What the heck is wrong with the word entrepreneur? It's a perfectly good word that has been around for a long time.
 
But nooooo, we can't seem to leave well enough alone. It turns out moms who come up with a great business idea are no longer entrepreneurs. They are "mompreneurs".
 
The cyber lore out there says "mompreneurs" are women who come up with a product or service while home with their children, and somehow stumble upon the idea because of a need they discover while taking care of the little buggers.
 
With that kind of reasoning, people who come up with a great idea at the local watering hole (which is where many great ideas are hatched), would be called "drunkpreneurs", or "boozepreneurs." You see where I'm going with this?
 
There are mompreneur magazines like The Mompreneur; books, including "Mompreneurs: A Mother's Practical Step by Step Guide to Work at Home Success"; and websites such as Mompreneurs online.
 
Lately, PR people have been constantly pitching women-owned businesses for me to write about and using this label, which isn't new but seems to be getting more popular these days. For some reason they think the business product or service isn't quite enough to get my attention.
 
Well, it's annoying. First off, it's hard to say. It doesn't have four syllables like entrepreneur so I find myself constantly saying "momtrepreneur," but that's not right.
 
Secondly, women are constantly complaining that they're not treated equally when it comes to the business world, but they feel compelled to alienate a whole gender by making it seem like their accomplishments are that much more important because they experienced motherhood while crafting a business concept.
 
So do we want to be part of a club and label ourselves? I'm asking this about men and women.
 
I figured I'd ask a linguist. "There are lots of ways we use language to distinguish ourselves. It's part of identifying ourselves as members of a group. It's not surprising," says John McCarthy, professor of linguistics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
 
If a man came up with the word and started calling entrepreneur moms momprenuers, that would have been a major no-no, McCarthy says. But since it appears that women concocted the label themselves, it's OK.
 
He calls the label and others like it "cute."
 
OK, it's cute, but will it last? McCarthy isn't betting on it because rhythmically it doesn't quite work. He suggests the word "mommypreneur" rolls much easier off the tongue.
 
Sorry, I don't like that either.
 
Thank goodness, not all mommies are using the moniker.
 
Deborah Stephens Stauffer and Kathleen Whitehurst invented DaysAgo, a digital day counter that you attach to food containers so you know when something has been in the fridge too long. The idea was sparked by half-used baby food jars. You know, the ones that fill up the fridge when your kids are tots, and you take your chances using, hoping the mashed peas weren't opened last month.

It's a great idea and doesn't need the "mompreneur" gimmick to sell, even though these gals are the perfect definition of the word. "Just because I struggle daily with juggling conference calls and nap schedules does not mean I am any different than other traditional entrepreneurs," Deborah says.
 
Amen sista!

You knew it was coming. With all these presidential candidates out there looking for new stuff to pontificate about, minimum wage just had to get into the mix -- again.
 
Earlier this month, Sen. John Edwards made it clear he's not happy with the minimum wage hike approved by Congress this year, which went into effect Tuesday. The move will boost the minimum hourly rate to $7.25 over two years from $5.15. Edwards wants more, and he sees a more robust increase as a way to combat poverty. His proposal: Boost it to $9.50 by 2012.
 
From his Web site: "While the upcoming increase will give a much-needed raise to millions of families, it is far from enough. John Edwards believes that we need to build One America where everyone has an opportunity to work hard and build a better life."

Matt Rourke / AP

Democratic presidential hopeful and former North Carolina senator John Edwards makes remarks before the National Education Association convention in Philadelphia earlier this month. Edwards wants to raise the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour.

We hear a lot of doom and gloom regarding the impact of a higher minimum wage on small business owners. But what will it really mean to all of you out there?

It would be great if you could calculate how it would impact your bottom line. That way when the debate begins yet again you all can decide whether it's worth your precious time to put lots of energy into squashing any more increases.
 
I came across a blog called Political Calculations that actually offers you a free tool to crunch the numbers. 

I asked the Political Calculations blogger, known as Ironman, why he decided to include the minimum wage tool on his site. It came about last year, he says, "as proposals to increase the minimum wage were being considered at first the state level and later at the national level.  For the state level, the interesting question is 'What effect would a sharp increase in a state's minimum wage have upon small businesses?', since these types of businesses are the most likely to employ people (mostly age 15-24) at the minimum wage.  Later, this tool was adapted to be able to answer the question of what impact a minimum wage increase would have on a national scale."
 
If it turns out that perhaps sharing a bit more of the wealth with your workers won't do that much damage, don't breathe a sigh of relief just yet.
 
There may be yet another bigger work force problem looming for small business owners – a lack of skilled workers.
 
Many of the nation's fastest growing privately held firms view the lack of enough skilled employees as one of the top growth inhibitors for their companies.
 
A survey of more than 300 CEOs from smaller companies released this year by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that the availability of qualified, skilled workers was cited by 50 percent as a potential barrier to growth. The problem was equally bad in both service and manufacturing sectors.
 
So even if you pony up the cash, there might not be enough qualified workers to go around. Maybe Ironman can create a calculator for that.

I recently saw Michael Moore's health care tragedy film "Sicko" and it got me thinking: What about a "Sicko" just about small business owners?
 
There's a scene where Moore takes former 9/11 rescue workers, who can't afford U.S. medical care, on a small boat to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. His mission, albeit a futile one, is to get those poor ailing workers the same care now given to suspected Al Qaeda prisoners at the facility.
 
Moore should have taken along a boatload of entrepreneurs with him. Actually, he would have needed a cruise ship, maybe 10.
 

Brendan McDermid / Reuters file

Filmmaker Michael Moore speaks to the media on Wall Street in New York last month during a press event promoting his new film "Sicko."

We all think of lack of health care coverage as a problem for the poor and unemployed, but small business owners are also drowning in this nation's medical black hole.
 
I figured I had to write my first blog entry about the one issue that is at the top of all your lists – health care. Over and over again, in study after study, small business owners say it's health care stupid, and it's TOO @%$#&* EXPENSIVE!
 
Entrepreneurs and small business operators are beginning to sound like broken records, at least to politicians and the whole health-care industry. Maybe everyone is just "sicko" of them. (Sorry, couldn't help myself.)
 
The National Federation of Independent Business, a small biz advocacy group you should know about if you don't already, keeps asking company owners and they keeps getting the same answer.
 
From the NFIB's latest health care survey:
 
"Once again small-business owners overwhelmingly voiced the need for Congress to address ever-rising health insurance costs," said William Dennis, senior research fellow with the NFIB. "A difference in top priorities appears between Congress and America's small-business owners. One is primarily interested in coverage and the other cost.  If lawmakers can help reduce costs, small businesses can help increase coverage in the long-run."
 
Everyone talks about how small business is the engine that drives the economy, but many firms sputter out when their engines are fouled by high health care costs.
 
There's a host of reasons:
They can't leave their corporate jobs to launch a business because they can't afford to buy healthcare on their own;
They took the plunge, started a firm, but now realize the escalating cost of health care coverage may send them back to working for The Man;
Or they go without coverage, holding their breath that an illness doesn't send them to the poor house.
 
Many of the many presidential candidates say they have their plan for saving the health care system. But for those of you who can't wait that long for change, if it ever comes, check out what's happening in your own state. Many states are now offering opportunities for small business owners to buy into high-risk pools that provide cut-rate plans for people with dreaded pre-existing conditions. Check your state's insurance department to find out what's available.
 
And don't forget to contact your local chamber of commerce, which may offer group insurance plans. A bigger group should mean you have to shell out less money.
 
But none of these things are a panacea for the deeply "sicko" system.
 
One entrepreneur I spoke with recently told me her high cholesterol and the fact that her husband had smoked in the distant past made them pariahs to health insurers. They couldn't even get a policy unless they dished out thousands a month, and that was only for catastrophic care. Forget about getting coverage for routine doctor visits.
 
"We live in constant fear," she says about getting sick.
 
This is definitely movie fodder -- horror movie fodder.