Congratulations
are in order to Brian Hewitt, the newest parter of Alerding Castor
Hewitt, LLP, who was recognized this week as one of Indiana's 2010
top 50 Super Lawyers.
Brian concentrates his practice on estate, trust,
and guardianship planning, administration, and litigation; and
mediation and business law.
He is a Certified Estate Planning and Administration Specialist, a
Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, and a
member of the Probate Litigation Committee of the...
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I have taken a few
weeks off of blogging. Honestly, I felt like I needed the
break, but I am excited about getting back on the saddle and
writing again.
Since it has been a few weeks, let me give a brief update on what
we have been up to. Alerding Castor Hewitt has had an
exciting beginning to 2010. On January 1, Bill Boncosky
joined us. Bill is a business attorney / technology and SaaS
law attorney working with privately held companies, primarily in
technology industries. Bill has spent the...
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 4, 2010
Contact: Lainey Scheetz
317.403.9012
lscheetz@alerdingcastor.com
ALERDING CASTOR HEWITT LLP PARTNER NAMED TO FORTY UNDER 40
Indianapolis,
IN – Alerding Castor Hewitt LLP is pleased to announce that Michael
Alerding, a partner at the firm, has been named to the 2010
Indianapolis Business Journal’s Forty Under 40 list. The list
recognizes local business and professional leaders who have
achieved success and excelled in their field before the age of 40.
Those...
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Closing
in on the end of 2009 I have to say that I am quite pleased
with the commitment Indiana showed this year to be a State that
supports and promotes innovation, entreprenuership and business
growth.
This week I had breakfast with Larry O'Connor, Executive Director
of
Butler
University's Business Accelerator. Larry is a former CEO
of Bank One Indiana. Following his "retirement", Larry became
CEO of The IndianapolisMuseumm of Art, and recently took the
position to lead theAcceleratorr...
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Employers
invest so much time and effort into (a) finding and hiring the
right candidates for the team, and (b) developing those individuals
to work at their most efficient levels for the company.
Let's face it, it can take years to get a company up and
running effectively, and certain key individuals play a huge role
in making that happen.
You don't want to lose them.While I firmly believe that everyone is replaceable, some employees
are just harder to replace than others because they add so...
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The other day I wrote a post on my reasons not to use the term
"affiliates" in licensing agreement negotiations.
See post here. My
general point is that the term has no common meaning in the law and
may create ambiguity in the contact.
I addressed several different definitions of the term in laws, but
the term is not only defined differently in law, it is also used
differently in business.
For accounting companies, for instance, the Interstate Commerce
Commission defines the term as companies...
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New technology businesses usually face two hurdles to get their
product to market. The first is proof of concept. The
second is proof of scale.
Both are intended to solve the “Ability” stage of the business plan
process and move the business into the "Meeting" stage:
Recognition of Market ->
Recognition of Market Opportunity -> Ability to Meet Market
Opportunity -> Meeting Market Opportunity at Profit
Proof of concept is simply the proof that the business can develop
a working prototype that...
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What are your metrics for business success? I attended a
non-profit board meeting this past week where the directors were
working through this question - "How do we measure
success?"
A common metric that was discussed was # of volunteers in the
organization in ___ years. Although this metric does
measure growth, it does not measure the quality of growth.
What if the volunteers are under committed, under trained or
just plain lousy at their job? You may meet your metric but
find that your...
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As an admitted technophile, I can't help but look into all the
newest gizmos and gadgets. Plus, working at an information
technology law firm, I can even bill it sometimes. Thus, I've
recently begun a fascination with e-books. Jason Wilson
has done a very interesting set of blogs looking at the use
of e-books (or lack of use) for lawyers (
www.jasnwilsn.com/).
Jason's viewpoint is as a counterpoint to a recent set of blogs by
Professor Eugene Volokh (
volokh.com/2009/10/02/the-future-of-books-...
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There are several business blogs that I follow. Most of these
are written by SaaS law / Internet law clients of mine or other
Indiana businesses in technology industries. Lately I have
been falling behind on them. This morning I am trying to
catch up.
I came across a very good, brief video on
Kristian Andersen + Associates'
blog.
The video is from the Bigger Ideas/Smaller Indiana conference this
past summer. In the video Kristian Andersen shares his
feelings on central Indiana's business...
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The following post by Pat Horgan
of Palidan Associates was printed on the
E-Sourcing Forum a couple of weeks ago. Even
though the post applies particularly to sourcing professionals, the
concepts are excellent for most contract negotiations.
NEGOTIATING TIPSContract Document Control
In contract development, the party that controls the physical
production of the contract document and the wording changes during
negotiations generally has a distinct advantage. This is
particularly true in long or...
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According to a recent
Gartner research report, worldwide SaaS
revenues are expected to grow 18 percent in 2009 to reach $7.5
billion. The report further stated an expectation for SaaS
industries through 2013 when worldwide revenues are expected to top
$14 billion for enterprise application markets.
Gartner listed the top SaaS market segments for 2009 as
follows:
1. Content, Communications and
Collaboration (CCC) - $2.6 billion
2. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) - $2.3 billion
3. Enterprise...
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From time to time I use the term
“From a 10,000 foot view…”. This is corporate buzz speak for
taking a broad look at something without getting into the
details. From a business vision and strategy perspective, it
is common to start at a high and broad perspective and then work
down to the details (i.e., "into the weeds").
Many business professors, and even our President, encourage
business executives to stop using such buzz phrases as they can
serve as a crutch for intelligent decision making...
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Emerging Indiana
technology companies should consider grant opportunities as an
alternative to raising private equity. The benefits are
obvious as you are not giving up a stake in the business in order
to secure strategic capital.
A client of mine this past week engaged my technology law firm to
assist in an SBIR grant opportunity. Other grant
opportunities include NIH grants and 21st Century Fund
grants.
The 21st Century Fund is a "must" to consider if you are an Indiana
technology business....
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I had the honor of
speaking at the
Masters of Business Online conference this last
week. The conference was organized by Jim Brown of
EverEffect.
Jim and his team did a great job with the event. Last count I
heard was approximately 250 in attendance.
Here are a few blog posts that described the event:
My hour presentation was entitled "The Legal Landscape of Corporate
Blogging". I...
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This is the second part of a four
part series from the
SpendMatters blog
on the rise of
Iasta as a global leader in
eSourcing markets. The article is by Jason Busch, a Founder
and Managing Director of Azul Partners, a boutique advisory firm.
He is also Editor of the highly trafficked sourcing, trade and
supply chain blog
www.spendmatters.com.
Jason is regarded as one of the leading technology pundits and
thought leaders in the trade, procurement and operations
worlds.
I recently just completed...
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There is a great four part series on
the
SpendMatters blog which walks
through one industry expert's story of the rise of
Iasta as a global leader in eSourcing
markets. This was fun for me to read. I am going on my
ninth year of representing Iasta as it's Business law / SaaS law
counsel and have loved seeing them grow from a modest Midwest
auction software provider to a global SaaS eScouring leader.
It is definitely worth a re-post on The Business & Culture
Blog.
The article is by Jason Busch,...
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This is part II of a
repost of an article by Robert Ambrogi on the
IMS Expert
Services blog (here is a link to the
first post). These are
unbelievable stories of actual cases and situations where
attorneys, judges and jurors posted blog articles and shared
stories on social media sites which got them in trouble.
Amazing - and funny.
7. When jurors
tweet
After jurors in an Arkansas case awarded a verdict of $12.6 million
against a building materials company, one juror boasted on Twitter,
"I just...
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The TechPoint
Innovation Summit 2009 is finally here. I have been
looking forward to this event this year (which has not necessarily
been the case in past years).
This year's focus is more tailored to helping seed and emerging
stage Indiana technology companies pursue excellence in developing
their innovation, marketing their innovation and seeking funding
for their innovation. As an Indiana tech lawyer these topics
hit right at heart of the needs I have wrestled through with
my clients.
I...
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I read an interesting post
yesterday on
Small Business Trends by Professor Scott Shane,
Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at Case Western Reserve
University. It is a good read for current entrepreneurs and
those daring to dream of starting their own company.
Here is the post:
Most entrepreneurs believe a bunch of myths about financing new
companies that hinder their efforts to raise money. Here are a
few:
Myth 1: It takes a lot of money to finance a new
business. Not true. The typical...
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