Global wealth indicators may have plummeted to record lows this year, but the "real-life superhero" movement is on the upswing. According to a CNN piece earlier this month, the number of people who are taking on superhero identities (and donning outfits to match) has risen more than 25 percent since last summer. People disillusioned by a downtrodden economy, the article suggests, are finding renewed purpose by assuming superhuman alter egos as they "perform community service, help the homeless and even fight crime."

That may seem odd, but the link between superheroes and periods of economic uncertainty is hardly new. Many of the most famous--Superman and Batman chief among them--debuted as comic book stars around the time of the Great Depression and WWII.

read more...

For entrepreneurs, "Rumplestiltskin" probably ranks low on the list of required reading, but one lesson should come through loud and clear: names are serious business. In fact, coming up with the right name is probably the single-most important branding concern for a business, says Jay Jurisich, creative director of San Francisco-based naming and branding agency Igor. He is also the founder of WordLab, a website that offers free naming resources and discussion forums.

According to Jurisich, a good name demonstrates your brand and your values. A bad name forces you to resort to explaining and advertising. In the Igor Naming Guide, Jurisich breaks down naming pros and cons in four broad categories, showing why some are powerful and others are just plain yawn-inducing. read more...

The adult entertainment industry isn't the only one feeling snubbed by Congress: Travel and tourism also wants a break, at least as far as travel-bashing is concerned.  

That's because business travel (and all travel, really) is way, way down. Some of that is because companies are trying to save money; but another reason stems from policymakers' response to allegedly over-the-top junkets by firms like AIG, whose mismanagement of bailout money (after receiving billions, the company sent execs to a plush resort in California, where they reportedly spent more than $440,000) fueled cries against further "despicable" behavior. In this case, the criticisms may have been deserved, but companies preferring to err on the side of caution have made an unwitting victim of an entire sector of the economy.

read more...

"Join the entrepreneur movement. Stimulate the economy. Spread the word."

That's the description for a sleekly designed video released by the newly re-branded Grasshopper (formerly gotvmail), a company that provides advanced business phone solutions for entrepreneurs.

read more...

Moms are getting a raw deal during this recession. They were early to give up their own material wants during Christmas, but where their children are concerned, it's not exactly a two-way street.

The National Retail Federation and industry research firm IBISWorld have unveiled some depressing projections for Mother's Day, coming up Sunday. NRF's 2009 Mother's Day Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey places total spending at $14.1 billion (just above $12.73 billion in 2009 Easter spending), noting that Americans will spend an average of $123.89 per person, down from $138.63 last year. IBISWorld expects gift giving to drop a steep 14.7 percent, to a mere $12.9 billion (just 1.6 percent of the amount the government will spend on the stimulus).
read more...

Consider Salary.com's 2008 Wasting Time at Work survey, which concluded that a "record number" of people waste time at work, up nearly 16 percent from 2007. That doesn't bode well for employers, you might think--and before Wednesday, I would have thought so, too.

I would also have considered computer games a form of "personal internet use," a category that tops the survey's list of popular time-wasting activities. Again, as I discovered, maybe not. read more...

As an entrepreneur, the internet is arguably your best friend--you thrive on its endless supply of free marketing, e-business and communications tools. But it can also be your worst enemy--a web of timewasters that can be tough to escape from. In fact, the very online tools you depend on to run your business can distract you from running it.

If you're a Mac user, there's hope--no, not from your tragic hipness, but at least from losing time online. It's called Freedom, and, despite what the Second-Amendment crowd might tell you, it is, in fact, free. read more...

We know you all have amazing stories to tell--it's the reason we exist in the first place. And we want to help you tell them, but you have to help us by learning the art of the pitch. Because most of you out there are serving as your own PR machines, learning to pitch your business to the media is a vital part of your marketing strategy.

I get pitches. Lots of them. Every day. Some of them are interesting. Some of them aren't. But a select few are delicious train wrecks. Here are four such catastrophes, and what you can take away from each of them. read more...

I first started at Entrepreneur in June 2007 and, at the time, had a very boring perspective of business. Business wasn't quirky to me. No, I didn't think that everyone was a suit, but even those who ran small businesses had a very distinct personality, I thought.

Small-business owners were serious about trying to succeed, which in turn, sort of just made them serious people, I figured. To me, businesspeople were businesspeople, whether they worked in a corporate headquarters or a dinky little office. However, as an intern, I was quickly assigned to a research project where I was to investigate the craft beer industry, and I soon learned that a number of entrepreneurs not only had senses of humor, but they applied them to their actual business, their products, their websites and their marketing strategies. read more...

I explored the concept of secret hand signals in Part I of this two-part series. I started with the story of a man who became famous in the 1940s for his elaborate set of signals and explored secret signals used by modern-day entrepreneurs. Here, I'll go a little more in depth in a Q&A with an entrepreneur who's also a deft secret-hand-signal expert. (As a bonus I'll touch on secret code words and how to properly use them in conversations.)

Andy Abramson is CEO and founder of Comunicano, a Del Mar, Calif.-based marketing communications company. He took his communications know-how to the next level internally through numerous secret hand-and-body signals he used with a former partner. "We were so good at it that it spooked people," Abramson says, adding that people still need to be discreet. "It's an art, and I can share how it's done and what one needs to do to be good at it." read more...