Four in ten managers admit confusing jargon has duped them into buying needless technical solutions from IT salesmen.

According to a study of 500 business owners by Opal, the b2b division of broadband provider TalkTalk Group, more than half (55 per cent) say baffling technical terms cause them to ‘occasionally’ make decisions about telecommunications which they don’t fully understand, with 13 per cent reporting this happened ‘regularly’.

The vast majority (78 per cent) of owner managers say they’re often put off scoping out new projects or even speaking to suppliers due to fear of confusing jargon during the sell.

Furthermore, 18 per cent of managers believe that the use of jargon shows a lack of understanding of their business needs.

Clive Davenport, trade and industry committee chair at the Federation of Small Businesses, says: ‘Unnecessary, complicated and technical language from salesmen needs to be stamped out to help small companies concentrate on what’s important, growing their business.’

Latest News | small business news and advice

If you’re the head of a struggling newspaper, The Huffington Post has
an enviable business model. While content production is almost always the greatest cost in running a publishing/media business, it largely relies on the writing of an
unpaid army of contributors. The value proposition the HuffPo offers
them: exposure to a very large audience.

It’s a model that has been the source of controversy. After all, the
HuffPo is a for-profit business, yet it doesn’t pay the vast majority
of the individuals who labor for it. That’s an especially interesting
thing for a company founded by a person who wrote a book entitled “Pigs
at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption Are
Undermining America.“

Whether or not it’s fair to call HuffPo founder Arianna Huffington a “new media slave driver“, one can’t argue that Huffington’s model has been somewhat successful. The HuffPo has become is one of the most popular ‘blogs’ on the internet and shows no signs of slowing down. But can it last? Will The HuffPo be able to maintain its army of unpaid contributors over the long haul? The ‘resignation’ of one of them suggests that some contributors may be asking themselves whether it makes sense to work for free.

Mayhill Fowler broke one of the biggest stories in the 2008 United States presidential campaign as a citizen journalist for The HuffPo. In return, The HuffPo covered her expenses during the rest of the campaign. But they’ve never actually compensated her for her work.

After contributing to The HuffPo enough to feel that she had paid her dues and was worth supporting with more than a pat on the back, she finally asked to be paid. Fowler explained on her blog:

I want to be paid for my time and effort—or at a minimum, to get a little remuneration in return for the money I spend myself in order to do original reportage. I would not expect to be paid for punditry.  The Huffington Post business model is to provide a platform for 6,000 opinionators to hold forth. Point of view is cheap. I would never expect to be paid there when the other 5,999 are not. However, the journalism pieces I have done in the past year seem to me as good as anything HuffPost’s paid reporters Sam Stein and Ryan Grim produce. Why do they get money, and I do not?

The HuffPo’s response: best of luck.

Fowler, who is admittedly somewhat bitter about the situation, posted her email conversation with HuffPo editor Roy Sekoff. That apparently touched a nerve, sparking this statement from The HuffPo:

Mayhill Fowler says that she is “resigning” from the Huffington Post. How do you resign from a job you never had?

It ends:

One recommendation: in the future, she should refrain from publishing private emails with her editors without their permission. This happens to be both an old media and a new media ground rule.

Fowler was never promised pay; she willingly contributed to The HuffPo knowing full well that The HuffPo doesn’t pay the vast majority of the people who ‘work for it.’ That may not have been a decision she’s happy with in retrospect, and it may have been a poor decision, but it was her decision. She can’t blame the HuffPo for it.

At the same time, Fowler’s unwillingness to continue working for free demonstrates the risks The HuffPo is taking with its model. While it may never run out of contributors willing to write without remuneration, it may find it difficult to retain some of its best contributors if it doesn’t eventually make it financially viable for them to continue writing.

Certainly, The HuffPo can’t afford to hire thousands of people, but the apparent unwillingness to give talented contributors a pathway to real compensation sends the message that it is more interested in free labor than it is in building a real company that pays the people who work for it.

In most industries, companies want to make their best, brightest and most productive employees feel valued. Compensation is almost always a big part of how that’s accomplished. And for good reason: what’s good for the employee is good for the employer. As Adam Smith noted in Wealth of Nations, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we can expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” That’s of course true for both parties in employer-employee relationships.

Not only is The HuffPo’s position on pay questionable from a long-term strategy standpoint, it’s somewhat problematic given Arianna Huffington’s aforementioned crusade against ‘corporate greed.’ On one hand, she rails against billionaire bankers, but on the other she has built a corporation that pays almost nothing for the labor that enables it to exist.

Some might dare call The HuffPo’s model hypocritical in light of that. And to be frank, hypocritical is what I’d call The HuffPo’s response to Fowler. If The HuffPo wants to point out that Fowler can’t resign from a job she never had, it certainly shouldn’t expect her to “refrain from publishing private emails with her editors” on the basis that it’s a professional rule. After all, if Fowler is not an employee of The HuffPo, it’s kind of hard to expect that she adhere to industry ‘ground rules‘ when it comes to her interactions with her ‘bosses‘. In other words, The HuffPo shouldn’t expect its contributors to respect it in the way they would an employer if they’re not employees. That the HuffPo does so reeks of arrogance.

The lesson for The HuffPo and other companies looking to take advantage of volunteer labor: you get what you pay for. And when you don’t pay, you can’t ask for much.

Posts from the Econsultancy blog

More than half of London’s students plan to set up their own business.

According to a study of 224 university attendees by insurer Hiscox, 54 per cent already have a business idea, with plans to become entrepreneurs in the near future.

Of those with plans to start up, IT is the sector most respondents hope to succeed in (18 per cent) with hospitality and catering (11 per cent) and education (11 per cent) also popular.

Some 30 per cent started their courses intending to be self-employed at some stage, while 40 per cent have been running money making enterprises while studying.

Undergraduates see the value in starting early, with 78 per cent believing that some of the best businesses are set up by young people.

John Heaney, SME expert at Hiscox, says: ‘It’s extremely encouraging that despite the knock on effects of the recession on the job market, the best of British entrepreneurial spirit is alive and kicking amongst London’s graduates as many look to set up in the future.’

Latest News | small business news and advice

Consumers see no difference between legitimate marketing emails and spam, says research.

According to a survey by market research company TNS of 2,013 adults, more than half (52 per cent) do not differentiate between legitimate marketing and unsolicited bulk email.

Some 59 per cent of consumers demand tougher legislation on email marketing to help bring the situation under control.

CEO of technology consultant Kognitio, Roger Llewellyn, says: ‘If marketing becomes increasingly conflated with spam, then consumers will become even more alienated and companies will have to deal with that dissatisfaction.’

It is possible for companies to use email responsibly, adds Llewellyn.

‘Reputable companies should keep their email marketing focused, concise and transparent. If they don’t do this, and if their customers increasingly lump all email marketing in the junk box with spam, then the companies have nobody to blame but themselves.’

Click here to read the smallbusiness.co.uk guide to email marketing.

Latest News | small business news and advice

It remains the case that if you’re a mother who wants to start a business, you’re still very much on your own.

According to a survey from BT business conducted earlier this year, starting a business is a dream for one in ten mums, with 62 per cent saying that choosing the hours they work was the biggest reason for wanting to start up.

Kim Johnson used to run an advertising and marketing company, so was used to people coming to her pitching inventions, but she had had no ideas of her own until her daughter was born.

After little Aimee slipped off a chair whilst trying to join her mother at the worktop, Johnson searched the Internet for something to elevate her child while keeping her safe – but found nothing. So she came up with FunPod, a standalone child safety unit that solved the problem.

It was not an easy learning curve, however. ‘The male-dominated nature of the industry meant it took me five months to actually find a manufacturer who would take me seriously,’ she says.

By a stroke of luck, a husband of a friend turned out to be a manufacturer of childrens’ furniture for day nurseries, and the ball was rolling.

The standalone child safety unit launched in November 2006 and is now sold in seven countries worldwide, winning nine awards and earning its founder “Mumpreneur of the Year” for the North of England in a specialist magazine.

But it may never have happened without the faith of a fellow parent who happened to be in the industry.

I was interested to see if there were any specific financial help for mothers in business – but the search continues. ’There are no specific grants I am aware of, but it is vital to tap into local knowledge as there may be certain funding initiatives in certain parts of the country,’ says John Grange, advisor at Business Link. Hardly definitive evidence of a recognition from financing institutions of the sizeable mumpreneur demographic.

Nevertheless, there is help out there for mums. Prowess is an online network supporting the growth of women’s business ownership through a women-friendly support structure – but there is a fee involved of around £76 for an individual. This compares to £200 for membership to Women in Business Network (WIBN), a networking organisation for business women of all levels of seniority across a wide range of industries, offering training, events and guidance for businesswomen. A free option is available in Everywoman, which bills itself as “the UK’s leading provider of training, resources and support services for women in business”.

These resources may help mothers starting out, but more needs to be done to ensure institutionalised sexism and lack of tailored financing options don’t stand in the way of mothers growing their startup.

SmallBusiness.co.uk Blogs