Donald Trump is making some scary headway in the polls during this early, early presidential election season. But does he think he’s the only rich guy that could run? Here now are ten other rich dudes who could buy and sell you and would make better presidents or at the very least, better combovers.

Warren Buffet

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Warren Buffet is so rich, he gave away half his money and went from being the richest man in the United States to only the second richest. He could afford to give every person in the United States $100 just to vote for him. And with that kind of ca-ching, we could just buy Saudi Arabia outright and tell OPEC to suck it!

Chris Albrecht

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The man who turned HBO and the concept of pay TV to something other than a place for soft porn to die would make an awesome president. Who else would know more trivia about The Wire, The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire when meeting with foreign dignitaries? Maybe we could actually try that episode of the Wire where they legalize drugs. Plus, it would be impossible for Bill Maher to criticize the pres without getting fired.

Joe Buckmaster

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The CEO of Craigslist would not only reduce the government to one, simple, no frills website, he could also refurbish the White House for less than $200. Maybe he could apply Craigslist logic to the Healthcare system, so posters could simply post their symptoms and look for the lowest bid for a cure and a date for afterwards.

Ray Kroc

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The late, great franchiser of McDonald’s could finally achieve what every empire-building president has never before: exporting Democracy abroad. With the right bright red logo, drive thru and tasty sandwich, the entire world could also be free, obese and wear horrible little paper hats.

Michael Eisner

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The former CEO of Disney could revive the US like he revived Disney, with the help of better CGI. Imagine the savings at the Defense apartment when all the tanks, missiles and ships are digital rendered rather than actually built. Add a few monsters, genies and giant insects and no one in their right mind would attack the US.

Bill Gates

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As our first nerd president, Gates could finally show John McCain what email is. Although we run the risk of one of the jock countries to bully us out of our natural resources, he could totally hack our enemies stock exchanges and steal their money. It would be like Revenge of the Nerds 24/7.

Sir Richard Branson

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Although not technically American enough to run, he would have the coolest State of the Union Addresses from hot air balloons or while skiing down a mountain with a naked super model on his back. Plus, Air Force One would have a fully stocked mini bar and a store that sells music, DVD’s and T-shirts.

Mark Zuckerberg

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Finally, we could get some legislation for people who cheat at Farmville. Zuckerberg could legally execute people for posting horrible pictures of their friends and then tagging them without permission. America’s enemies would be brought to their knees, unable to receive pokes or “Like” anyone and Zuck already has all their private information too.

Steve Jobs

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Under President Jobs’ efficient, intuitive, but iron-fisted rule, our technology would become state-of-the-art. Of course, those who resisted would be rounded up and placed into Apple Reeducation Camps, but it would come with a free iPad2. Additionally, the scourge of Windows Vista would finally be eliminated.

Joe Francis

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Any man that could make lesbian porn mainstream can do anything. Let’s face it, as the CEO of Girls Gone Wild, what country would attack us? The Israeli/Palestinian conflict could finally be settled with a hot oil wrestling contest with hot, real college chicks. Who would win? Everybody!

Patrick Lo, CEO of Netgear, let loose on Steve Jobs and Microsoft at a lunch in Sydney earlier today. He said Apple’s business model, currently dependent on proprietary products and technology, would be defeated by Android and other open platforms. “Owning the market” with technology like iTunes is a temporary situation, according to Lo. From the Sydney Morning Herald:

Lo said the industry had “seen this movie play several times”, pointing to the Betamax vs. VHS video format war, Mac vs. Windows and various proprietary networking protocols that at one stage tried to compete with the now dominant TCP/IP. In each of the above cases, the more open platforms won more market share. However, Apple has bucked this trend so far with its closed ecosystems for the iPhone and iPad.

“Once Steve Jobs goes away, which is probably not far away, then Apple will have to make a strategic decision on whether to open up the platform,” Lo said.

Ouch. Public PR apology, anyone?

Lo wasn’t easy on Microsoft, either:

“Microsoft is over – game over – from my point of view,” he said.

I’d like to hear Lo’s take on who else–besides Netgear, of course–is going to take off in coming years.

A year and change after announcing its intent to buy a 51% stake of NBC Universal, Comcast has been granted the $30 billion joint venture, courtesy of the FCC and the Department of Justice. From the Wall St Journal:

The FCC imposed a variety of conditions on the deal designed to prevent Comcast from denying NBC programming and Comcast regional sports networks from its pay-TV and online competitors. The nation’s largest cable company will be required to set aside a number of channels for independent programmers and agreed to keep NBC network programming on free over-the-air TV stations.

…The company agreed to air more children’s programming, limit interactive advertisements for children and offer stand-alone Internet access for $49.95 a month. It promised to adopt a hands-off approach to the NBC News division….More recently, Comcast agreed to offer $10 a month Internet access (Ed.: to 2.5 million low-income Americans) and subsidized computer equipment to low-income Americans who have children in the federal school-lunch program at the urging of Democratic FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, who has expressed concerns about the digital divide. She voted in favor of the deal Tuesday.

Seven years is an unusually long time for conditions on a media merger, but then again, this is the first time ever that a cable company has gained control of a major broadcast network, according to Media Decoder, which also highlights an important part of Comcast’s strategy:

One result of the consumer tilt towards online video has been the rise of Netflix, which has pivoted from its beginnings as a DVD-by-mail business to a streaming video company. The success of Netflix in changing consumer behavior has raised fears that the heart of Comcast’s business — selling cable subscriptions — could be in jeopardy. To that end, the deal to acquire NBC Universal will give Comcast a significant role in the future of online television viewing.

In an overt conflict of interest, Comcast will both provide the cable connection and the broadcasting shown on that connection. If it behaves anything like Hollywood studios in the early 20th century, which took advantage of vertical integration to become oligopolies, this ruling will be trouble in a few years. Comcast could start fixing prices at artificially high levels, ousting whatever competition it can under current restrictions or, if this ruling opens the gates for other big media consolidations, participate in some kind of oligopoly. That’s not to mention how consolidation will affect our lofty #20 Press Freedom ranking. Apparently, for the Obama administration, this was a risk worth taking.

Steve Jobs announced today that he will be taking a leave of absence from Apple to deal with health issues. COO Tim Cook will be running the Apple ship until Jobs returns, but Jobs stated he will still be involved in “major strategic decisions.”

In December 2009, Jobs announced that his health problems were more complex than originally thought. Nine days before taking leave, he’d claimed to have a treatable hormonal imbalance. Whatever was actually wrong with him required a liver transplant. Six months after the transplant, Jobs returned to Apple.

If you’ll recall even further back, Steve Jobs was diagnosed with a rare form of pancreatic cancer in October 2003. Although the form of pancreatic cancer Jobs reported isn’t as aggressively fatal as most other types, the 5-year survival rate is less than 50%; about 1/3 of afflicted people survive after 10 years. The odds are against Jobs. Apple has a habit of playing the severity of his affliction(s) down. This pattern started when Apple didn’t tell anyone Jobs had cancer until after he had surgery to remove the tumor.

I can think of two reasons Apple and Jobs are downplaying the seriousness of his illness, which could well be killing him as I write. One, Jobs himself, who in many ways is Apple, is optimistic about his ability to withstand the cancer-induced restructuring of his internal organs. It’s a typical entrepreneurial attitude, transferred to the body. Jobs has overcome all kind of odds before, why shouldn’t he figure out a way to overcome thi?

Secondly, Apple itself lacks a strong succession plan, and is downplaying Jobs’ affliction to protect its vulnerability. Apple is right to do this. According to GigaOm:

The focus on Jobs and his health stems from the fact that Apple is one of the few major corporations whose fortunes are tied so closely to its founder and CEO. Most other companies with a $300-billion market value and revenues in the $25-billion range may have prominent chief executives, but few of them are seen as having so much control over the products their companies produce — and even fewer are as charismatic and widely admired as Jobs. Some have estimated that the stock trades between 10 and 25 percent higher than it otherwise would, based solely on Jobs being the CEO. During the latter part of 2008, after rumors of Jobs’ health began to accelerate, the stock lost more than 50 percent of its value, although several analysts have told Reuters that they don’t believe the latest absence will affect the stock that much.

Succession planning, especially involving the departure of a charismatic CEO, is not Silicon Valley’s forte, according to this CIO article. But the media flurry around Steve Jobs’ health proves that it still does matter, both to investors–Wall Street hates not having Jobs around–and customers. As the CIO article points out, even the most control-freakish CEOs usually have right-hand people to take care of essential company tasks, people who could serve as de facto successors, even if the issue is never discussed openly.

Frankly, Apple is so robust right now that even if Jobs died without warning, it wouldn’t maim the company enough to threaten its survival. What will it take for Apple to openly announce a succession plan, the way Microsoft did before Bill Gates left? That might be akin to admitting defeat for Jobs, but at some point, it’s in the company’s best interest to smooth the leadership transition.

Like diplomacy, social media has become the refined, sharp-edge of a sword that executives and CEOs prefer to leave for mid-management. Some business leaders, however, have realized that the subtle art of human interaction is one that they can benefit from, and that their business needs to survive.

Below you can learn who has leveraged social media, and what they are hoping to gain from their experiences. From Google to Toyota, BlendTee to Digg, discover what marketing puppeteers are really trying to get from the public.

1. WHO: COO Jim Lentz

COMPANY: Toyota

WHERE: Twitter @ Toyota

WHY: To introduce the plural of Prius

WHAT: Frank conversation with Toyota fans

Using Twitter and user-selected questions, the team at Toyota decided to engage his customers in open, honest conversation about the future of green energy, the Toyota company itself, and how the auto industry is helping the economy in the process of recovery.

2. WHO: CEO Reeta Roy

COMPANY: MasterCard Foundation

WHERE: Twitter @MCFoundation

WHY: To build a presence online

WHAT: To share her Uganda-based reports on where donations are going

With more than 760 followers on Twitter, Reeta Roy is able to spread the word about what MasterCard is doing with the $2 billion foundation during her field work in Uganda and Kenya. Her intention, utilizing social media, is to build-up the brand by tweeting.

3. WHO: CEO Kevin Rose

COMPANY: Digg

WHERE: Vimeo; YouTube; Diggnation

WHY: To access over 3.3 million viewers

WHAT: To share site news via weekly podcasts called “Diggnation”

Accessing a huge viewership during his weekly, scheduled podcast, Kevin Rose also posts frequently on YouTube and Vimeo. His online presence is large enough that his own name is often trending as a popular search term. Rose, like others, is using social media to build his authority and brand recognition.

4. WHO: CEO Aaron Patzer

COMPANY: Mint.com

WHERE: Mint’s YouTube channel

WHY: To educate customers on company products

WHAT: To provide basic information, which has been viewed 700,000 times

Founder of Mint.com, VP of Intuit’s Personal Finance Group, and cutest accountant on the planet Aaron Patzer knows how to engage viewers implementing social media. From the Mint.com YouTube channel, he educates people on products, general information, and special features. While their videos and image is low-maintenance, their quality and branding is exceptional.

5. WHO: CEO John Pozadzides

COMPANY: iFusion Labs

WHERE: OneMansBlog.com; Woopra

WHY: To develop new approaches to web analytics

WHAT: To quiz viewers via Viddler and his blog about their experiences

An insightful man, John Pozadzides understands that people love nothing more than talking about themselves. Using OneMangsBlog.com to question his huge fan base, Pozadzides fine-tunes his web analytics services, Woopra. With nearly 500,000 page views, this CEO shows no signs of stopping.

6. WHO: CEO Bob Parsons

COMPANY: GoDaddy Group

WHERE: BobParsons.me

WHY: To share success tips, in order to build a readership

WHAT: To implement quirky tactics to amuse viewers

Gimmicks, shenanigans, corny ploys, and coy attempts to be in earnest, are all featured in the vlog, which provides success tips and hot girls in skimpy clothes. Why did Parsons make the list, then? His Super Bowl ad from 2010, “Too Hot for TV,” was just the tip of his whirlwind romance with social media: his viewership is off the charts, and people seem to dig his fun-loving antics.

7. WHO: CEO Tony Hsieh

COMPANY: Zappos

WHERE: Twitter @Zappos

WHY: “To waste time together.”

WHAT: He claims his goal is, “Let’s entertain each other. And not try to sell each other anything.”

Sky-rocketing from 600,000 followers to nearly 1.8 million in a brief period of time, Hsieh has proven that his laid-back approach to social media is endearing for fans. His tweets are innocent and playful, making no brand promises, thus succeeding in leaving a positive brand image.

CONCLUSION

Whether upper-management industry insiders are leveraging social media simply to answer questions and build brand recognition, or to pick the brains of readers and forge new bases for analytics, they all have a fervent desire to understand social media users. Search YouTube, Twitter, and other networks for your favorite brands, and you might just find a CEO or executive willing to answer your most pressing questions.

Jobs has had his share of setbacks and skeptics. He started what would become a multi-billion dollar brand by sharing his parents’ kitchen table, he was fired from the company he started, and he rebounded from two near-death experiences to become one of the most iconic business leaders in corporate history. He’s learned a lot along the way and he has a lot to teach the rest of us. Here are just a few ways Jobs can teach you to ‘think differently’ about professional and career success.

Put a dent in the universe. Steve Jobs has never underestimated the power of vision to move a brand forward. Vision inspires new ideas and attracts evangelists to your cause. In 1976, Steve Wozniak was captivated by Jobs’ vision to “put a computer in the hands of everyday people.” Wozniak was the engineering genius behind the Apple I and the Apple II, but it was Jobs’ vision that inspired Wozniak to focus his skills on building a computer for the masses. Jobs’ vision was intoxicating because it had four components that all inspiring visions share: It was 1) bold, 2) specific, 3) concise and 4) consistently communicated.

In 1979, Jobs took a tour of the Xerox research facility in Palo Alto, California. There he saw a new technology that let users interact with the computer via graphical icons on the screen instead of entering complex line commands. It was called a “graphical user interface.” In that moment, Jobs knew that this technology would allow him to fulfill his vision of putting a computer in the hands of everyday people. He went back to Apple and refocused his team’s effort on building the computer that would eventually become the Macintosh and forever change the way we talked to computers. Jobs later said that Xerox could have “dominated” the computer industry but instead its ‘vision’ was limited to building another copier.

Innovation — the kind with a big “I” that moves society forward — doesn’t happen without a bold vision. Just as Jobs had a vision for his brand, you must have a vision for the most important brand of all — yourself. What vision do you have for your company or your career? Yes, you need to follow your gut and do something you are passionate about — doing what you love is Steve Jobs’ first principle for breakthrough success — but while passion gives you energy to overcome skeptics and obstacles, vision points you in the ultimate direction.

Kick-start your brain. There’s no dispute that Steve Jobs thinks differently than the rest of us. His creative ideas have transformed not one industry, but four — computing, music, entertainment, and telecommunications. Innovation — in products or careers — requires creativity and creativity requires that you think differently about…the way you think. Scientists who study the way the brain works have discovered that innovators like Steve Jobs do think differently but they use a technique available to all of us — they seek out “diverse experiences.” This reminds me of the story behind Apple’s name. The idea fell from a tree, literally. Steve Jobs had returned from visiting a commune-like place in Oregon located in an apple orchard. Apple co-founder and Jobs’ pal, Steve Wozniak, picked him up from the airport. On the drive home, Jobs simply said, “I came up with a name for our company — Apple.” Wozniak said they could have tried to come up with more technical sounding names but their vision was to make computers approachable. Apple fit nicely.

Steve Jobs creates new ideas precisely because he has spent a lifetime exploring new and unrelated things — seeking out diverse experiences. Jobs hired people from outside the computing profession, he studied the art of calligraphy in college (a study that found its way into the first Macintosh), meditated in an Indian ashram, studied the fine details of a Mercedes-Benz, and evaluated The Four Seasons hotel chain as he developed the customer service model for the Apple Stores. Look outside your industry for inspiration. Bombard the brain with new experiences. Remove the shackles of past experiences.

Say no to 1,000 things. Steve Jobs once said the secret to innovation comes from “saying no to 1,000 things.” Steve Jobs is as proud of what Apple chooses not to do as he is about what Apple chooses to focus on. The lesson — don’t spread yourself too thin. Find the career that intersects your passion, skill and the ability to make money doing it. Once you find it, focus on it, work at it, and dedicate yourself to excellence in that area. Say “no” to anything else that will distract you from pursuing that career. If you are looking for a work or frustrated with your current job, there will be plenty of friends, families and colleagues who offer unsolicited advice on what’s best for you. Filter out the ideas that might derail you from the career best matching your strengths and passion.

Master presentation skills. Steve Jobs is considered one of the greatest corporate storytellers in the world. His presentations inform, educate and entertain. By giving extraordinary presentations, Steve Jobs stands out as a leader and communicator. You are being judged to a large degree on your ability to communicate what you do. The big difference between extraordinary communicators like Steve Jobs and the average leader is that people like Jobs use presentations to complement the message. The speaker is the storyteller; PowerPoint slides serve as a backdrop to the story. That means you must learn to avoid bullet points and to think visually about bringing a story to life. Read The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs (McGraw Hill, October 2009), for tips and techniques to create a presentation that would make Steve Jobs proud.

Don’t let bozos get you down. Steve Jobs knew he had the skills to build a computer that would be simple enough for the average person to enjoy. Few others shared his vision. Ken Olsen, the founder of Digital Equipment, once told Jobs “There is no reason why anyone would want a computer in their home.” Thank goodness Jobs didn’t listen. When Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 after a 12-year absence from the company he started, Apple was close to bankruptcy but Jobs rallied his employees, customers, and investors with the vision of what Apple could become. Millions of Apple fans have Jobs to thank for not listening to critics who believed Apple was destined to fail. If he had, consumers would not be enjoying Macs, iPods, iPads, and iPhones which popularized touch-screen technology. Many people around you think they know what’s best for you. Only you can be true to your own heart and intuition.

Innovation sits in a lonely place because very, very few people have their courage of their convictions and the self-confidence to tune out negative voices. Perhaps the greatest lesson Steve Jobs teaches us is that risk-taking requires courage. Believe in yourself and your vision and be prepared to constantly defend those beliefs. Only then will you be able to lead an “insanely great” life and career.

Carmine Gallo, author of The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs: Insanely Different Principles for Breakthrough Success, is a presentation, media-training, and communication-skills coach for the world’s most admired brands. He is an author and columnist for Businessweek.com and and a keynote speaker and seminar leader who has appeared on CNBC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC.com, BNET, RedBook, Forbes.com, and in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and Investor’s Business Daily, as well as many other media outlets. Gallo lives in the San Francisco Bay area and is a former vice president for a global, top-ten public relations firm.

MySpace is done competing with Facebook and Twitter. Instead, the News Corp. subsidiary announced that it will gradually roll out a redesign that will transform it into an entertainment site targeted at Gen-Yers. The New York Times has the story:

(MySpace CEO Mike) Jones said that Myspace would no longer seek to compete with Facebook, but rather to complement it. “Our focus is social entertainment,” he said. “Niche players have long staying power.”

Users who are especially active in creating playlists or commenting on a television show — Mr. Jones calls them “curators” — will earn virtual badges and be rewarded by having their links highlighted. Myspace is also creating thousands of pages for television shows, movies and bands, that are meant to become hubs for discussion of those topics on the site.

At this point, any strategy is a good strategy for MySpace. Friendster, after it shrunk in the US, focused on Asia, where most of its users now reside. MySpace didn’t seem to be doing anything for a while, even though the much of its former mainstream audience migrated to Facebook. If MySpace successfully gives its remaining users–musicians and artists among them–additional incentive to stay, this new niche could be a success.

Lagin, a graphic artist, and Ferstenfeld, who works in an emergency room, design and print T-shirts, posters, bags and more that bear intricate images, sharp slogans and whimsical cartoons. They accept customers’ ideas and allow them to vote on what designs should be made into the next product. If that sounds familiar, then you should know that yes, Ferstenfeld and Lagin used to participate on Threadless.

Here, the business partners discuss how running Made With Awesome fits in with their other full-time jobs, how they’ve grown in the past year and where they get their design ideas.

You two used to contribute to Threadless – what made you break away and start your own T-shirt company?

Evan: Well, both Roni and I can testify that we still wish nothing but the best for Threadless and love to participate in its contests and community, but when Roni and I met we both saw how much passion for T-shirt design we both had and wanted to take our T-shirt hobby off into more of a full-blown way of life. We quickly decided to combine our efforts to create a new company that highlighted our specific brand of humor.

Evan: You work in ER – how does Made With Awesome fit into that schedule?

Evan: As for attending craft fairs and scheduling meetings with Roni for our business, it is sometimes tough to balance because I work until the wee hours of the morning, when most people are tucked away in sleepy world. In terms of coming up with ideas, the hospital provides me quite an electric and slightly off-kilter environment, where brainstorming for quirky ideas to appear on T-shirts is actually a very fostering place.

Working with other artists around the world on designs can be done at any time thanks to the wonderful world of the interwebs, making staying in touch at all hours of the day a snap. Progress can be made no matter what time you respond to a person’s query from across the continents.

What type of design do you do when you’re not working on Made With Awesome?

Roni: Up until recently, I was designing packaging for toys and entertainment. But currently I’m the graphic design manager at OLIN, a landscape architecture firm in Philadelphia, where I produce mostly print design. I also design websites and such through my freelance business

Is this your first small-business venture?

Evan: This is indeed my first adventure in the small-business world. Well, unless you count the Maze-A-Day business where I would craft a paper labyrinth for about 10 people each day at school in my youthful years. Man, what I would have been if I kept at that …

Roni: I’ve been freelancing on the side since I graduated in 2000, but my personal business really took full swing in 2004 and has been operating ever since.

What have you learned about starting up your own business?

Evan: That Roni and I have to scavenge the business world for as many good deals without sacrificing the quality we are known for. Back in our Threadless days, all we had to worry about was making a good design, and they took care of the rest. “The rest,” it turns out, takes a considerable amount of our energy and time in order to make sure the business has a healthy cash flow as well as runs smoothly and produces the best possible versions of our designs and slogans.

Roni: Since this is my first partnership in a business, I think that compromise and communication are key factors. We started with a loose plan, which allowed us to be flexible. But we still had some clear goals. We’ve kept it small, but have steadily grown. It’s a challenge to juggle a small business (or two) while having full-time obligations. Knowing our own limitations but still having a vision helps us stay grounded but see the big picture. Not compromising on quality and the creative process has made a labor of love grow beyond expectations.

What’s the process for a Made With Awesome T-shirt design?

Evan: In terms of slogan shirts, Roni usually goes through a slew of slogans I’ve created and picks the ones that make him squirt various drinks out of his nose from laughing too hard. Roni then takes those slogans and applies typographic treatments to them, in which we work back and forth in coming up with a nice balance of graphics versus slogan readability.

The process for a design is a bit different, which usually entails us working with other artists besides one another. I usually come up with a concept and describe it in as much detail as I can, which the artist then creates a sketch from with any of their additions/improvements to the concept as well. We then go back and forth in this process of inspiring one another until everyone agrees the design is 100 percent finished. And then it’s either off to the voting pages to see if others like it and then finally to the printing presses, which we use a variety of different ones. We’re always looking for interesting new ways to print a design as well as various other products people would be interested in buying with our words/pictures on them.

Roni: Ditto.

Evan: As you can see, Roni is more succinct than me, but no less as influential in our process!

What are your goals for Made With Awesome as a business?

Evan: Even though it sounds like a cliché business line, Roni and I honestly want to make the most original, groundbreaking products we can and produce them on the highest-quality material and print techniques. That and having lots of fun making things we would love to wear ourselves was our initial goal.

Our next goals are to continue to grow our company in terms of product selection and outreach at a level we can comfortably sustain until we try to climb to the next plateau. Of course, making T-shirts full time would be the ideal situation, but a successful side business for the time being would be a nice goal to have. But if we aren’t having fun while doing that, the products aren’t going to come through as powerfully as we want them to, and Roni and I never forget our original intentions and spirit in which we forged this company together.

What have you found to be the best channels to promote the company?

Evan: Since we are predominantly an online company, having an easy-to-navigate and fun-looking website that communicates our company’s humor and intentions is a great tool to deliver our message to prospective customers. As most people know, even if you have an excellent product, just shouting loudly on the Internet isn’t going to get you noticed when EVERYONE is shouting just as loud as you for customer attention.

Using all the online tools that go along with the main website hub are also a great way to direct traffic to our site and really engage with our customers on a more personal level. We have a Twitter account, a Facebook page, as well as free goodies and a voting area on the website itself.

And while we love our website, what energizes us the most is attending various craft fairs and other events where we can sell our shirts/posters/etc., face-to-face with our customers. Both of us agree there’s nothing quite like talking directly with others – and not only selling the products but meeting and conversing with lots of interesting people. During these fairs, we have a variety of publicity items, including business cards, stickers with our logo on them, and a mailing list to sign up and get the word out on any updates to the website and new products coming out soon.

Oh, and interviews on cutting-edge blogs don’t hurt either. *wink wink*

What inspires the designs and slogans for your shirts and other products?

Evan: For me, it all comes down to being open to every idea and funny notion that pops into your head from whatever inspiration that might come from. I read a lot of various magazines from around the world, see lots of movies, listen to music and try to absorb as much art as possible, which sometimes springboards into a concept that, by the time it is all finished, in no way resembles where the original idea came from. Also, many ideas come up from general conversations while talking to friends, family and the voices in my head.

Do either of you have formal training as designers or entrepreneurs?

Evan: While not having formal training in design, I minored in film criticism in college and have written movie and music reviews for several online and real-world newspaper publications in the past.

I have always loved art in all its forms and have been told by my parents that I loved putting on shows and entertaining other children and adults as a child. I now aspire to create a world within the T-shirt wearer/observer’s head in order to make them laugh, ponder something about our world or both.

Roni: I have a Bachelor of Science degree in graphic design from Drexel University. Being an entrepreneur – of sorts – came pretty naturally when I realized I could do something I loved and controlled my own hours. The hard part is juggling those hours.

Jennifer Moline writes about freelancing, small business and design for the PsPrint Blog. PsPrint is an online printing solutions company, which you can follow on Twitter and Facebook.

Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman used to have a clean public image. Until she got into politics, that is. The Republican California gubernatorial candidate is being sued by her former housekeeper.

Said housekeeper hired none other than celebrity attorney Gloria Allred, who most recently represented the marketing contractor who got Mark Hurd kicked out of HP. Reuters has more:

A former housekeeper to California Republican gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman surfaced on Wednesday to say that the former eBay executive knowingly employed her illegally and treated her poorly.

Allred also said that Whitman disregarded letters from the Social Security Administration notifying her that there were discrepancies with the Social Security number Diaz provided. A tearful Diaz said she came to Whitman in June 2009 for help getting legal status, but that Whitman angrily fired her instead.

Allred is a shark–and also a friend of Whitman’s Democratic rival Jerry Brown, according to Reuters. Whitman, meanwhile, provided copies of a US Immigration employment eligibility verification form, a Social Security card, and a California driver’s license for Diaz.

This is hard for Whitman’s tough-on-immigration platform. As a former Californian, I think Whitman was playing by the same don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy that many people in the state use. As long as her maid was doing a good job and charging a reasonable rate, Whitman had no reason to inquire into her legal status. Whitman did the legal thing by firing Diaz when she found out that Diaz was in fact illegal.

But then she didn’t report anything to the authorities. That would have been in line with her current platform. Whoops.

Incidentally, this isn’t Whitman’s first incursion with the law. The New York Times reports that she settled with another employee after an altercation:

In June 2007, an eBay employee claimed that Ms. Whitman became angry and forcefully pushed her in an executive conference room at eBay’s headquarters, according to multiple former eBay employees with knowledge of the incident. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter was delicate and was deemed to be strictly confidential.

Two of the former employees said the company paid a six-figure financial settlement to Ms. Kim, which one of them characterized as “around $200,000.”

I still think the points against Whitman’s character are pretty weak. She lost her temper. She did a Californian don’t-ask-don’t-tell on her maid, until her maid shared some news that made her try to save face. It makes for good political drama, but that’s about it.