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About three years ago, it seemed as though reverse mergers were falling out of favor with the SEC. The agency sanctioned some of the companies that were created by this process and some were actually suspended from trading. Now it seems that reverse mergers are once again regaining their popularity....

Many clients and friends often ask me about the wisdom of serving on a board. My immediate answer is, yes, you should serve. I then go into detail as to what are the pros and cons of board service. Here's some of what I tell them. Since the enactment of Sarbanes-Oxley, there is no question that boa...

Do you wonder if technology has given us more information than needed? Perhaps, but sometimes it is very helpful, if not invaluable. There is so much good, solid data on the Internet that today, researchers can use it with great comfort and assurance. The days when academics were stuck in libraries ...

Remember the tech bubble? If you do, I'm sure that you'll remember the bursting of that bubble in mid 2000. Now, it seems as though the tech run-up is happening again. To give us a little perspective, I want to quote something that CNNMoney ran on Feb. 4, 2000: "Emerge Interactive, an online marketp...

The press has been replete with complaints from companies that have to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley. Some of the criticisms were based upon the outsized cost of compliance. Other criticisms revolved around the difficulty and intricacy of compliance, especially to Section 404, Management Assessment of ...

Many hedge funds charge extraordinarily high fees to the investor. Not only do they charge a base fee that can be augmented by churning the securities in the fund, but they also can charge a profit-participation fee based upon a healthy percentage of the fund's gains. To add insult to injury, the ac...

The U.S. dollar is still the world's dominant currency. But, there are rumblings that could foretell a great weakening of the dollar and a loss of its hegemony. For example, the European Union is currently gathering both members and economic power. Its combined gross domestic product now exceeds tha...

In today's ever more challenging business climate, CEOs are pressured to handle multiple tasks, each of which might be critical to the long-term success of the company. If the CEO takes his/her eye off the ball for even a short length of time, other competing tasks might go undone to the detriment ...

When most people are asked about software giants, they usually think of Microsoft. But I recently discovered that there is a company that is regarded as one of the largest international, independent software companies in the world. That company is called Cincom and has 40 offices on six continents. ...

Sarbanes-Oxley has really sharpened the businessperson's awareness of the fiduciary responsibilities of corporate board service. In fact, it seems that nowadays, even the press has become more attentive to what's going on in the corporate boardroom. The recent battles over directorship seats at H.J....

As a company grows, so do its accounts receivable. Growing pains often involve a shortage of cash, creating inadequate cash flows. So, wouldn't it be nice if you didn't have to wait for your customers to pay you? Actually, that is what factoring does for you; it turns your invoices and your receiva...

There's no doubt about it, starting a business is no easy task. One of the first hurdles that you have to overcome is obtaining the necessary capital to get your company to the cash-flowing stage. Why are many lenders and investors so difficult to convince when it comes to obtaining loans or capita...

In a recent article for the E-Commerce Times entitled "Monetary Unions: Are We on Our Way?, I talked about what I feel are the present dangers to the dollar and whether or not currency consolidation would reduce the risk of a dollar crisis. For that article, I interviewed Morrison Bonpasse, the pres...

In January 2005, I wrote an article for the E-Commerce Times entitled "VoIP Here to Stay." In that article, I stated, "The future of VoIP is, to a significant extent, now!" It's hard to imagine that the column was written only about a year and a half ago. At that time, Vonage had about 350,000 custo...

Sarbanes-Oxley has certainly made quite an impact on corporate governance since its enactment in 2002. Most of us remember the corporate debacles that brought about SOX. In fact, one of them, the Enron failure, is still very much in the news today. Consider some of the ways that SOX has affected cor...

Executive coaching has become very popular over the last few years. In fact, a great deal has been written about it, and quite a few coaching companies have sprouted up across the country. Some of these companies are even franchised, hoping to sell their "formula" to would-be coaches. Many businesse...

Most of us have a subtle, almost subconscious, awareness that the dollar is vulnerable to a currency crisis. Why? Because we realize that our US$4.8 trillion national debt is growing, due to our yearly deficits that have been running in the hundreds of billions. What has kept our dollar strong so fa...

It's fun to think about how far we've come with technology and what the future might look like. For example, consider the Mark series of computers created at Harvard University in 1944 and you'll get some sense of how miniaturized computers have become. The MARK series was 55 feet long and 8 feet h...

Many of us are aware that the United States has a large trade imbalance with China. We also realize that a significant part of this trade imbalance has to do with the enormous amount of textiles that China is exporting to us. The fact is, we shouldn't blithely think that China's exports to us might ...

Most of us are aware of the fact that many startups fail. But, we don't go the next step and analyze the reasons behind such failures. There are many critical issues in the startup process, which if ignored, will almost certainly guarantee the demise of a startup. Although it should go without sayin...