I’ve just come across this excellent animated and constantly updating infographic from onlineschools.org, which contains some mind-blowing stats about the size and growth of the web.
For example, in the 60 seconds I spent looking at the infographic, Amazon sold 4,423 items, and $1.6m was spent on e-commerce. During the same period there were 331 new internet users out of a total of 1.97bn worldwide.
What small-business owners think.
We’ve just published an article by Adriana Gardella that describes the impact of stepped-up enforcement by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE, on American small businesses. It cites the example of David Cox, who runs a family-owned nursery in Visalia, Calif., that was one of 1,444 businesses audited by ICE in 2009. Last year, 2,196 businesses were audited.
Even though Mr. Cox has always played by the rules in his hiring practices — and faces no fines or charges — an ICE audit revealed that 26 of his 99 employees were not authorized to work in the United States, and he was forced to fire them. While he has struggled to find replacement workers, Mr. Cox says he has heard that his former employees have found work in the area, some presumably with his competitors.
It is a dilemma that more and more business owners are likely to face. As Leon Versfeld, an immigration attorney in Kansas City, Mo., told Ms. Garde Read all…
Employers and unions in the petroleum sector have indicated a willingness to meet, the bargaining council for the Chemical Industry said on Thursday.
“The council has proposed that both parties meet to open discussions for negotiations,” said general secretary Ingrid Dimo.
“Both parties have yet to decide on it, but have indicated their willingness to meet.”
A date would be set by the council once both parties had made their decisions.
“We are expecting them to meet over the weekend, or next week by the latest,” she said.
The proposal was made on Wednesday.
Earlier, the Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood, and Allied Workers’ Union (Ceppwawu) said the strike in the fuel sector would continue into next week as no meetings were scheduled.
Union coordinator John Appolis claimed there had been no wage talks since June 24.
“We have talks in the glass, pharmaceutical, and fast moving consumer goods sector for tomorrow [Friday], Saturday and Sunday, but no meeting is scheduled in the petroleum sector,” he said.
“So our members will continue to be on strike up until and even after Monday.”
Engen spokesperson Tania Landsberg referred queries to the South African Petroleum Industry Association (Sapia), which was not able to comment.
Sapia represents petroleum companies including Engen, Shell, BP, Chevron, Total, Sasol, and PetroSA.
Attempts to reach the National Petroleum Employers’ Association were unsuccessful.
Automobile Association spokesperson Gary Ronald said if the claims were true, the strike in the fuel sector would have serious implications for everyone.
“This is very worrying. Read all…
South Africa is facing a major crisis because of the inequalities that are growing every day, Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said in Durban on Tuesday, warning that working class South Africans fighting for a living wage were losing patience with employers.
“South Africa is ranked the number one country in the world in terms of inequalities — it has surpassed Brazil,” Vavi said.
He was addressing thousands of members of the National Union of Metalworkers in South Africa (Numsa) who marched from King Dinuzulu street to the Durban city hall demanding an increase in wages on Tuesday.
“Africans are living in poverty with 58% earning a salary of R325 a month,” Vavi said.
Statistical nightmare
“We are not enjoying the fruits of our democracy because we remain affiliated with a crisis of unemployment, with 36% of people unable to find job opportunities to work.”
About 73% of people below the ages of 35 were unemployed in South Africa. Read all…
Content management vendor OpenText has announced its intention to acquire business process management (BPM) software vendor Global 360 for $260 million.
It is the second BPM acquistion by the Canadian company this year. In February 2011, it acquired MetaStorm for $183 million.
In a statement yesterday, OpenText’s CEO John Shackleton remarked that many organisations already use BPM software as part of their content management strategy. “Customers are moving in this direction and we are accelerating our investment in leading content, process and case management solutions as a result,” he said.
OpenText CTO Eugene Roman said that Global 360′s dynamic case management software helps organisation combine content, processes and collaboration. “Dynamic case management is the kind of technology customers are moving to and it ties together the strengths we’re building in our ECM and BPM portfolios,” he said
Global 360 has been owned by a consortium of private equity firms since 2006.
The adventure of new ventures.
Start
Most new entrepreneurs don’t have much spare time. But beginning next fall, those with a couple of hours to kill can immerse themselves in Startup Fever, a board game that challenges players to start and build rival companies.
Competitors develop their own products and vie to win the most users. They hire engineers (“nerds”), salespeople (“suits”) and chief executives (“big suits”). If employees aren’t kept happy, they can get poached by other players. There’s no one direct path to victory; many different strategies can prevail.
Forget “life imitates art.” This is “play imitates work.” And for the game’s designer — Louis Perrochon, 43, a software engineering executive in Mountain View, Calif. – it involved trying something he’d witnessed many times but never done himself: starting a small business.
Mr. Perrochon is the founder and sole employee of Meetpoint, a tiny company he created to produce his game. Reached by phone for an interview