Venture capital at 6-year high

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Venture capital investments in U.S. startups climbed to a six-year high of $29.4 billion in 2007, raising hope that ample money will still be available to back promising new ideas even if the staggering economy falls into a recession.

read more here...http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/19/news/economy/bc.ventureinvestments.ap/index.htm?postversion=2008011908

Here come the hot IPOs of 2008
Combined, these sectors attracted nearly $16 billion in venture capital investments last year, accounting more than half of the total activity.
While focusing on specialties less susceptible to economic downturns, venture capitalists have been increasing their investments more gradually in recent years. During the dot.com boom, high-tech financiers had routinely entrusted millions of dollars with young Internet entrepreneurs who had never before run profitable businesses.

read more here...http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/19/news/economy/bc.ventureinvestments.ap/index.htm?postversion=2008011908

Labor Management Team Creates World Class Golf Course

It wasn’t that long ago that Yale’s Golf Course was in trouble. After years of hard use, many parts of the course were becoming difficult to play, equipment had become outdated, and those who worked there often felt powerless to make a change. The worst moment probably came in September 2003, when Golfweek called the golf course “a national landmark gone askew.”

read more here...http://www.yale.edu/bestpractices/success/golf.html

Retail best practices in store labor management

Excited new members from the U.S. and International line up to participate in study and leverage retail best practices in store labor management. NEW YORK, Jan 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Retail Benchmarks, Inc., an independentfirm dedicated to defining best practices in the retail industry, registeredover 100 new members at NRF 2006, and had a very successful launch of theirnewest Retail Revelations(TM) Benchmark Study, "Store Labor Management". The Store Labor Management study is designed to help retailers understandnot only how they compare to similar retailers in store labor management, butmore importantly, how to become more efficient in their use of labor in thestores while maintaining sales and customer service. As with all RetailRevelations studies(TM), this one will define best practices in store labormanagement through benchmarking results and the correlation of performanceresults to related process characteristics and metrics. "It is easy to understand why we received such an enthusiastic response atNRF for our Store Labor Management Study. Labor is one of the three largestexpense categories for a retailer. Store labor efficiency, designed to promotesales and maintain long-term customer loyalty, is measured in terms of laborcost, sales productivity, and customer service," says Marianne Gregory,President of Retail Benchmarks. "Similar retailers need to know how theycompare in payroll expense, but more importantly, retailers want to know howthey can be more effective in their use of labor at the stores." "Simply knowing something is broken isn't going to really change aretailer's bottom line. Helping them understand what dials to turn to fixit - will," says Brenda Moncla, VP Research Technology at Retail Benchmarks."Our comprehensive retail model includes the definition of all retail missioncritical processes, their relationships and intersections, and how they driveperformance metrics. By leveraging our unique retail data model and datawarehousing techniques, we are able to correlate and link the information,ultimately proving the connection between the process characteristics andresults - the basis of true Best Practices. After all, just because everybodydoes something doesn't make it a best practice." About Retail Benchmarks, Inc. Retail Benchmarks, Inc., an associate member of NRF (the National RetailFederation) with offices in Atlanta, Chicago, and Sacramento, is anindependent company dedicated to defining retail best practices and capturingretail-specific process measurement information that highlights areas ofopportunity and improvement for its member companies. Retail Benchmarksmembership is FREE. All Retail Benchmark members have immediate access toRetail Connections(TM), an online member-only forum where retailers candiscuss and share their ideas, questions, and experiences with completesecurity and anonymity. Retail Benchmarks members can also browse the RetailConnections library and download any of the process focused white papers fromleading retail industry experts and thought leaders. Retail Benchmarks alsoprovides its members with the opportunity to participate in RetailRevelations(TM), a series of benchmarking studies that provide retailmanagement process performance expectations and expertise from best-in-classretailers. Retail Revelations(TM) gives members a unique perspective thatenables them to not only compare their bottom-line results to standard retailperformance metrics of similar retailers, but to leverage their ability tobenchmark their key process related characteristics with their peers to betterunderstand the specific actions that can be taken to improve outcomes. Theprice of each benchmarking study is dependent on the level of reportingpurchased. Results of each study are only available to the studyparticipants. Visit http://www.labormanagement-technowizard3.blogspot.com/ for more information.