S&P Cuts Italy One Notch, Outlook Negative

Standard and Poor's cut its unsolicited ratings on Italy by one notch, warning of a deteriorating growth outlook and damaging political uncertainty, in a move that took markets by surprise and added to pressure on the debt-stressed euro zone.

5 Checkpoints on Your Race to Retirement

But when it comes to retirement, many people don't have a sense of how well they're doing or even if they're in the race.

Helping a Caregiver Climb Out of Debt

He contributed to the cost of his mother's care, and when she moved into a nursing home far from public transportation, he had to lease a car to visit her.

Making the Transition from Veteran to Franchisee

On July 24, 2011, after five years in the military, Kevin McClenahan, a former Staff Sergeant in the 3rd Special Forces Group, opened the doors to his Doc Popcorn franchise in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Last spring, Joy Bolluyt purchased a Cybertary franchise. After 20 years in the military, during which she was often separated from her family, Bolluyt now runs her virtual assistant business from her home in Lorton, Virginia.

Both McClenahan and Bolluyt are joining the ranks of a growing number of vets turned franchisees. According to a recent study conducted by PwC for the International Franchise Association -- the first-ever study of veteran ownership in the franchising industry -- one out of every seven franchise businesses are owned and operated by veterans of the U.S. military.

The force driving these numbers can be partly linked to the IFA’s VetFran program. More than 400 IFA franchisor member companies participate in VetFran, offering financial incentives, training and mentoring to veterans wishing to buy franchises. Since the program’s inception, more than 2,000 vets have become franchisees One VetFran participant, Snap-on Tools, reports 11 percent of its new franchise starts last year were former military personnel and expects this trend to continue this year. 

While these numbers illustrate the success of the VetFran program, there is another reason franchising appeals to military veterans: the simple fact that franchise ownership can make the transition back to civilian life smoother.

We spoke with McClenahan and Bolluyt as well as Laurie E. Pollock, a senior franchise consultant with FranChoice and the host of a free, monthly webinar, Veterans Exploring Franchise Ownership, about what making the transition to civilian life entails and how franchising can help.

Seven Ways 9/11 Changed Small Business Forever

It's now a timeworn cliché that "everything changed" in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks. During the past 10 years since the attacks, however, life has returned to normal in many ways. As a result, we may have forgotten just how much 9/11 altered the way we live, play, travel, and do business.

That's why it's a good time to take a look back and reflect upon how 9/11 and its aftermath continue to affect the nation's small businesses. Some of these changes are subtle and easy to overlook; others are still traumatic and impossible to ignore.

Either way, most of us can agree on one thing: We'd rather live in a world where none of it had ever happened.

Should You Perform a Credit Check on Potential Employees?

You're all set to hire a new employee. You've interviewed the person thoroughly, called their references, and verified their skills. But there's one thing you probably haven't done: checked their credit.

Increasingly, savvy employers are using credit checks as another way to measure the integrity of potential workers. This is really nothing new in the business world. After all, companies have been using credit bureaus for decades to determine the reliability of vendors, suppliers, and other firms they do business with. So it makes sense for companies to do the same with people they're about to hire, especially if those people will be coming in direct contact with cash or sensitive information.

Indeed, a recent survey by the Society for Human Resources Management found that 60 percent of all employers run some type of credit check on their applicants. By checking the credit of a potential employee, you can see whether that person typically pays their bills on time and how responsible they are when it comes to money. This kind of information can tell you a lot about what kind of employee that person will likely be.

But before you start pulling credit reports on prospective employees, you have to take certain precautions. First, it's illegal in some states for credit reporting agencies to provide a credit report to companies that plan to use the information for employment screening. In particular, Hawaii and Washington ban companies from performing a credit check on potential employees.

However, in most states it's perfectly legal under federal law. Specifically, section 604 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act states that it's permissible to use credit information for employment purposes. The one caveat is that potential employees must give you written permission to access their credit report.

Also, keep in mind that credit reporting agencies won't provide you with the actual credit score of employees or prospective hires. Instead, they'll provide you with a credit report designed specifically for employers. This report contains information about the payment habits of the person in question but not an actual credit score.

Here's another important consideration. Employers are required under federal law to tell candidates if they used the credit information to deny them the job. In reality, however, most employers find some other reason for not hiring the candidate -- or simply don't give them a reason at all -- just to avoid all the legal complications and rigmarole.

While it may be perfectly legal to use a job applicant's credit report in the hiring process, some question whether it's ethical. After all, sometimes there are good reasons why people fall behind on their payments or can't pay their bills. An unexpected medical procedure, for example, or a long layoff can put normally trustworthy people on precarious financial footing. As a result, it may be unfair to penalize these people even more by denying them a job they are otherwise qualified to do.

That's probably why 16 more states, including New York, Ohio, Oregon, and South Carolina, are considering their own ban on employer credit checks, viewing them as just another hurdle for those desperately out of work.

Why It's Time for Your Small Business to Try the iPad

The first time I saw Apple's iPad in use by a small company -- which happened to be a chocolatier at my local farmer's market, which had one set up as an interactive catalog -- it startled me. Wasn't this the gadget whose omnipresent advertising campaign showed consumers kicking back in comfy chairs and definitely not working? What was it doing being so useful?

Then I started spotting iPads at more and more establishments I did business with, from restaurants to parking garages. And when I took plane trips, I noticed that many of the executive types who would have been pouring over documents on ThinkPads in the past were now doing so on Apple tablets. I stopped gawking and started taking them for granted.

Full disclosure: I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, where businesses of all sizes are especially fearless about trying new technologies, and Apple fans are everywhere. Even so, it's an impressive showing for a device that's only been around since April 2010 -- and it reminds me of the era, more than three decades ago, when small companies began putting early PCs such as the Apple II and Radio Shack TRS-80 to work.

The Tablet PC -- Take One

The more I contemplated the iPad's popularity among small businesses, the less weird it seemed. I thought back to Microsoft's introduction of the Tablet PC a decade ago. The company thought that its much-hyped creation, which ran Windows, would begin to replace laptops within a few years.

Microsoft, of course, thought wrong.

But Tablet PCs did find an intensely loyal -- albeit limited -- audience in the business world. I still run into folks who love to take copious handwritten notes using Microsoft's OneNote application.

Tablet PCs also turned out to be extremely useful as digital clipboards, often running industry-specific software. (One example: Medscribbler, an electronic medical record system.) The market remains large enough that companies such as Fujitsu and Motion Computing continue to offer Tablet PCs today.

iPad: The Only New Tablet That Matters

Apple's tablet is selling so well in part because it's so many things that Tablet PCs never were. The iPad 2 is thinner and lighter than any Windows-powered tablet. Its battery life, at an honest 10 hours on a charge, is better. And the starting price of $499 is cheaper than even a bare-bones Tablet PC. So far, it's the only new tablet that really matters. (None of the tablets based on Google's Android operating system seem to be blockbusters; RIM's PlayBook is a huge disappointment; HP's TouchPad is already a goner.)

Why Tablet PCs Still Have a Place

In many ways, the iPad feels like the Tablet PC of tomorrow. It's important, though, to understand that it doesn't instantly render existing Tablet PCs obsolete. You use your fingers, not a stylus, to interact with an iPad; that's a boon in many ways, but some business applications are far more pen-friendly than they are finger-friendly. For instance, A company called Active Ink, which makes software for converting paper forms for use on Tablet PCs, has a good blog post explaining why it thinks its products won't ever make sense on an iPad -- at least unless Apple decides to make one that works well with a pen. (The third-party pens available for the iPad have stubby tips that don't let you write precisely.)

Some of the companies that swear by Tablet PCs will probably also look on iPads as too fragile to stand up to the knocks and bruises of on-the-go business use, even though they're reasonably sturdy as consumer-electronics devices go and can be protected with some seriously heavy-duty cases. Most Tablet PCs that are still on the market are designed to be rugged enough to withstand drops and other manhandling.

The iPad may not be ready to replace the Tablet PC in one fell swoop, but I suspect that it'll ultimately be used for more purposes by more people in more organizations than Microsoft's pen-driven computers ever were. Already, you can tell that Apple is watching the business market out of one corner of one eye: It's opened an iPad in Business section on its website and is adding features that corporate customers want, such as mass deployment of apps to multiple iPads at once. And numerous specialized business apps are already here, such as DaVinci, an in-the-field tool for appraisers, and AutoCAD WS, a tablet-sized version of the industry-standard computer-drafting package.

Not Just a Laptop Replacement

As for my own small business: I cheerfully admit that when I bought an iPad, I used it mostly for Web surfing, book reading, and music listening. Little by little, however, it's elbowed its way into my work life.

In August, I headed to Berlin to attend IFA, a massive trade show for the consumer electronics industry. I took along my trusty laptop. But I also packed an iPad 2, which I'd equipped with a case called a ZaggFolio that includes a notebook-like keyboard, letting me type as swiftly on the iPad as I could on any more conventional computer.

I ended up leaving the notebook in my hotel room and toting the iPad everywhere I went.  Even ensconced in the ZaggFolio, it was easier to carry than a full-blown notebook. It had built-in wireless broadband, a feature which my laptop does not. It ran the apps I needed to get my work done, such as Apple's Pages word processor, Cisco's WebEx online-meeting service, and Bitolithic's ThinkBook organizer. And the iPad 2's marathon battery meant I never had to worry about running out of juice, even if I left the hotel at 9 a.m., didn't return until 11 p.m., and spent much of the time in between writing, doing email, and performing Web research.

The odds that I'm going to scrap my laptop any time soon are exactly zero: It's still way better for heavy-duty Excel spreadsheets, serious PhotoShop use, and any number of tasks for which the iPad lacks the requisite computing muscle or proper applications. But I'm glad that when I'm not doing those things, I have the option of heading out with an iPad rather than a notebook. It's like owning both an SUV and a bicycle.

So should you bring one or more iPads into your business? You need two things to make it make sense: a genuine interest in trying something new, and the right software for your work. If you've read this far, the odds are high that you're willing to give the iPad a chance. If you're not sure whether the apps you need are available, check out Apple's information on business programs -- and maybe even custom development, if your needs are truly unique.

The iPad may or may not be right for you, but I think it's already proven it has endless possibilities as a productivity tool. One of the things I like best about small companies is that they spend their own money very, very carefully -- and every iPad I see out there in the real world of everyday business is another sign that Apple's tablet is already a fixture, not a fad.