June 2016


Current Issue: June 2016
Features
Progressive workspaces focus on flexibility and fun instead of private offices and cubicles.

Astropad, the 2015 MN Cup Grand Prize Winner, continues to grow aggressively. Apple introduced a new iPad and stylus (the iPad Pro with Apple Pencil) in November 2015 and it caused Astropad’s sales to climb 3x from when they participated in last year’s MN Cup.

Mel Yawakie, Turtle Island Communications
The Minnesota Indian Business Alliance is proud of one of its members, Mel and Madonna Yawakie of Turtle Island Communications — a business that installs broadband connections in tribal lands.

Does the action at your Best Company to Work For take place at your kitchen table? Minnesota has some great coworking spaces where you can work and network with other innovative entrepreneurs.
Starters

Why are so many companies eager to be named good, great or best companies to work for? The one-dimensional answer is that it is a point of pride. The more substantial response is that companies want to attract the best employees and keep them.

AIGA Fellow Award CelebrationJune 2, 2016, 6:00 – 9:00 PM American Swedish Institute, Minneapolis

A cringe-worthy tweet. A hasty deletion. A forthright mea culpa.
And then … an empty desk.
It’s an all-too-familiar scenario, though thankfully not too common.
For employees, social media is just the latest in a long list of professional hazards. For employers, it’s yet another liability to fret over.
And then … an empty desk.
It’s an all-too-familiar scenario, though thankfully not too common.
For employees, social media is just the latest in a long list of professional hazards. For employers, it’s yet another liability to fret over.

Monica Seme, principal consultant for Superior Insight Consulting
Emotional Intelligence is all the buzz among business leaders today. What is it? How can it help your business leaders? What results can be expected?

Three Deep employees enjoy the freedom to work from Three Deep’s custom on-site bar.
Lots of companies are great at selling their products, services or ideas. Far fewer are great at selling themselves. How should small and midsize employers market themselves to potential recruits? We asked advice from four experts — most of whom offer this kind of counsel for a living.
Every nine seconds, an American worker seeks medical attention for a workplace injury. Each injury costs, on average, $40,000, including direct and indirect losses. So American employers lose $250,000 every minute to a problem that, by and large, can be prevented.

Photos by © Paul Crosby
If a sports fan has a 100-inch flat screen, a comfortable couch and a fridge stocked with brewskis, why does he need to go to a stadium to watch his favorite team?
A cinephile with the same great room layout plus a Netflix account could pose the same question about a movie theater.
A cinephile with the same great room layout plus a Netflix account could pose the same question about a movie theater.
Why did they win? The employees know!

Technology companies like to create a vision of the ‘corner office’ as anywhere a leader wants to be: the beach, the gym or sitting on a deck in the woods.

Studio/E Sponsor Rhoda Olsen is a gifted, high-energy leader. She, along with her talented team and franchisees, created a Great Clips culture that has produced consistent, profitable growth for more than a decade. Growth takes talent. Profitable growth requires talent, leadership and a great culture.

Kimpa Moss [left] and Beth Kieffer Leonard [right] at the Lurie office in Minneapolis
In case you hadn’t noticed, accounting firm Lurie LLP has been going through some changes. For anyone driving East on Highway 394, the newly rebranded Lurie sign is impossible to miss.

A friend of mine works for an international real estate company. She recently told me about an intense negotiation she had with a group of Japanese businessmen. After laborious hours of negotiations, a bell chimed and the interpreter informed her that her Japanese counterparts would be taking a 15-minute power nap per their company policy — in their suits, on the floor of the boardroom.

At the heart of Dave Mortensen’s secret to success is his vivid memory of feeling what it is like to be at the very bottom. He began by working at the front desk of a health club for $4 an hour. Even then he had a vision of his future success, and a need for self-esteem to keep his dream alive. That’s why he told his family and friends he was working as a personal trainer.

The idea of Nesel Packs, a backpack designed for students on the autism spectrum, was thought up by a group of ambitious young students for a college course appropriately named Entrepreneurs in Action.
Closers

Every Minnesotan knows the true pain of wintertime: parking. A text message on our phone lets us know a snow emergency has been put into place and we frantically try to remember which side of the street we can park our car on the next day, if we can park it on that street at all.