Battling Perceptions About Minority- and Woman-Owned Businesses

By ADRIANA GARDELLA

At the most recent meeting of the She Owns It business group, Jessica Johnson expressed frustration with the way her company is sometimes perceived. The issue involves small businesses that are certified as being minority-owned, woman-owned or disadvantaged (a business certified as disadvantaged must be majority owned by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals as defined here.). As it happens, Ms. Johnson's company, Johnson Security Bureau, is all three. This means, among other things, that on state contracts, prime contractors can consider using Johnson Security to satisfy subcontracting goals that call for the use of such firms.

Generally, this is good news for Johnson Security, which is a subcontractor on several projects for much larger security and construction companies. Part of Johnson Security's successful growth strategy has involved taking on these jobs in addition to its prime contracts. But they co me with challenges that include battling the impression that certification programs give these companies a “handout,” Ms. Johnson said.

“It's an expensive process to become certified,” she told the group. “It's not like you say, ‘Hey, I'm a woman, let me flash you,' and then you get the certificate.” The certification process is rigorous, requiring site visits and the submission of paperwork including tax returns and business licenses.

“And you have to be in business a certain amount of time,” added Deirdre Lord, a group member who owns The Megawatt Hour. That's not an issue for Johnson Security, which has been around for 50 years.

“You have to be a real business - they scrutinize everything,” Ms. Johnson said.

Once a certified business is hired, it is held to the same standards as the prime contractor, Ms. Johnson added during a later conversation.

Despite subcontracting requirements, Ms. John son said many big companies dodge their obligations by claiming they made a good faith effort to retain a certified small business, but couldn't find a qualified one. She said she recently met the owner of a certified woman-owned business that was capable but desperate for work. In fact, she couldn't even get prime contractors to return her calls. “I could relate to her, because a few years ago that could have easily been me,” Ms. Johnson said.

“So how did you change that up?” asked Beth Shaw, a business group member who owns YogaFit.

“I didn't take no for an answer,” Ms. Johnson said. She said she kept calling every organization with which her company had certification to ask about coming jobs. She attended meetings and outreach events, site visits and prebid conferences. She got to know the prime contractors. And she eventually convinced many of them that her company could do the job, she said.

So what's the problem? Ms. Johnson was reluctant to discuss specifics for fear of alienating the contractors that hire her. “We've recently run into some issues,” she said vaguely, adding that she hoped to be able to discuss the details in a future business group session.

But in a conversation after the meeting, Ms. Johnson explained that she typically faces two major challenges when working with prime contractors as a certified business. The first arises from cultural differences between Johnson Security and the larger companies. As a small-business owner, Ms. Johnson said, she is responsible for everything - big-picture issues as well as the small stuff. Unlike the owner of a larger company, she said, “I don't have the luxury of not being hands-on.”

This means she often finds herself dealing with employees at many levels of the larger organizations. While a prime contractor's top person may not be aware of the details Ms. Johnson needs to discuss, a lower-level manager may lack answers to broader ques tions, such as, “What does the contract require?” Sometimes, the lower-level employees who see Ms. Johnson come to think of her as “Jessica,” their peer, instead of as “Ms. Johnson,” the owner of a business.

The second challenge is battling misperceptions about the capabilities of certified businesses, she said. Ms. Johnson said she recently attended a meeting and was dismayed to hear members of the prime contractor's staff say, “Wow, you guys are so professional.” Why, she wondered, would they expect anything else?

She believes these perceptions are at least partly a result of big companies' misrepresenting the abilities of certified businesses during the bidding process in the hopes of winning the entire contract.

“If I get my millions, I'm going to find a way to pay it forward to other small businesses,” she said.

You can follow Adriana Gardella on Twitter.

Celebrating Those Who Help Small Businesses

By AMI KASSAR

I recently came across a photo on Facebook from the Pay It Forward movement. It was of a dry cleaner with a sign on the door that read, “If You Are Unemployed and Have a Job Interview, Bring Us Your Suit and We Will Clean It for Free.” The photo struck an emotional chord in me. I believe it's this very spirit that could help us work our way out of our economic mess. Americans helping Americans is what we need to succeed.

But when it comes to the world of small-business lending, I don't see this spirit very often. Sometimes at Multifunding, we have to work with lending shops where there are dozens of employees in a room working to lend money to small businesses at annual percentages of 60 to 80 percent. The shops are backed by venture capitalists. Hedge funds lend them money, and they're having a field day in the current economy. They say they are providing a service by making it easier for businesses to get financing, and t hey are â€" but at a big price.

Other times, we hear stories of small-business owners who are the victims of unscrupulous loan brokers. They have paid $2,500 for a business plan they didn't need, or they have paid for credit repair services even though their credit scores were above 700. Sometimes, that $2,500 is the last money they have.

The stories get tougher. Occasionally the workout groups at banks call us to try to help clients they no longer want find a new (and more expensive) lender. Many times these small-business owners take 18 percent interest loans in the hope that they will provide one last chance; often, the alternative is to just shut down the family business. The decisions are tough â€" and very personal.

Two days ago a woman called from rural Alabama because she was trying to open a retail store. She had $8,000 she wanted to put down on the business and was hoping to borrow $100,000. Her plan was to buy a buil ding for $65,000 and use the other $35,000 for working capital and to stock up on inventory. I sent her back to the drawing board and told her to find a place to rent, and then maybe think about buying a building once her store was up and running. I could tell she was shattered. I had about seven seconds to absorb her reaction before the phone rang with the next challenge.

The other day, however, was special. We hosted an event for Valley Green Bank in Philadelphia, which we gave an “A” for small-business lending on our Banking Grades scorecard - a grade that qualified Valley Green for one of our 2012 Small Business Bank Awards.

More than 2,500 banks have received an A grade on bankinggrades.com. The grade means the banks used at least 25 percent of their domestic deposits to make small-business loans. We picked Valley Green for our first awards ceremony because it is the A bank that is closest to our office and it is the largest bank in Philadelphia County t o receive an A.

Several of the bank's customers came to the ceremony and shared stories of the businesses they started with Valley Green's help. The food co-op from up the street brought plums from local farmers. The new Hispanic radio station in Philadelphia was present. We had a high-end car parts wholesaler and a woman who had quit her job to provide business and operations support to her husband, an inventor. Everyone there had received a loan from the bank.

These weren't the businesses with $20 million in revenue that the big banks like to call small businesses. These were true small businesses and entrepreneurs who have been fighting the fight since the Great Recession and have been able to do so, in part, because they were fortunate enough to find a lender who was willing to offer them reasonable rates. There was a true sense of community in the room as they shared horror stories, laughs, business cards and cake (see photo).

Americans helping Americ ans. I will hold onto this memory as we try to survive our endlessly depressing political season.

Ami Kassar founded MultiFunding, which is based near Philadelphia and helps small businesses find the right sources of financing for their companies.

Middle East Journal: Pitching Tables in Dubai

By PAUL DOWNS

First impression: Dubai is really, really hot, windy and dusty.

As I explained in my last post, I took a lightning trip to the Middle East in June, landing in Dubai in the middle of the afternoon. The gleaming airport terminals had a thick layer of dust on them, somewhat spoiling the futuristic effect. The trademark downtown buildings were invisible in a wall of dusty haze. But the airport itself was efficiently run, and I was met by a friendly man from my hotel, holding up a sign with my name. This was typical of the service I received - seamless, competent, and a good value. Hotels in Dubai are locked in a luxury arms race with each other, so I was able to get a nice room with access to the business lounge - free food, booze, and Wi-Fi - for less than $300.

I didn't sleep much the first night, as I was almost half a day out of sync. But plenty of coffee at breakfast kept me humming. I met the Dubai commercial officer in the hotel lobby and off we went to the first meeting. It was with the purchasing manager for a local office-furniture company. When I had completed my pitch - a PowerPoint showing our biggest, coolest tables - the purchasing manager said, “This is very interesting. I think we have a project that would work for you. We are fitting out the offices of” - he named an extremely large multinational company - “and they need a custom boardroom table. I'd like to put you in touch with the project manager.”

A phone call and a short walk down the hall and I presented again. The project manager liked what he saw, and he asked whether I could make a meeting with the client that afternoon to discuss the table. My schedule was open, so I happily agreed. I hadn't expected anything like this, honestly. The trip was intended to be an introduction. Getting a chance to work on a real project was a bonus.

I showed up at the appointed time and pl ace and met with the client, the architect, the audiovisual contractor and the interior designer. Also attending was the manager of my potential partner's custom woodworking facility. He was there for the same reason I was - to present ideas about how he would make the table. (Because he's an important part of this story, I'll refer to him as the Manager.) I was introduced to everyone around the room as a potential vendor for the table. I showed my PowerPoint and also a nifty three-dimensional model of a table we made for the World Bank. I waxed eloquent on our advanced engineering capabilities. I brought up technical issues involved in the project. The schedule was discussed - a potential problem, given that the table would be needed in late August and it was already the first week of June. (Shipping from America to Dubai takes about 30 days.)

It was the same kind of spiel I've given a thousand times at home. And it was well received. The meeting adjourned with the un derstanding that I would prepare a complete design after I got back to home. The Manager sat quietly through all of this, and was never asked to present his ideas. But after the meeting I went up to him, introduced myself, and apologized for taking the limelight. He was very gracious about it and told me that he was quite impressed with my work. We talked a bit about his operation - it's a separate division of my potential partner's company, dedicated to custom furniture and millwork production. We would be direct competitors for this job.

With nothing to lose and a few hours to kill before my flight to Kuwait, I asked the Manager whether he would be willing to show me his factory. I half expected him to say no, since a tour would reveal the strengths and weaknesses of his work - information that I could put to use when I presented my own designs. But he was pleased to be asked, and we got in the car and drove out there.

His factory was located about an hour from the center of Dubai, in an area devoted to industrial production. Like every other part of Dubai that isn't devoted to tourists, the landscape was dust and sand, scattered with large metal warehouse structures. The area had a lot of half-finished buildings, and the road network was still being built. Gangs of laborers, with their heads wrapped in towels to keep the dust out, were busy building roads and buildings. It was blazing hot - at least 105 degrees in the shade, with a stiff breeze blowing sand along the ground. Those guys spent all day working in the sun, and they appeared to be working hard. It made me wonder what life was like back where they came from.

We pulled up to the Manager's factory, parked the car, and scurried inside - in Dubai, every second spent without air-conditioning is torture. The building had two stories, but about two-thirds of the floor space was only one story, with a high ceiling. I made an eyeball estimate of the size and it looked to be a little bit larger than my own shop. I later checked it on Google Earth and it scaled out to about 15 percent larger, or about 40,000 square feet. (My shop is 33,000.)

I love touring factories, particularly woodworking shops where I really know what I'm looking at. Everything is interesting: the layout, the materials, the machinery that's there and the machinery that's not there, what the workers are doing, and what's being made. This factory was, at first glance, very much like mine. But there were some real differences as well â€" I'll talk about that  in my next post.

Paul Downs founded Paul Downs Cabinetmakers in 1986. It is based outside of Philadelphia.

This Week In Small Business: Pet Supplies!

By GENE MARKS

Dashboard

A weekly roundup of small-business developments.

What's affecting me, my clients and other small-business owners this week.

The Big Story: Things Are Tough

More than a third of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, poverty is on track to be the highest since the 1960s and 75 percent of people at retirement age have accumulated less than $30,000 in savings. The global economy is reportedly in its worst shape since 2009 and the current drought here could cause global unrest. The recession claimed 170,000 small businesses in two years, and Andrew Sullivan wonders if Malcolm Gladwell caused it. A professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City who is also a senior scholar at New York's Levy Economics Institute of Bard College says thieves have taken over the financial system. Betsey St evenson and Justin Wolfers feel that the economic policy debate is a sham (and one side is to blame). McDonald's reports slower sales. Cisco cuts 1,300 jobs. This is not what Ben S. Bernanke predicted five years ago. Even Tony Robbins is feeling the heat!

The Data: The Energy Stimulus

The economy seems to be losing the momentum it had. Manufacturing activity in both the Midwest (pdf) and the Central Atlantic regions remains tepid. A widely followed index indicates the weakest improvement in manufacturing conditions in 19 months, and new home sales dropped significantly. Durable goods orders, excluding transportation and defense, are down. Rail traffic slows. But a bright spot is the energy sector which delivers an economic stimulus of almost $1 billion every day. Remodelers are forecasting a positive outlook. Other than mortgage delinquencies, Russell Investments says economic indicators are in their typical range. And the sale of pet supplies defies the economy.

Starting Up: Disruption

Alyson Shontell says these are the 11 most disruptive start-ups. Ben Horowitz explains why a tiny start-up was worth $1.26 billion. These four New York City start-ups are reshaping small business. Rieva Lesonsky writes about taking your start-up global. Lauren Drell reports on what founders wish they knew before they started. A crowd-funding company introduces a Facebook game in which real start-ups like AirBnB, Etsy, and Pinterest compete for a player's virtual investment. Tech start-ups are making millions off the presidential campaign. A maker of workplace collaboration tools raises $28 million. Columbia University opens an entrepreneurship lab.

Management: Don't Be Batman

Did Jack Gilchrist build this? Dave Roberts says the “OODA Loop” helps managers make decisions and act on them using a four-stage model: observation, orientation, decision and action. Susan Payton says yoga teaches 10 thi ngs about small-business ownership. Two ways to cut costs in your business: don't be Batman and follow Arie Hefter's cost-cutting advice, including: “telecommuting can be a great way to both cut costs and, for the right workers, increase efficiency overall.” Melanie Williams says there are eight signs of a cowardly leader. A consulting firm says these are 10 surefire ways to destroy your business. Here is how to find your next great business idea. Karl Stark and Bill Stewart suggest three ways to get more time. Jane Porter suggests nine routine tasks you should eliminate from your workday. Mike Michalowicz says there were five ways our colonial forebears kept stress at bay.

Your People: Say What You Pay

Experts advise that when a sexual harassment accusation flies you should investigate and discipline right away (this husband should be investigated for harassing his wife). Research shows that you should be open about what you pay your employees: “Remember w hat matters to your employees isn't that their pay be equal but that the system for awarding it seems fair.” David Beckham surprises a few fans.

Marketing: The Circles

Angely Grecia shares eight networking tips for shy business owners, including “Stop checking your mobile every minute.” Anne-Sophie Reinhardt teaches how an introvert can survive big conferences: “Remember the mantra: Nobody belongs here more than me.” Andy Sernovitz reveals the biggest clue that will warn you that a conference is going to be awful. Scott Steinberg offers five high tech trends for small-business marketing. The last of Brad Smith's three easy ways to create customer loyalty is “content marketing,” which he says is part art and part science. Sonia Simone wants you to protect your business's greatest asset: your audience. Seth Godin explains the circles of marketing (it's about more than just hype).

Social Media: Hard Truths

Here's how to get Google to index your new Web site and blog quickly. Tim Berry tells Jim Blasingame how to integrate social media into a business plan. Twenty transaction marketing players are vying to create “a synergistic mash of loyalty programs, offers, reputation management and the ‘big data' sets that can analyze behavior and target specific customers.” Twitter goes down (again). Jeff Bullas shares 72 social media facts for 2012. Whitney Hoffman suggests 10 social media hard truths (it's no longer a fad). Ashley Neal talks about going local with her small-business blogging. Small businesses are embracing F-Commerce.

Around The Country: Are Contests Worth It?

Voting ends next week for the top small-business influencers. Frontier Communications introduces a social media all-star contest for small businesses. Jason Keith wonders if small-business contests are a waste of time or worth the money. A Boston-based nonprofit is expanding its programming with a “StreetWise MBA” course in O ctober. A California city deals with the aftermath of bankruptcy. The heat wave takes its toll on small businesses. A new travel community helps entrepreneurs avoid expensive hotels. These 11 metropolitan areas have more than 100,000 small businesses and these cities have bigger economies than entire countries.

Around The World: China's Perfect Storm

Economists say Europe is sleepwalking toward disaster. Germany faces its own recession. Amid the mayor's Olympic welcome, Amazon makes a big expansion and offers a tuition benefit aimed at its lowest-paid employees (and Jeff Bezos supports gay marriage). But Britain remains in recession. China's manufacturing contracts at a slower pace, and Steve Sherfy believes the country is undergoing a perfect storm of market growth. As costs rise in China, technology lures factories back to America. People in these countries have moved $21 trillion to offshore tax havens. A cash-strapped Argentine town pays employees by raffle. Dina Kyriakidou reports on the lessons learned by a Greek shrimp farm. A South Korean man claims his dog gave birth to a cat.

Red Tape: The Price of Reform

The Congressional Budget Office reaffirms that health care reform will reduce the deficit - but business owners may pay $4 billion more in taxes. A Deloitte study finds that one in 10 employers plan to drop health insurance. An Internet sales tax bill picks up speed in Congress and its supporters say it's good for consumers. Here's a helpful guide for using the federal business opportunities Web site. And if you're looking for a new accountant here are a few things to consider. An Internal Revenue Service watchdog concludes that small-business audits often find no more taxes due.

Technology: Wanna Hang Out?

Meghan Peters teaches how to host a Google+ hangout. Brian Lane explains how manufacturing is going mobile. “Skimmers” used to rob automated teller machines are getting thinner. Google annou nces the winners of its 2012 science fair and looks for partners to help build its cloud platform. George Crump says that one way to avoid cloud outages is to consider an “on-ramping solution.” Celebrities explain what life will be like in the future and read mean tweets about themselves. Apple releases a new operating system. Small businesses dominate the mobile app market. Ramon Ray explains what Microsoft's purchase of Yammer means for small businesses. Microsoft's Cindy Bates suggests three ways around tough tech challenges.

Tweets of the Week

@larrywinget: You don't have a money problem, you have a priority problem. Get your priorities right and your money will get right.

@duncanbrodie: Things Not To Do When Managing: Assume that everyone is motivated by the same things as you

@TheEllenShow: What did the coach tell the runner who was afraid of hurdles? Get over it.

@cspenn: Remember th e good old days when Twitter being down wasn't news?

The Week's Bests

Evangelos Simoudis says that we need to be more customer centric: “Companies that don't start planning on how to become customer centric and how to achieve this goal by integrating all their customer-related data and systems in order to provide a consistent and unified message across all their interaction channels will find themselves at a considerable disadvantage over the next five or so years.”

Kyle Wiens won't hire people who use poor grammar: “Grammar signifies more than just a person's ability to remember high school English. I've found that people who make fewer mistakes on a grammar test also make fewer mistakes when they are doing something completely unrelated to writing - like stocking shelves or labeling parts. I hire people who care about those details. Applicants who don't think writing is important are likely to think lots of other (important) things also aren't impor tant.”

Jon Stow is not a fan of amateurism: “Even some businesses with Web sites don't utilize the domain for e-mail. An example would be reallywhizzyflorists.com advertising an e-mail address such as reallywhizzyflorists@yahoo.com. It doesn't sit right. To quote John McEnroe ‘You cannot be serious.'”

This Week's Question: Are you open about what you pay your employees?

Gene Marks owns the Marks Group, a Bala Cynwyd, Pa., consulting firm that helps clients with customer relationship management. You can follow him on Twitter.

The Science of Obituaries: Dead Pools, Obits in the Can and More

By ARTHUR S. BRISBANE

In Sunday's column, I wrote about the obituaries in The New York Times. I didn't have space to bring a number of elements in so I would like to supplement the column with some additional stuff relating to obits, which I find to be one of the most interesting content elements in The Times.

Please read on for a brief discussion with Bill McDonald, the obituary editor, about advance obits, those pieces about the famous and influential that are prepared ahead of time. Also look for a Q & A with Tim Bullamore, an award-winning obituary writer with the Daily Telegraph in London. He offers comments on obits in The Times and the differences in the ways The Times and the British press handle obituaries.

Finally, I include a bit on dead pools and the people who follow obituaries with a surprisingly keen passion.

On advance obits:

I asked Mr. McDonald how the desk decides who should have one. He said it's an easy call:

“They essentially select themselves â€" high-profile people whose deaths will be major news and whose obits we'll want to publish immediately. When to write one is another matter. Here we tend to think like an actuary (as well as a journalist and an amateur historian), taking into account prominence and significance, of course, but also life expectancy, health status and risk factors. Someone prominent and old will be high on the to-do list; someone prominent and ailing is, too. Someone prominent and in a high-risk job may also deserve an advance. And some people are so prominent that we have to consider our own risks - of being caught off guard unprepared. Embarrassment-avoidance in a competitive environment is no small consideration.”

I asked whether he and his colleagues are often stuck without one and think, in retrospect, why on earth didn't we have one for this person?

Mr. McDonald: “Well, I often wish we ha d been smart enough, or clairvoyant enough, to have an obit prepared in advance. But it's a cardinal rule on the Obits desk never to say, ‘Why didn't we have one on…..?' Outsiders freely say it, but we happy and embattled few know how hard, and how impossible, this job ultimately is. So you do not say that, ever.”

I asked about some recent notables and whether The Times had them ready in advance.

Osama Bin Laden (yes)

Richard Holbrooke (yes)

Whitney Houston (no)

Mr. McDonald said The Times currently has 1,500 advance obits in the can â€" “and we're adding about 250 a year. Even if you subtract the number of those we'll publish in a given year â€" say, 50 â€" the archive is growing significantly.”

But he declined to tell me who the youngest on the list is, saying it's “proprietary information.” About 90 percent of the obituaries that make the front page are prepared in advance.

Occasionally, the author of the obituary wa s already dead by the time the piece ran â€" Vincent Canby on Bob Hope and Mel Gussow on Elizabeth Taylor, for example.

Mr. McDonald said that in most cases when an obit subject outlives the writer, The Times does a new piece. “But in select cases,” he added, “we feel the obit is too fine to discard, particularly if it is by a writer who brings a certain authority to it.”

The Times assigns a live body to update the obit and, in the case of Mel Gussow, offered a note to the reader acknowledging the status of the author.

Dead pools and obituary fans

Marilyn Johnson, the author of “The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries,” writes vididly about obits, obit writers and the surprisingly passionate tribe of obituary readers who patrol the internet in search of the newly-dead. These folk gather together in Usenet groups and on dead pool lists and all manner of morbid media channels.

Ms. Johnson told me: “They are obit fans. I don't know where they come from. I don't know why they are obsessed. It speaks to them. Maybe they were introduced to the page in a very emotional or traumatic or personal way and glommed onto it. They are almost gothic in their obsession. They post all the time. They have dead pools. They write rival obits. They pick bones.”

Ms. Johnson referred me to a leader of their kind, Amelia Rosner, who works in advertising in New York and helps run a dead pool on alt.obituaries, a Usenet group where obit fans gather.

Don't know what a dead pool is? Then check out the links below and you soon will. Thanks to Ms. Rosner for providing this tip sheet for those who wish to be newly initiated into the world of the obituarians.

Find alt.obituaries here:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.obituaries/topics

Here's a list of deadpools.

http://website-tools.net/google-keyword/word/celebrities+death+pool

Here's how to ge t up-to-the second news of deaths:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_deaths

Here's a list obit fans use to keep track of who's next:

http://www.deathlist.net/

Interested in knowing why people like to play dead pools? The link below will give you a flavor of it. My favorite was from someone who said: “I got into the obit habit when I was a depressed teenager. I would read the celebrity obits to see if anyone famous died. Then when people asked me why I was so depressed I could say ‘I just found out so-and-so died' and they'd leave me alone.”

https://groups.google.com/group/alt.obituaries/browse_frm/thread/443b8de0068e1c40/9f23881f3c08e2fe?hl=en&lnk=gst&q=why+do+you+like+obituaries#9f23881f3c08e2fe

Next up is Tim Bullamore, obituary writer for the Daily Telegraph in London, who answered my questions about obits here and across the pond.

What is your estimate of the current state of the obituary? Is this a golden era, the back s ide of a golden era or something else? And would your answer be different for British and American obituaries?

Like a lot of newspaper journalism on both sides of the Atlantic, the obituary as an art form is in peril because of financial constraints. The material is there â€" fascinating people are still dying, and their stories remain to be told â€" but it can take time and money to dig out their stories. It is tempting for newspapers to print a well-meaning but often one-sided or anodyne submission from family or friends of the deceased, rather than to secure a more objective piece from a professional obituary writer. Fortunately, I haven't noticed the New York Times doing this, but undoubtedly some newspapers, both in the UK and the US, have saved money in this manner. A decade ago there was an annual international obituary writers conference, usually held in New Mexico, that has now alas gone by the wayside. We must do what we can to protect and continue what has been a great quarter of a century for the art of obituary writing.

What I have termed the ‘postmodern obituary' â€" the one that gives a humorous and unfawning account of a life â€" arrived in the UK with a ‘big bang' in October 1986, with major structural changes to the British newspaper industry such as deunionisation, the collapse in newsprint prices and the introduction of new technology â€" as well as some imaginative individuals. The New York Times obituary tradition has, I understand, evolved more gradually. Small-town American obituaries can be dire â€" nobody could live a life as perfect as those described in some papers. Plus, some US papers almost make a virtue of ‘Ordinary Jo/Joe' obituaries. It's great to be less class-ridden in your obituaries than we here in the UK (where a title or an inherited estate unfortunately seem sometimes to be qualifications for an obituary), but Ordinary Jo/Joe is to the reader often just that â€" ordinary. And dull. As a writer I'm looking for a great story with which to entertain the reader, I'm not looking to do something good for a grieving family (though if I do that as well, I'm happy).

What is your assessment of NY Times obits: strengths, quirks, flaws, etc.?

I suspect The New York Times does not realise just how much its obituaries are read and appreciated worldwide. Many are true gems: fine writing by great writers. There are a good number of superb contributors, and it seems invidious to pick out one, but anything by Margalit Fox is worth reading. Her piece today on Antonio Tabucchi is excellent, for its anecdotes, its critical assessment and its historical context. If I may mention a competitor, Steve Miller at the Wall Street Journal, also does a fine job. I will be lecturing to journalism students at Columbia University, New York, in October on the subject of British obituaries and I will be fascinated to pick up their opinions of US obits.

The Portraits of G rief, miniature obits in the NYT in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, was a magnificent and highly emotional achievement. It was a wonderfully understated way in which one section of the newspaper could respond to the sheer horror of an event that was too ghastly to describe in words. I emulated the series in a small way for the London Times after the July 7, 2005, transport attacks here. Having researched and written all the London pieces myself, I later wrote a guide to writing ‘mass obituaries of ordinary people'. I pray that it will never be needed.

On the negative side, I find the obsession with cause of death in US obituaries to be irksome: they're dead, get over it; an obit is about life (I remember the LA Times, desperate to offer a cause of death, once stating “causes associated with aging”!). The insistence on attribution (the death was confirmed by XXX), which is of course proper journalistic practice, is another stumbling block to the smooth flow of copy. Readers should be able to trust their journalists to have made that call, without needing to see it in print. The extensive lists of survivors is worthy, but serves the family of the reader rather than the deceased; I often ask myself when reading a NYT obit ‘which anecdote or entertaining tale was excised to make space for a list of names of people of whom I have never heard?' They also often appear mid-piece, again an interruption to the flow.

In the NY Times in print, obits appear in the cracks between things. I understand that, in Britain, some papers offer full-page spreads, well-illustrated. Is there, do you think, a significant difference in the impact an obituary makes based on these presentation issues?

British newspapers are very different from US ones: they are sold across the whole country and are fiercely competitive. Furthermore, despite their declining print sales, there is still a sense of ‘if it's not in the paper it hasn't happen ed', meaning that British TV, radio and internet will often quote what the papers are saying. The same applies to the obituary pages of the four major ‘broadsheet' newspapers: The Times, the Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and The Independent. I specialise in writing classical musicians' obituaries for the Telegraph and both my editor and I are keen that my pieces appear before they are seen in any rival publications by rival writers â€" that way they are likely to be read out or referred to on BBC Radio 3 (the main national classical music station). The Times and Daily Telegraph pieces appear anonymously, which allows the writer great freedom â€" and responsibility â€" when assessing the life they are covering.

These four papers all have a dedicated section (usually a page or two) each day dedicated to obituaries, usually towards the back of the main paper. This recognises the obituary as a genre of writing in its own right. To my mind an obituary is NOT a news story: it may be worthy of a news story â€" who has died and how they died â€" in which case the News pages will run a paragraph or two. But the obituary is much, much more than a notification of death: it is the first attempt at a posthumous biography; it is an assessment of a life lived: with all the advantages and disadvantages that this person was born with, and with all the opportunities and difficulties that life threw at them, what did they make of their three score years and ten on this Earth? We confuse it with a News story at our peril.

A related question, I suppose, is whether you think obits do as well online as in print.

They can do. But as with all online news, the absence of a space limitation minimises the need for concise, tight writing and editing. There is also the temptation to publish online any and every death that is notified. An often-neglected role of an editor in the digital era is to select a diet of reading, both by subject and by lengt h, for his or her readers. Giving the reader anything and everything, and telling him or her to make a selection, is an abdication of responsibility on the part of the editor. At present the major UK papers and the NYT generally only put online what they also print. I hope it remains that way: sometimes less is more.

Finally, what should the ultimate aim of an obituary be?

To amuse, entertain and inspire the reader through the medium of quality writing with an account of a life well lived. If at the same time we can bring closure to the family, shine a light on a forgotten area of history, or frame an old story in a new way, then that is an added bonus.