Immigration is often discussed in moral terms of right and wrong. Is it right to exclude children born and raised in the U.S. from an opportunity to live legally in America because their parents entered illegally? Isn’t it wrong to give people who broke the law by smuggling themselves into our country a path to legal work status and even citizenship? These may be points for … [More]
Senator Jeff Flake, United States Senator – Arizona
Immigration is a hot-button topic throughout our country, and policies impact many aspects of our lives. Whatever problems our country faces, we continue to be seen as the “land of opportunity,” attracting people for educational, business, political and personal reasons. The topic is especially compelling here because Arizona is a border state. Our focus in this December … [More]
Captive Insurance Is a Financial Tool
An option businesses can use in managing their finances is captive insurance. Captive insurance is a separate legal entity — a corporation or limited liability company — that a parent company creates to cover insurable risks in a more cost-effective manner than insuring through a traditional insurance carrier. “It’s generally a wholly owned subsidiary of an existing business … [More]
Luxury Follows Its Own Trends
The Phoenix-area housing market is unlikely to see a significant boost until next year, according to the latest monthly report from the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. “Demand has been much weaker since July 2013 and still shows little sign of recovery,” says the report’s author, Mike Orr, director of the Center for Real Estate Theory and Practice at … [More]
Hidden Bias Impacts Talent Management
When we hear the word “bias,” many of us often immediately jump to racial, gender, age or cultural assumptions — which do apply. But what about the hiring manager who is more productive in mornings, therefore unknowingly favors interviewees scheduled before noon? Consider Martin, who is down to the last three candidates and their interviews have been scheduled on the same … [More]
No Legal Risk with Office Gambling? Don’t Bet on It
If part of your office culture includes friendly wagers for Fantasy Football, the Super Bowl, March Madness and Lottery office pools, you might want to quit while you’re ahead and put the kibosh on any gambling activities. That’s because, even though it is widely accepted and popular among employees, any wagering involving money and bets could run afoul of state law and open up … [More]
The Psychology of Giving
Do people give to philanthropic causes out of a sense of responsibility or guilt, for tax breaks or prestige? Do they give to provide for the public good or for personal pleasure? Individuals open their wallets for plenty of reasons, but a handful of motivations consistently rise to the top regardless of a donor’s income level. According to the Indiana University Lilly … [More]
Robb M. Corwin: Making Happenings Happen
When football fans arrive for Super Bowl XLIX at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale on Sunday, February 1, 2015, they will experience firsthand the hard work exhibited by the team of dedicated associates from Pride Group, LLC. CEO Robb M. Corwin says his company will provide a variety of services that day, from parking and traffic control to cash management. In order … [More]
Avondale: Health-Conscious Development
The City of Avondale is courting the healthcare industry as an important high-growth sector for its economic development. Adding to the large facilities of West Valley Hospital and Phoenix Children’s Hospital satellite – which recently went vertical with a $17-million investment and doubled its work force – the recently announced Copper Springs Hospital will bring $15 million … [More]
eHealth: Technology Advances Healthcare Delivery
Telemedicine has been around more than 100 years, but it is advancing with gains in mobile technology. A study by the Journal of the American Medical Association found no difference in care levels or outcomes using telehealth, notes Jim Prendergast, CEO of Scottsdale-based Healthiest You. Alan Roga, M.D., founder and CEO of Scottsdale-based Stat Doctors, has seen increased … [More]
Servicing Home Health to Curb Healthcare Costs
Recognizing that advances in technology along with the need to curb healthcare costs were spurring growth in the historically under-utilized home health segment, John Olajide founded Axxess to provide home health software to agencies nationwide. Many in the Greater Phoenix area use the cloud-based program that integrates all aspects of the home health agency’s operations in … [More]
Kitchen Command
Cooking app SideChef reads aloud recipe directions so that cooks can pay attention to the cooking technique and quality of the food at hand. While including automatic timers to ensure meals are cooked to perfection, its voice command technology allows users to say “next” or “back” to move through a recipe at their own pace. Founder and CEO Kevin Yu also built in gamification … [More]
Text Has Feelings, Too
The developing field of affective computing (AC), which includes recognizing emotion in text, has significant potential in such business applications as marketing and customer service. Researchers Changqin Quan and Fuji Ren, in their article “Textual emotion recognition for enhancing enterprise computing,” recently published by Taylor & Francis online in Enterprise … [More]
The Fabric of Our Lives
BeBop Sensors, Inc. is now marketing a wearable, smart-fabric sensor that measures and reports in real time all aspects of physicality, including bend, location, motion, rotation, angle and torque. For markets from clothing and protective wear to robotics to appliances, BeBop’s Monolithic Fabric Sensor Technology measures actual physicality to sense and display 3-D maps of … [More]
Mapping and Marketing to an Efficient Schedule
Mapping software is a key element of the app FreshLime is debuting to home services companies in Phoenix and Salt Lake City. “They will know exactly how far apart addresses are, so they can figure travel time between appointments” — easily and accurately — says founder and CEO Jay Bean. This will increase their efficiency in scheduling calls and managing their … [More]
New ATM Prods Consumer Behavior
Use of ATMs to access cash is up — going from 11 percent to 14 percent over the past year, according to the American Bankers Association. And cash-back is still an important part of consumers’ practice in many retail transactions, necessary to facilitate what the Federal Reserve System’s Cash Product Office reports is the “most used retail payment instrument” — cash. Even with … [More]
Business Opportunity Is a Dutch Connection
There is significant business opportunity for Arizona companies with the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The most recent figures show Arizona exported more than $350 million to the Netherlands in 2013, and Dutch trade and investments here support more than 7,000 jobs in Arizona. Honorary Consul Siebe K.J. van der Zee, in the Phoenix office of the Consulate General, notes the … [More]
Move Fast for the R&D Tax Credit Refund
Arizona keeps company with 36 other states in offering an R&D credit, with the distinction of not only offering the largest (24 percent) but also the unique attribute of having a refundable option. It is the refundable aspect that adds an element of urgency to this information, according to Tom Sanger, leader of accounting firm Moss Adams’ R&D tax services practice — … [More]
