When I began blogging at the end of November, I asked a few questions about whether all the blogging evangelicals were right, and blogging really is good for business. I asked the following questions: Would I be able to keep up with the demands of blogging? Would I find that results from my site will have improved? Is blogging in Israel as effective as in other parts of the world? Here's what I've found in the almost three months that I've been blogging: I started off blogging much more frequently than I do now, but that is not because my motivation levels have dropped. The reason is that I have recently had a ...

For a while I've wanted to start a category dedicated to book reviews, but I just haven't gotten around to it. But now I've been motivated by an incentive: Chris Garrett, the author of Killer Flagship Content (I can't link to it because you can only read it if you subscribe to his blog), is a top-tier blogger who has offered a link back to the site of anyone who reviews his book, plus an early preview of his next ebook. So I can win three times here: I finally get going on the book reviews, I get a link to my ...

A recent conversation on the Digital Eve Israel mailing list brought up the topic of pregnancy and the workplace. While the law in Israel states that employers cannot fire pregnant women, this is apparently not enforced and many stories were related by women on the list who were fired when pregnant or upon return from maternity leave. Many didn't sue their former employers because they didn't have the energy, resources, or hope that it would help the situation. Suing, however, can be effective. An article from Haaretz was cited that reported on a case in September where the court ruled that a company ...

In Part 1 of my series on Self Employment and Maternity Leave, I discussed the technical aspects of getting compensation from social security for maternity leave. In Part 2, I discussed whether it is realistic for a business owner to disappear for three months and hope that the business will still be there when she gets back from her maternity leave. My conclusion is that it is not. Having said that, I promised that I would explain how it is possible to get any work done while on maternity leave. There are two main "environmental" supports that I found play a significant role in ...

Thank You for Smoking is the first good movie I've seen in a long time. The characters are great, the script is brilliant, and it addresses interesting issues like moral relativism, political correctness, and our responsibility to our children. All of this takes place around a man who defends the tobacco industry to the world. We all know that cigarettes are bad for us. They have been linked to diseases, diminished quality of life, and death. The general consensus is that smoking is bad, and therefore someone who spends their life defending cigarette producers is obviously morally questionable. But cigarettes are a clear cut case. How ...