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In my “day job” I speak to a lot of Millenials who want to go into health care practices as “associates,” working with baby boomers.  These young people come to me with contracts and want my thought.  I don’t give legal thoughts (I’m not a lawyer and I don’t play one on TV), but I do walk them through the contract and ask questions:  “What does this mean?”  “Why is this section here?”  “Here is what I think this means.”  And sometimes, “What the bleep is this?!”

I recently saw a contract that was written by the hiring doctor.  Himself.  It was full of typographical errors, incomplete sentences.  Worse, it was unclear.  The terms of payment weren’t said clearly (was the associate getting $3400 a month, or a day, or a year?), the length of the contract was “two years or more” (now what does that mean?), and there was a lot missing, like what say laws the contract was applicable too.

Now, I’m not out to make lots of money for lawyers, but they do have a legitimate purpose, to save people from getting into bad contracts that can be major problems later.

I just read the new John Grisham book The Appeal about a couple of small town lawyers who get a verdict for their client, the plaintiff, in a wrongful death lawsuit against a big, bad chemical company.  The book clearly contrasts the appealing lawyer couple with the mean, money-hungry, evil company.  Are trial attorneys the problem?  I’m not telling you the ending, but I can say I wasn’t completely satisfied.

Lawyers get blamed for all the evils of society (Grisham himself stated, “My decision to become a lawyer was irrevocably sealed when I realized my father hated the legal profession.”), and lawyer jokes abound, even back as far as Shakespeare’s time (”The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” - Henry IV, Part 2).

But if we all tried to be our own lawyers, we’d be in worse shape than we are right now.

Tags: baby boomers, lawyers, small businesses

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This has nothing to do with anything, except fun.  Check out ImprovEverywhere and enjoy (see lots more on YouTube):

Tags: ImprovEverywhere

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Filed under: Estates

I first heard about this estate a year ago after the Wall Street Journal reported that media billionaire Haim Saban was putting his Acapulco, Mexico vacation home on the market. A year later and the home is still on the market for the same price. The three-acre gated compound in the Las Brisas community is the estate that Warner Communications (which became Time Warner) used to entertain clients and celebrities. In the late 1990s, Time Warner needed to cut costs and sold the home known as Villa Eden to Saban for around $7 million in 2001. The home has 12 bedrooms (plus five bedrooms in the servant quarters), 17 bathrooms, indoor and outdoor tennis courts, two pools, five massage rooms and a wine cellar. The expansive home has jetliner views of the Acapulco bay. It is listed at $12 million.

For more prime properties and lush locations, see Luxury Homes and Mansions.
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Filed under: Microsoft (MSFT), Cisco Systems (CSCO), Next large thing, Adobe Systems (ADBE), Small business

A group of tech veterans — DD Ganguly, Jayant Pandit, Saurav Mohapatra, Sundar Subramanian and Rohit Shankar - have worked on various projects, despite being in far-flung places across the globe. They did so by leveraging free technologies such as Skype to help manage things.

However, they also wanted to share screens, but couldn’t find anything for it as the conferencing software was either too high-priced or complicated. So, they started a new company: Dimdim.

That was in 2006 and, as of now, Dimdim is getting lots of traction. In fact, the firm has raised $6.4 million in venture capital. The investors include: Index Ventures, Nexus India Capital and Draper Richards.

Dimdim is available as downloadable open source software. There is also an on-demand version.

For the most part, Dimdim is gunning for a massive market opportunity. For example, Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) purchased WebEx for a whopping $3.2 billion. Other major players in the space include Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Citrix (NASDAQ: CTXS) and Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE).

So, if Dimdim can develop an enterprise-ready version and can provide it on a low-cost basis, the impact could be highly disruptive. And now, the company has some capital to give it a try.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar On the web Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.

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With the announcement yesterday from General Motors that they are slicing retiree health insurance, a lot of baby boomers are nervous.   Me too.  As Bill Losey would state, “I can’t guarantee SQUAT!”  And neither can any employer.

My husband retired at the end of last month.  His pension is secure, because it’s an annuity.  I don’t see how his company could take that away. He was one of the last to be eligible for a defined benefit; his company, like many others, is going to defined contribution (401k) type plans, to control costs.

But health insurance is another matter.  At present, he has coverage, but the company has stated they will cap their costs, with the retiree (us) bearing the additional cost.  Ouch!

While most baby boomers won’t have a defined benefit like my husband,  they will have to carefully manage their portfolios to make sure they have enough to pay for health insurance in addition to living expenses.

Are you in this situation?  What will you do if your company slashes retiree health benefits?  I got good information on the internet from ehealthinsurance.com.  I’m going to get on this now, before we are forced to.

Tags: baby boomers, General Motors, health insurance, retirement planning

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PimpYourWork.com

In most industrial cultures, when a parent asks their child what they want to study in college, their desired field of study is measured against money.  Say “I want to study Fine Arts!” and your parent tells you to take up architecture instead.  State “I want to become a novelist!” and people state it’s wiser to study journalism.  They state this as if journalists and architects are all about making money, and as if artists are always starving.

Is there really a dichotomy of doing what you love vs. working for money?

I don’t think so.  I think we’re raised to believe in this false dichotomy.

To get to a more realistic perspective, we’ll have to look halfway between the scam artist who yells “Make money while you sleep!” and the pragmatist who preaches that working hard is the only way to earn a decent living.  On my personal quest to finding this midpoint, I’ve learned the following:

• You can make money from doing what you love, so long as the driving force is the love of work itself and not the money.  Giving your work this kind of purity will prevent you from feeling enslaved by your hobby or passion, which is a risk if you try to make money from the things you love doing.
• It’s not an either/or choice.  Especially in a world or industry where teleworking is possible.  If you can’t earn money doing what you love, you can spend half of your time doing what you love and spend the rest of your time working for pay - until you strike a desired balance between both.
• Working smart helps a lot.  Be results-oriented vs being time-oriented.  It’s not about working for5 hours straight, it’s about what you do with those 5 hours.  This is especially important if, for example, by some unchangeable and insurmountable circumstances you’re forced into a job you dislike. You need to have the maximum output for minimum input of time and effort - this will get you to spend less time on your job and more time on things you enjoy.

Were you ever faced with the dichotomy of doing what you love vs. working for pay?  How did you deal with it?

Photo Credit: Image from Ayhan Yildiz  from stock.xchng

Tags: Career, Productivity, work life balance, Working smart

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