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Check out the New York Times Best Seller - Business Books in Hardcover

I am looking for a good business book to read - any feedback on the following books from the New York Times list…

OUTLIERS, by Malcolm Gladwell.
THE SNOWBALL, by Alice Schroeder.
HOT, FLAT, AND CROWDED, by Thomas L. Friedman.
THE ASCENT OF MONEY, by Niall Ferguson.
CALL ME TED, by Ted Turner with Bill Burke.
THE RETURN OF DEPRESSION ECONOMICS AND THE CRISIS OF 2008, by Paul Krugman.
PANIC, by Michael Lewis.
THE TOTAL MONEY MAKEOVER, by Dave Ramsey
THE BLACK SWAN, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
TALENT IS OVERRATED, by Geoff Colvin.

Date: December 8, 2008
Business Entrepreneur News from the Web

Quote of the Day

“We believe in always innovating and never being satisfied with the status quo. If you don’t try, you’ll never know.”

– Andrew J. McKelvey (1935–2008) / Founder of Monster.com

One Person Business
Are you struggling with how to grow your business? If you are a one person business - where you do everything - but want to scale your business. You should check into hiring a virtual assistant to help you do so. Recently, Inc Magazine interviewed Lauren Hidden, the Acting Marketing Director at IVAA (International Virtual Assistant’s Association) and she answers questions like,; what types of jobs can a virtual assistant take off my plate, how to hire a virtual assistant, and other helpful insights.

Read more at: Hire A Virtual Assistant to Grow Your Business

Date: October 31, 2008
Business Entrepreneur News from the Web

Quote of the Day

“Thought is the original source of all wealth, all success, all material gain, all great discoveries and inventions, and of all achievement.”

– Claude M. Bristol, Author

Entrepreneurs undaunted by global slowdown
A recent study by KPMG LLP shows that despite the slumping economy worldwide, nearly two-thirds of private company owners in Canada intend to forge ahead with global expansion plans in the next five years.

Read more at: Entrepreneurs undaunted by global slowdown

Starting a business in a downsizing economy
A lot of folks started to write about the financial turmoil and that you should do that and this and whatever. And the numbers of views and ideas is more or less equal with the number of people writing something about it.

Read more at: Starting a business in a downsizing economy

Ten Women Entrepreneurs From Southwest Awarded Money The Make Mine a Million $ Business program, a national movement inspiring women to grow their businesses, co-founded by Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence and American Express OPENSM, made its first-ever visit to New Mexico on September 18, 2008. Ten successful women entrepreneurs received a powerful boost for their businesses when they were presented with Make Mine a Million $ Business awards including money, marketing, mentoring and technology assistance.

Check it out the full story at CBS Market Watch: Ten Women Entrepreneurs From Southwest Awarded Money

Date: October 16, 2008
Business Entrepreneur News from the Web

Business Entrepreneur Quote of the Day

Working for someone else is nothing like being an entrepreneur and the boss of your own business. To become an entrepreneur requires a different plan or map. You’ll be taking a different road, to a different destination.

- Noel Peebles, Author of Sell Your Business The Easy Way

Credit crisis and its effect on small business
Although the lending climate might appear chilly nowadays, Matthew Bandyk points out, “even though most banks have essentially stopped lending to each other, that does not mean that they are not lending to businesses”. He also points out that, “small-business owners have always needed to work hard for credit—they might just need to work a bit harder now”.

Read more at: Does the financial crisis mean a credit crisis for small business?

8 Mistakes Start-ups Make
David R. Butcher talks about the most common mistakes entrepreneurs make when starting up a business; Start Underfunded, Do It Alone, Don’t Plan/Research Properly, Undervalue the Customer, A Weak Call to Action, Lose Momentum, Don’t Get Involved, Do It Only for the Money.

Read more at: 8 Mistakes Start-ups Make

Sramana Mitra, Forbes columnist and serial entrepreneur Forbes columist, Sraman Mitra, talks about her new book, Entrepreneurs Journeys. Entrepreneurs Journeys, captures wisdom and advice for every technology entrepreneur and anyone interested in building a new business.

Check it out Sraman Mitra’s latest post at: An S.O.S. To Silicon Valley

Date: October 6, 2008
Business Entrepreneur News from the Web

Business Entrepreneur Quote of the Day

The entrepreneur is our visionary, the creator in each of us. We’re born with that quality and it defines our lives as we respond to what we see, hear, feel, and experience. It is developed, nurtured, and given space to flourish or is squelched, thwarted, without air or stimulation, and dies.

- Michael Gerber

Strategies for establishing business credit
According to Michelle Dunn, the author of the “Ultimate Credit and Collections Handbook, “When you first start a business your personal credit is what is used to determine the types of credit or if any credit will be extended to you or your business.” Read more tips on establishing your business credit at: http://www.bloggingstocks.com

Learning from the Financial Meltdown
Bob MacDonald asks some great questions and provides answers in his latest post. What does this historic event mean to the entrepreneur? How can we learn from this experience? As in almost all crises there are lessons we can learn, especially if we fancy ourselves as imbued with an entrepreneurial spirit. Read more at http://bobmaconbusiness.com/

Web Business Freedom a new site developed by web and new media consultant Brandon Uttley offers consulting services to individuals and businesses looking to build, maintain and promote their business on the web, without unnecessary expenses and technical expertise. Check it out at http://webbusinessfreedom.com/

This is a first in a series of “guest author” posts. If you are interested in becoming one of our guest authors/contributors please contact us heres. In the meantime, please enjoy Sarah’s articles on choosing servers and colocation…

When your business depends on the efficiency of your server, the choice of a web host becomes a critical decision, one that takes on monstrous proportions if you make the wrong choice. While there are a variety of hosting options available – dedicated servers, colocation, managed and unmanaged services, shared hosting, virtual hosting and other – some are more expensive than the others and are thus not viable in the long run.

Colocation, where you place your server in a data center that provides you the best in terms of bandwidth, security, hardware and software services and physical infrastructure, is a costly option, and there are only some kinds of organizations that benefit from renting space at these facilities. They are:

• Companies that cannot afford to invest time, effort and money in building and equipping dedicated space for their servers; these server rooms must be protected against the elements of nature, man made accidental disasters, power outages and Internet backbone disconnects, data theft and tampering, and other threats. Rather than spend a fortune to house just one server or two, these companies choose colocation which is the more cost-effective option of the two.

• Enterprises that demand and use extremely high speeds to connect to the World Wide Web; rather than purchase T1 or similar lines at exorbitant costs, they would rather take advantage of the existing infrastructure at colocation centers where site access at high speeds is a matter of routine even during sudden traffic surges because of the large bandwidths provided.

• Organizations with sensitive and critical data that must be available online at all times to ensure that business is not affected; servers placed in the custody of colocation centers are safe from power outages and disconnection from the Internet because they are protected by redundant network structures and backup power sources to last through the ravages of a storm or other natural disaster, thus ensuring almost a 100 percent of server uptime.

• Organizations that do not have a strong IT team; these outfits can take advantage of the managed services offered by an experienced technical team at the colocation center and rest assured knowing that they do not have to worry about maintenance and troubleshooting issues related to their server.

• Companies that are in the telecommunication field; they benefit from the cross connections that colocation facilities offer and utilize it to exchange network data.

• Organizations that need regular offsite backup and disaster recovery measures; besides hosting your server, colocation centers offer additional services that include regular data backups to and disaster recovery methods when nature or manmade fury strikes.

This article is contributed by Sarah Scrafford, who regularly writes on the topic of web designing institutes. She invites your questions, comments and freelancing job inquiries at her email address: sarah.scrafford25@gmail.com.

Date: August 28, 2008
Business Entrepreneur News from the Blogosphere

Business Entrepreneur Quote of the Day

Achievement results from work realizing ambition.
Adam Ant

Home Based Business Entrepreneur - Deadly Traps to Avoid
Too many home based business owners treat their business as a hobby and not a business. Go figure? Read the other traps to avoid as a home based business owner at: http://www.wealthambassadorsintl.net

Home Business Entrepreneur Diary
These diaries (articles) were created to help entrepreneurs speed up the learning curve in starting their business. Read more at 10000Articles.com

Get Paid to Build Your Customer List
An easy yet effective list building system system that will help you build a huge customer and prospect list. Check it out at http://bizpreneur.com

Startup Nation 2nd Annual Top 100 Contest is open for entries. StartupNation is a free service founded by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs providing entrepreneurial advice on the radio and on the web.

Will you be one of their lucky winners this year? Are you one of the next 100 outstanding home based businesses? There are a bunch of cool categories to choose from including; Best Financial Performers, Most Innovative, Boomers Back in Business, Greenest, Yummiest, Wackiest, Grungiest, Recession Busters, Most Slacker Friendly, Most Glamourous.

Is your business the “wackiest” or “grungiest” - you never know until you try.

Enter today at http://www.startupnation.com.

A quick shout out to the folks over at Freelance Switch - they have put together a comprehensive list of very useful small business resources. They have grouped the resources into the following categories; timing, invoicing, project management, organization, stock photo libraries, small business tools, legal services, job boards, web design tools, advertising and marketing, and a set of really cool other tools. It is definitely worth the look - see the full list at:
101 Essential Freelancing Resources

A found a great article, The 5 Challenges of the Intermediate Entrepreneur, which succinctly outlines five of the challenges that most entrepreneurs face. The blog post is written by Wendy Piersall, CEO and founder of Sparkplugging.com who has over 8 years’ of entrepreneurial experience and is a writer for the Entrepreneur Magazine Blog Network.

Go check it out…