Posts

Business Births & Dissolutions - Statistics

Here's a handy site should you be approached by local media asking "How many small businesses were started or disappeared around here in the last few years?" The Census Bureau has a section on their site which they call their Business Information Tracking Series . The page presents a series of links to spreadsheet files, providing data showing growth/decline of businesses (small or otherwise) over specific two-year periods (2002-2003, 2001-2002, etc.). Each shows data by the U.S. in general, as well as by state & specific industry sector. Lately, they've also been providing data on metropolitan areas, too. If you click on "Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), totals" under the 2002-2003 banner, you'll be presented with a fairly substantial spreadsheet. Each MSA takes up three lines: "Initial year establishments," "Establishment births," and "Establishment deaths". In column D, for example, you'll notice that

Web 2.0

I have become fascinated by the “latest phenomenon” in cyberspace (there’s probably a new one already), the rise of social computing and such – or, what they are calling “Web 2.0.” Here is a brand new article about its impact on the business world: Fast Company, The Network Unbound And an older one on the same general topic (a sort of preview of a book by the same name): Wired Magazine, The Long Tail Here is an excellent article giving an overview of the phenomenon, from a reference librarian’s blog: Infotangle (blog), The Hype and the Hullabaloo of Web 2.0 Incidentally, the concept is also being applied to libraries, as “Library 2.0” You can read more about that here (a Squidoo “lens,” - a sort of pathfinder). -Ben Ropp

Global Brain

I’ve mentioned www.trendwatching.com before but Amelia and I were talking about the customer-designed phenomenon and I thought I’d check back at trendwatching.com to see what they were calling it – since they like to come up with so many snappy names for trends, and sure enough their May/June Trend Briefing is “ Customer-Made Update ”. This is becoming a popular way for companies to build interest in their products. Some I have noticed is L.L. Bean who’ve created “build-a-tote. Land’s End do it for jeans. Now the world of bespoke is becoming available to the masses. Even children’s medicine can be adjusted to be palatable to your tot’s tastes. Consumers are used to being able to communicate with their favorite brands and maybe these companies are seeing that the customer really is always right. It’s the ultimate lesson: don’t create a product and then look for a market, create a product that is needed or wanted. Check out this site to see how companies are innovating with borr

More on Networking!

The hunt for the elusive national networking association continues… A couple months ago, Josee mentioned the social networking sites. Here are a few links to organizations that are more about benchmarking and connecting entrepreneurs and small to mid-size companies. Need the email address of a friendly expert willing to answer your question? Try: The Entrepreneurship Network http://www.tei.net/ask.asp The website provides “A database of hundreds of experienced solution providers compiled to facilitate "networking" and assist the growth of mid-market companies.” Users can search for experts by specialty or geography yielding full contact information. Need help benchmarking? Want to discuss how other companies manage their billing process (or one of dozens of other topics)? Try: The Benchmarking Network http://www.benchmarkingnetwork.com/ Offers lists of benchmarking resources organized both by industry and by process. Each topic seems to have its own benchmarking association t

Tax Department Unveils New Electronic Service to Help Businesses Properly Report Local Sales Tax

Last week, New York State Commissioner of Taxation and Finance Andrew S. Eristoff announced a new Department service that helps businesses more accurately determine which local sales tax jurisdictions should receive revenue from certain sales tax transactions, and the correct sales tax rate to apply to those transactions. Sales tax on purchases is generally credited to the county or city in which the sale occurred, the service performed, or the tangible property delivered. However, problems arise when vendors use zip codes to determine the local taxing jurisdiction for New York addresses. Because postal zip codes may overlap county or city boundaries, sales tax revenue may be incorrectly credited to the wrong local taxing jurisdiction. Sales Tax Jurisdiction and Rate Lookup Important Information Sales Tax Jurisdiction and Rate Lookup

Angel Financing

Looking for angel investors for any of your clients? Check out these sites: 1) vFinance, Inc. - Angel Search - Here, you can search a database with "[o]ver 20,000 potential angels" by any number of variables (amount needed, industry & subindustry, state, ZIP, etc.). Searching is free. However, there is a fee for purchasing the complete record of any angel investor. 2) Inc.com (June 2005 issue) - Directory of Angel-Investor Networks - Provides links to any number of Web sites, depending on the U.S. region in which the company is located. When your client has secured a meeting with a potential angel, he or she might also want to check out a page called " Pitching Angel Investors ," located on the Web site of the Kauffman Foundation. The page is a collection of articles on how a company can prepare itself to maximize its chances for financing when meeting with angels.

Props to Public Libraries

Image
The Library: Next Best Thing to an MBA Across the country, public libraries are giving would-be entrepreneurs ahelping hand with resources and expert guidance. May 30, 2006 Business Week: Small Biz By Stacy Perman Public libraries get their due in this Business Week Small Business article. The author talks about entrepreneurs who discover " that owning a business takes a lot more than just raising money and finding a location". The article discusses how business-owners can learn how to write a business plan, create a website, and praises librarians as "the most valuable resource". Apparently, according to a 2006 study by the American Library Association , 61% of small businesses found libraries to be important in getting them started.

Local Business

Image
I was working on a question one afternoon about goat milk. After finding part of my answers elsewhere, I went to Google to enter the term. I looked over to the right side of the screen, to the sponsored section of the page and came across local.com , which I clicked on. Lo and behold, lists of goat milk retailers in Albany from nearest location out! Well, not exactly. After picking up the handful of goat milk (and dry goat milk) sources, it picked up goat cheese and other products. Still, it was a useful piece of the reference puzzle for a product that doesn't lend itself to a lot of local data.

Health Insurance Deductibility & Entrepreneurial Survival

This is a 31-page PDF file , written by SBA's Office of Advocacy and published in April 2006. It states that health insurance premiums paid by wage & salary employees receives a different tax treatment than those paid by self-employed individuals. This paper explores how the tax treatment of self-employed health insurance premiums affects entrepreneurial decisions. Clearly, this is of interest to the sole proprietors among our clients.

What Time Is It?

Image
Here's the current time in places all over the world. I suppose one could just find out the UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), a/k/a Greenwich Mean Time or Zulu Time, and subtract five for the eastern U.S. Except that Britain is currently on Daylight Saving Time, which started a week before the United States in 2006. Except that DST will start the second weekend in MARCH in the U.S. in 2007. BTW, Australia went OFF DST the same weekend the US went ON DST this year. Of course, parts of the U.S. (Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the parts of Arizona not controlled by the Navajo) DON'T go to DST. Starting in 2006, all of Indiana is now on DST. Thus, the web link. Note, that it's Daylight Saving Time, not Savings - it's a common mistake.

Darrin and Suzy Are Gettin' Hitched

Image
Old Norwegian bachelor farmer Darrin Conroy is getting married tomorrow. O.K., he's not that old, I'm fairly certain he's not Norwegian, and his horticultural skills may be in question. But Darrin and Suzy are indeed tying the knot. They became good friends some years ago when they worked in the same building, before it evolved into romance. Before he left work Wednesday, I reminded Darrin not to forget to breathe tomorrow. He indicated that was the exact same advice he got when he went skydiving, almost exactly a decade ago. He wondered if there was a relationship between matrimony and skydiving. I say Yes - both involve jumping, one the broom, the other, out of the plane. Even though it will be a Christian wedding, both Suzy and Darrin have agreed to take the Buddhist approach to the busyness that leads up to the ceremony and take it as it comes. If you'd like to contact Darrin, please be aware that he'll be out of the office until June 8. If you call him, the mes

Chasing Innovation

While driving to work on Monday, I was listening to a story on Market Place on NPR called Chasing Innovation by Scott Jagow. It started off discussing research & development departments of large business and how things have changed from striving to maintain secrets and maintain the lead to finding new ways to be competitive. This broadcast discusses how huge companies like Proctor & Gamble are looking to small businesses for their next best thing. The transcript is available on American Public Media . With small businesses always looking at how to get their products marketed, this feature offers some advice on what partnering with the likes of P&G can offer as well as how the entrepreneur should protect him/herself.

It's Meeting Time!

Image
Meetings: we can't stand them, but we don't seem able to live without them. Either the meeeings are pointless, overlong, or all top down. You sit there waiting for that three minutes of a kernel of an idea that made your hour and and a half investment marginally valuable. Perhaps these articles from BNET can help. Registration is required, but it's free. Reinventing The Staff Meeting Solutions At A Meeting Meeting-Speak: What to Say and How to Say It Take A Hike - Planning Dynamic Business Meetings The Gang's All Here We've Got to Have a Meeting. How Do We Ensure that It Is Productive?

SBDC's "What's Your Signage?" Receives National Recognition

Last December, you might remember that the SBDC's 2004 publication "What's Your Signage?" was recognized by the New York Library Association as being one of two winners of the 2004 New York State Notable Documents Award. Each May, the Library Journal announces winners of Notable Documents from Federal, State, and International agencies. Among other nice things, our earlier recognition resulted in the book being entered into this competition. I'm happy (and humbled) to announce, then, that, on May 15th, I received word that "What's Your Signage?" was designated as being one of the most Notable Government Documents in the U.S. in the State category, one of only 10 winners so honored. One of the judges remarked that "it has been a while" since New York had a document on the list. (If you care to know of the others, there's a lengthy article here: http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6332169.html .) The Library Journal is the profess

Where is Everyone?

Just some basic info on where we are now and how you can reach us, in case you've lost the email that went out on the subject, here it is again: Our new physical address for UPS, FedEx, Airborne etc. is: NYS SBDC State University of New York 3rd Floor 22 Corporate Woods Albany, NY 12211 The US Postal Service address is: NYS SBDC State University Plaza Corporate Woods Building Albany, NY 12246 Main Line 518-443-5398 Fax Line 518-443-5275 Amelia Birdsall 518-641-0603 Frances Carner 518-641-0604 Darrin Conroy 518-641-0605 Kevin Crider 518-641-0606 Josee Fonseca 518-641-0607 Beverly Ford 518-641-0608 Brian Goldstein 518-641-0609 Roger Green 518-641-0610 Cheryl Hoffman 518-641-0611 Mary Hoffman 518-641-0620 John Joel 518-641-0612 Jim King 518-641-0613 Lori Kitchen 518-641-0614 Martha Pollock 518-641-0616 Mike Ross 518-641-0617 Al Scher 518-641-0618 Jinshui Zhang 518-641-0619 As you may have noticed, we are just starting to get back on our feet. We are still experiencing some lack of ser

Searcher

Image
You're writing something and you discover you have been using the same word repeatedly. Do you reach for a dictionary or a thesaurus? Maybe. Anoother possibility is to go to the Word Web dictionary and word finder of over 280,000 words and phrases. A free software version at the site adds proper nouns, pronounciations and more definitions. There's also a paid version ($19) which allows for wild card word searches, the ability to solve anagrams and more. I found the information above in a magazine called Searcher: The Magazine for Database Professional. Each month, there is at least one free article online: April 2006: The People’s Law: Free Legal Help and Legal Research on the Web with a list of sites. March 2006: Wikipedia and Britannica: The Kid’s All Right (And So’s the Old Man) January 2006: Shhh!!: Keeping Current on Government Secrecy November/December 2005: Another Phine Kettle of Phish: Identity Theft Prevention

A Period of Transition

We're here in our new library space, located with the rest of SBDC Central. As you know, we're now out of downtown Albany, which has its pluses (no more listening to car alarms beeping incessantly outside my window), and its disadvantages. Nonetheless, our computers are working, the phones & e-mail are in order, and the library books -mail is back & running, so we can communicate with the outside world. Back to reference tomorrow!

Demographic Ring Studies

Image
The recent SBDC conference in Catskill reminded me of a tool I use for ring studies. Go to http://www2.easidemographics.com/ . Click on FREE Census Reports. You'll have to register with your e-mail and ZIP Code, but that's free as well. Pick EASI Ring Studies Site Selection with Maps. You can pick one or three rings. Pick a report - try the Free Complete Report. Filling in the report name is optional. You need the latitude and longitude of what you want to study, so plug in the street address, and click on Find Address Coordinates. (You CAN'T use "the corner of Trade and Tryon".) With the next fields filled out, click on Create Site Study. Voila; the report is done. There is also some mapping capacities here and elsewhere in the site. There is also Rank Analysis (e.g., the counties with the greatest number of people with Masters Degrees, or with an Asian population.)

Sphere

Sphere touts itself as an improved search tool for blogs, promising current and relevant results. One thing about it is it indexes entire sites and so your search term may only be mentioned in a blog. When I typed in SBDC, I got a list of mentions emboldened, with the name of the site, how long ago it appeared and a profile in the form of a pop-up that includes average posts per week, and the last 3 links in. The first in the queue was Roger’s blog, and various other mentions of SBDCs around the country. Some other search tools of interest? Talk Digger our website came up in a mention about our veteran’s program. Blogdigger http://www.nyssbdc.org/ did not appear in a simple search but a search on sbdc brought up a mention about the SBIR conference. Google Blog Search brought up mentions of sbdc and the url in various blogs.

American Time Use Survey

Image
The American Time Use Survey (ATUS) measures the amount of time people spend doing various activities, such as paid work, childcare, volunteering, commuting, and socializing. It is a relatively new survey from the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, and there are changes from the 2003 to the 2004 questionnnaire, so there are not always comparable figures. Much of the data are in ZIP files, and frankly, I found it to be quite cumbersome. Another source of this type of information can be found in this 2001 Harris poll , something you can actually read right away.