The Pragmatic Strategist

A Web 2.0 of Small Business Solutions – FreshBooks, Outright, BatchBlue, MailChimp & Shoeboxed

What do FreshBooks, Shoeboxed, BatchBlue, MailChimp and Outright all have in common? Aside from being Web 2.0 businesses who serve the small business market, they are also the founding member organizations of The Small Business Web. An exciting initiative that launched earlier this year, The Small Business Web is a partnership of businesses dedicated to [...]

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Interactive Austin Keynote Videos

The second annual Interactive Austin Conference has wrapped up, and in true social media fashion, there is no shortage of online accounts of the day’s activities (with more to be coming over the next few days, no doubt). Online already are keynote coverage posts by Ricci Neer, for each Dion Hinchcliffe, Sam Lawrence and whurley. [...]

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To VC or Not to VC, That is the Question

Last night I was reading a very interesting Harvard Business Review article by Umair Haque called Five Problems Venture Capitalists Should Have Solved (But Didn’t). Admittedly, I know very little about the world of venture capital (hence the reading), but this made me think of a panel I attended at SXSWi and he raised a [...]

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Nine Unemployment Survival Tips

Not working is easily ten times more stressful than working — unless, of course, money is not a concern in your life. Unemployment or underemployment is difficult to manage on multiple levels, because — just to name a few examples — it has such a huge impact across all spectrums of your life: Financial stability [...]

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Book Review: Prince Charming Isn't Coming: How Women Get Smart About Money

This book review was written for Joyful Jubilant Learning‘s March book reviews. I am posting it here for my own personal timeline. Barbara Stanny‘s “Prince Charming Isn’t Coming: How Women Get Smart About Money” is a great story with a problematic title. Unfortunately, it is also billed as a How To book, which is where [...]

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Why Valentine's Day is Responsible for the Recession

I was going to title this “Why I Hate Valentine’s Day,” but since I recently used that same title to describe football on Super Bowl Sunday, I figured I should probably avoid sounding redundant and pissy. Except that Valentine’s Day makes me pissy. I hate this trumped-up, b.s., hearts-and-flowers, commercial rip-off of a holiday. A [...]

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Two Things I Hate About "Sex and the City"

I recently put my “Sex and the City” DVDs on while doing some work around the house, and was reminded of the two things about the show that — no matter how much else about it I loved (and there were plenty of things in that category) — that bother the daylights out of me [...]

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