• THE PRIMARY GOVERNING DOCUMENT IN ANY BUSINESS IS ITS OWNERS’ OPERATING AGREEMENT. Whether structurally set up for Shareholders, Partners or Members, this is the document which “is supposed to provide the basic ‘blueprint’ for development, operation, expansion, diversification, sale, etc… but gets rarely read until some major crisis has arisen,” and often then gives little guidance because an attorney shortcut the business inception process. The key issues which prospective partners in any new business should contemplate include: (1) compatibility of personal goals and risk tolerance; (2) methods for financing growth; (3) mechanisms for resolving disagreements or conflict; (4) mechanisms for departure of an owner – voluntarily or not; and (5) exit strategies including transition to next leadership. Beyond guidance in optimizing business structure and model, DCG are expert in these operational and protective aspects of new and emerging business relationships, often effectively serving as mediators to develop agreements for business stability. Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail. [GLADSTONE MICHEL NWSLTR – Jan 17, 13]
  • THE INFRASTRUCTURE OF SOCIAL MEDIA, by design, “promotes constant interaction across physical and geographical boundaries, effectively revolutionizing the standard information process by reversing it – making distribution the starting point and then inviting audiences to contextualize content and create new meaning, as messages are rebroadcast and repurposed at will by recipients who repost videos, re-tweet & comment on blogs, and use fragments of other people’s content to create their own mash-ups… Social media encourages horizontal collaboration and unscripted conversations that travel in random paths across management hierarchies – short circuiting established power dynamics and traditional lines of communication – …a dilemma for senior executives, as inherent risks create uncertainty and unease…that new communications media can let internal and privileged information suddenly go public virally.” [McKINSEY QUARTERLY – Feb 13]
  • ‘ENERGY’ DRINKS ARE A “RISING PUBLIC HEALTH PROBLEM… flavored and marketed like soft drinks, without warning labels” but responsible for over 20,000 annual emergency room admissions involving “anxiety, rapid heartbeat, seizures, heart attacks, and possibly 18 deaths.” Most consumers of Monster, Red Bull or Rockstar drinks are children or teens enticed by major ad campaigns. With lawsuits increasing, the ad industry (Nat’l Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus) has itself vigorously challenged 5-hour Energy for a particularly misleading claim – that the product causes “no crash effect” – and threatened to ‘refer’ that company to the Federal Trade Commission for prosecution. ”More than half the negative reactions are to these drinks alone, but combined with alcohol or prescription drugs, like Adderall and Ritalin, the drinks are even more dangerous” to unassuming kids, and the number of reported emergencies is growing rapidly. [MANATT ADVERTISING LAW -Jan 25, and THE WEEK – Feb 8, 13]
  • CHECK OUT NEWEST INCREDIBLE CONSUMER TECHNOLOGY: in TV screens – http://www.cseed.tv/design/movie.html ; And in computer screens – http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=X-GXO_urMow
  • A NEW ‘CPR’ TECHNIQUE – simpler to remember and perform, without mouth-to-mouth breathing – is now considered more effective, involving continuous hands-only chest-pumping at a rate which matches the music beat to the Bee Gee’s Stayin’ Alive. Every three days, more Americans die from sudden cardiac arrest than the number who died in the 9/11 attacks. Check out this quick video: http://medicine.arizona.edu/spotlight/learn-sarver-heart-centers-continuous-chest-compression-cpr
  • THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK: The poor U.S. economic outlook so far hasn’t discouraged future attorneys. American Law Schools are expecting to produce over 44,000 graduates each year – more than double the number of attorney positions projected available through 2020, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.“When the law produces results at odds with common sense, people lose respect for the law. When it becomes so complex that experience judges cannot get it right, the law serves mainly the lawyers, at the expense of those who must be governed by it. And when the legal process becomes so cumbersome and protracted that it affords no practical remedy, the result cannot be described as justice.” [Los Angeles Daily Journal – Dec 19, 12]