Disaster plans

Debate over the government's response to Hurricane Katrina raises questions about U.S. companies and how prepared they are to react to a disaster.

An Oct. 10 survey at the Association for Financial Professionals annual conference in San Antonio found that most, 55 percent, of the treasury and finance professionals queried thought their businesses were somewhat prepared for a natural catastrophe. About a third, 37 percent, said their organizations were well prepared. Only 8 percent said their companies were not prepared.

Almost half -- 47 percent -- of the finance professionals said their operations had been affected by the dual Gulf Coast hurricanes of Katrina and Rita, and 12 percent said they had suffered a significant impact.

Despite the severe weather's enormous effects on business and the economy, half the 1,000 survey respondents said their companies have no current intention to test their business continuity plans. About a quarter, 24 percent, said they had recently tested such plans and 26 percent said such a review was planned.

Investor trust

With prominent business leaders and politicians accused of wrongdoing over the past year, investors have grown much more mistrustful, according to a survey sponsored by financial services company TIAA-CREF.

The survey is used to develop the Trust in America Index, which measures investors' trust in a range of people and institutions including the media, the president, Congress and Fortune 500 CEOs.

The index fell sharply to 10.8 percent from 13.2 percent a year ago. It's based on the average number of people who consider each type of person or institution very trustworthy.

Over the past year, former WorldCom chief Bernard Ebbers, cable company founder John Rigas and ex-Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski have all been sentenced to prison. In addition, the war in Iraq has become a worrisome issue for many Americans, while politicians have questioned the future solvency of Social Security and mulled controversial options for changing that program. Hurricane Katrina also dealt a blow to investors' psyche.

"Continuing headlines about corporate scandals as well as the situation in Iraq have driven investor trust from low to lower in the past year," said Glen Weiner, a polling director at TIAA-CREF. "The drop in trust has had an impact on investor behavior as well -- making them more conservative with their investments."

The September telephone survey involved 1,001 people over age 30 with investment products.

E-mail clutter

Our inboxes are chaotic. About 17 billion e-mails, all kinds of spam, endless threads from 14 months back, junk from Mom sent to 1,200 people, colleague and friends' contacts, ad infinitum.

So what's your biggest e-mail peeve? A staffing firm posed that question to 250 people in advertising and marketing over the summer.

Almost a third, 29 percent, said being copied on the "reply all" function was the most irksome practice. An equal percentage cited receiving large, unsolicited files in their e-mail. About 16 percent said they found messages that are too long the most annoying e-mail practice when communicating with business contacts. Thirteen percent cited typos and grammatical mistakes and 6 percent cited having to scroll through the message to find the information they need.

"As professionals increasingly rely on e-mail to communicate, it becomes more time-consuming and cumbersome to manage messages," said Tracey Fuller, executive director of The Creative Group, a temp-staffing company based in Menlo Park, Calif. "When composing e-mail, it's best to be brief and identify what action is needed at the beginning of the message."