other

Do you love where you work? Tell us about it. - The Washington Post

For the fifth straight year, The Washington Post is on the hunt for the top places to work in greater Washington, and we need your help.

We are looking for people to nominate worthy workplaces so we can survey their employees to determine which employers should be recognized in our 2018 Top Workplaces special report in June.

To do this, we are teaming with Energage, a survey firm formerly known as WorkplaceDynamics, that has partnered with more than 45 major metropolitan newspapers to canvas 2.8 million employees at nearly 7,000 organizations nationwide.

We hope to recognize workplaces of all types: private, public, nonprofit and even government agencies. Eligible organizations must have at least 50 employees in the greater Washington area.

Energage will reach out to the workplaces and ask to survey their employees. The survey is relatively 
straightforward — employees will be asked to respond to 24 statements.

Those employers that score highest — and meet national benchmarks — will make The Washington Post’s list of top places to work, the largest and most comprehensive in the region. In 2017, 150 companies and organizations made the cut.

“The Top Workplaces award is not a popularity contest,” said Doug Claffey, chief executive of Energage. “People often mistakenly assume it’s all about fancy perks and benefits. To be a Top Workplace, organizations must meet high standards for organizational health.”

Anyone can nominate a company. It could be the place you work, or one you know about. The nomination and application deadline is Nov. 17. You can <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/nominate">nominate your workplace here</a> or by calling 202-417-3866.

“Having a good workplace is essential for hiring, retaining and motivating talent,” Claffey said.

Dan Beyers was the founding editor of Capital Business, The Washington Post’s go-to source for news about the region’s business community. He left The Post in March 2018. 

Dan Beyers

The Washington Post

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Capital Business

The Washington Post's Capital Business section.

The source for business news and analysis. Covering economic policy, business policy, financial news, economic issues, stock market data, local business, technology and more.

Business

Editor’s note: D.C. gets called a lot of things: How about a good place to work? - The Washington Post

Whatever you might think about Washington — and in these politically charged times there is no shortage of opinions — the nation’s capital can be a pretty good place to work.

We know this because for the fourth straight year we teamed up with the survey firm Workplace-Dynamics to quiz people about their employers and discovered <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/top-workplaces/?utm_term=.829233070321" shape="rect">150 organizations </a>that merited mention in our annual roundup of Top Workplaces.

The curious thing about this year’s list is that the companies rated highest were not just government contractors, national associations and law firms — yes, those organizations are represented again — but also businesses from the region’s burgeoning service sector.

Our cover story this year examines how some of the standouts make such work a career and not just a paycheck. One thing is obvious: They focus on their people, typically an organization’s greatest asset.

Perhaps that’s why the people who work for top employers in greater Washington tend to be more positive, feel better about their pay and have greater work-life flexibility than others nationally. Nearly 80 percent of those surveyed agreed with the statement that their company is headed in the right direction.

That sense of progress can be critically important to workers. The people who work at high-functioning workplaces tell us year after year that what matters most to them, more than their pay or benefits, is that they feel appreciated by management and have confidence in their leadership. They want to work at a company that enables them to reach their full potential — something three-quarters of those surveyed say is true about their current place of work.

Of course, there’s always room for improvement. Compared with top workplaces elsewhere, employees tend to find Washington-area organizations lagging in the formal training they offer. We also trail others in fostering a sense of interdepartmental cooperation. Six in 10 acknowledge they’ve considered jumping ship, possibly a sign of just how strong the job market is here, where unemployment sits at less than 4 percent.

As Doug Claffey, the chief executive of WorkplaceDynamics put it, the best workplaces are always looking to get better.

“After all, it’s a journey, not a destination,” he said.

Economy

This company may have solved the problem of toxic comments on your blog - The Washington Post

There’s one thing that a professional journalist, a blogger, a freelance writer, an independent contributor or a business owner whose company has a blog shares in common: toxic comments.

You know who these “commenters” are. They’re the jerks who leave nasty remarks about something you wrote. They get into online fights with others. They call each other names. They call each other’s mothers names. Many of them do so without even reading most of what you wrote too.

Every large publisher, including this one, has struggled with giving their readers a forum for having a civil discussion online without being trolled and abused by the haters. Web sites have tried paid and unpaid moderators, special sign-ins, and time limits. Publishers are trying out tools like machine learning and other open source tools to help weed out the bad comments from their communities. Businesses have this problem too. My business frequently gets toxic comments on the blogs we write. How can we build communities when some readers can’t show civility?

Fortunately, one company may have come up with the solution. NRKbeta, the technology arm of Norwegian public broadcaster NRK had decided to take a different approach to its commenters: it’s quizzing them.

I get it. How many times do people give uninformed (and sometimes abusive) comments after only reading the first paragraph of a blog? NRKBeta decided to quiz their visitors because, according to this <a href="http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/03/this-site-is-taking-the-edge-off-rant-mode-by-making-readers-pass-a-quiz-before-commenting/">report on Niemanlab.org</a>, it wants to make sure that its readers are, at the least, reading the story before discussing it. Just a few questions about some of the basic facts, please. Then we'd like to hear your opinion.

“We’re trying to establish a common ground for the debate,” NRKbeta editor Marius Arnesen said in the Niemanlab report. “If you’re going to debate something, it’s important to know what’s in the article and what’s not in the article. [Otherwise], people just rant.”

It’s an in-house tool built with a WordPress plugin and not available for sale. It’s also still early days and the quizzes have only appeared on a handful of articles.

But if the concept proves right, then it could be a help to business owners who want to expand their customer communities without subjecting them to the abuse commonly found in online discussions. Also, it could be an opportunity for a few start-ups to evolve the idea into something commercial.

Small Business

Business Rx: She knows how to knock on doors. But will investors open their wallets? - The Washington Post

This week, a female entrepreneur asks for advice on how to succeed in male-dominated investment world. --Dan Beyers

At 16, Kendall Tucker was already involved in politics, knocking on doors for the candidates she supported in her home state of Massachusetts. By the time she was 19, she was managing state senate races. At 20, she decided to run herself and was elected to local office. After college, she had to make a choice to stay in politics or to pursue another path.

Frustrated that most campaign dollars are spent on television advertising rather than more effective door-to-door outreach, Tucker decided to take another path, joining the advisory firm Parthenon Group to figure out what was next. That road quickly led her back to politics.

While in her management consulting job, Tucker worked with some friends to put together a software platform called <a href="http://www.polisapp.com/">Polis</a>, that automated much of what campaigns needed to go door-to-door and win. Tucker got seven local city council members to use her platform and they all won re-election by at least 20 percent. In 2015, the presidential campaigns of the Libertarian Party's Gary Johnson and the Green Party's Jill Stein signed on to use Polis, as well as 107 other political organizations. Polis had clear traction in politics, but, after speaking to a large security company eager to use the product, Tucker explored an even larger opportunity: Selling to corporations that rely on door-to-door marketing to make sales.

Tucker, founder and chief executive of Polis

“Polis better connects people with the organizations they care about. Because consumers today are bombarded with impersonal ads, relationship-based sales methods such as door-to-door have never been more effective. Still, for organizations that want to sell face-to-face, it’s important that they pre-determine who to contact and what to say so that they are providing value to consumers and forming mutually beneficial relationships, and not bothering people who’d rather be left alone.

“Our platform takes basic demographic information, then overlays it with information about how likely a person is to be responsive at the door, how well they are connected to other people in an organization’s customer file, and what someone should say to those people to have the most effective interactions. All of that data is available in our software platform, where our clients can monitor analytics about their outreach. Also, sales reps can download our app and see a map of their current location with markers showing them where to go and what to say. After clicking ‘Get Started,’ Polis automatically generates the best routes to go door-to-door, then offers different questions or guiding statements at each door based on what will likely make the interaction with that individual most effective. Sales reps can also schedule follow-up actions through the app.

“We aggregate information to create our database. We sell clients door knocking data at a flat rate per record, which varies based complexity. We also sell subscription access to our software platform based on the number of reps using it. We brought on our first corporate clients in December 2016 and have on-boarded eight since then. We’ve identified tremendous growth in the door-to-door space and we’re excited about making it the best it can be.

“We are working on a building a strong sales team now and raising money to do so. As I go out to speak with investors, I face challenges as a female founder. Often, I find myself as the only woman in the room and people say I remind them of their daughter or they ask if I’m my investor’s wife or they say I’m a ‘great cheerleader.’ Often I hear that investors are looking for pattern recognition and it is difficult when there are few female tech founder role models who have traversed these paths before me. For every meeting, I wonder if it would have gone differently if I were a man.”

Sara Herald, associate director, social entrepreneurship at the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business

“This is a real problem for so many women who are starting businesses, especially in male-dominated industries. You’re in the cool but terrible position of being a trailblazer. This is one of the things not talked about enough in the venture creation world. We talk about the importance of diversity and different perspectives, but huge obstacles remain to seeing meaningful change. Research from the Kauffman Foundation shows that men are two-thirds more likely to access equity investments, and that women are starting companies with half as much money as their male peers. You could easily not raise the money a male founder would raise simply because you are woman, and that could be the difference between success and failure.

“One of the most interesting ways I’ve seen to overcome this is ‘owning’ the situation by addressing it head-on. You can walk into a meeting and say something like: ‘I’m a founder who is also a woman and I’m here to negotiate. Studies show that you are going to like me less because I’m going to negotiate. But I hope that now that we know that bias and acknowledge it, we can move past it and you can challenge yourself to not like me less as I negotiate.’ That’s been a really interesting tactic. It feels awkward to a lot of people — who wants to start a conversation that way? — but it seems to be working in some situations, at least anecdotally. Calling out the elephant in the room can help everyone move past it.

“Another tactic that can help: Try to identify and equip male allies. A good ally will time and again give credit where it is due and defer to you in meetings as the founder and head of the company. That can redirect the focus to where it needs to be and reinforce your role as the leader and decision maker.”

“I’ve never heard that head-on tactic before — it’s really interesting. I think it’s also really important for women to support other women. I think it’s difficult not to feel competitive when it feels like there are few spots to grab as a woman. But the better female founders do, the better we all do.”

Looking for some advice on a new business, or need help fixing an existing one? Capital Business and the experts at the University of Maryland’s <a href="http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/centers-excellence/dingman-center-entrepreneurship">Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship</a> at the Robert H. Smith School of Business are ready to assist. Contact us at <a href="mailto:capbiznews@washpost.com" target="_blank">capbiznews@washpost.com</a>.

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Do you love where you work? We just extended the deadline so you can tell us. - The Washington Post

The Washington Post is on the hunt for the top places to work in greater Washington, and we need your help.

We are looking for people to nominate worthy workplaces so we can survey their employees to determine which employers should be recognized in our 2017 Top Workplaces special report in June.

To do this, we are teaming with WorkplaceDynamics, a survey firm that has partnered with more than 40 major metropolitan newspapers to canvas 2.5 million employees at more than 6,600 companies nationwide.

WorkplaceDynamics will reach out to the workplaces and ask to survey their employees. The survey is relatively straightforward — employees will be asked to respond to 24 statements.

Those employers that score highest — and meet national benchmarks — will make The Washington Post’s list of top places to work. In 2016, 150 companies and organizations made the cut.

Anyone can nominate a company. It could be the place you work, or one you know about. The nomination and application deadline for 2017 has been extended to Jan. 20.  You can nominate your workplace <a href="http://www.topworkplaces.com/frontend.php/nominate2016/start/washington">here</a> or by calling 202-417-3866.

Do you love where you work? We’ve extended the deadline to tell us about it. - The Washington Post

To do this, we are teaming with Energage, a survey firm formerly known as WorkplaceDynamics, that has partnered with more than 45 major metropolitan newspapers to canvas 2.8 million employees at nearly 7,000 organizations nationwide.

Energage will reach out to the workplaces and ask to survey their employees. The survey is relatively straightforward — employees will be asked to respond to 24 statements.

“The Top Workplaces award is not a popularity contest,” said Doug Claffey, chief executive of Energage. “People often mistakenly assume it’s all about fancy perks and benefits. To be a Top Workplace, organizations must meet high standards for organizational health.”

Anyone can nominate a company. It could be the place you work, or one you know about. We’ve extended the deadline to participate to Jan. 19. You can <a href="https://www.topworkplaces.com/frontend.php/nominate/washington">nominate your workplace here</a> or by calling 202-417-3866.

Editor’s note: The man with a plan…to be an author - The Washington Post

It’s one of the occupational hazards of being a business editor at a place like The Washington Post that you get pitched on a lot of books, especially the self-help variety. You know the type: How to be a successful entrepreneur. The essential guide to launching a new venture. Twenty-five habits of people who work four-day workweeks.

Search for “start a business” on Amazon and you’ll be served up nearly 16,000 titles. There are literally 1,252 books on writing a business plan alone.

Which made me curious why Hal Shelton felt the world needed <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Writing-Successful-Business-Step-/dp/0989946002/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1473462571&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=the+secrets+of+writing+a+successful+business+plan">one more</a>. Shelton, 73, a veteran business executive and venture investor from North Bethesda, is a mentor to countless entrepreneurs in the Washington area.

Surely, he’s steered a more than a few away from trying to compete in a crowded space.

So he did the same analysis he asks his erstwhile entrepreneurs to undertake. His conclusion: Too many books offered a one-size-fits-all cookie-cutter approach. Too many promised big results with little evidence. And perhaps the biggest weakness: The vast majority of people who write such books seems to have another agenda. Maybe they want to use their prose to snag a speaking gig, win a consulting engagement, or brand themselves.

He thought he could do better by taking a more interactive, workbook approach, helping entrepreneurs think through the essentials of their business to see if the results would add up to what they intended.

Shelton is no newcomer to the subject. Born in New York, he grew up in Bergen County, New Jersey and went to Carnegie Mellon to pursue an engineering degree. While there, he took some business courses and realized that, while he liked the discipline of engineering, he was more interested in the totality of how a business works.

After Carnegie Mellon, he obtained his MBA from the University of Chicago and landed at the what was then known as the Sun Oil Co., in a finance job. At the time, the industry was beginning to look around for ways to diversify beyond oil and Shelton ended up overseeing many of the new subsidiaries.

He was no desk jockey. He spent a fair amount of time in the field, seeing the work for himself, even if it meant traveling to an oil rig in the middle of the ocean.

After 27 years, he decided he was ready for a change. He came to Washington courtesy of the Energy Policy Act of 1992, where in the fine print lawmakers gave the green light for privatizing a part of the Energy Department that provided enriched uranium to nuclear power plant operators.

The next five years proved to be a hectic time, as Shelton, serving as chief financial officer, pursued a dual strategy of seeking a private buyer for the unit or creating a stand-alone company through an initial public offering of stock.

“As CFO, I quarterbacked the whole process,” Shelton said.

Eventually, the IPO route proved to be the most lucrative option for the federal government and the United States Enrichment Corp. formally became a private company in 1998. Shelton was on hand to ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange.

“It was the largest-ever privatization of a government entity, bigger than Conrail,” he recalled.

None of the people, including Shelton, got rich through the process. The former federal agency had no power to dispense stock options and the normal sources of largess to the people who worked there; instead the $3 billion or so in proceeds mostly went to the taxpayers.

Shelton stayed another five years to stand up the company, before finally deciding he was ready to retire.

“I never worked so hard in my life,” he said.

The lesson he took from his career at Sun Oil and USEC was that plans matter.

“I have done a lot of planning through my career. Business plans. Strategic plans, Budgets. Proposals. I observed that the better the plan, the better the results tended to be,” he said.

That’s a lesson he now delivers regularly as a volunteer counselor at the D.C. chapter of SCORE, an association once known by its more formal name, the Service Corps of Retired Executives. In that role, he advises small business people on starting and growing their enterprises.

It’s much the same role he plays as an angel investor, outside of SCORE, quizzing entrepreneurs on the plans for their businesses.

At SCORE alone, Shelton said he has probably worked with about 1,000 entrepreneurs since retiring, a great many bursting with enthusiasm who nonetheless had given less thought to the strategy and tactics they would need to obtain their goals.

He wondered how he could reach even more people.

“I can talk to folks at SCORE one at a time. I can talk to people though my angel investing, one at a time. But I started thinking ‘how can I extend my reach?’ “

With the nudging of friends and colleagues, he decided a book might provide him a larger megaphone.

“So I followed my own advice and created a business plan,” Shelton said.

He defined his audience and figured they prefered to get their information online. So he decided to sell through Amazon. (Amazon chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Washington Post). He thought the cover should be colorful to stand out among all the offerings

A work of art it ain’t and the prose is hardly Shakespeare, but the results to date have not been too shabby. In three years, he’s sold 11,000 copies, already showing he can reach more people than he could doing one-on-one counseling. His 214-page tome is currently sitting No. 50 in its category, with a 4.7 out of 5 score from reviewers.

Just as importantly, as a self-published author, he’s made his money back.

“The margins are really small,” Shelton said.

He’s not done yet. He’s formulating a plan to market his book to college professors, offering to teach a class for free if they spread the gospel of good business planning. A few, at schools like Berkeley, Iowa and Purdue have already taken him up on his offer.

He’s encouraged enough by the response so far to start writing a second edition. He’s got some more wisdom to pass on.

Jonathan Aberman: Virtual reality may have just found its first ‘killer app.’ - The Washington Post

Some might say that it is the Pet Rock of this generation: Pokémon Go. With yet another excuse to bury themselves in their smart phones, young adults have been absent-mindedly stepping into the road, or other inappropriate places, with greater frequency than usual — as they become literal followers of the game’s characters.

I believe that Pokémon Go is indicative of a broader trend.

Recently, Elon Musk remarked that he believed that we are living in a computer simulation. “There’s a one in billions chance that this is base reality,” he said. He sees the evolution of computing power and the overwhelming attraction to virtual reality. As a Silicon Valley thought leader, he calculates it as an obvious outcome of technology’s indefatigable march forward: we live in a simulation operated by our distant descendants. Pretty heavy stuff. We are living in the film “The Matrix,” where billions of humans are neurally connected, and are unaware that the world is actually virtual reality.

While I am not sure whether Elon Musk is right about whether we are living in a simulation, I do believe that as a result of the success of Pokémon Go a reality that is shaped only by what we see around us will be encroached upon more often by experiences that were previously only digital in nature.

As virtual reality hardware and software are coming on line, there has been a discussion in the technology community as to whether there yet exists a “killer app” for virtual reality. Technologists use the term killer app to describe a software product that drives consumer adoption of new technology hardware. For example, spreadsheets were the killer app that drove the adoption of PCs into the business world, and iTunes was the killer app that drove adoption of the IPod.

Dan Beyers

Washington, D.C.

Do you love where you work? Tell us about it.

Editor’s note: D.C. gets called a lot of things: How about a good place to work?

This company may have solved the problem of toxic comments on your blog

Business Rx: She knows how to knock on doors. But will investors open their wallets?

Do you love where you work? We just extended the deadline so you can tell us.

Do you love where you work? We’ve extended the deadline to tell us about it.

Editor’s note: The man with a plan…to be an author

Editor’s note: The man with a plan…to be an author

Jonathan Aberman: Virtual reality may have just found its first ‘killer app.’

Jonathan Aberman: Virtual reality may have just found its first ‘killer app.’