UK employees in bad shape

British workers are in poor health, with more than 10 million UK male employees overweight or obese.

According to a survey of 8,778 workers by water cooler company Water Wellpoint, two thirds have an unhealthy body mass index (BMI).

Nearly a third of respondents have high blood pressure and 59 per cent have a lower fluid intake than is recommended.

Female workers don’t fare much better, with 44 per cent of women tested having a higher BMI than recommended, reinforcing data showing that more than half (56 per cent) are overweight or obese.

Rory Murphy, spokesman at Water Wellpoint, says: ‘We believe [poor health] is a real issue, both for employers who are trying to tackle sickness absence levels and maintain productivity, and for the coalition government which has made it clear it will cut costs across the welfare system and the NHS.’

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Online Startups Target College Book Costs

By John Tozzi

Shelstad left traditional publishing to start on online book service Ethan Hill
When Dennis Passovoy, a lecturer at University of Texas' McCombs School of Business, selected a new textbook for his Organizational Behavior class last year, his students didn't even have to buy it. They could read the book online for free, or purchase it in several formats, including as an audio book, PDF, or $30 paperback version ordered online that would be printed and then shipped to their doors. "It was equally as good as this $160 textbook, but what really got my attention was if the students adopted the book online, it was free," says Passovoy, who got the new textbook from startup publisher Flat World Knowledge.
Flat World was launched in 2007 by two textbook industry veterans to provide an alternative to expensive course books, such as Organizational Behavior, a standard text from Prentice Hall that lists for $180. "It was so obvious to anybody in the industry that students are running as fast as they can to avoid buying a new book," says Jeff Shelstad, Flat World's 46-year-old chief executive officer. CourseSmart, a joint venture by major textbook publishers including Pearson and McGraw-Hill, distributes digital versions of textbooks for a fee. Six months of digital access to Organizational Behavior, for example, costs $98, according to the venture's website.
Flat World, a 32-employee Irvington (N.Y.) company, is among a wave of startups trying to change the economics of this corner of higher education. "In the last six months there's been a huge explosion in this area," says Vic Vuchic, program officer at the Hewlett Foundation's Open Educational Resources project, which supports efforts to offer learning materials online for free. He says at least two dozen companies now use technology to make learning more affordable and accessible, up from about a half-dozen two years ago.
These entrepreneurs want to use the innovations that have upended other media—e-readers, online video, and social networking—to transform the way people learn. Education "is by far the biggest information industry," says Jose Ferreira, a former executive at Kaplan (WPO) who founded online test prep startup Knewton in 2008. Like Flat World, Knewton hopes to lower costs for students by moving traditional elements of classroom learning to the Internet. The New York company sells online test prep lectures with technology that tailors lessons to individual learning styles. More than 10,000 students have taken Knewton's classes, and Ferreira is talking to publishers and colleges about delivering textbooks and lessons via its technology.
The backlash against rising prices is giving a boost to the startups. Entering freshmen this year will pay 32 percent more for textbooks than the class of 2010 did four years ago, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. While Flat World makes no money from free versions, Shelstad says about half of students in classes that use the company's books make some type of purchase. (In classes using traditional textbooks, about 70 percent of students buy the book, he says.)
Colleges also increasingly offer course materials online. Richard Ludlow founded Academic Earth two years ago to aggregate videos of university courses. "Since we've started, more and more universities have added to the open courseware movement," says Ludlow, a 24-year-old Yale graduate. The site now offers 150 free courses and has 300,000 unique visitors monthly, more than half from outside the U.S.
Knewton and Flat World also hope to cater to growing demand abroad. Students in India, South Korea, and Malaysia are among the 70,000 who will use Flat World books this year, and a quarter of those taking Knewton's most popular test-prep program, the GMAT exam for graduate business schools, come from outside the U.S.
Education is "a massive global market undergoing a huge amount of change," says Bo Fishback, a vice-president for the nonprofit Kauffman Foundation, which promotes entrepreneurship. In July, Kauffman announced a program to foster 20 education startups with intensive assistance next year; more than 1,200 have applied. Fishback predicts more companies will seek to make education affordable because "the fundamental cost of what it takes to get a four-year degree is just growing and growing."
The bottom line: Entrepreneurs want to use technology to change student behavior and make education more affordable and accessible.
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Control the cloud

(Fortune Small Business) -- For years the online-software company HotSchedules had its head in the clouds.
The Austin company had invested in cloud computing -- that is, it paid a monthly fee to lease computer storage space and computing power on an as-needed basis from a third-party provider, not unlike the way a homeowner rents electricity from a local utility. But conflicts arose because HotSchedules employees were not allowed to set foot inside the off-site facility.
"Our clients like having their private data housed and maintained by us," says Matt Woodings, HotSchedules' chief technology officer. Poor customer service was the last straw. HotSchedules turned to virtualization.
Virtualization uses software to divide one physical server into multiple "virtual" servers. Each virtual server runs as an independent machine with its own operating system and applications.
Of course, you still need to run one physical server, which typically costs more than cloud solutions. The downsides of cloud computing include security risks and potential outages (see "Supercomputers for Hire").
Piggybacking on cloud computing's cachet, some marketers are describing virtualized servers as "internal clouds" or "private clouds." But don't be fooled: There's nothing cloudy about making your servers do double, triple or quadruple duty.
Save Money: Virtualization has helped HotSchedules manage the expenses of its exponential growth.
Since deploying Microsoft's (MSFT, Fortune 500) Hyper-V virtualization technology in 2008, the company has slashed hardware expenditures and stabilized electricity costs while delivering maximum uptime to 480,000 users. At the same time, its revenue has grown 80%. (The company can't say how much of that growth is attributable to virtualization alone.) Rather than invest $60,000 in brand-new servers, HotSchedules consolidated its existing 42 physical servers down to six.
"Once we virtualized, we were able to stabilize our monthly expenses," says CEO Ray Pawlikowski. (The company pays an average of $12,000 a month in energy bills, and Pawlikowski estimates that the sum would have doubled if HotSchedules had added hardware to its data center.)
Safety First: Virtualized servers also tend to be more stable.
Just ask Robert Gawne, technology operations manager at Gradient Analytics in Scottsdale, Ariz. In 2006 one of the research firm's in-house servers crashed, rendering the company's data inaccessible for two full days.
"It took us almost two weeks to get back to production-ready status," recalls Gawne. "There were a lot of sleepless nights, and we got a little egg on our face."
After ruling out cloud computing because of security risks, the company could have stocked up on servers to store its mix of predictive data models, stock performance systems and analytical tools. But that would have cost nearly $255,000 in installation, support and hardware expenses. And Gawne estimates that moving production off-site to a data center would have cost his company nearly $140,000 in new servers, plus $4,700 a month in facility rental fees.
Today, Gradient relies on VMware's virtual Infrastructure 3 to safeguard against hardware and operating system failures within its web of virtualized servers. The tool is designed to instantly detect system failures and automatically transfer data from one virtual machine to another in the event of a technical snafu.
With virtualization, Gawne says, Gradient realized a 70% cost savings over moving its production off-site.
Virtualization can save you a lot of money, but it's also complex stuff. Analysts caution that you must make sure your IT department can handle the switch first.
"You do need to have some in-house expertise for virtualization," says Ray Wang, a partner with the Altimeter Group strategy consulting firm. "But in the end you're using much less storage, less capacity and fewer processors."  
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SMEs worried about cost of pension reform

The majority of small businesses feel auto-enrolment pension reforms will drive up costs.

According to a survey by the Association of Consulting Actuaries (ACA) of 404 smaller employers, 53 per cent of respondents say the government reforms set for 2014 will ’add significantly to costs’.

Companies not currently providing pensions say they do not principally because of cost (96 per cent) and economic conditions in their specific sector (82 per cent).

Smaller firms say the principal reasons why employees do not join existing schemes is, again, cost (84 per cent), a preference to spend (72 per cent) and a disillusionment with pensions (69 per cent).

Despite the concerns about costs, more than half (54 per cent) of small firms say they support auto-enrolment.

ACA chairman Stuart Southall says: ‘The cost of pensions to both employees and employers is the big issue that has prevented the extension of pension provision to date in the sector.’

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Patent Reform: High Stakes for Small Biz

By John Tozzi and Susan Decker

Ben Cappiello thinks he has a better way to make intrauterine contraceptive devices. He's hoping to patent his idea, but when his application gets to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in October, it will land at the bottom of a stack of more than 700,000 others. Cappiello can expect to wait nearly three years for a ruling, which could make it harder to raise money. Venture capitalists are wary when "there are still a lot of question marks about your intellectual property," he says.

The Patent Office concedes the system is broken and is proposing changes that would give applicants more control over the timing of the process. One shift would let applicants pay more to jump to the front of the queue, guaranteeing a decision within a year. "We are currently operating the most senseless system of delayed and delinquent examination imaginable," David Kappos, the patent agency's director, said at a public hearing on the proposal in July. He hopes to have the plan in place next summer. Congress will have to approve some of the changes.

The Patent Office says the fee for fast-track review would be "substantial," though it hasn't yet announced a price. The average patent application fee under the current system costs $1,000, Kappos says, though small businesses and individuals get a 50 percent discount. (That's not counting attorneys' fees of $10,000 or more.) Kappos says smaller companies could get a similar discount on the price of fast-track examinations.

Not all applicants want a speedy review. The new system also would give entrepreneurs the option to put off examination for up to 30 months. That would let companies avoid paying the full fee when they file to patent early-stage ideas that might never reach the market, because the bulk of the fees are due at the end of the process. (If a patent is granted, the protection is retroactive to the date of the filing.) Small businesses have expressed interest in both the fast-track option and the potential to delay review, says Kate Reichert, assistant chief counsel at the Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy.

"If a small business has a patent and its business is going to be based on that patent," she says, "it would be very, very helpful to get that processed quickly."

The bottom line: Letting patent applicants speed up or delay examinations could help small businesses if fees don't put the fast-track reviews out of reach.

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Why The Social Web Is Like Falling in Love

“I don’t have enough time!”
Those five words are uttered over and over by small business owners, entrepreneurs (and, believe it or not, big, scary brands) when it comes to maximizing this new world of online marketing and brand building.

Variations include:
“I don’t have time to create really interesting content.”
“I don’t have time to visit blogs and forums and become a part of the conversation.”
“I don’t have time to reply to my followers on Twitter.”
What is interesting about this complaint is the word time used to be replaced by “money.”
Pre-social Web days? Buy some ads. It took money, but far less time. Hire some awesome creatives and watch the magic happen. However, this was never really a (good) option for small business owners.
The problem is many businesses have taken this “pre-social Web” approach to the social Web–and it just doesn’t work. What I mean is hiring an agency to tweet on your behalf or come up with “campaigns” (some agencies are doing it right and spending their effort advising clients, as opposed to doing it for them).
There is no beating around the digital bush. If you want to build a brand online (or bring a brand online) for the long run, it takes a lot of time, effort, drive, creativity, passion and patience (along with personality and caring).
Here is the good news, though: The social Web offers a huge advantage for hustling entrepreneurs as opposed to big brands. Everyone has a shot at building a community and/or becoming a trusted resource online….as well as having a thriving business (what could be better?)
The social Web is similar to the dating world. I’m sure you have heard stories (or experienced them yourself) of the guy (or girl) who casually dates but tells their date that right now they “don’t have time for a relationship.” When probed, it is easy to come up with excuses:
“I’m really focused on my business.”
“I travel a lot.”
“I like to spend my time naked watching Pokemon.” (awkward)
But suddenly, this person meets the right guy or girl and is head over heels in love! Suddenly, he or she does have time for a relationship and is married a year or two later.
Whoa! Where did that time come from? Did it just magically appear out of nowhere?
Or maybe it’s this simple:
We make time for things we care about.
We make time for things that are valuable.
We make time for things when we want to make time for them.
My suggestion?
Simple: Make the time. View brand building in the social Web era as a long-term relationship. You have to put the effort in, knowing that the fruits of your labor are down the line (not today, not tomorrow, but later).
Take the time to strike up new relationships.
Take the time to create interesting content, whether it be text, video or audio (or a combo!)
Take the time to interact and make small talk with people.
Take the time to answer your e-mail.
Take the time to reply to your messages.
Once you start seeing the value of the social Web, it will be hard to remember where all that time was going in the first place.
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Stumping For Chocolate

Former Bush aides—and siblings—Dana Manatos and Christian Edwards scored a coup by getting a 1,500-square-foot retail space in the Pentagon Andrew Hetherington
Few former Bush aides still have a foothold in the Pentagon, but Christian Edwards and his sister, Dana Manatos—both of whom were aides for President George W. Bush—are more firmly ensconced there than ever. This time, as chocolatiers.
Edwards, 33, landed a job in the White House's advance office after volunteering on Bush's 2000 campaign. When Manatos graduated from college in 2003, she joined him. While Edwards traveled with Bush, Manatos, 30, plotted the President's schedule in five-minute slots. Both were promoted in 2005, but after years of sleeping with their BlackBerrys decided to leave during the summer of 2007. "It was a difficult decision," says Edwards. "We got to know the President in a way most people couldn't."
Instead of leveraging their connections into government jobs, they chose to revive Chocolate Celebrations, the Pittsburgh-based business that had been in their family for nearly a century. To reposition the business as a national gourmet brand, Edwards and Manatos raised $150,000 in personal funds and bank loans. For two years they experimented with recipes and packaging while setting up contracts with vendors. (The project was delayed when Edwards became Sarah Palin's deputy chief of staff in late 2008.) In 2009, they took the renamed company, Edward Marc Chocolatier, to market and brought on their younger brother, who, as "chief candy maker," had devised a menu of new flavors.
Their biggest coup was landing a coveted 1,500-square-foot boutique in the Pentagon this February. The location helped them win contracts with the State Dept., embassies, and members of Congress. "Working at the White house opened their horizons for what the family business could go into," says Dana Perino, Bush's former press secretary. "If you hadn't worked [there], you really wouldn't think your chocolate company could get a contract with the Department of Defense."
The siblings are planning stores for New York, Los Angeles, and Georgetown. Meanwhile, they're adding clients from both sides of the aisle—Secretary of State Hillary Clinton among them. Says Edwards, "The chocolate business is nonpartisan."
250,000: Pounds of cocoa used by Edward Marc this year, up from 30,000 three years ago
47: Percent increase in the chocolate company's sales from 2008 to 2009
$150,000: Money raised in 2007 to begin rebranding the family's chocolate business
18,968: Number of fresh-dipped strawberries sold since Feb. 1, at $29.95 a pound
Data: Edward Marc Chocolatier
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