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IRS e-Newsletter

Even though I'm an information guy by trade, I'm sometimes the last to learn about new resources. I was flipping through a print newsletter that we get from the Georgia SBDC, and it had on the front page an article that looks useful: "The IRS has started a news service, e-News for Small Business . Distributed every Wednesday, it brings timely, useful tax information right to your computer, including, but not limited to: * Important, upcoming tax dates * What's new on the IRS web site * Reminders and tips to assist businesses with tax compliance *IRS news releases and special IRS announcements e-News' convenient format will put IRS tax information at your fingertips. "Useful Links" brings you quickly to some of the most useful information on IRS.gov for large and small businesses and the self-employed. To start your FREE subscription to e-News , just go to IRS.gov , type in your e-mail address and submit." And if you didn't hear it here first, th

Doing Business: Benchmarking Business Regulations

This World Bank site offers a picture of the regulatory costs of doing business. You can look at a map decorated with different colored flags to indicate the level of difficulty of doing business there - ranking issues like starting a business, obtaining licenses, employing workers, registering property, paying taxes and closing a business. For instance, the US ranks as number 3 for ease/difficulty of starting a business, with a 22 for obtaining licenses and a 6 for enforcing contracts. Taiwan ranks in at 62 for enforcing contracts and 148 for obtaining licenses. The Dealing with Licenses Report totals up the number of procedures and days to producing a license; the Trading Across Borders has a summary of number documents needed for export, cost to export per container. Singapore tops the chart for ease of starting a business, followed by New Zealand, United States, Canada and Hong Kong. The site also offers a tidy summary for each country like this one for Denmark .

Business Advice Column

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We've added a new feature to the NYS SBDC home page ! I mentioned having a "Business Advice Column" when the site revision first came out, but due to lack of content, it hadn't happened. Until now. So thanks to Doug Boyce and the folks in Mid-Hudson for sharing their articles with Mary, and through Mary, me. If you have any pieces that would fit in this space, please send them along. Items that haven't been published or have no copyright relationship with a newspaper or publisher would be especially welcome. I'm planning to change articles every two weeks or so, and articles will be archived here .

I-9s for independent contractors

A question we were asked recently: Does a business need to get I-9 forms (employment eligibility verification) from its independent contractors? My answer: No. And yes. No, it’s not required of them, but if someone, say Wal-Mart, had a bunch of illegal immigrants working 60-hour weeks with no overtime on their behalf, that would look bad for Wal-Mart. Wait, that DID happen . From this law site : The government is looking beyond the mere labels of "independent contractor" to see if the employer had knowledge of its contractors' practices. In this type of environment, prudent employers who do not want to be the target of a federal investigation or prosecution will review their immigration law compliance efforts and make sure that they, and their executives, are not aware of violations by their contractors... At a minimum, require your contractors to furnish you with copies of Forms I-9 and supporting documentation for the workers they bring onto your site. From this legal

Librarians are Cool

Of course, you knew that already. The rest of the world needed reminding, though, and I'm happy to report that our diligent public relations campaign is paying off. Two articles appeared this past week, focusing on how the newer generation of librarians believe that the skills necessary to bring people & information together in this digital age ought to mean that the musty old librarian stereotypes should fall by the wayside. I'm wholly in favor of that (though I'm hardly a "new generation" librarian . . . I'm young at heart). Check them out here: For New-Look Librarians, Head to Brooklyn (New York Sun - July 5, 2007) A Hipper Crowd of Shushers (New York Times - July 8, 2007 - registration required ) (By the way, our library doesn't use the Dewey Decimal System [we're a Library of Congress shop]. If you hung out with any of us in Ithaca, though, you'd know that we're still pretty snappy when it comes to classifying beverages from the ba

Minority and Women's Business Development Certification

A couple years ago, someone from Empire State Development came to our offices, asking us to help them in the process of getting businesses certified as minority- and/or women-owned. Someone (probably me) asked what the turnaround was, and we were told it was 8 to 10 months. Yikes. At the NYS SBDC staff training a couple months ago, the same question came up, and we heard that the processing time was half the time it used to be, with even more improvements expected, thanks to the efforts of the Lieutenant Governor's office. Here's the application . The things I found most encouraging is the fact that applications from other entities, such as Port Authority, are now being accepted by ESD. Here's the applicable legislation and a website with more information .

Helpful Websites for Client-Authors

The two questions that our author-clients frequently ask the most are, "What publishers specialize in my subject area?", and "Where can I find an agent?" For the first question, I recommend visiting AcqWeb's Directory of Publishers and Vendors . Note especially the section titled "Publisher Web Sites: Subject Directory". By clicking on any of these broad categories, you'll be led to a page that links to the websites of several dozen publishers. For the second question, here's the text to an email I sent to an advisor last April. It's still accurate: "As for literary agents, I'll point you towards another website, here: http://www.writers.net/agents.html This site is more than just a searchable directory, though. Note the articles that appear on the right-hand side. They seem to be written by authors who've gone through the process, and have a lot of practical advice. (The first one - Gary Kessler's "Finding a Go

Working Life

I read a little blurb in the July issue of Entrepreneur Magazine called Temper, Temper! Apparently a Rice University research team has discovered moody office mates contribute to overall creativity and innovation. "When people are in good moods all the time, it can lead to complacency," says Jennifer M. George, professor of management and psychology at Rice University and co-author of the study. "A negative mood can give you that push to put forth more effort." The article offers some tips for managers of less than sunny employees.

Zip Code Maps

Zip code maps are helpful things in our line of business. Compiling data on certain geographies that aren't defined by city, town or county borders requires an understanding of how those communitites fit together, and zip codes can be a useful tool. So, here's a resource that combines the U.S. Census Bureau 2006FE Tiger/Line ZIP Code Tabulation Areas with Google maps, resulting in several types of maps, including zip code maps and hybrid zip code maps. The hybrids show roads and towns below colorful zip code boundaries, and you can also click for a satelite view (without zip codes) to see the lay of the land.

SBA's New Loan Program for Veterans

This month, the U.S. Small Business Administration announced the SBA’s Patriot Express Pilot Loan Initiative for veterans and members of the military community wanting to establish or expand small businesses. Here's a Hispanic Business.com article that links to the new section of the SBA website.

SustainLane - A Resource for Community Government Best Practices

Years ago I received a call from a director, looking for models from other communities regarding the conversion of dilapidated or depressed parts of towns. I thought of that immediately when I heard of a new website, called SustainLane . I wished this was around back then. Here's how it describes itself (from their home page): "Our open-source knowledge base speeds discovery, research and networking with more than 105 best practice documents and a secure directory of participating government officials from over 400 cities, counties and states." This "knowledge base" is searchable by a number of categories. Many of them focus on environmental issues, but there is a distinct category called "Economic Development". If you click on this, as of today the first document you'll see is a description of San Diego's "Abandoned Property Rehabilitation Program". Again, this would have been handy to have a few years ago. There are many others. Ke

Institute for Integrated Rural Tourism

" The Institute For Integrated Rural Tourism works with communities and individuals to develop tourism systems in which rural people and rural life patterns form the foundation of the touristic experience." This organization offers consulting and marketing services but also provides publications and workshops. One column is: Standing Out In The Crowded Tourism Market By Todd Comen, Associate Professor, Hospitality and Tourism Management, Johnson State College, Vermont, USA. They've also put together a book called: Integrated Rural Tourism Weaving Low Impact Tourism into the Economic Fabric OF Rural Communities Their web presentation: Telling the story of rural life patterns through the tourism experience .

Am I Entrepreneurial?

The Wall Street Journal had one of those tests to determine whether someone meets the "psychological profile of entrepreneurs here . But, as the article notes, "Not everybody agrees there is an entrepreneurial personality type." So, I'm looking for some AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION here. What tests, if any, do you use to gauge entrepreneurial propensities? Do you think they are useful or just a bunch of hooey? (If you're curious about my results, block the space below with your computer mouse.) Achievement 50 Affiliation 47 Power 39 Your score: You're motivated primarily by achievement. Most entrepreneurial people are driven by the need to achieve.

Where Are Search Engines Sending You?

Every so often, McAfee (the company that provides popular security software for home and business computers) evaluates the safety of the links generated by the most popular search engines. In early June, they released " The State of Search Engines " as a 2007 follow-up to similar reports written in 2006. If you've ever run a site analysis using McAfee, you'll know that they use a color-coded system to flag sites that feature security risks such as spyware loaders, high-volume spam generators, hyper pop-up ad creation, etc. This particular study theorizes that people rely on search engines to get what they want. So, the company reviews just how frequently search engines expose you to sites that they consider dangerous to your computer's security. Here are their key findings: Overall, 4.0% of search results link to risky Web sites, which marks an improvement from 5.0% in May 2006. Dangerous sites are found in search results of all 5 of the top US search engines

New Look for the Blog

Well, you've seen it. What do you think? (What?? She wants me to comment on the blog?? I couldn't possibly do that!!) Maybe we'll keep this new look, maybe we'll change it. And your opinions matter. Either way, stay tuned, for new logos, headers, and maybe even some sort of feature to make it easier for us all to communicate in this space.

Extreme Commuting

CBS Sunday Morning had a story a couple weeks ago about The Ever-Growing American Commute . The subtitle is "People Are Living Farther From Cities And Enduring Longer Commutes So They Can Have Large Homes". Much of the background data for the story comes from Commuting in America III from TRB. While one can buy the whole report for $60, there are important (free) data available in the summaries. The most interesting thing I learned is that the commuting patterns are not just from the suburbs to the central city, but from a suburb of one central city to a suburb of another central city. The implications of this is that carpooling and mass transit are almost never available options in these situations; thus, individual - no passenger - use is on the rise in many areas. Yet, there is this countervailing trend: "Although immigrants make up less than 14 percent of all workers, they represent about 40 percent of those in large carpools. The percentage is particularly high amo

Entertaining!

(For this Monday, we could have the only blog in America without a posting about last night's episode of "The Sopranos". So, welcome.) On the theme of entertaining cultural events, I found amusing this link that Roger forwarded to me this morning: http://www.worldalmanac.com/blog/2007/03/calling_all_librarians.html It makes a reference to a post that appeared here last December. The blogosphere is nothing if not self-referencing, but I'm a bit bummed that our title is considered "less entertaining" than other library blogs out there. Just the title - not the content itself. Maybe a name change is in order. Any ideas? "Library Card CataBlog"? "Blogolicious"? I'll take suggestions.

How to Create Simple News Alerts

As I think most of you know, I'm always on the lookout for news articles about the SBDC and our clients. Some of you are great about sending me new pieces that feature your workshops and successes, and I love you for that! I frequently use simple alerts from Yahoo! and Google to find mentions of the NYS SBDC in internet news sources. A few days ago I wrote up some basic instructions for one director, describing how to set up your own alerts. I thought they might be useful to everyone, so here they are: Setting up Yahoo! Alerts : Select “News” Select “Keyword News” Type in the keywords that you are interested in. I have two alerts set up here: One for “ SBDC ” and the other for “Small Business Development Center.” Those are broad, but since I am looking for all the NYS centers, “New York” may never appear in the article. I get a lot of articles I have no interest in, but I skip through them quickly, and catch things I might have otherwise missed. For your center you may w

Local Update of Census Addresses (LUCA)

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I attended the State Data Center Affiliate meeting last month. Periodically over the next few weeks, I'll be sharing things I've learned. The big thing the Census Bureau his working on is the 2010 Decennial Census. It may seem far away, but there is a lot of preparation that goes on. Even though the charge of the Census is to count people, the Census first needs to establish residential addresses where they can send forms. There is something called the Master Address File. They ask local officials to verify the addresses they have, through a program called LUCA . Of course, addresses change in in obvious and not-so-apparent ways. New construction will add to the housing stock, while demolition, including fire and natural disasters, will reduce it. But a change of usage will also affect the housing stock; for instance, an office building that turns its upper floors to apartments or condos will add to the roster. So will turning a one-family home to a two-family home by creating

NFIB Releases Small Business Health-Care Survey Results

This link describes the contents of a recent (May 2007) study conducted by the National Federation of Independent Businesses regarding small business' attitudes towards the health care system. As you can imagine, the "survey . . . identified cost as the single most important problem facing the health system today." (A link to the full report is provided.) As a provider of health insurance options to its members , NFIB has a vested interest in this issue. If your clients don't know of these options yet, perhaps you should give them this link.