On-camera meetings aren’t going away, and they can be particularly nerve-wracking for people with anxiety. This article offers five questions to ask yourself to help quell on-camera meeting stress: What do I have control over? Where am I putting my attention? How am I preparing? How am I pacing my day or week? And, do I know how to handle a hostile conversation? By better understanding the roots of your anxiety, and recognizing the parts of remote work you’re grateful for, you can begin to build habits to make virtual meetings a little less daunting.

Keep an eye on these small business trends and predictions this year.
With 2020 in the books, small businesses are optimistic that 2021 will be a brighter year. While the COVID-19 pandemic is not yet gone for businesses across the U.S., that optimism is buoyed by the distribution of vaccines. Although the pandemic has been front and center since early last year, there are other trends on the horizon for entrepreneurs to watch as well.

Business News Daily connected with experts in finance, marketing, tech, and human resources to find out what small businesses should expect in 2021 and how to take advantage of these trends.

Employee development is an important part of creating a culture of continuous learning within your organization.

Unfortunately, many small and midsize businesses don’t have a big budget for the latest and greatest advances in employee development. Because of that, leaders often make the wrong assumption that any company-sponsored professional development is financially out of reach.

The good news is, even if your company lacks the deep pockets of a major corporation, you can still absolutely build up your employees’ knowledge and have them learn new skills.

Nine Strategies to Grow and Expand Your Business
For the first few years of business, most companies are focused on survival. However, prioritizing the growth of your business is one of the best ways to increase the chances that your company will not only last but also contribute to your economic well-being and a stable financial future.

What can you do to get your business beyond the bare sustenance level? What can you do to turn it into the income-generating powerhouse you envision? Like any element of running a business, there are multiple growth strategies that you can try.
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Brainstorming Techniques for Entrepreneurs
Whether you’re trying to come up with a great home business idea, or you’re looking for new ideas to boost your income in your existing business, brainstorming is an excellent way to generate ideas. In business, brainstorming is often done in groups, but even as a solo entrepreneur, you can use brainstorming techniques to generate ideas.

Not only can brainstorming help you generate ideas that might not have otherwise been considered, but it can also help you better understand where your business is struggling, and where you need to focus your time.

Here are 7 brainstorming techniques that you can do on your own that can help you expand your mind to new ideas and strategies for your home business. You can use one, several, or all of these techniques to generate ideas. Plus, you’ll find rules for maximizing brainstorming success, as well as helpful tools.

It’s fair to say that, across the board, times have been particularly tough as of late for businesses. On top of businesses having to fight through the socioeconomic crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic and the supply chain issues, they also must juggle more data than ever.

In short, businesses need reliable and cost-effective ways to manage their critical technologies.

Managed Services Can Provide Modern Businesses with a Reprieve
Pardon me for asking about your financial situation, but how are you currently paying for your IT services? Is your current strategy sustainable over time? If yours is one of the many businesses who answer the first question with “on a case-by-case basis,” the answer to the second is almost certainly a resounding “no.”

How does your company manage its technology? Does it struggle with the idea of managing multiple workstations, server units, networking components, mobile devices, and more? If so, then read on—we have some tips to help you better manage the many different technological parts of your organization.

Keep in mind that this is general advice that can be applied to just about any company. If you want specific advice, we are happy to have a discussion with you through a consultation!

Earlier this year, Bruce Akins’ mom got her first smartphone, after more than a decade of life with a flip phone. Like any good son, Akins knew the 87-year-old would need some one-on-one assistance in learning to embrace the tech tool, but he also knew that he couldn’t fly from his home state of California to Arizona, where his mom lives, just for a smartphone tutorial.

But within hours, Akins had secured the second-best solution: a “Papa Pal,” a local caregiver, who arrived at his mom’s door to help her get accustomed to her new device. Papa is a service that helps folks like Akins provide their loved ones with the support and companionship they need but might not have access to, all through the touch of an app. Akins, the director of benefits and compensation for California-based SCAN Health Plan, helped add Papa to his employer’s suite of benefits in recent months, making this kind of support available to the company's more than 1,300 employees.

DAOs are built on distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) such as blockchain technology and are designed to be transparent, secure and efficient. They offer a new way of organizing business and governance models that could potentially disrupt traditional organizations.

DAOs can help banks address common problems and streamline internal workflows by moving to a blockchain-based architecture.

Banks and financial institutions are some of the most centralized organizations in the world. A small group controls them, and their activities are often opaque. This centralization can make these firms susceptible to corruption, fraud, and mismanagement.

Since DAOs embody the characteristics of blockchain-based technology such as decentralization, transparency and security, they could assist in addressing the said issues.

A DAO for a bank or financial institution will be able to offer secure and efficient services without the need for a brick-and-mortar infrastructure, relying instead on DLT.

CBD-infused drinks are becoming increasingly popular and available for purchase, thanks to the legalization of CBD and hemp-based products as detailed in the 2018 Farm Bill. And they can include coffee, tea, water, and soft drinks.

There are several ways to consume CBD through a variety of premium CBD products. But mixing CBD with food and beverages is becoming the most straightforward method of implementing CBD daily. And with CBD getting added to just about everything, its culinary uses are becoming the next big thing.

Meanwhile, as the market expands, the making of CBD drinks is getting more sophisticated. While CBD is usually taken in oil, since that’s the easiest way to dissolve it into an edible substance, new technologies are enabling the creation of water-soluble CBD that provides a range of benefits – including a wider variety of drinks!