Commentary
A $15 Minimum Wage, Introduced too Quickly, Could Hurt Seattle
At first blush, our cover this month might seem a little simplistic. After all, the $15-an-hour minimum wage that labor advocates are pushing is not going to solve all our problems, nor is it going to destroy our city. But the proposed 61 percent increase in the minimum wage to a point where it would…
Virgin on Business: After a Fashion
San Francisco-based game maker Zynga, creator of the once popular social network game FarmVille, recently folded up its Seattle office, laying off dozens of workers and adding to the list of companies whose early bright promise rapidly faded to declining sales and disappointment. All of which goes to show how difficult it is to make…
Final Analysis: Creating a Mariners Diversion
When march turns to april, a sports fans thoughts inevitably turn to baseball. In Seattle, thats not necessarily a happy thing. So what can local businesses do to take our minds off another season of Mariners mediocrity? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you I.M. Ondaball, CEO of People Reliving Our Memorable Occasions (PROMO) and executive…
CEO Adviser: Do the Right Thing
ABC and NPR news analyst Cokie Roberts enjoys telling about her daughters involvement in a Seattle political campaign after working in Chicago politics. She called her mother and said, Mom, you wouldnt believe it out here. Theyre all honest! When former Seattle Police Chief Pat Fitzsimons first came to Seattle from New York for his…
Editor’s Note: Benefiting from The Wealth Effect
Theres something special about spring. Even as the days continue to be cold and wet, we see more light, more life. We see it in the buds on the trees and the occasional burst of a flowering camellia. And then there are those For Sale signs that pop up in yards across the community like…
Commentary: Animal Attraction
We love our pets in the Pacific Northwest. In fact, Seattle boasts more pets than children. A recent survey ranking the 10 most dog-friendly metropolitan areas in the United States placed Portland first and Seattle third. To support this affinity for animals, the region boasts a thriving business ecosystem. Washington and Oregon are home to…
Commentary: Education Planner
As high unemployment continues, college students and their parents want to know what employers are looking for. While almost any business needs employees with specific skills market analysis or web development, for example students can be trained in those areas. What top employers look for when hiring new employees, according to a survey by the…
Editor’s Note: The Meaning of Excellence
The word excellence comes from the latin term excellere, meaning to stand out or be distinguished. But the idea of excellence goes back to ancient Greek mythology. Arete, the goddess of virtue and excellence, inspired heroes such as Heracles to avoid the quick path to personal glory and gold offered by Kakia, the goddess of…
Final Analysis: Flying South with Boeing
When a two-to-one majority of the local International Association of Machinists told The Boeing Co. what it could do with its take-it-or-else contract offer last November, the public handwringing was enough to make an orthopedic surgeon work weekends. How could the machinists be so selfish? How could they sell the future of the Puget Sound…
Editor’s Note: An Eye for Design
When i first came to seattle in 1989, I was struck by the regions natural beauty but puzzled by the general lack of interest in design. Although we had rich forest resources, few companies produced high-end wood products. While Microsoft was filled with brilliant engineers, it had an utter disregard for the look and ease…
Commentary: China is the land of opportunity
Last fall, at a meeting of the Chinese Communist Partys central committee, President Xi Jinping pledged a new stage of growth for China driven by deregulation, a reduction in areas of business requiring government approval and a greater emphasis on the domestic economy. Also in the works, Xi said, are tax and legal reform as…
CEO Adviser: Table manners
Did you know women leave more than $500,000 on the table during the course of their careers? Or that mens median retirement funds average in excess of $10,000 more than womens? If women are the bargain hunters and bill payers, why is this disparity happening? Its happening because women fail to negotiate. A recent study…
Bob Cratchit Lives! But not very well.
In the Charles Dickens novella A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge repents for a lifetime of cruel, miserly behavior by making things right with his long-suffering employee, Bob Cratchit. If only the captains of American industry were required to see one of the countless productions of A Christmas Carol being staged across the nation this month,…