A little over a week ago, I discovered "The Middle East Entrepreneur Training (MEET)," a US State Dept.-backed program geared towards strengthening leadership and entrepreneurial skills among residents of the Middle East...except Israeli Jews! I quickly contacted as many people as I could about this blatant discrimination, including reporting this on a mailing list for journalists and writers. This happened last Thursday, Sept. 21, and by Friday morning all of the related web pages had been taken down, and were changed to include Israeli Jews. But instead of blowing over, Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu ...

Update: A few interesting things have happened since I wrote this article. 1. The Beyster Institute has taken down all the pages I have linked to here. But they can't beat Google! If you want to see them, simply paste the URL in your Google search box, and on the results page, click on "Cached" to see them. Contact me if you have any questions. I've also saved the pages on my hard drive. 2. A reporter contacted me for a story on this issue, and told me that "coincidentally" the Beyster Institute is redoing their program requirements, and now ALL Israelis are welcome to apply! Well, I'll be applying, and ...

It's that time of year again: the next Entrepreneur Breakfast meeting is coming up, and we've got an amazing speaker lined up for you. Ruth Shlossman, Principal at the Washington DC-based negotiation consulting firm, Watershed Associates, will be the guest speaker at the upcoming Entrepreneur Breakfast meeting on Monday, September 17, 2007. Ruth will be talking about “Best Negotiating Practices…Learn the basic, universal, key negotiating practices that create a win-win outcome.” Watershed Associates provides consultative training in negotiation skills worldwide, and has served global corporations such as Coca-Cola, General Electric, NASA, and Rolls Royce, to name just a few on ...

A few months ago, I wrote a post about whether female entrepreneurs should hide the fact that they are mothers, and was lucky to get a comment from Julie Lenzer Kirk, author of "The ParentPreneur Edge: What Parenting Teaches About Building a Successful Business." She said the following: Thank you for this post! I had a problem finding successful entrepreneurs who are also parents because, as you say, so many people hide that fact. I agree that they should NOT hide it, and recently published a book for moms and dads that shows WHY you should not hide that fact. I do like the steps you’ve provided because at the end ...