There's no reimbursement until the blank space is filled. Dan Richardson, owner of a small chain of nursing homes in Rochester, N.Y., says people are the absolute key to his success, so he relies on his nurses who moonlight at other nursing homes. Then there's the question of how the information gets passed around your company. It doesn't mean much, after all, if only one person knows it. Harnessing information gets tougher as these small shops grow.
Intranets are the hot thing for moving information around for big companies.
Mr. Fuld recommends citing the sources on these centralized postings and being careful to characterize them as rumor or fact. Some small-business owners are intimidated by the tiniest intelligence challenge. It took one errand to the county office to see who owned the land and one call to the state Pennsylvania Corporation Bureau in Harrisburg. Of course, most business situations are more complicated than that. George Scharm, president and owner of TSS Consulting in suburban Chicago, will go through garbage cans.