Member Spotlight
This week's spotlight is Dave Crissman.  Please keep this member top of mind this week for referrals. 

7:15 Box Ideas
The 7:15 box is a collection box.  Anyone that arrives after 7:15am will be asked to drop a dollar in the box.  We are looking for ideas on uses for the money in the 7:15 Box.  Ideas can be emailed to Melissa (melissa@mabe-online.org).  Some ideas include giving the money to charity or putting it into a Christmas party fund.

Meeting Updates
Herb Stokes will host our October 7th meeting at his location. 
On the 30th Janice Jaicks and Ryan Bohlander will speak. 
Next week will be a table topic.

Leads & Introductions
During Leads & Introductions members also mentioned their favorite sports team (except Nick M!).  We learned about Mark Menasci's strange sports rituals, Nick Carr's swimming with sharks and Janice Jaicks' football field yards.

Barb Luther - Humorous Laws aka Making Sausage
Barb talked about a new client that works with ad clips on the internet.  She explained what would be considered "fair use" and what you could get in trouble for.  If you are going to make money from using someone's image you do have to pay them to use it.  Our press operates under first amendment rights so they have some leeway.  If its news, that's OK.   Many people think things found on the internet are public domain.  That is not correct.  If you create something, you own it.  The public domain part of the world can be quite limited.  You want to be careful copying things.

Obama has signed a new copyright law.  She compared lawmaking to making sausage .  You start out with a good idea.  Then it goes through a long process.  Lobbyists get involved.  The patent law went through a similar scenario.  They added even more to the process.  Barb's inventors can barely afford her let alone the patent fees.  In the end, Congress gets to decide how all the money gets spent.  There have been attempts for the US to harmonize with other countries.  One of the things the rest of the world does, they only give you rights once you filed the paperwork.  In the US you had a year prior.  The new states that if your idea was public knowledge you have a year to file.  If you keep it secret, you don't.   

Q: How do you stop people from copying your web content?
A: Unfortunately, it is a self-help thing.  You have to keep contacting them, ask for money, increase your threats.

Nick Mawrenko - Human Resources aka Daycare
Who here thinks about HR (human resources)...daycare?  HR issues are across the board.  They don't discriminate by industry.  Nick is not looking for answers today.  He is looking for questions to help him with a panel he is on later today.

• Paperwork

• Hiring

• Firing

• Government

• Resolve Conflicts

• Liability Assessment and Minimization

• Employer Responsibility

What are the other parts? 

• If I decide to do medical or 401k, what does that bring up? 

• Nontraditional compensations. 

• Every time you get into things you have 16-steps of regulations to follow. 

• Pay for training. 

Personal experiences that you have had at a prior company, currently or that you have heard about from someone else regarding HR horror stories. 

• One member had to let go two people because of racism. 

• A major sexual harassment case cost a company lots of money. 

• An instructor stealing client information and using it to solicit business outside of the company. 

• I had to let a pregnant girl go because she couldn't do her job.

• I got fired for being pregnant.

• A mechanic came out and became a target of harassment. 

When issues arise, what does the employee handbook say (assuming they have one)?