Stories by Kristin Burnham

Everyone has seen it: a seething comment following an article on a popular website or a passive-aggressive tweet bashing a company. While it's tempting to respond with your own two cents in the heat of the moment, resist doing so, says Evan Carmichael, founder of EvanCarmichael .com, an information resource for businesses that covers such topics as reputation management, entrepreneurial advice and business strategy. "Start by understanding that no matter how hard you might try, you can't fully monitor or control these comments," he says. "But you can join in them." Here are three pieces of advice to follow when responding to a negative comment.

When an Anthrax scare hit the Department of Human Services in Virginia's Arlington County in 2002, Christopher David, then the county's chief technology officer, sprang into action. "I knew there was a person who could help us [respond]," he says. "But I didn't remember his name or how to contact him." Rather than waste precious time searching through hundreds of documents housed on his desktop or in file cabinets, David opened his mind mapping application from PersonalBrain, entered a few keywords and, within moments, had the information he needed.

<strong>the project</strong>: Deploy a prediction market to aggregate new business ideas suggested by Motorola employees and assess their viability. A prediction market is a system for forecasting the outcome of projects or events based on how willing individuals are to buy "stock" in them. Users buy shares to vote items up. Each item is evaluated based on how much it is "worth:" The higher the value, the more popular the idea.