It was pointed out in an e-mail that was forwarded to me that Sunday was National Mom and Pop Business Owners Day. How did I miss that?
According to the Web site Holiday Insights, this holiday is celebrated every year on March 29.
National Mom and Pop Business Owners Day celebrates small business owners. These individuals spend countless hours nurturing and growing their young enterprises. The workload demands, and lack of a hired staff, often translates into long and late hours, and many missed family and personal events. But, all in all, they love what they do. After all, they are their own boss.
So to all you Moms and Pops out there, we here at Business Casual salute you. And next year we’ll try to be on time.
As mentioned before here and here, Jon Stewart has had a little battle going on with CNBC. He had Jim Cramer over last night for a chat on “The Daily Show.” It was an impressive grilling. The interview is below in three takes.
As you might have read in this blog post last week, Jon Stewart of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” has been engaged in a little battle with CNBC.
Since it started, Stewart has been in a war of words with CNBC’s Jim Cramer, who you can see on “Mad Money.”
Well, tonight is the night. Cramer and Stewart face off on Stewart’s show, which airs at 10 p.m. in Wichita. It will be interesting to see what happens. I know I’ll be watching.
Times are tough these days, which I think we all know. Thank goodness I have “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” to end the day four nights a week.
Stewart is one of the funniest — and smartest — men alive, in my opinion. Last night he took on CNBC. If you didn’t see it, watch this. I promise you too will find it amusing.
Headquartered in St. Louis, the company has more than 30,000 in the United States. Last year, it had more than 2,000 new jobs, a growth of 9 percent. As of Jan. 13, it had more than 1,000 openings.
From Fortune:
The stock market collapse reduced partner distributions and bonuses, but Jim Weddle, who heads the brokerage, assured associates the firm had no exposure to high-risk mortgages or financial derivatives and no plans for layoffs. Jones hired 698 new financial advisors in the first ten months of 2008 and is building an addition to its St. Louis headquarters for 500 new employees.
No companies based in Kansas were on the list, but some with a significant number employees here were. Those include Cisco Systems (No. 6), Starbucks (No. 24), QuikTrip (No. 27), CarMax (No. 31), Men’s Wearhouse (No. 71), FedEx (No. 90) and T-Mobile (No. 96).
Former CBS News correspondent David Henderson has an interesting item on his blog. Seems an executive from big Atlanta PR firm Ketchum recently traveled to Memphis to speak with a client — a little company called FedEx – about social media.
Here’s what the guy posted on his Twitter account upon arriving in Memphis:
“True confession but I’m in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say, ‘I would die if I had to live here.’”
What followed is probably a good lesson for anyone who uses Twitter, or any other social media Web site. Read about here.
As Carrie Rengers wrote last week and Bill Wilson mentioned on the blog yesterday, PBS’s “NewHour with Jim Lehrer” was in Wichita to do a story on burdens of health care on small businesses and their employees.
It was a well-done piece. A significant amount of the story focused on Tillie’s Flower Shop.
From owner Ken Denton:
For us, for example, the people that had the insurance here are people that really need it. And it’s the older group and it’s a group that utilizes it more than anyone else. And it drives the cost up. And the young people, who don’t necessarily need it, drop out.
“You can study the theory and learn the concepts of riding a bike forever, but until you practice them so you can do it without thinking, you don’t have knowledge of bike riding.”
“Most people in Wichita take maybe ten minutes to get to work. Just examine that, what that means in the quality of life. Ten minutes as opposed to an hour and a half.”
“I put pheromones in a lot of my fragrances, and that attracts people to you. My new fragrance is called Fairy Dust. I’m dressed kind of like Tinkerbell.”
“Having a nightclub in your house really helps for having a party, because then you don’t need to go out.”
The Topeka-based thrift was held up as an example of a financial institution that held true to its values and high standards “even when it seemed nothing could go wrong.”
The story shouldn’t come as a surprise to Eagle readers. In fact, Eagle banking reporter Jerry Siebenmark traveled to Topeka earlier this year and wrote about Cap Fed for a story that appeared in the Feb. 7 issue of Business Today.
It is nice, however, to see a local bank get some national recognition for doing things right. It’s also being recognized on Wall Street, where its stock (CFFN) is up about 35 percent in the past year. The S&P 500 is down about 40 percent in the same period.
My only criticism about the story: Why is it that national reporters always have to bring up Dorothy?
H-Line Conversions’ Johnathan Goodwin, the Wichita man who is becoming well known for turning gas guzzlers into efficient, green machines, has received some more national recognition.
CBS Evening News‘ Hari Sreenivasan came to Wichita to do a story on Goodwin. Check out the story.
