Publisher's View

Recently, while traveling, I rented a car. As usual, 99.9% of the counter agent's "assistance" was invested in trying to upsell me to buy: insurance (mine already covers rental cars), a better vehicle (I'd booked a mid-sized car), a gas "price guarantee" (you pay a good rate for a FULL TANK, regardless of whether it's returned three-quarters full or empty), and a navigation system (I brought along my own pre-programmed Garmin). Full Story 

This seems to be my season to prune and to plant, as I wrote in a blog for our online audience earlier this month. I am weeding out activities this spring because my garden runneth over with beautiful new blossoms trying to push their way through the more mature plants. That's the image in my head as I say goodbye to "In Business with Jody and Joan" to make time to cultivate new IB products. Full Story 

At this juncture, when business owners are expected to be the first responders to burglar alarms at their establishments, kudos to Madison Police Chief Noble Wray for establishing a Special Investigations Unit. Last July, Lt. Tom Woodmansee began working with MPD detectives and area nonprofit leaders to identify and put every available resource to bear on curtailing habitual, violent criminals. This model experiment didn't focus on non-violent grass smokers to garner the best results; instead, the department compiled statistics, analyzed them, and then jumped in with its top 10 most violent offenders. Full Story 

Gail Perry, author of Fired-Up Fundraising: Turn Board Passion into Action, recently created a list of nonprofit board member resolutions for 2012. I've altered that base document and added a couple items to create a "rules of engagement" list to share with my managers. Here is what the final list looks like. Full Story