Business owners who manage their energy with awareness, preparation and time off can multiply their fuel and boost their productivity and creativity, entrepreneur Rob Dube writes. Dube offers specific ways to measure the limits of your energy and how to set plans each night for the next day.

Tech marketer Omri Hurwitz outlines five key considerations for contemporary PR campaigns to help executives avoid using outdated methods and irrelevant data. Hurwitz suggests marketers focus more heavily on thought leadership and viewing "PR as a long-term strategy."

Morning Consult research found that 36% of US adults are interested in the metaverse, but that number climbs higher among millennials (56%), Generation Z (51%) and Black and Hispanic adults (52% each). Overall, 46% of men are likely to be interested in the emerging technology compared with 28% of women, with the majority of women noting concerns for personal safety, online abuse and sexual harassment.

COVID-19 has exposed old business paradigms such as exclusively in the office, the importance of looking busy and the supremacy of profits over employee well-being, writes corporate board member Ram Krishna Sinha. "Not surprising, an open and feedback-friendly business culture is being appreciated and encouraged, and non-hierarchical structures are being designed," Sinha writes.

A career path framework provides a transparent route for employees to progress within a company and encourages them to stay, writes Dialpad's Jenna Bunnell. The right framework can be achieved by asking workers about career goals, auditing skills, identifying what connects job roles and highlighting the journeys taken by real-life employees, Bunnell advises.

Companies and nonprofits that hold digital assets are seeking advice from accountants about tax obligations and other issues regarding reporting of such holdings, though clear answers to many of these questions might not yet exist. Companies should avoid rushing into the space and should carefully develop policies on how to participate, experts say.

If you are a small-business owner and have yet to file your 2021 taxes, certified tax expert Aric Schreiner offers a list of several personal expenses that can likely be deducted from your business costs. On the list are housing costs such as mortgage interest and homeowners insurance, technology expenses such as your cell phone bill and internet charges and even items you already owned but use for your business.

Small-business owners' confidence fell in March for the third month in a row, and the number who thought the economy would improve in the next six months hit the lowest percentage in the 48-year history of the Small Business Optimism Index. In addition, inflation eclipsed the labor shortage as the biggest problem for small businesses, according to the National Federation of Independent Business survey.

Several problems -- including personal rivalries, insufficient talent pools and financial issues -- can derail the succession plan of a family business, writes Matthew Erskine of Erskine & Erskine. In some cases, these "plans tend to reflect the individual needs of the current generation rather than the needs to sustain the life and health of the family business," he writes.

An examination by experts of the world's oldest pants that belonged to a Chinese man roughly 3,000 years ago reveals that a variety of weaving patterns were used to give the pants durability and flexibility for horse-riding. Researchers had a modern weaver re-create the pants so they could better understand the techniques used by ancient weavers.