering. Sony under Stringer was an unwieldy multi-headed beast. Hirai is clearly trying to tighten the reins. It just might work and it has to work.
Prior to Stringer, Sony was led by Nobuyuki Idei who started feeding the hungry Sony machine. Under his watch Sony established Sony BMG Music Entertainment and purchased Hollywood’s Metro-Goldwyn Mayer studio in 2005. He entered into the joint mobile-phone venture with Ericsson. He was also the Sony exec that green-lighted the loveable, but still a bit strange, Aibo robotic dog.
Stringer was left with a bit of mess when he took over in the summer of 2005. At that time Sony was far from being just a consumer electronic company and majorly involved in nearly ever aspect of media creation and distribution. Now, in 2012, Sony’s once-mainstay TV division is drowning in red ink, the company just dissolved its partnership with Ericsson, and there is little, if any, compelling reason for a consumer to use one of Sony’s many media distribution platforms over Netflix, iTunes or Amazon.
Sony is simply not built for the current consumer electronics game. We’re entering into the age of digital appliances, a post-PC era if you will, and 15 years ago Sony would have been the top player. But now, in 2012, Apple and Samsung are the big kids on the playground; Sony is hiding under the slide doing his homework.
The PlayStation happens to be the one bright spot in Sony’s recent history. Sony’s incoming CEO, Kazuo, led that division for the last 5 years. There is hope, Sony fans.
Under the One Sony structure, Sony sees digital imaging, gaming and mobile devices to be the three cornerstones of its electronic business. Hirai himself will be in charge of Sony’s troubled HDTV division. The company will still pursue the medical technology field but what was separate medical-related divisions within Sony will be consolidated into one unit. Perhaps most promising though, Sony is appointing Kunimasas Suzuki, currently Executive Deputy President of Consumer Products. & Services Group, to be the officer in charge of unifying Sony products and creating a better user experience across the company’s entire product and network service line — something the company desperately needs. He is also in charge of Sony’s mobile business, showing that Hirai understands that going forward user experiences start in the mobile sector.
Sony of old is long gone. Sony will never be the same nimble company again. However, with the proper structure and leadership Sony might once again regain its swagger. Sony was once the shining example of user experience and hardware design done right. Sony needs to find its soul. If any company can properly battle Apple in the arena of consumer electronics, it’s Sony. After all, it’s Sony that Apple and Steve Jobs were aiming to dethrone 15 years ago.

09:18 by iliot Atlas · 0

Employee Passwords Are None of Your Business, Says Facebook

If the growing number of companies and law enforcement agencies asking job applicants for Facebook passwords was encouraging you to do the same, think again.
Facebook Friday issued a warning to employers that requesting passwords is an invasion of privacy that opens companies to legal liabilities.
The world's largest social network also is threatening legal action. Wrote Erin Egan, Facebook's chief privacy officer, in a lengthy post: "We'll take action to protect the privacy and security of our users, whether by engaging policymakers or, where appropriate, by initiating legal action, including by shutting down applications that abuse their privileges."
The company says it has seen a "distressing increase" of reports of employers attempting to access user accounts, Facebook's Egan wrote. "The most alarming of these practices is the reported incidences of employers asking prospective or actual employees to reveal their passwords," she said.
A user should never be forced to cough up private information just to get a job—"and as the friend of a user, you shouldn’t have to worry that your private information or communications will be revealed to someone you don’t know and didn’t intend to share with just because that user is looking for a job," Egan wrote.
The company has changed its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, making requests to share or solicit a Facebook log-in a violation of the rules.
The American Civil Liberties Union this week used the reports to urge support for its "Demand your dotRights campaign."
ACLU attorney Catherine Crump called the password solicitation an "invasion of privacy."
"You’d be appalled if your employer insisted on opening up your postal mail to see if there was anything of interest inside," she said. "It’s equally out of bounds for an employer to go on a fishing expedition through a person’s private social media account."
The ACLU of Maryland currently is fighting for a social media privacy bill in the state, where the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services asks applicants to "voluntarily" provide access to their social media accounts during interviews.

16:42 by Robert dawne · 0

Women in Tech to Watch

MSNBC's Your Business: Top Five

Female entrepreneurs are leaving their mark on all different industries. Here are five women to watch in the world of tech courtesy of Inc.com.

08:48 by Robert dawne · 0

New Ways to Fund Your Startup [VIDEO]

MSNBC's Your Business:
 Where's the Money?

It's not easy to go to the bank and get a loan these days. If you're looking to secure some funding for your startup, there are some options you may not have considered. Venture attorney Jennifer Hill has tips for new ways to find money.

08:06 by Robert dawne · 0

Eyeing An IPO, Kayak 2011 Revenue Up 32 Percent To $225M; Net Income Up 21 Percent

Travel search giant Kayak just posted new revenue numbers for the fourth quarter and full year 2011 in a new S-1 filing with the SEC. As we heard last September, Kayak put its IPO plans on hold until market conditions improve. Now that the markets are more stabilized, it should be interesting to see when Kayak makes the push to become a public company. For the year, Kayak generated $224.5 million of revenues, up 32 percent from 2010.
Net income for the year was $9.7 million, up 21 percent from 2010′s net income of $8 million For the fourth quarter, Kayak saw a 27 percent increase in quarterly revenue, posting $53.9 million in Q4 2011 sales. In contrast, revenue grew 28 percent in the third quarter.
But the company says that typically its highest revenue quarters are the second and third quarters.
Kayak says it finished 2011 with 899 million user queries processes for travel information, representing growth of 42 percent from 2010. For 2011, Kayak had 7 million downloads, up over 70 percent from 2010.
Despite the IPO being on hold, Kayak has been consistently trying to improve its core product and add additional functionality. The company has been heads down on product development and improving customer experience over the past few months, as the company battles with Google in the travel search space.
In December, Kayak redesigned its iPad app and consolidated the app with its iPhone cousin. The company’s website most recently got a big UI upgrade, creating a more universal and comprehensive consumer experience across all Kayak platforms: web, mobile web and apps. And the search engine just debuted direct booking for flights.

13:17 by Robert dawne · 0

Should Small Businesses Follow Everyone Back on Twitter?

Marketers know that Twitter is a valuable tool used to reach thousands of customers. But it's not just the output of content that's valuable—the people and other businesses you follow on social media are of equal worth.
Unless your account is private, you have no control over who is following you (unless you block them). But as a business with thousands of followers, is it wise to follow every single person who follows you?
"Don't fall into the trap of something I call a 'courtesy' follow—that is, following someone that has followed you out of a desire to appear grateful," advises Sheena Medina, community manager at Fast Company.
Medina, who says this "does nothing but fill your stream with noise," cites President Barack Obama's account, @BarackObama, which at one point was following 702,586 users—the most on Twitter. The account, overwhelmed by tweets, is in dire need of a bit of damage control. But, unable to dump seven hundred thousand followers at once, the admins must slowly reduce its followers in order to keep the President's social media-friendly image intact.
On the other hand, some say that businesses should follow back so that their followers may DM them privately.
"Here's a way to look at it: would you put up a Web page without adding your e-mail address or a contact form so that people could reach out to you privately?" asks Laura "@Pistachio" Fitton, inbound marketing evangelist for HubSpot, and lead author of Twitter for Dummies. "As a business, not following someone back means you're telling them, 'Thanks for your support, but you're not important enough to us to be willing to listen to you privately.'"
Fitton says she tries to reply to all of the genuine direct mentions, and when possible, she will thank or respond to @-mentions and retweets.
"Above and beyond that, stuff like retweeting their content, asking them questions and truly listening to their answers, giving them interesting stuff to interact with are all good ways to engage your community," she says.
Both Fitton and Medina encourage businesses to refrain from using an automated "thanks for following" mention. If you do decide to follow everyone, authenticity is key. Your followers will be able to tell whether they're talking to a robot or a person—and a real person is always more valuable on Twitter.
If you do decide not to follow everyone on Twitter, Medina advises to be strategic about curating your stream on Twitter—knowing your audience helps, but you must also think about what sort of content is going to be useful and entertaining to you.
"We're not one-dimensional people," says Medina. "And increasingly, businesses are using Twitter to show how multifaceted they are. Your stream should reflect the dynamics of your personality and business."
As a small business owner, do you follow every follower back? What ways do you show appreciation to your fans?
American Express OPEN offers YourBuzz, a free app that can help you manage your online reputation and connect with customers via one easy-to-use app.  For more information or to get started, visit YourBuzz.com/freeapp.

11:37 by Robert dawne · 0

Top 10 Entrepreneurs Under 30

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the country's most promising young entrepreneurs. The YEC promotes entrepreneurship as a solution to youth unemployment and underemployment and provides its members with access to tools, mentorship and resources that support each stage of a business's development and growth.
When recently asked to name the top entrepreneur under the age of 30 who deserved an award for the work they've done in the past year, YEC members had the following to say.
1. Dave Morin of Path
It's been inspiring to watch Dave and his talented team at Path take their app from something that no one was paying attention to to one of the top apps out there. Path revolutionized iOS design by releasing one of the most beautiful apps out there, and has been on a roll ever since. —Ben Lang, founder of EpicLaunch
2. Shane Snow of Contently
Shane Snow is absolutely the most impressive individual I know for his accomplishments in recent times. A TechStars NYC alum, Shane developed Contently with his team and recently raised $2 million in a Series A round. In addition to that, he's the top infographic artist, period. Shane is also the coolest journalist you'll ever meet, having written for Mashable, Fast Company and Wired.com. —Danny Wong, co-founder of Blank Label Group
3. Drew Houston of Dropbox
Drew Houston, CEO and co-founder of Dropbox, led the startup from a simple vision—making it easy to store and share files in the cloud—to a massive business success with millions of users and sales. I am so impressed with his focus on an exceptional user experience. Drew and his team created a product that betters productivity and data storage so much, it's hard to imagine the Web without it. —Doreen Bloch, CEO and founder of Poshly
4. Nick D'Aloisio of Summly
Nick D'Aloisio, he's creating a way to summarize the Web. Not only is he young, but he caught the world's attention through Om Malik's expose on his app. The app is a window into a much more powerful concept around how content has become digestible in tidbits—especially content lacking opinion. It could be quite fascinating to companies that manage tons and tons of content that needs to be indexed. —Brian Wong, CEO and founder of Kiip
5. Ben Silbermann of Pinterest
There is a reason why Pinterest is getting so much attention right now. It's a beautifully designed product that solves a problem that nobody knew the Web was facing. It's the co-founder's vision that made it the impressive application that it is today. —Logan Lenz, president and founder of Endagon
6. Ben Milne of Dwolla
Ben Milne is the CEO and co-founder of Des Moines-based Dwolla, a peer-to-peer payment platform disrupting the mobile payments industry. Milne and his team have quickly scaled the business and is now moving over $1 million per day. Dwolla recently raised a $5 million round of funding, led by New York-based Union Square Ventures and a solid supporting team. —Jeff Slobotski, founder of Silicon Prairie News
7. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook
Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest self-made billionaire in history and arguably the greatest entrepreneur of our time. Facebook wasn't created in the past year, but Zuckerberg has presided over its continued dominance of the social Web and the company's skyrocketing valuations. And he is only 27. —Emerson Spartz, CEO and founder of Spartz Media
8. Catherine Cook of myYearbook.com
While most people want to say Mark Zuckerberg, I'd give the award to his female counterpart, Catherine Cook. Not only was Catherine just 15 years old when she started myYearbook.com, but she managed to stay under the radar by operating outside of Silicon Valley—in Pennsylvania. The site was recently acquired for a reported $100 million...while Catherine was still attending college! —Matt Wilson, co-founder of Under30CEO.com
9. Brent Beshore of AdVentures
Being a great entrepreneur isn't just about profits. Brent Beshore leads AdVentures (which was no. 28 on last year's Inc. 500), so he's made his share of money, but what I respect is his entrepreneurship for his community. When his hometown—Joplin, Mo.—was destroyed by a tornado, Brent used his skills to raise over $1 million in four days to rebuild the city. We should all strive to use our success for good, as Brent does. —John Hall, CEO of Digital Talent Agents
10. Jeremy Johnson of 2tor
Jeremy Johnson is 27 and is already changing the face of higher education. His current project, 2tor, is a visionary startup that helps top-tier U.S. universities bring their degree programs online. Jeremy, along with co-founders John Katzman and Chip Paucek, is on a mission to transform education, and as the highest funded U.S. education tech startup, 2tor is bringing that vision alive. —Zach Cutler, CEO and founder of Cutler Group

10:52 by Robert dawne · 1

3 Things to Remember When Filing Taxes for the First Time

It’s your first year outside Corporate America and, in addition to attending to your mile-long to-do list, your taxes need to be filed. Dread not. Tax time doesn’t need to be painful, especially if you remember to do the following.
Pay attention to deductions
Business owners love deductions and for good reason; even the smallest ones can make a world of difference to a company’s bottom line. Sit down and document every possible expense, recommends Deborah Sweeney, CEO of MyCorporation, a Calabasas, Calif.-based company that helps small businesses incorporate with the government.
Start with your physical location. If you work from home, calculate the percentage used for your business, then deduct that percentage from your mortgage and utilities. Added bonus: You can deduct 100 percent of any renovations done exclusively to your home office.
Next, look at your traveling expenses. “Do you travel anywhere in pursuit of your trade?” asks Sweeney. This includes mileage.
In addition, she says small-business owners can deduct a large portion of the actual expense of going into business. For 2011, that deduction is $5,000 (it was $10,000 in 2010 and there has been talk about increasing the limit, but it has yet to happen).
Business-related education is an added deduction available to small-business owners (i.e. conferences, certification renewals, etc.).
“Another one people don’t think of is bad debt,” Sweeney says. “If someone stiffs your business, you can deduct that cost. This usually applies to businesses with hard goods, not those that provide professional services.”
For more information on deductions, check out the IRS checklist.
Consider your audit risk
Audits will not spell the end of your business as long as you have proper documentation.
“Small business owners can get excited when they start up and deduct everything,” Sweeney says. “That is fine as long as the deductions are legitimate and they’ve been properly documented.”
Keep receipts and write down your mileage. You can now track your mileage using smartphone applications, like Trip Cubby and MileBug.
Know your deadlines
“Business taxes are due March 15, a month before personal taxes,” says Ian Aronovich, co-founder and CEO of GovermentAuctions.org in Great Neck, N.Y.
Don’t freak out yet. This law applies to corporations and S corporations, specifically, not to Limited Liability Partnerships (LLCs), Partnerships or Sole Proprietorships. If your company fits into the first two categories and you aren’t yet ready to file, consider asking for an extension.
“You can get a six-month extension, but you must file for the extension by March 15,” says Aronovich. Extensions can be electronically filed by using IRS Form 7004.
Beware: This form allows you to extend only the date of your filing, not the date of your payment. According to Aronovich, business owners are required to pay their estimated taxes by the original filing date. Failing to pay can result in IRS penalties.
For more information on filing deadlines, check out the IRS breakdown.
Previous article: Should a Small Business Do Its Own Taxes?  | Next article: How to Minimize What You Owe and Maximize Your Return
Katie Morell is an independent business writer and editor, who over the past 10 years has covered topics ranging from business and politics to travel and social justice. Her work has appeared in a variety of regional and national publications, and she has served as an editor for Meetings Media.
Photo credit: iStock

14:39 by Robert dawne · 0

10 Things You Didn't Know About Your Taxes

March 15 is just around the corner. Which begs the question: What don't you, as a small-business owner, know—but should know—about filing your taxes?
With that goal in mind, we asked Mike Scholz, tax director at Wegner LLP CPAs & Accountants—an accounting firm based in Madison, WI, that focuses on individuals and small businesses—for help in identifying the top 10 things that small-business owners don't know about their taxes.
1. Classify your workers correctly. Scholz cautions any small-business owner to beware paying staff as independent contractors. “Worker classification (employee vs. independent contractor) will be a hot topic for the IRS this coming year,” he says. “The IRS recently released training materials for their examiners, so make sure you are classifying workers correctly. Last fall the IRS announced a settlement program for those businesses that wish to re-classify their workers. Under this program, there is substantial relief from potential past payroll tax liabilities for eligible employers that treat workers as employees going forward.”
2. Late fees can be steep. So be sure to avoid penalties by paying the company payroll taxes and filing tax reports on time. “The IRS penalties for late payments and late filings are horrendous,” says Scholz. “The IRS is serious about collecting all delinquent payroll taxes. The IRS will pierce the corporate veil if the corporation does not pay payroll taxes and go after the responsible officer's personal accounts.”
3. Send out your 1099s. There’s a new disclosure this year related to 1099 contractors to beware of, says Scholz. “Business owners will see two new questions on their tax forms this year,” he says. “The first asks: Did you make any payments in 2011 that would require you to file Form(s) 1099? And the second follows up with: If 'Yes,' did you or will you file all required Forms 1099?” The point is that the IRS is making a rather blatant reminder that Form 1099s should have been sent to people or companies they've paid money to—particularly to individuals, LLCs and partnerships that were paid more than $600 for services.
4. Tax return extensions can be your friend. “The extension of your business return also extends the time to make company profit sharing contributions for the year,” says Scholz. For example if you extend your 2011 S Corporation return until September 15, 2012, you also get an extension to make your 2011 profit sharing contribution to the same extended due date. Plus, the tax filing extension is automatic (no reason needed) just file the one-page form.
5. Don't forget to see if you qualify for the small-business healthcare tax credit. “For 2010, only 15 percent of small businesses claimed this tax credit, so it's worth looking to see if the business qualifies for it in 2011,” says Scholz. “The tax credit is generally available to business owners who pay for at least half the cost of employees' insurance coverage, have fewer than 25 employees and pay salaries that average less than $50,000 annually. You can still amend 2010 returns if the credit was missed on the original return.” (Read more on healthcare.)
6. There are tax credits available for hiring veterans. You can qualify for a credit that's worth up to $5,600 for hiring a long-term unemployed veteran, $2,400 for hiring a short-term unemployed veteran and $9,600 for hiring an unemployed veteran with a service-related disability, says Scholz. “Note that these veteran new-hires need to be certified by state workforce agencies,” he says. “The IRS is working on streamlining the paperwork process to expedite the certification process once a veteran is hired.” (Get more tips on hiring for targeted tax credits.)
7. Take advantage of current year net operating losses. Current year net operating losses (NOL) can be carried back two years and forward 20 years. “These loss carrybacks can generate tax refunds in those past years where the business paid tax," says Scholz. “There are strategies to increase an NOL through equipment expensing elections (Section 179 or bonus depreciation). Many businesses have large NOLs generated during economic downturns. Proper planning will ensure the best tax result, so that NOL benefits are not allowed to expire.”
8. The IRS can request copies of your QuickBooks files. “The IRS has been training revenue agents on how to use QuickBooks and instructing their field agents to request your QuickBooks company file as a part of the audit,” says Scholz. “When a QuickBooks file is provided, it includes not only the current year records but all years' transactions included in the software’s data file. We suggest looking into technology solutions that can block those tax years not under audit to minimize records available to a snooping IRS agent.”
9. Not all business meals are subject to a 50 percent disallowance. “Generally, only 50 percent of business meals and entertainment expenses are deductible,” says Scholz. “There are exceptions which allow a 100 percent deduction for meals as follows: trade-show costs, conferences and receptions that are open to the general public. Employer-provided benefits that are relatively infrequent, minor and administratively difficult to track, such as doughnuts, picnics and costs associated with the company holiday party as well as the summer picnic, are also 100 percent deductible. “Another meal that is 100 percent deductible includes where the business is reimbursed for the expense,” says Scholz. “For example, if a business takes a client to lunch and then bills the client for that lunch in a separate line item on the invoice, then the business can fully deduct that meal.”
10. Don't rely on your credit card statements. The statements alone are not adequate substantiation of a business expense. “The IRS requires that any legitimate deductible business expense must be ‘both ordinary and necessary,’" says Scholz. “An ordinary expense is one that is ‘common and accepted’ in your specific trade or business type, and a necessary expense is one that is also ‘helpful and appropriate’ for your trade or business.” But beware that having an expense item on a card statement for purchases made at Office Max or Office Depot doesn't automatically qualify the purchase as a legitimate business expense. “The IRS suggests that businesses keep the original store receipts that itemize the details of the items purchased,” says Scholz.
Previous article: 3 Most Common Mistakes Made When Filing Business Taxes  | Next article: Top 5 Tools for Filing Business Taxes
Darren Dahl is an independent business writer, who regularly writes about entrepreneurship for Inc. magazine (where he is a contributing editor), The New York Times and AOL.  He has also worked with several high-profile authors, such as Keith McFarland on The Breakthrough Company, as well as intellectual property experts Mark Blaxill and Ralph Eckardt on their book, The Invisible Edge.
Photo credit: iStock

14:35 by Robert dawne · 0

Business Taxes Decoded 2012

Let's face it: Most of us are daunted by tax season. This series on business taxes presents insights from some of the leading voices in small business today to help answer common tax-related questions and help clarify the filing process. This exclusive series features advice from Barbara Weltman, TJ McCue and a host of leading independent journalists in taxation and business.
The Best States for Business
While no business owner can expect to escape taxes entirely, there are states where taxes are lower than in most places.

Should a Small Business Do Its Own Taxes?
Maybe. It depends on a variety of factors. Here's what you need to consider.

3 Things to Remember When Filing Your Taxes for the First Time
Filing business taxes for the first time? Don't fret. Just remember to do these three things.

How to Minimize What You Owe and Maximize Your Return
Twenty-six-year veteran small-business accountant Frank Gutta gives his expert advice.

How to Choose an Accountant You Can Trust
Be sure to ask these four pertinent questions when interviewing your potential adviser.
3 Most Common Mistakes Made When Filing Business Taxes
No matter how you get your taxes done, steer clear of these common mistakes that are made year after year.

10 Things You Didn't Know About Your Taxes
Mike Scholz, tax director of a Wisconsin accounting firm, shares some tax tips for small-business owners.

Top 5 Tools for Filing Business Taxes
Here's our roundup of tools small businesses can use to file their business taxes.

Are You Really Inviting an Audit If Your Office Is In Your Bedroom?
Contrary to popular belief, deducting the cost of your home workspace doesn't call for an automatic audit from the IRS.

The Future of Online Sales Tax
Billions of dollars in taxes on e-commerce transactions go uncollected every year. But that may soon change.

Planning Ahead: 5 Ways to Save Money on Your 2012 Taxes
It's already time to prepare for next year's taxes. Tax expert Barbara Weltman shares some money-saving tips for 2012.

Infographic: A Snapshot of Business Taxes in the U.S.
Curious about how your business taxes compare to your industry's average? Our infographic sheds light on that and more.
Kalina Mazur is the executive editor of OPEN Forum.

14:29 by Robert dawne · 0