Imagine this. You've read the Hollywood Reporter and see that a major-minor studio has acquired a script that could fit San Diego. You call the production company, talk to the location manager pitching all San Diego has to offer and he seems interested. You get the movie's script by FedEx the next day and don't get a chance to read it because there were meetings and phone calls from filmmakers all day. So you take it home and you read it, "break it down" (industry term for analyzing each of the 171 scenes in excruciating detail) by liability concerns, impact to the communities, locations needed to satisfy story lines and specialty expertise, like pyrotechnics.

A year ago the iPhone's introduction set in motion huge development efforts at several of the major cell phone manufacturers and carriers, all focused on coming up with a response. The companies discarded many of the designs under way in exchange for models that would use a large touch screen display without physical buttons that would employ finger gestures.

Scott McClellan was in town last week. He appeared and spoke at George Mitrovich's City Club and then three days later he appeared under oath before a Congressional Committee.

Lost in all the coverage this morning of the 62,000 drop in U.S. payrolls in June was the news that the European Central Bank was raising short-term interest rates in an aggressive move to cut off rising inflation. Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet said the ECB will take all necessary steps to bring the inflation rate back below 2 percent. This move separates the European Bank from our Federal Reserve in its willingness to try and nip inflation in the bud. Another interesting difference is that Trichet immediately met with reporters to answer questions about the ECB action. You'll never find Ben Bernanke or any other Fed official explaining their decisions except by issuing a two- or three-paragraph statement. The move in Europe will potentially put more pressure on the U.S. dollar unless some action is taken by the Fed soon.

If it's searchable on the Internet these days, it can be found. However, to get to the Internet, someone must write the story. Given the common assumption that nearly everything of importance is reported, indexed and searchable, it is not surprising that those who use press manipulation as a political tool have adopted the usual guerilla tactics: competing press conferences.

In any business environment, the successful transmission of information is crucial to the continuity and financial success of the enterprise. When parents and children work together in a business, being clear on career performance expectations, job qualifications, job descriptions and business objectives is even more critical.

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door." From "The New Colossus," poem by Emma Lazarus, engraved on the Statue of Liberty.

Conflict of interest is front-page news. Are you comfortable with how you are managing this potential problem at your workplace?

Creative ways to fudge on paying income taxes is close to being a national sport around the world. Some clever cheaters take their innovations to new heights that defy comparison to the nickel and dime phony deductions many others slip into their tax return.

A sales principle that leads to wealth: It's all about them.

To paraphrase an old adage, ignorance of blog law is no excuse.

Short of which contestants are being voted off "American Idol" each week, the most pressing domestic issue in the news these days is the distressed condition of the real estate and mortgage markets.

Frustrated by the influx of undisciplined workers, more and more managers these days are abdicating their responsibility for addressing poor performance and correcting inappropriate behaviors. Opting instead to report either them to the HR department or simply ignore them in the mistaken belief, they'll get the message and leave.

The U.S. Army's Soldier's Creed, adopted in 2003, include these words, "I will never leave a fallen comrade." All branches of the military have lived, and sometimes died, by what these words mean even before formally adopted.

Let us not, on this Independence Day weekend, dwell on the political pretenders to patriotism rushing to out-proclaim their love of country. Nor let us pay heed to the sneering movie directors and journalism pooh-bahs allergic to red, white and blue.

People fear change and uncertainty. We embrace constancy, control and predictability even though the world is governed by conditions quite the opposite.

It was a busy day for the game industry Monday, with several key headlines kicking off the abbreviated workweek.

Many lawyers pick juries the same way case after case. They use seating charts and little yellow Post-it notes, and as the potential jurors go down the list of routine questions and provide information, they furiously cram as much handwriting as they can fit on the note in order to remember what they said.

Poets Cove

The federal government has recently implemented new rules that are directed at preventing identity theft and these regulations may affect your business if you issue credit to consumers.

I was in business as an employee for fifteen years before I began to be a student of business. It started when I went into business for myself. That was about twenty years ago. It's amazing how interesting even the most mundane elements of business can become when you're betting all of your own assets on the outcome. I realized at the time of my entrepreneurial launch that I needed to learn a lot more than I knew, so I read about small business management, subscribed to the Harvard Business Review, started reading books that would have never made it to the nightstand had I not taken the leap, went to seminars and conferences, etc.

I should have known better than write those two columns cataloguing the deficiencies of the city Historic Site Review Board, or HRB.

Perhaps the clearest movement over the past quarter has been the movement of the sun higher in the sky as we reached the summer solstice. Economic climate indicators have been far less resolute, and the stock market has been down, then back up, then back down with each round of news. The media, whose mantra is "bad news sells", is having a field day. When the economy does not fall into recession, everybody starts worrying about inflation. The Federal Reserve (the Fed) starts hinting that it will raise interest rates, then the bond market tanks and the Fed takes it back. We think the big financial institutions are done with subprime mortgage related write-downs and then we get another round. More CFO's get replaced. Oil prices start to fall and then go back up again. The dollar exchange rate starts to rise and then swoons. Frankly, for me it feels like being on a cheese grater -- and that may be the good news.