business

While cleaning my den recently I came across this old wood plane, purchased for a pittance on a tool auction years ago, and now used in my den as a decoration.  Looking at it, I wondered how many previous owners had also handled this tool?  How had they used it?  Had it also been a decoration for them, or was it a tool used every day?  Had it been used in a cabinetmaker’s shop?  In a coffin maker’s shop?  Had it been a trusted tool handed down from father to an apprenticing son?  Had it been replaced by a shiny new power tool?  If so, did technology trump artistic and aesthetic form?

This last question stuck in my head.  Read the rest of this entry »

I love fall.  It is by far my favorite time of the year.  Harvest happens now.  My birthday is in the fall.  The endless heat of summer actually ends.  The bugs go away.  It’s all good.

The video above is of a harvest of a different kind than we are familiar with in the midwest.  This is the grape harvest in the Napa Valley, at a winery that bears my last name.  These guys are doing it right – check out the other videos on their YouTube list (especially the one describing biodynamic practices).  Very cool.  I’m no wine conniseur but this is some very good wine, highly regarded and quite popular in the restaurant trade.  If you’re up for something nice, pick up a bottle at www.ehlersestate.com.

My favorite social networking tool by far is LinkedIn. I like it because it provides large returns for my efforts, it lacks the “juvenile” features of other networks, and it really does work if you work it. I use it daily, and it is slowly replacing email as my regular, go-to app. I wanted to post up a few handy tips for my growing collection of newly “LinkedIn” friends who read this regularly.

Straight from the horse’s mouth

Below is a video produced by the helpful folks at LinkedIn to help newcomers understand the whole bit a little better.

What is LinkedIn? from LinkedIn Marketing on Vimeo.

From Chris Brogan

Next, I wanted to recommend one of Chris Brogan’s many excellent posts that discuss LinkedIn and making your LinkedIn profile work for you. He gives specific tips on making the profile that is displayed publicly much more functional for both employees and freelancers. There is much more useful info on a host of social media topics at http://www.chrisbrogan.com, as well.

A Related Note

While reading and commenting on a post on Chris Brogan’s blog, I met the guest author, Becky McCray and she ultimately asked me to write a guest post for her own blog, Small Biz Survival. She suggested discussing how LinkedIn can work for small town professionals. The resulting five tips were published last month on http://smallbizsurvival.com (thanks for the opportunity Becky!).

Other Resources:

http://www.linkedin.com the main site

http://www.linkedintelligence.com a helpful site for users

http://blog.linkedin.com/ the LI blog

It has become one of my favorite annual activities and it is just a little over a week away. The annual spring ritual reminds me that, like the farmers living all around me, I am responsible for how my little part of the world will look in the future. Figuring prominently in that equation is my financial responsibility for myself. And so with that responsibility, I again eagerly await this yearly spring fling for folks like myself.

What is this event? It is the annual shareholder meeting for Berkshire Hathaway. Several years ago, I started purchasing “Baby B” shares (a class B share of Berkshire Hathaway) for a retirement account that I own. Each B share is valued at 1/30th the price of the class A shares.

With the shareholder meeting taking place just an hour’s drive from my home, I decided to attend one year. After attending my first shareholder meeting, I was hooked. The environment is one that helps to educate the investor, celebrate the consumer, and update the owner on the company’s progress over the last year. For anyone who is interested, the stock symbols for Berkshire shares are BRK.A and BRK.B and plenty of good information, including the annual report and Mr. Buffett’s instructive annual letters to shareholders, can be found at the company website.

The format of the meeting is very simple – you arrive at the Qwest Center Omaha by 6:30 AM and rush to a seat in the auditorium, you watch the annual company movie which generally includes numerous skits by Buffett, and has included guest appearances by any number of celebrities. Once that is over, a Question and Answer session begins, generally at about 9 AM and proceeds until around 3 PM. Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger take shareholder questions all day long.

For those who get antsy when they sit too long, there is also an exhibition hall with booths from many of the companies owned by Berkshire. Companies like See’s Candy, Dairy Queen, Justin Boots, and many others have displays and for the bargain shopper, this is the place to be. My favorite vendor in this area is the “Berky Bookseller”, a moniker adopted by a favorite local bookstore while they set up a huge booth to sell books focused on this magnificent company and its maestro. Generally two or three authors are available to autograph books as well. Combined with the Q&A with Buffett and Munger, the book store provides an excellent value for the self-taught student of business.

I will be sure to report in with my impression of the meeting and any highlights I think you might find interesting.