The merger puts one of the credit crisis's good guys under pressure.

Back in June 2007, Elevation Partners placed a huge wager on smartphone maker Palm (PALM). In its biggest investment ever, the Silicon Valley private equity firm pumped $325 million into the company. The bet now looks like a bomb. On Dec. 1, Palm preannounced a nightmarish quarter, with revenues likely to come in nearly 50% below Wall Street's expectations. On Dec. 10, Palm's stock closed at 1.69, nearly 80% below the price Elevation paid for its shares last year.

Palm isn't the only problem for Elevation, a high-profile Menlo Park (Calif.) firm whose founding partners include financier Roger McNamee, former Apple finance chief Fred Anderson, and U2 frontman Bono. Elevation has done just six deals since it was created four years ago. It owns a stake in the parent company of Realtor.com, which is struggling through the housing meltdown, and it also owns around 40% of Forbes, which like many magazines faces a difficult media advertising environment. "They're in a tough spot," says an investment banker familiar with the firm. "It's hard to see where they go from here."

Few telecom experts think the Palm investment is leading anywhere good. The Sunnyvale (Calif.) company pioneered the smartphone market in the U.S. with its Treo line of products but has fallen far behind rivals such as Research In Motion (RIMM), Nokia (NOK), and Apple (AAPL). Palm's share of the U.S. market has dropped from 23% to 8% in the past two years, according to research firm IDC. "There's no room for treading water and product delays in this market," says IDC analyst Ryan Reith.

Elevation is in better shape than some others in private equity. It never made aggressive use of debt. It was able to sell one investment, a video game company, to giant Electronic Arts (ERTS) for a solid return. And it still has roughly half of the $1.9 billion that it raised for future deals. But unless Palm recovers, Elevation will struggle to deliver decent returns to its limited partners. That in turn could hurt its ability to raise money for investment funds in the future.

Elevation's partners insist Palm is poised for a comeback, and they point to an engineering effort being overseen by former Apple hardware czar Jon Rubinstein. He joined Palm last year as executive chairman, as part of Elevation's investment in the company. With the help of Dan Walker, Apple's former chief recruiter, Palm has brought in dozens of veteran techies interested in working on breakthrough gizmos. "I'm very confident about our plan," says Rubinstein.

NEW PRODUCT GAMBLE

The moment of truth will come at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. Sources say Palm will finally unveil an oft-delayed new operating system, as well as the first in a new family of smartphones. The company won't discuss details, but McNamee says the products will be different from anything on the market. While RIM's BlackBerrys excel at e-mail and iPhones are tops for entertainment, he says Palm will create devices that help consumers easily meld work and play.

Palm doesn't have to vanquish RIM or Apple to succeed. With smartphones expected to balloon from 10% to 50% of the overall 1 billion-unit cell-phone market, Palm could triple its revenues by winning just a single point of the aggregate market. Indeed, McNamee and Rubinstein say they're modeling their plan on the resurrection of Apple, in which marquee products led to financial success. "We hold Apple up as the example of how to do this," says McNamee.

This may be Palm's last chance to get it right. The company says it will burn through about $33 million in cash this quarter. At that rate, its remaining $215 million will last a bit more than six quarters.

Winter brings an avalanche of year-end celebrations. Party season is at an all-time high, and, whether you're schmoozing with co-workers or mingling at a friend's holiday celebration, you become a pro at small talk.

"Can you believe it's almost New Year's already?"

"Is it just me or has it been colder than usual?"

"What do you do for a living?"

And then you're stuck listening to some workplace story that will make you wish the eggnog were stronger.

You don't mind hearing someone's work stories; you just hear same boring ones year after year. Honestly, you're just as guilty. (That hilarious misunderstanding regarding a decimal point might have had the other folks in the office rolling on the floor, but don't expect the same reaction from everyone else.)

Until you can think of some plausible reason to skip the myriad of holiday gatherings, prepare yourself to make more idle chatter. But if you're lucky, you'll encounter a few guests who have unusual jobs and even more unusual stories.

Here's a list of eight occupations you should hope to come across at a social gathering. (Admittedly, some of the most fascinating stories they have to tell you might make you lose your appetite for the hors d'oeuvres, but they're worth it.)

1. Funeral home director

Why: Even if you never watched an episode of "Six Feet Under," you can imagine the kind of unusual situations funeral home directors encounter. You'll find out just how fascinating the funeral business can be.

Stories you'll hear: Unusual funeral service requests; memorable deaths.

2. Wedding planner

Why: Few events have such a variety of emotions: Joy, frustration, anger, confusion, fear. Nuptials bring out the best, worst and unexpected of even the most loving families.

Stories you'll hear: Thousands of flowers flown in from obscure locales; left-at-the-altar heartbreak; mishaps with swans and doves at the ceremony.

3. Pediatrician

Why: Children are unpredictable and parents are panicky. Think about some of the unexplainable things you did as a child and how new parents worry about every little thing. Pediatricians get the brunt of this chaos.

Stories you'll hear: Baby swallows a priceless coin; worried moms and dads calling the doctor's home several times a night; toddler puts a marble up his nose.

4. Paramedic

Why: Those same children who end up at the pediatrician's office eventually grow up and do similarly strange things as adults. Paramedics respond to emergencies that might be tragic, awe-inspiring or humorous. Regardless, they see things you'd never imagine.

Stories you'll hear: A kid gets his arm stuck in a vending machine; a victim who somehow survives a massive car wreck; an adult puts a marble up her nose.

5. Photographer

Why: A photographer's life might not seem ripe for exciting tales, but it is. Portrait studios, brides and grooms, print and online publications, and crime scene investigation units employ photographers. Each client gives a photographer a new set of entertaining tales.

Stories you'll hear: Petty drama during a family portrait; all-night partying with rock stars; scary experiences documenting a war.

6. Executive assistant

Why: All assistants have horror stories of putting up with ridiculous demands, but executive assistants belong to their own exclusive club. The responsibilities of assistants working for high-level executives will make your jaw drop and your blood pressure rise.

Stories you'll hear: A CEO whose itinerary depends on that morning's horoscope; having to answer a needy boss's calls in the middle of the night; embarrassing moments with high-ranking business leaders.

7. Hair stylist

Why: Hair stylists often form such close bonds with their clients that they become confidants. Customers can be so loyal to one stylist or barber that appointments become sessions to vent or gossip about family and work.

Stories you'll hear: Haircuts gone wrong; tearful clients; personal confessions that should've been told to a therapist or a priest, not a stylist.

8. 911 dispatcher

Why: Most calls made to 911 concern critical situations that might not make for pleasant storytelling. Many people, however, mistake 911 for a catch-all hotline that will solve any problem, no matter how ridiculous it is. The calls that make dispatchers roll their eyes in frustration are the ones that make great conversation.

Stories you'll hear: Caller claims her fast-food hamburger is undercooked; caller just needs driving directions; caller needs help cooking her Thanksgiving turkey

Job-Keeping

Job security is a skill.

In Pictures: Seven Tips For Keeping Your Job

As we head deeper into what promises to be one of the worst recessions in living memory, there is certain to be less hiring and more firing. In this job market, it is no longer enough to be good at getting a job--you have to be good at keeping it.

According to a recent survey by Dice Holdings, a New York-based creator of career Web sites, two-thirds of companies are hiring fewer people and one-third are expecting layoffs in the next six months. Not too surprising. There have already been 120,000 layoffs since Nov. 1, just among the 500 largest American public companies, tracked on the Forbes.com Layoff Tracker.

Yahoo! Buzz

What's one to do? Being great at your job isn't enough--after all, no one is indispensable. All you need to be is more indispensable than the next guy.

In Pictures: Seven Tips For Keeping Your Job

Forbes.com Layoff Tracker

Take on extra responsibility. Run extra reports or volunteer for special projects. Consider organizing the office holiday party or other events (blood drives, volunteer programs). These activities will make you valuable even if your job no longer exists, says Jo Prabhu, chief executive of placement firm International Services Group. You don't necessarily need to work more hours; you need to diversify what you do with the hours you do work.

"Find your expertise," says Darryl Sample, who teaches managerial and business classes at University of Alaska, Anchorage, and Central Texas College. He suggests finding something missing in your pool of coworkers. Learn a few things about, for example, green energy, corporate social responsibility programs or the next big industry trend, then make a suggestion in line with your company's goals. All at once, you'll show forward thinking, an alignment with company objectives and skills or knowledge above the guy next to you.

Physical crime may not pay, but cybercrime certainly does--and it pays big for those with the know how to take advantage of it. Moreover, in some countries where technology is still in its infancy and laws don't exist or are only vaguely defined, it's even semi-legal.

On one level, this should come as no surprise. Laws often take years to catch up to technology. In places where technology is still developing, it will take even longer. But even in established economies it takes time to comprehend all of the ramifications of new technology and to figure out how that technology is actually used and misused.

Yet there's another level. Because the Internet is an open highway for data moving in all directions, it means criminals can work in one or more geographies, individually or in gangs. It also means they can reach across international boundaries and grab whatever they can through a variety of means--phishing, pharming or spear-phishing--without ever stepping foot in the country where the crime is committed.

Bad people with bad intentions do exist and, when they can get away with it, they often do bad things. For corporations, that poses both philosophical and legal problems--both of which fall squarely on the chief information officer's shoulders.

On the philosophical side, the biggest question is just how open should a company be? The free exchange of ideas is vital to an innovative company. In fact, the more the better, even if most of them aren't useful, and that generally requires interaction with the outside world. Locking down a corporate enterprise to keep out the bad guys is roughly the equivalent of air travel after 9/11. Prior to that, it was an acceptable mode of transportation. Now it's time-consuming, inconvenient and often just plain miserable.

Most people don't want to work in an ultra-secure environment, so it's up to the CIO to find a happy medium between the open, free flow of ideas and the legal problems that can ensue if company data gets out. That includes everything from intellectual property, which can be used by a competitor, as well as customer data that can create havoc if it falls into the wrong hands.

Corporations are entrusted with keeping personal information private. Adhering to minimum industry standards is no guarantee data won't get stolen or the company won't get sued. Even if a company ultimately wins in court, lawsuits are expensive to defend and can chip away at a company's well-earned image.

As chief executive of Mercy Corps since 1994, Neal Keny-Guyer helped turn the Portland (Ore.) relief organization into a global powerhouse with 3,500 employees and a budget of nearly $300 million. But he was taken aback last year when one of his lieutenants proposed the radical step of buying a bank in Indonesia. Why would a not-for-profit disaster relief agency go the capitalist route and buy a bank?

Gradually, though, he warmed to the idea. He saw that, if Mercy Corps operated a wholesale bank that could offer capital to some 2,000 local microcredit organizations and had an ATM network, it could help turn microfinance into a powerful force in Indonesia. Keny-Guyer was in uncharted territory, however. In the last days before the acquisition closed in May, he feared the risky gambit would end in disaster. "I imagined a newspaper headline saying, `Mercy Corps' Bank in Bali Fails,' " he recalls. "I thought of the reaction of our donors to that bit of news."

Now, as the renamed Bank Andara cranks up operations, Keny-Guyer is hopeful. If the strategy works in Indonesia, he says, Mercy Corps may try it in the Philippines next.

This departure from business as usual in the nonprofit realm is part of a major shift in the way people are taking on the world's social problems. In developing nations and parts of the U.S., governments have failed to make substantial progress against poverty, disease, and illiteracy. Traditional charities and social service agencies often provide Band-Aids for problems instead of long-term solutions. Now a new breed of do-gooder—the social entrepreneur—is trying fresh approaches. While the term is used in many different ways, there's a narrow definition that gets to the heart of what makes these people stand out: Rather than depending solely on handouts from philanthropists, social entrepreneurs generate some of their own revenues and use business techniques to address social goals. "Traditional ways of doing things haven't produced the kind of progress we all hoped for, so we're trying to come up with new approaches that are truly transformational," says Keny-Guyer.

The idea of the social entrepreneur has been percolating for decades, but it has become a mass movement in the past couple of years. Thousands of people are launching ventures and trying out new business models, both for-profit and nonprofit. Now that the global financial crisis is squeezing charitable giving, socially oriented organizations are pushing even harder to reduce their dependence on donors and generate their own funds. Lehman Brothers, for instance, was a generous backer of both nonprofits and social entrepreneurs. No more. In this climate, only the most efficient and effective organizations will thrive.

Social entrepreneurs are being backed in part by a new generation of super-aggressive philanthropists and social investors, including Microsoft (MSFT) co-founder Bill Gates and former eBay (EBAY) executives Pierre M. Omidyar and Jeffrey Skoll. These guys expect results from their social investments and grants. Says Gates in an interview with BusinessWeek: "Nonprofits are applying what we've typically thought of as business strategies for better outcomes, and businesses are beginning to apply what I call creative capitalism strategies to increase the positive social impact of their work. That's a powerful combination." He believes the most effective way to make social progress is through partnerships among nonprofits, businesses, government, and philanthropists.

It's not nice to say, but if GM collapses, it could be a good thing for some companies, states and workers.

More From Jerry Flint

I do not expect General Motors to shut its doors this month, next month or any month in the near future. Instead, I fully expect our Federal government, lame duck Congress or "new duck" Congress will write the checks to keep GM in business--at least for now.

It seems fair to ask what would happen if taxpayers do not rescue General Motors (nyse: GM - news - people ). I suspect that if Americans had a vote, they would turn down GM. The truth is that our people now buy more cars with foreign nameplates than with American nameplates. Another reality: Parts of the country would prosper if GM fell.

Of course, a GM collapse would be bad news for GM workers who would lose their jobs. Factoring in all the layoffs already planned and those to come, I estimate the number would be close to 75,000, with most of those job losses in Michigan and other Rust Belt states with GM plants. As far as the pensioners go, GM's pension fund is huge; those people would get their pensions, and retirees would get Medicare like the rest of us, instead of health benefits from a GM plan.

The scaremongers like to talk about 3 million jobs lost, all things considered, which means not just the factory and white-collar workers of the auto company but the parts suppliers, dealers, repair garages and hot dog stands outside the factories.

These same people continually remind us about the lost tax revenue, which might mean fewer pay raises for teachers and school administrators and hospital workers in the Rust Belt. These are politically terrible thoughts--the teachers' union and the medical workers' union are among the largest contributors to political campaigns.

My opposing viewpoint: An end to GM would not be the end of the world. We are not going to have to walk to work. Other manufacturers will build our cars and trucks. In fact, business will grow for the other carmakers.

GM sells 20% of the vehicles in America. Today's depressed market is on pace to sell about 12 million vehicles a year in the U.S., which means GM sales of 2.4 million. That is about 10 new assembly plants the others would need to build to replace the lost GM vehicles. Every car plant in the North America would have to run overtime to make up for the shut GM plants.

A third-quarter earnings report from Comcast (CMCSA) due on Oct. 29 could be the first major indicator of how well the historically recession-proof cable-television industry will fare in the current downturn.

It may be too early to know how far consumers are willing to go in tightening their household budgets. But some analysts believe cable services, from TV to broadband to phone, are no longer thought of by subscribers as discretionary, even though so-called triple-play cable bills usually exceed $100 per month. Sanford Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett went so far as to write in his latest report: ""Video and broadband are no more discretionary for most families than running water and electricity."

The third-quarter numbers from the nation's largest cable operator, with 24.5 million television subscribers, could shed some light on whether Moffett's statement rings true. Comcast did not make executives available for comment, citing a quiet period ahead of earnings. But last month, Comcast Chief Financial Officer Michael Angelakis told participants at a Goldman Sachs (GS) investor conference that he was "very concerned" about the ripple effect that Wall Street's collapse would have on consumer spending.

Even well before the recent economic turmoil, Comcast, prompted by the decline in new housing starts, began offering in 2007 economy tiers of service, giving consumers increased options for TV, broadband, and phone. Those rates, in some cases, are 20% less than Comcast's other established rates. These new services, though, include fewer channels and slower broadband speeds.

Comcast Promotions

Earlier this month, Comcast began promoting another offer to lure new subscribers, many of whom it believes are still using rabbit ears on TV sets: get basic cable for $10 a year, or free for a year if you buy any other Comcast service for $24.95 a month. A Comcast spokeswoman said the company has not released any data showing how well these promotions were doing in terms of adding subscribers. In turn, Time Warner Cable (TWC), the nation's second-largest operator with 13.3 million TV subscribers, has begun offering its customers the opportunity to lock in their current rates. If we can't help you save money on your current bill, promises Time Warner Cable, we'll give you a month of free service. Time Warner Cable reports third-quarter earnings on Nov. 5.