The Pragmatic Strategist

A ‘No Vacation Policy’ Policy

Last spring, I was reading the annual WorldBlu list of the most democratically run organizations in the world. One of the companies that caught my eye was one whose democratic organizational practices included eliminating a formal vacation day policy. I remember making a mental note of the idea, because I liked it and wanted to [...]

Continue reading...

Don’t Play the Work-Life Waiting Game

Tim Berry has a recent post on MyVenturePad that is highly worth reading.  He takes issue with a VentureBeat post that essentially recommends to entrepreneurs that they sacrifice their life until they get their business successfully built. Tim hits the nail on the head right out of the gate: the absurdity of that recommendation is [...]

Continue reading...

Canines, Trains and Really Great Parties

One of my favorite things about the information economy is the extent to which a highly commoditized, social web lowers the barrier to entry for prospective entrepreneurs.  While some of us elect to dive into owning our own business head-first with little or no safety net, that’s not the best way for some people.  Many [...]

Continue reading...

Mixing Business and Family

For some families, business is just part of the package.  As someone who grew up in a family-owned business, one of the reasons I ducked-and-weaved every time my husband used to bring up the idea of us owning our own business was because I saw a lot of headache (and heartache) as a result of [...]

Continue reading...

Hooray the Freelance Economy

Scott Shane‘s recent article on Business Week is called, “Beware the Freelance Economy.”  In it, he posits that cheering for the increased number of new businesses is premature, since so many of them are really solo practitioners (a.k.a. “freelancers”).  His point is that, because of this, these firms are not realistic sources of new jobs [...]

Continue reading...

A Pragmatic New Year

Well, I can’t say that I’m sorry to have seen 2009 go. Personally and professionally, it was one hell of a rough year. On the other hand, it did bring with it some changes that — despite fighting pretty voraciously at first — have ultimately proven to be profoundly valuable. The biggest and most obvious [...]

Continue reading...

My Favorite Bloggers

As someone who consumes most of her daily doses of new information through the blogosphere (as opposed to traditional media), there are different bloggers I read for different reasons.  As I’ve been trying to streamline my process for writing more (and better), myself, I’ve been thinking more and more about what I specifically get out [...]

Continue reading...