Writer, editor, dog lover
Some 37 percent of business owners use 
credit to cover some of their costs, according to the National Small Business Association. But the optimal card for your operation depends on how you’ll use it. For a story for Money magazine’s March issue, I talked to credit card experts to identify strategies for both types of credit card users: Those who’ll carry a balance and those who won’t. Click here and scroll to the second page to read the piece.
Portland, Oregon, consistently ranks among 
America’s most dog-friendly cities. In honor of our four-legged friends, here’s a roundup of three Portland hotels where Fido is more than welcome. Highlights include luxury dog beds, pet psychics, and even a pet masseuse.
Portland, Oregon — the brewpub capital of
the
world — first earned its reputation for beer in the 1980s. When Oregon repealed Prohibition-era laws banning brewpubs (restaurants with on-site breweries), it enabled Portland pioneers with a taste for beer to use the city as their home base for opening small, commercial beermaking enterprises known as microbreweries.
Fast forward 30 years and the city has more than 70 brewpubs and microbreweries, as it continues to lead the world of craft beer.
With so many options, it’s hard to choose which Portland brewing establishments to visit. So, for a story for The Huffington Post, I narrowed down the list to seven. Each offer something special for your taste buds. Let the brewery hopping commence.
Good vacations take time, particularly with the planning
stage. Nothing’s worse than arriving at your destination, only to remember that you’ve left some necessity — phone charger? favorite sunglasses? — behind.
For a story for The Huffington Post, I did product research on a number of travel items and settled on seven — including the thermal mug pictured here — that I thought were particularly useful. Be sure to pack what you need from the list of these perfect little travel accessories (yes, all budget-friendly!) and your next trip will run a whole lot smoother.
When you’re cruising at 600 miles an hour, 
gazing at the beautiful, puffy white clouds outside your window, the dining options don’t always match the view. Flying at a high altitude is one thing, but eating an in-flight meal that’s of equally high quality? That’s hard to find.
For a story for The Huffington Post’s travel vertical, I made the search for fine airline dining a little easier by rounding up airlines with some of the best — and worst — food. Come onboard and take a look through the slideshow of airlines, each judged on a scale of 1 (stick to the complimentary peanuts) to 5 (worthy of first class).
The right brand can help make your business. And with some 177,700 trademarks registered last year alone, it’s harder now than ever to come with a great business name. For a story for Money magazine (see page 2), I researched several tricks to coming up with a money-making mo
niker. These include first figuring out what you want the name to do for you—to convey a certain emotion? to highlight your competitive advantage?—before starting the naming phase, and adding to the beginning or end of a word (as travel site Expedia or GPS system OnStar did). Read about these tips and more in the January/February issue of Money.
Another year, another piddling pay raise? 
For some, sure. The average increase is expected to be just 3% in 2012, up a hair from last year’s 2.9%, according to human resources consulting firm Mercer. Still, managers are concerned about retaining top talent, which explains why the best performers will see a brighter 4.6% (while the weakest links will get 0.4%).
For a Money magazine story, I talked with career coaches, management professors, and psychology experts to determine several strategies for talking your way to a raise. For starters, you’ll want to avoid beginning the conversation with money talk. Instead, emphasize your level of worth by writing on the left side of a piece of paper the things you were hired to do, and on the right, what you’re doing — then provide this as evidence of your growing role at the company. Learn more about these negotiation tactics in this month’s issue of Money.
One of the most common mistakes small-business 
owners make is to focus so much time on attracting new customers that they skimp on the effort it takes to create loyal customers. That’s a mistake, because it’s more expensive to get new customers than to retain them. To develop and nurture a relationship with your customers, you have to communicate regularly and, above all, provide consistently over-the-top service.
For a story for Entrepreneur.com, I took a look at how three small businesses are keeping the customers they worked so hard to attract. One business uses a low-cost online service to send automatic emails to some 400 customers at any time, whether it’s to wish them a happy birthday, congratulate an anniversary or simply thank them for their loyalty. Another lets their customers watch the progress of their work in real time online. And the third uses Cardagin, a mobile loyalty and customer retention program, to send special offers to customers on their smartphones and reward them with loyalty points.
Other small businesses can mimic these smart customer retention ideas in order to keep their customers coming back. They all involve use of new technology, and for that, these small business owners should be applauded for their innovation.
Money magazine’s December issue just 
dropped, and it includes a piece I wrote on “How to Market Your Biz on Facebook.” I talked to a number of social media and small business experts for the story, gleaning advice for Money readers on how they can turn Facebook followers into customers. Click here for a pdf of the article (it’s on the second page).
A good list always make for a good 
magazine feature, and Forbes‘s new roundup of Hollywood’s “Most Overpaid Actors” is no exception. So, who tops the list? Turns out, one of Charlie’s angels isn’t so angelic when it comes to studios making big returns on their investment in her. For every $1 Drew Barrymore gets paid, her films return an average $0.40, according to the magazine. Eddie Murphy and Will Ferrell follow in her footsteps, proving comedy doesn’t always pay off. If it weren’t for the box office success of The Other Guys, Ferrell would have continued his streak as Hollywood’s most overpaid star.
Arguably the most surprising actor on the list is Denzel Washington, who I always thought of as a Hollywood favorite and a big-time player when it comes to filling seats at the movie theater. Evidently, Denzel’s average pricetag of $12 million per movie isn’t enough by itself for the right box-office formula. I’m also surprised Adam Sandler didn’t come in at no. 1. His films have been on a downward slope for years, in terms of both laughs and cash flow (the days of Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison are long gone), and most actors who peaked in the 1990s don’t get work as often as he does. All in all though, the list makes sense for Forbes and makes for an entertaining read.
Daniel Bortz 