Search Print & Promo Marketing for:
The Proforma Hall of Fame was introduced at the 2011 Proforma Convention and Family Reunion in New Orleans on July 26, 2011. With a long history of success and overall emphasis on "family," the Hall of Fame was created to recognize members of the Proforma family that have gone above and beyond as business people, mentors, motivators and innovators.
More than three years after the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA) was introduced, President Barack Obama signed CPSIA reform bill H.R. 2715 on August 12, 2011. The bill includes several significant changes to existing requirements for regulated children's and consumer products, which took effect upon signing.
Intertek, a leading provider of quality and safety services to a wide range of industries around the world, has a number of CPSIA services to help consumer products brands, retailers and manufacturers decipher what the new regulations mean and help ensure their products are in compliance with the new regulations.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently released a study to explain why employment at small businesses dropped so much more than employment at large companies during the Great Recession. The upshot of the analysis: Small employers cut staff so severely because of a drop in consumer demand. I disagree that was the only reason. I think two factors—reduced access to credit and the concentration of small businesses in the worst hit sectors of the economy—play a bigger role than the Fed researchers acknowledge.
Let's start where we all agree. Small businesses lost proportionately more jobs than big companies.
In-depth teasers from our Sept. content block.
The shipment arrived at the offices of the state Department of Economic Development within days of the governor launching a "bipartisan Made in Missouri Jobs" initiative.
Inside were 6,000 carabiners—a trinket combining a key chain, flashlight and pen. The agency plans to give the items away at the Missouri State Fair next week in Sedalia.
One side of the carabiner bore the insignia "Jobs.mo.gov."
On the opposite side was a sticker noting the country that produced the gadget: China.
It's something of an understatement to say social media is a moving target—especially for business owners. Just when you feel like you have a handle on your strategy for one social medium, another platform surfaces and forces you to re-evaluate. The latest entrant is Google+, Google's fast-growing challenge to Facebook and Twitter.
There are some basic rules that can guide your business' strategy on Google+ and any new social platform. The most important of these is to pause before you jump in.
iPROMOTEu, Wayland, Mass., announced that 10 promotional products distributors affiliated with iPROMOTEu in July 2011.
Hundreds of thousands of postal workers could soon lose their jobs, or face drastic changes to their benefits.
According to documents obtained by CNNMoney, the United States Postal Service is appealing to Congress to remove collective bargaining restrictions in order to lay off 120,000 workers. It also wants congressional approval to replace existing government health care and retirement plans.
The post office claims it needs to eliminate 220,000 positions, or more than 30 percent of its staff by 2015, but only 100,000 of those positions can be made through attrition. The other 120,000 must come from lay offs.
Jolie Fay, a mother of two living in Portland, Ore., says she started her business because she wanted to make safe children's products, and to have "more control over what the kids were touching."
Fay lovingly manufactures jackets and ponchos, with matching doll ponchitos, made of colored fleece and fringed with ribbon and pom-pom trimming. It is a small business, servicing a number of wholesale accounts nationwide, and trading online.
In 2007, with business going well, Fay and her husband decided to expand the business using the profits from the sale of their family home to invest in fabric.
After dominating the globe for over 60 years as the largest, most productive and technologically advanced in the world, America's manufacturing sector is in a decline in nearly all industries. America's lead in a number of industries vanished years ago, and nearly all industries are facing potentially dangerous erosion.
No single indicator represents manufacturing capabilities or trends. But several key indicators, when taken together, provide strong evidence that America's manufacturing has greatly weakened in the last decade. These are: industrial output (measured by GDP), industrial capacity, employment, number of manufacturers, balance of trade in goods, and import penetration rate.
