California has an estimated 1.1 million women-owned firms (the most of any state and the only state with more than 1 million), employing 984,000and attributing to roughly $200 billion, according to the fourth annual American Express OPEN State the of Women-Owned Businesses Report, a comprehensive report analyzing the 1997, 2002 and 2007 data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s quinquennial Survey of Business Owners. Nationally, the number of women-owned businesses has increased 68% since 1997. California is ranked 20th (59.2%) in growth of number of firms over the past 17 years and 29th (64.3%) in growth of firm revenue between 1997 and 2014.
Source: www.americanexpress.com/us/small-business/openforum/keywords/state-of-women-owned-businesses-report/
Strange But True
Q. When M.I.T. doctoral candidate Ben Weber outfitted 80 bank operators with palm-size sensors to wear around their necks as they worked, he was clearly up to something important. What was it?
A. The sensors tracked who talked with whom and for how long, giving Weber and company executives hard numbers on how important social interactions are in employees’ happiness and productivity, says Adam Piore in Discover magazine. Monitored as well were workers’ location, tone of voice and other telling details. Weber found that bankers belonging to small, tight-knit groups that interacted frequently were not only happier but also got more work done, shared ideas faster and divvied up tasks more efficiently. He also found he could predict changes in bankers’ job satisfaction with up to 60 percent accuracy.
One critical tweak Weber uncovered was related to coffee in the workplace. Better group cohesion can be promoted by better cross-talk among groups. “For example, changing the numbers and locations of communal coffee pots can have unexpectedly profound effects: To get two groups talking to each other, the ideal location for a coffee pot is between them; putting the java in the middle of a group, on the other hand, can help build internal cohesiveness.”
Source: Bill Sones and Rich Sones, Ph.D.
