Hair stylist bests hubris

In 1978, 27-year-old Peter D'Ambrosio was an ace hai stylist, but no wizard at running his own hair salon - he tried and quickly failed. A few years later, he resurfaced - but only after educating himself and toning down the "arrogance" that comes with being young, ambitious and talented, he said, sitting in his office at his Harper's Point store in Symmes Township aptly called Peter's Place Hair Design. He learned his lessons the hard way. Now he also has four local Cutrage salons, which offer walk-in haircutting and nail services. D'Ambrosio bought Gladys Fuller's hair salon in 1978 after working there for five years as a stylist. He renamed it Peter's Place. "I was a hot shot, superstar hair dressing whiz (who bought) a business of his own. Within 16 to 18 months, things went bad," said D'Ambrosio. "I was too young, too uneducated, too good of a hairdresser, in my opinion, to handle management." In addition, most of the hair stylists at Gladys Fuller were not used to managers, the store being a small, family-type of operation. After D'Ambrioso became the leader, "I had to tell them how to do it, but it just didn't go that way." After spending more than $10,000 to buy and renovate Gladys Fuller's salon, D'Ambrosio found business wasn't doing well. The location wasn't upscale and D'Ambrosio's management and business skills were not up to the mark, he said. Luke Domet, a principal at Arthur Andersen who consults for small businesses, said often people don't adequately plan a business before starting. "They don't look ahead. They don't plan," Domet said. D'Ambrosio's case was, well, a case in point. He said he had "boundless energy" and was an "excellent" hair stylist, but didn't know much about business - a situation many starters find themselves in after they open a business, Domet said. A professional can be very skilled at his trade but lack the skills to run a small business, Domet added. D'Ambrosio said: "I wanted my own business and thought a hair salon would be a fun, lucrative opportunity." But at the start of his career, it wasn't. In addition to a lack of management and business skills, the location of his salon wasn't good, he said. Reading Road in Roselawn was becoming an "outmoded, outdated place. It was turning into an area that was on the decline." Another reason the store didn't do well was because his accountant viewed advertising as an unnecessary expense. Things were as bad as they could get, D'Ambrosio said. So in 1979, he went to a consultant at the Service Corps. of Retired Executives (SCORE), a part of the U.S. Small Business Administration. D'Ambrosio, however, wasn't ready to learn from a consultant yet, he said. The arrogance of youth was still taking its toll. Arthur Andersen's Domet said since the majority of the people who start a business don't know what to expect, visiting a consultant is "extremely important." A consultant can caution you about various pitfalls that lie ahead, which are invisible to the novice until he falls into the abyss. But D'Ambrosio felt he didn't need a consultant. With another few thousand dollars in loans and $20,000 from suppliers, D'Ambrosio, two of his staffers, his mother and his wife moved Peter's Place Hair Design to Montgomery in 1980. Before the move, D'Ambrosio said he had smartened up. He did a ZIP code analysis of where customers were coming from and found that most business came from the Montgomery area. So he moved there. In addition, words of caution from a business professor at the University of Cincinnati, which D'Ambrosio attended in the late '60s, reverberated in his mind: "Make mistakes far apart. Don't make them all at once." Although D'Ambrosio had made all his mistakes at once, he said, he set about educating himself. From '80-'81, he read every management book he could. He attended several business and management seminars. In addition to learning people skills, he also concentrated on grasping the technical side of running a business - things such as cash flow and business plans. In addition, 46-year-old D'Ambrosio said, age had taken its toll on him. "I grew up fast," he said after the defeat and "knew my mistakes." But learning from mistakes is always harder, Domet said, and always expensive. For D'Ambrosio, however, the second time did bring success. By 1984 business was better, he said, but he knew that further education would help his hair salon make more money. During the same year, D'Ambrosio identified a trend in the hair styling industry which he tapped into. More and more walk-in, no-appointment hair salons were popping up in the mid '80s, D'Ambrosio said. So he opened Cutrage, the name of his new salons, in Sharonville-based Shapely Outlet Mall in 1984. But the outlet mall lost its luster after a few years and with dwindling shoppers business declined, he said. From its shuttering, D'Ambrosio also learned about advertising. The biggest ad lesson was never to waste ad dollars when people are not in the mood to spend. "Back-to-school is the best time to (advertise)," he said. After shuttering his mall store, he opened four more, the latest opening in 1994. D'Ambrosio plans to open another this year. After D'Ambrosio tapped into the walk-in salon trend and saw his business grow, he knew he had to keep educating himself. In 1987, he went back to SCORE. "This time I was ready to listen and they helped," he said. He learned about business strategy. "Operating without a strategy is like fishing without bait," he said.

Rice proposes placing city's loan portfolio in nonprofit organization

Seattle Mayor Norm Rice is proposing to place the city's small-business loans in a new nonprofit organization to help fledgling firms in distressed areas that can't qualify for bank financing. Rice's plan is to transfer the city's $3.8 million loan portfolio to a development lending company doing business as Community Capital and headed by Jim Thomas, formerly co-chairman of the Central Area Development Association and senior lending officer with now-defunct Emerald City Bank. The second piece of Rice's proposal is to form a business assistance center, to provide technical advice to business borrowers, which would enhance their chances of succeeding - and of repaying loans. "I'm very psyched about this," said Mary Jean Ryan, director of the Mayor's Office of Economic Development. "This has taken a long time, but it's a big thing." Rice's proposal is embodied in an ordinance that was up for consideration this week by the City Council's finance committee. Committee chairwoman Martha Choe said she does not expect either the committee or the full council to raise any issues about the ordinance. "I think there's a lot of excitement about it," she said. As described by Ryan, the basic idea is for the city to sell its $3.8 million loan portfolio to the development lending company, which would be a nonprofit organization licensed by the state to serve as a non-bank lender, making loans but not accepting deposits. As such, it could make loans guaranteed by the U.S. Small Business Administration, something the city can't do. The city also would capitalize the lending company with a $1.8 million loan and a $500,000 grant. And it would finance $100,000 of the business assistance center's operating costs. "In return," Ryan said in a memo explaining the program, "the city gets repaid over a 10-year period in cash or in performance." The lending company and assistance center can win credits against principal and interest payments by meeting performance targets on such things as loan volume, job creation and technical assistance. Ryan said this structure is based on Michigan's successful model of a business and industrial development company. The city has been using federal funds for loans to small businesses for many years, in an effort to create and retain jobs. "Loan assistance has been targeted to blighted communities and low-income populations within the city limits as well as women and minority business enterprises," Ryan said. Typically, targeted borrowers have been turned down by conventional lenders. What's been missing, she said, is technical assistance for these borrowers - "which is crucial when making high-risk loans." Also, Ryan said, "we realized that to grow the loan program, we would need to transfer the loan fund to the private sector." A private lending company could expand its product line, make SBA loans and draw additional capital from foundations, she said. The city reviewed seven applicants to head the new lending and assistance program and chose Thomas, who Ryan said is "familiar with the target market, having worked in small-business development lending in that market for 18 years." Thomas said the program would help people who may have little training or education, but enough skills and interests, to "develop their entrepreneurship abilities." These business borrowers would be among those who fall just below bank lending criteria, he said. They may not have much of a track record, for instance, and may not have reached profitability. "We'll provide them with capital and business assistance, help them grow, and then turn them over to the banking community," Thomas said. "Our goal is to double the portfolio in 10 years." If the program can accomplish that, it should earn enough interest income to support both lending and assistance organizations, he said. The program would do what's called "microenterprise" development of businesses with fewer than five employees. Over the past 10 years, more than 200 organizations doing this have taken root across 44 states, Thomas said. "They've served more than 200,000 individuals borrowers, loaned more than $44 million and assisted more than 54,000 businesses in disadvantaged communities." In Seattle, microlending would concentrate on economically distressed communities in the Central Area, Southeast Seattle, the International District and the Duwamish area, he said. "The idea is to help inner-city communities participate in the American dream." But loans would not be grants, said Choe, a former banker. The lending company will use underwriting criteria, and borrowers "will be required to go through some of the technical-assistance pieces, so they get the support they need," she said. Even so, microlending is riskier than conventional bank lending, which has a default rate of about 2 percent, Thomas admitted. "Organizations like ours are probably in the 6 percent to 7 percent range."

Total-e-Business to Deliver

INTERNET WORLD, NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 5, 1999--Today at Fall Internet World '99 (Booth No. 2745), Bluestone(R) Software, Inc. (Nasdaq: BLSW), a leading provider of Enterprise Interaction Management software, announced its response to the need for a comprehensive, robust e-business solution with the launch of Total-e- Business(TM) product suite, an e-business solution that meets the exacting demands of the people responsible for e-business operations, sales, marketing, and finance, while addressing the IS technology mandate for a non-stop, high-performance platform to support mission- critical applications. Total-e-Business combines best-of-breed components for content management, personalization, and e-commerce with Bluestone's award-winning Sapphire/Web(R) application server infrastructure and Bluestone XML Suite(TM) integration server - based upon Java Server Page (JSP) and Extensible Markup Language (XML) standards.Supporting the announcement, several of Bluestone's Internet- savvy customers, such as HealthAxis.com and Strategic Weather Services, have committed to Bluestone's Total-e-Business to satisfy their need for an e-business platform that transcends first- generation Web-based publishing, marketing, and commerce efforts. They look to Bluestone to deliver a true e-business solution that meets virtually all of their requirements for an online business, and empowers their business professionals to contribute to the e- business mission, by reducing time-to-market, enabling business-to- business integration, increasing customer loyalty, and expanding customer bases to global proportions.Companies increasingly understand that e-business is a broader concept than merely putting a catalog on the Web, offering a shopping cart, and letting customers purchase goods and services over the Internet. Rather, e-business needs to integrate every aspect of the enterprise, connecting every diverse unit of the company. Total-e- Business is for companies that believe their success depends on e- business success. For companies forming Web-based businesses, and others transforming their traditional business to e-business, Bluestone's Total-e-Business offers the following essential components:

Solutions for Small Businesses

The SAP Business One Solution Partner program will include a rigorous two- tier certification process for potential partners to ensure quality. The program leverages the flexibility of SAP Business One as a simple yet effective business automation software tool as well as the SAP Business One software development kit -- one of the most advanced development environments available in the SMB space -- for partners to develop applications. Participating partners will receive training, marketing and other support from SAP, with multiple participation levels to accommodate partners of varying resources and involvement. The solutions will be offered in individual markets by the existing SAP Business One partner sales channel. The power and flexibility of the SAP Business One software development kit allows SAP Business One partners to enhance the value proposition of SAP Business One to customers by providing significant advantages such as a high degree of adaptability to business processes and management, powerful customizations, formatted search and user fields and smooth upgrade processes. The program will include partners in all countries where SAP Business One is available, selected for their expertise in

an interview with E. Lynn Harris

I see the gay characters as multidimensional. If I only wrote about them being gay, and their sexual activities, that would be one-sided. It would be dreadful for me, as a gay man, to be writing things that only dealt with sex. tin this book, with [Leland] -- what's Leland's issue? He's out. He's been gay all his life. He's not hiding. So what's gonna make him an interesting character? I know a lot of gay men have lost lovers and friends, and no one's ever really dealt with that. And these are long-term relationships. I heard a straight man say that Leland and Donald seem like such a wonderful love story; they really love each other. That's what I was trying to convey: that we love very hard, just like men and women do. And when we lose someone we love, be it through a break up, or be it through death, it's very painful, and it takes its time to go on with our lives. People know how to handle a widow or widower when they've lost someone. But so many times now, when gay men are visible and out, when we've lost lovers and loved ones, no one really knows what to say m us, or how they can help us ease the loss.

A Forever Friend

"A friend walk in when the rest of the world walks out.""别人都走开的时候，朋友仍与你在一起。”Sometimes in life,有时候在生活中，You find a special friend;你会找到一个特别的朋友;Someone who changes your life just by being part of it.他只是你生活中的一部分内容，却能改变你整个的生活。Someone who makes you laugh until you can't stop;他会把你逗得开怀大笑；Someone who makes you believe that there really is good in the world.他会让你相信人间有真情。Someone who convinces you that there really is an unlocked door just waiting for you to open it.他会让你确信，真的有一扇不加锁的门，在等待着你去开启。This is Forever Friendship.这就是永远的友谊。when you're down,当你失意，and the world seems dark and empty,当世界变得黯淡与空虚，Your forever friend lifts you up in spirits and makes that dark and empty worldsuddenly seem bright and full.你真正的朋友会让你振作起来，原本黯淡、空虚的世界顿时变得明亮和充实。Your forever friend gets you through the hard times, the sad times, and the confused times.你真正的朋友会与你一同度过困难、伤心和烦恼的时刻。
If you turn and walk away,你转身走开时，Your forever friend follows,真正的朋友会紧紧相随，If you lose you way,你迷失方向时，Your forever friend guides you and cheers you on.真正的朋友会引导你，鼓励你。Your forever friend holds your hand and tells you that everything is going to be okay.真正的朋友会握着你的手，告诉你一切都会好起来的。And if you find such a friend,如果你找到了这样的朋友，You feel happy and complete,你会快乐，觉得人生完整，Because you need not worry,因为你无需再忧虑。Your have a forever friend for life,你拥有了一个真正的朋友，And forever has no end.永永远远，永无止境。

What I Have Lived For

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.