Corporate and Business Articles

The CIPA Atlas
Meeting of the minds:
Science and spirituality converge
To scientists, sea sponges are primitive animals, lacking muscles, nerves, and internal organs. To Buddhists, they are sentient beings. Deliberately inflicting suffering on such creatures by using them to wash dishes, for instance, is not only unethical—it’s bad karma. More...

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Atlanta Business Chronicle
Front-line employees require extra instruction
It seems that everybody has a horror story of some surly customer service representative who half-listens to a complaint, feigns ignorance, refuses to get a supervisor, and then "accidentally" drops the call. More..

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Atlanta Business Chronicle
Planners must be mindful of professional ethics
It's a $102.3 billion industry of extreme perks--comped plane tickets, hotel rooms, spa visits and three-course dinners. Meeting planners who orchestrate contracts worth millions are treated like high rollers in Vegas.

But for a profession that prides itself on relationship-building, there is little ethical oversight. Meeting planners don't need licenses. Novice planners, who aren't even certified, are left to negotiate using their own moral compass. More...

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The Atlantan
Second time around: Prices on vacation homes around the South are soaring-and baby boomers are mostly to thank for it
When Fay Gold and her husband, Donald, decided to purchase their 900-square-foot second home seven years ago, it was partly the place and partly the lifestyle that drew them to Satulah Mountain in Highlands , North Carolina. A veteran of the contemporary art world, Gold was looking for something radically different from the white walls and complexities that go along with owning her eponymous art gallery, one of the largest in Buckhead, and her sprawling, 5,800-square-foot home in the city. More..

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Atlanta Woman
Outsourcing: Love it or loathe it, it’s here to stay
Outsourcing is on the agenda in virtually every boardroom in corporate America, trumpeted by supporters for cutting costs, boosting efficiency, and helping U.S. companies better compete in the global marketplace.

But to the average consumer, straining to decipher a computer error message with a foreign customer service representative on the other end of the line, outsourcing can be a nuisance. More...

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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
B.E.D. in the ATL: Sexy-chic beverage, entertainment, dining experience hits town
B.E.D. It stands for Beverage, Entertainment, Dining.

But let's be real — it's all about the hookup.

Patrons toss the stilettos and dine Roman emperor-style on 400-thread-count sheets, treated to a masseuse and desserts like "Go Deep." The restaurant/lounge hosts SKiN erotica parties and "superfreqy" holiday shindigs and has been featured in Playboy. It's where gossip columnists go to stargaze. It's so Miami. So Manhattan.

So ... Atlanta. More...

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The News & Observer
Dean of the dealers
HILLSBOROUGH--'I gotta tell you a story," Albert Sack begins, the veritable New Yorker commanding attention. Sack was attending an antiques show dinner a few years back, when the editor of a trade digest came running over to his table to tell him that a man had just pointed in his direction, awestruck.

"There's Albert Sack!"

The man was Harrison Ford. More...

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The Philadelphia Inquirer
Rising cost of insurance sends doctors scurrying
By Josh Goldstein and Margie Fishman

Faced with large increases in malpractice insurance rates for the coming year, many doctors in the region have decided to scale back their practices, retire from medicine, or leave the area.

The higher rates, due to a variety of circumstances, some of them unique to Pennsylvania, will have a direct effect on patients as early as the coming week, when some begin to learn that their doctors have not renewed their premiums or have limited their roles - eliminating surgery, for example - in order to reduce their premiums. More..

"Everybody walks past a thousand story
ideas every day. The good writers are the
ones who see five or six of them."
~Orson Scott Card