Media

McGrath: Poor Decisions, Missed Signals Doomed Angelo
Tue, 01/03/2012
On Monday, while offering his post mortem on the Bears’ break-even season, coach Lovie Smith tried to spin a desultory 1-5 finish forward. He claimed the Bears were a solid football team, had practically been a lock for a playoff berth, only to be undone by injuries to key players, which they’d managed to avoid while reaching the NFC Championship...

How to give yourself a better job
Fri, 09/09/2011
Are you having fun yet? As with so many things in life, spending too much time on work that you don’t like has a way of sneaking up on you slowly, without your noticing at first. In the earliest phases of a startup business, of course, founders do everything from balancing the books to taking out the trash to standing in line at the post...

Aid for startups, way down south
Thu, 09/01/2011
 High school buddies Scott Thompson and Scott Bird had long talked about starting a company. But life and careers got in the way as Mr. Thompson worked his way up in marketing in a big New York financial firm and Mr. Bird became CFO for a liquor distributor. They were making good money but didn't have the cash to start a company on their...

Startups need to think about brands and marketers from day one
Wed, 08/31/2011
 Fred Wilson is a brilliant and accomplished investor. As an outspoken partner at Union Square Ventures, he has established himself as a thought leader in the startup space. Yet, I can't help but disagree with a recent post of his in which he asserts that startups should focus on users first, brands second. While I understand where he's...

Green Scene: Celebrating an anniversary, and looking ahead
Thu, 08/18/2011
  This month marks the one-year anniversary of the Green Scene column’s debut, so I thought I’d take a moment for a quick look back and an eager eye ahead.   The local green economy cuts such a wide swath across so many sectors of business, government, non-profits, and various combinations of the above, that there has been no...

A brain trust for female business owners
Mon, 08/01/2011
Marion Hindenburg, owner and president of New York City-based paper distributor Mrs. Paper, recently faced a problem many entrepreneurs know all too well in these rocky economic times: A longstanding customer stopped paying. Ms. Hindenburg mentioned the situation at a meeting of the Women Presidents’ Organization, where the guest speaker that...

McGrath: Baseball’s Selective Forgiveness
Thu, 07/28/2011
Barry Bonds is way too self-satisfied to fret that suspicions about performance-enhancing drug use may have fouled his prodigious baseball achievements badly enough to keep him from entering the Hall of Fame in two years. Other juicers, admitted and alleged, will take heart from seeing Roberto Alomar welcomed into sports’ most exclusive fraternity...

Green Scene: 11 wealthy families team up to invest in clean tech
Thu, 07/28/2011
Eleven wealthy families are now scouting for investment opportunities in the clean-energy sector – and the investment syndicate they’ve formed has already inked some deals. The Cleantech Syndicate was created in 2010 but only announced its formation late last month after it accumulated a large enough membership and demonstrated some investment...

The Illinois GOP’s Favorite Physicist
Thu, 07/28/2011
Sweaty-shirted college students dawdled into a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University on a recent weekday, lugging water bottles to manage the heat blanketing the DeKalb campus like fleece. Mike Fortner yanked on a cord, pulling a screen from the ceiling for his presentation on amplifiers and generators. In a wrinkled shirt, loafers and wire...

Green Scene: How one neighborhood is pushing the sustainability mantra
Thu, 07/14/2011
About 40 businesses in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood are participating this week in the North Side neighborhood’s Green Week festivities. Local retailers, restaurants, and other businesses in the area are organizing, sponsoring and running many of the 50-plus events and activities taking place July 12-18. Events include local chefs...