Black Friday Coming Earlier This Year
Black Friday shopping is quickly creeping into Thanksgiving Day and earlier. For the first time, chains ranging from Sears to Toys "R" Us to Walmart plan to open nationwide on Thursday. Others are shifting their Friday doorbuster sales earlier into the wee hours of Friday morning. The staff at Old Navy is geared to work 36 hours during a 39-hour period Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday. The earlier openings are part of aggressive tactics a recovering economy and the Internet brought to a Thanksgiving weekend that retailers use to launch their holiday season. A few years ago, only Kmart and select drugstores were open on Thanksgiving. Now retailers are using Thanksgiving Day as part of the escalating race to capture doorbuster sale crowds roving from store to store. [Source: St. Petersburg Times]
Final Day to File Oil Spill Claim
Fishermen and business owners stung by a summer of lost revenue from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill have until 11:59 p.m. Tuesday to file their compensation claims for short-term damages, and then they have to ask themselves: Do I feel lucky?
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Happy Tweetsgiving! Nonprofit Taps Twitter for Fundraising
The Twitter message started simple enough two years ago: What are you thankful for? Happy Tweetsgiving! But it also included a link to a website that told the story of Mama Lucy Kamptoni, a woman building a school in the African nation of Tanzania. The site allowed readers to donate money. The strong response, $11,000 raised the first year in 48 hours followed by $35,000 last year, has many pointing to Epic Change, a Satellite Beach-based non-profit, as an example of how non-profits can harness the power of social media. For Epic Change co-founder Stacey Monk, there is no secret. In fact, she admits, Epic Change is winging it through all this. "We are willing to try things that may have zero chance of working but because we are small, we know we will just try the next thing. Our community is really supportive of the way we do our work," said Monk, 35, who co-founded the organization in 2007 with friend Sanjay Patel, 33. [Source: Orlando Sentinel]
How to Rock the House with Your Elevator Pitch
What’s it like to present your elevator pitch before an auditorium full of people?
Style and Design Trends in Florida, 2010 |
A Slowdown in Foreclosures Not Always Good for Business
Across the nation, troubled homeowners have cheered the news that some banks are slowing the foreclosure process to review questionable documents. Then there are places like Lee County, Fla., where not everyone is applauding.
Foreclosures became so common here that they spawned a cottage industry. Real estate agents had homes to sell, landscapers and plumbers had work to do, and furniture stores and restaurants benefited, too.
So in October, when some big banks suspended foreclosures in states like Florida where lenders need a judge's approval to foreclose, some local businesses became alarmed. Foreclosures had become good for business.
The situation created a Catch-22 for Lee County. Hundreds of homes were seized a month, some possibly with flawed foreclosure documents. A slowing of foreclosures helps guard against wrongful evictions. Yet until the resale of foreclosed homes picks up, many local businesses may struggle.
[Source: Associated Press]
ALSO AROUND FLORIDA:
› Jacksonville Aviation Authority Unveils New Logo, Airport Names
The Jacksonville Aviation Authority today wheeled out a new logo and renamed three of its airports as part of a branding campaign aimed at bringing more business to the authority’s four airports.
The biggest name change is at Craig Airport, now called Jacksonville Executive Airport. Officials said the airport’s location off St. Johns Bluff Road, between Atlantic Boulevard and Monument Road, is convenient for executives making a business trips because it is close to suburban office parks.
The airport previously took its name in honor of James Edwin Craig, a Jacksonville native who was killed during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Craig had reached the rank of lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy when he died, according to the U.S. Navy’s official history program.
The authority is looking for ways to put Craig’s name on other venues in the vicinity of the airport, such as entry roads.
› Roldan Stepping Down as Head of Miami's Jackson Health System
Angered that a county commissioner questioned her "integrity and moral fiber,'' Eneida Roldan announced Monday she will step down as chief executive of Jackson Health System when her contract runs out next June.
After 18 months in the top job, facing persistent pressure from Miami-Dade leaders to stop massive losses, Roldan wrote Jackson's chairman on Monday that she decided she had had enough.
She made her decision after Commissioner Carlos Gimenez called her Friday afternoon, questioning her integrity and threatening ``my continued employment with the Public Health Trust,'' she said. ``He accused me of being deceitful.''
› Hoteliers Optimistic About Holiday as Winter Bookings Improve
Hotel owners around Tampa Bay haven't had much to be thankful for this past year.
Tampa and St. Petersburg had their coldest winters ever, chilling area tourism and freezing hotel reservations. Then came a summer of oil fears and unbearable heat.
As the Thanksgiving holiday approaches, hotel executives are upbeat for the first time in months about filling rooms during what promises to be a mild winter.
"There is a note of cautious optimism," said David Downing, deputy director of Visit St. Pete/Clearwater, the county's tourism agency.
It's a recent change in attitude, he said, which he attributes to a spate of good weather and absence of oil news in the "daily media maelstrom."
› Stern Resigns as Head of Foreclosure Company
Plantation attorney David J. Stern, whose besieged foreclosure operation continues to be investigated by state regulators, has resigned as CEO of DJSP Enterprises less than a month after he stepped down as the company's chairman.
The move came as DJSP let 157 employees go, according to new filings with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission. The latest staff reduction follows a massive layoff of 70 percent of Stern's work force earlier in the month after the company's two largest clients, mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, stopped using the firm and pulled their pending foreclosure cases.
Stern is the only major client of the publicly traded DJSP, one of the nation's largest foreclosure servicers with processing and title affiliates. Based in the British Virgin Islands, it was created when Stern sold his law firm's non-legal operations to DJSP for $58 million.
› Orlando is 46th Most Dangerous City ... and That's an Improvement
Orlando may not be the safest city in America, but it has improved its ranking by leaps and bounds according to latest edition of City Crime Rankings released Monday by CQ Press.
Orlando ranked the 46th most dangerous city, an improvement from 17th a year ago.
The Orlando metro area improved from the 18th most dangerous metro area last year to the 59th most dangerous this year.
This year's ranking is out of 400 cities, while last year's ranking was out of 397 cities. The previous year Orlando ranked 18th most dangerous out of 385 cities considered. The most dangerous Florida city, according to the rankings, is St. Petersburg.
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See full rankings from CQ Press
› Spill Panel Details Goofs, Hero in Ending Gusher
A single picture from a cell phone camera may have saved the Gulf of Mexico from a few more weeks - if not months - of oil gushing from the BP well.
A new study from the presidential oil spill commission describes the behind-the-scenes, excruciating tension and mistakes behind the three-month effort to cap the busted well. More than anything the report on containment didn't blame or praise, but pulled back the curtain on what happened during hectic times as 172 million gallons of oil gushed into the Gulf from April 20 to July 15.
New details include the story of a lone scientist working from a cell phone photo who saved the day by convincing the government that a cap it considered removing was actually working as designed.
Go to page 2 for more stories ...
› Bootstrap Marketing: Price Isn’t Everything
There’s no disputing retail is a highly competitive marketplace. Today’s customer is armed with enough information to be selective about how and to they shop. About 77 percent of our populace uses the Internet, according to internetworldstats.com.
Will customers prefer shopping online during the holidays? You bet. Research from the National Retail Federation’s holiday season research confirmed five reasons why: 24/7 convenience; easier to compare prices; free shipping offers; don’t want to fight the crowds; easier to find items.
Ellen Davis, vice president and NRF spokesperson, points out in her blog list of Top-Ten-Holiday-Trends-for-2010: “Of course retailers know they need to focus on sales and promotions to bring in shoppers. And of course price is a factor for just about everyone. But unlike 2009 — and most definitely 2008 — price is not the only factor shoppers will consider when making buying decisions.
› Economists Forecasting 1 Million New Fla. Jobs in 7 Years
Florida will gain at least a million new jobs over the next seven years, which is 300,000 more than promised by Gov.-elect Rick Scott without the tax cuts and other changes he's seeking, state economists predicted Monday.
While their long-term forecast remained rosy, the economists from the Legislature and Gov. Charlie Crist's office were gloomier about the immediate future than in July when they last updated their economic estimate.
They now are forecasting unemployment rates will remain at or near 11.8 percent and the housing market will stay depressed for longer than anticipated. That's expected to reduce state revenues, which may widen a $2.5 billion budget gap earlier predicted for the next budget year.
The outlook is much more optimistic beyond the next couple years. The state now has about 7.2 million jobs, but that's expected to increase to at least 7.7 million by the 2013-14 fiscal year and to nearly 8.3 million seven years from now in 2017-18.
› Space Florida & California Company Team Up For 2011 Demo Flight
A small California company is committing to fly a suborbital demonstration flight from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 36 next year.
Masten Space Systems of Mojave, Calif., plans to launch a rocket-powered vehicle that takes off and lands vertically. Company officials said the vehicle would fly to 100,000 feet and then descend back to the launch site. The demonstration flight is a pathfinder to determine whether the company can launch cost-effectively on Florida's Space Coast.
» Related: FAA Issues First Commercial Reentry License to SpaceX
› Tech Recruiter, Social Host Bullish on Technology Jobs
Tampa Bay technology job recruiter Fritz Eichelberger has hosted his "Pure and Shameless" tech networking socials for so long they have evolved into an economic barometer in their own right.
After the tech bubble burst in 2000, his tech social — held at the former Dan Marino's watering hole at the once booming BayWalk in St. Petersburg — was dubbed a pink slip party. That's where so many who so quickly lost their technology jobs came to swap sob stories and look for employment leads.
Flash forward. Eichelberger last week hosted his latest tech social, this time at the Blue Martini at International Plaza in Tampa.
Despite jobless rates sky high in Tampa Bay, the mood was festive, says Eichelberger.
› West Palm Beach Puts Halt on Spread of Nightclubs
The city needs an influx of business to prosper in a down economy, but Mayor Lois Frankel doesn't want the nightclub industry she once fought vigorously to save downtown.
Frankel, at Monday's mayor-commission meeting, asked for an ordinance that would place any potential nightclubs that seek to locate outside of the Clematis corridor under the same stringent guidelines enacted in 2002 for Clematis clubs.
The city commission not only agreed that the maximum two-nightclub-per-block limit should be expanded throughout downtown, but placed an immediate moratorium on all new nightclubs in West Palm Beach until a new ordinance is presented at the Dec. 13 city commission meeting.
"Eventually retail is going to come back and you're going to want retail space," Frankel said. "It would be a mistake to run this whole downtown back into nightclubs."
› WCI Sells Development to Toll Brothers
WCI Communities, the Bonita Springs-based home builder, has completed its largest land deal since exiting Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
WCI sold its its Parkland Golf & Country Club -- near Coral Springs and Boca Raton -- to luxury home builder Toll Brothers for $53 million in cash and debt, according to media reports.
Horsham, Penn.-based Toll paid $37 million for the gated community and will assume $16 million in debt. The company said it would build 350 homes priced from $400,000 to $1.5 million, with sales beginning in January.
The deal included 25 unsold homes built with defective Chinese drywall. Toll said it would repair the homes, which with standards set by a federal judge and the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission means virtually stripping the properties down to the studs.
At least 100 additional homes in the country club have Chinese drywall.
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