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The Insider Notebook

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NOTEBOOK: But … where are the salads?

I recently attended an event at one of the metro’s newest coworking coffee shops, Blue Bean in Ankeny, and met its owner, Carlos Rojas. The ultra-cool space, which opened in February, completely reimagined what had …

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NOTEBOOK: What’s the border between public relations and news?

A couple of weeks ago I had a chance to visit the Iowa AgriTech Accelerator for a media and public relations Q&A session with the accelerator’s startups. 

Tina Mowry Hadden, president of Mowry Strategies, and …

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NOTEBOOK: Workers leaving big cities for smaller ones, taking jobs with them

I was talking with Jackie Johansen, principal of Shattered Glass Development, about coworking space. She mentioned that it’s not just startups or one-person shops using the space but that there were corporate users as well. …

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NOTEBOOK – One Good Read:Can WeWork survive?

WeWork CEO Adam Neumann is out and Fast Company asks, “Can WeWork Survive?” Neumann, who remains non-executive chairman and We’s largest individual shareholder, told employees in an all-staff memo Tuesday that “our business has never been stronger, …

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NOTEBOOK – One Good Read:The shift in travel styles that did Thomas Cook in

The collapse of travel company Thomas Cook might have taken us all by surprise — along with the 600,000 people thought to be stranded when air operations ceased — but the changes to the travel …

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NOTEBOOK – One Good Read: Teen climate activist to world leaders: ‘How dare you!’

Teen environmental activist Greta Thunberg blistered heads of state at a United Nations summit for, in effect, robbing her generation of its future by failing to address climate change, Bloomberg reported. “You have stolen my dreams and …

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NOTEBOOK – One Good Read: The awkward but essential art of office chitchat

“Every day around the world, an estimated three billion people go to work and 2.9 billion of them avoid making small talk with their co-workers once they get there,” Lindsay Mannering writes in a New York …

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NOTEBOOK: Who’s in the Sept. 20 issue?

Here’s a list of local people in the Sept. 20 issue of the Business Record and the page number of the article in which they are mentioned. Members can read all of this week’s stories …

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NOTEBOOK: Words of wisdom from DMACC Small Business Award winners

Representatives of six companies took the stage at the FFA Enrichment Center in Ankeny Sept. 10 to accept various Small Business Awards from Des Moines Area Community College. (The Business Record was one of the …

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NOTEBOOK – One Good Read: The future of retail? Could be stronger than you think

Developers and others are wondering what the future holds for retail, particularly brick-and-mortar stores. 

With consumers increasingly turning to online to buy everything from household goods and clothes to furniture and small power tools, city …