First, a new academic journal on business valuation: James Hoffman and Brad Ewing, professors at Texas Tech, are the co-editors of a new electronic publication, the Journal of Business Valuation and Economic Loss Analysis. The first issue, due in September, "will consolidate the research from finance, accounting, and sometimes business strategy research to add academic rigor with a sense of practicality," says Hoffman. Subscriptions are $35 per year, and are available at www.bepress.com/jbvela.

And, second, Chris Mercer, in his blog last week (www.merceronvalue.com), points out that expert witness services are growing at 40% per year. BV firms should be strategizing about how to win more of this high growth market. Mercer notes that the growth of the expert witness business has been the subject of several blog posts recently. “If I did not use the blog-gathering power of My Yahoo!, I'd have missed all this information. Reading blogs, I have found, is a good way to access information I might otherwise not have seen,” Chris comments.