New York SBDC Research Network

Hooray! As I imagine most of you have received Brian's email, you now know that www.nyssbdc.org has a new look and some organizational changes. Many thanks to all who contributed suggestions and materials for this revision. It's definitely still a work in progress (Yes- no one likes the request for counseling form. Folks will have to sit down to decide what information we need to collect here and what we should do with it before any major edits occur.) The center sites have a new look, but the same information. We will make every attempt to tackle a major revision of those pages in the near future, so start thinking about what you'd like to see on your center's pages. I hope, however, that some of the organizational changes will better allow the central site to change and grow. And I hope that our clients' happy faces on many of the pages will encourage others to give us a call. Comments, questions and suggestions (as always) are greatly appreciated. Happy New Year...

IE 7 is here - got in our office last week -with all sorts of new features such as: Phishing Filter Proactively warns and helps protect you against potential or known fraudulent sites and blocks the site if appropriate. The opt-in filter is updated several times per hour using the latest security information from Microsoft and several industry partners. This means, starting early next year, the address bar in Internet Explorer 7 will turn green when surfing to a legitimate Web site--but only in some cases, not all. "But the new system adopted for IE 7 has been causing friction, too. Initially, only corporations will be able to get the [green color] online trust indicator--a rule that shuts out smaller businesses. While the CA Browser Forum is still working on final guidelines that would include all legitimate Web sites, those could take a while to complete." Microsoft's Phishing Filter turns address bars yellow if on suspicious sites and red on confirmed phishing sites. ...

Well, not that it has helped me this time, but I’m sure these sites will come in handy one day when I am in my next plumbing crisis. Today, I leave it to the professionals. If you are ever so unfortunate as to be in a wet situation, perhaps these sites might help: www.Theplumber.com "theplumber.com web site, has been called one of the "best web sites" by the #1 on-line multimedia encyclopedia - Encarta" "Even Encyclopedia Britannica has linked to us in the past as one of "The Web's Best Sites" "World Book On-Line Encyclopedia specially selected theplumber.com by their Editors as well theplumber.com was rated a Hot Site by USA Today" Plumbing at DoItYourself.com http://www.doityourself.com/scat/plumbing Plumbing on Wikipedia.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumbing www.plbg.com The Plumbing Education and Information Sharing Site www.Toiletology101.com Basics of Indoor Plumbing & Toilet Repairs ~~Murphy's Law~~ "If someth...

When we get a question about starting a specialty food business we frequently turn to Stephen Hall’s From Kitchen to Market for some practical advice. There is now an accompanying website for the book, complete with a free discussion forum and a Food Entrepreneur eZine, available at http://www.specialtyfoodresource.com/ . The eZine has a variety of short, helpful articles and the issues are archived. The forum includes topics like “Pricing your product,” “Getting distributors” and “Understanding the industry” and Mr. Hall seems to be a frequent contributor. Looks like a great way for our clients to ask questions of other entrepreneurs and an expert in the field.

American Consumer Satisfaction Index "ACSI reports scores on a 0-100 scale at the national level. It also produces indexes for 10 economic sectors, 43 industries (including e-commerce and e-business), and more than 200 companies and federal or local government agencies. The measured companies, industries, and sectors are broadly representative of the U.S. economy serving American households." A blog post from a Usability and Design firm called Adaptive Path . The blog as a whole is rather interesting, too. A recent National Retail Federation/American Express study placed Amazon at the top of online and brick & mortar stores . *** And, apropos of nothing, Keith Richards turned 63 yesterday.

Sometimes I come across a site and marvel at the amount of work put into its upkeep. A few weeks ago, I read about a site called NationMaster . It's a site where you can glean data for a single country from a huge variety of topics (economic, geographic, income, labor, religion, and on and on). The site originates in Australia, but collects data from a wealth of resources and arranges them in a very easy interface. Since our clients are interested in importing and/or exporting with just about every nation on Earth, this site is extremely helpful. As a bonus, this site links to a companion page called StateMaster , providing an additional wealth of data for each state in the U.S. These two sites are great for us researchers, and great for kids out there with a paper to write on the main exports of the Maldives. (And speaking of kids & the Maldives, NORAD once again presents its annual Santa Tracker website . For those of you interested in tracking ol' St. Nick on Christ...

The Future of Web Ads is in Britain The New York Times By Louise Story and Eric Pfanner Published December 4, 2006 According to this article Britain is leading the way – way ahead of the US in terms of online advertising and suggests that maybe we can learn from the UK experience. eMarketer NOVEMBER 27, 2006 “An emerging consensus paints a positive picture. The trend began early last week, when the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) released new data showing that US Internet advertising revenues reached a record $4.2 billion in the third quarter of 2006.” British Online Ad Spending Outpacing U.S. By Nearly 2 to 1 Seeking Alpha Posted on Dec 4th, 2006 Carl Howe ( Blackfriars Communications ) The Federal Trade Commission – Facts for Businesses Dot Com Disclosures A guide for the ecommerce marketer.

On Monday I finished a question about marketing to baby boomers. That night, I happened to see a piece on the news on marketing to baby boomers. That to me is a sign that I should blog about marketing to baby boomers. Here are a few interesting articles (and a video) that discuss some prominent marketing campaigns, the use of baby boomer celebrities in advertising, and offer some information about boomer spending patterns: Business Week: Love Those Boomers US News: Oldies but goodies (Personally, I would never refer to baby boomers as "oldies." The nerve!) MSNBC: Baby Boomers Create New Marketing Frontier

Parody: copyright infringement or fair use? It depends. One interesting article that my colleague Amelia came across is "Who owns Barbie?; CORPORATIONS ARE SUING ARTISTS OVER POP CULTURE ICONS" by John Petrick, in the September 25, 2005 Sunday Record (Bergen, NJ) "Parody by its nature requires that you make reference to the original. So once something is determined a 'parody,' there's a lot of breathing room," says John Koegle, an attorney who represents artists. Nevertheless, some companies feel they should be able to control any depiction of their work in public life. And in some cases, they have prevailed. There was the 1978 case in which Disney sued an underground cartoonist who depicted Mickey Mouse engaged in various adult behaviors . While the artist argued it was clearly parody - or "fair use" under the law - the court didn't buy it and ruled the images were copyright infringement. In 1994, on the other hand, 2 Live Crew was sued fo...

I freely admit to finding ideas for this blog from other blogs that I read. Not everything, mind you (I am capable of some original thought). For instance, not long ago I read on ResourceShelf.com that the editors of the World Almanac - that most venerable of reference tools - had created a blog of their own last October 1st. I received my first World Almanac as a Christmas gift when I was eight years old. I won't say that I heard my calling as a librarian that very day (there was an ill-fated stretch of years when I felt destined to play centerfield for the Red Sox), but it was certainly a harbinger of things to come. The WA blog won't necessarily be of everyday benefit to you & your clients, but I include it here as a tribute to an old friend.

WHO: Thomas P. Ochsenschlager, vice president of Taxation for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), will host the SBA’s December Web chat on "Year-End Tax Planning for Small Business Owners." Chat participants will receive valuable information about the importance of year-end planning and steps small business owners can take to reduce their 2006 tax bills, as Ochsenschlager answers questions on year-end tax savings. WHAT: The SBA’s live Web chat series provides business owners the opportunity to have discussions online about relevant business issues with experts, industry leaders and successful entrepreneurs. Participants have direct, real-time access to the Web chats via questions they submit online in advance and during the session, with instant answers. WHEN: Thursday, December 14, 2006, from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., ET. Ochsenschlager will answer questions for one hour. HOW: Participants can join the live Web chat by going online to www.sba.gov , and cl...

Want to see some SBDC folks on TV? The Mohawk Valley SBDC turned 20 years old, and Syracuse's News 10 was there to cover it. Luckily for the rest of us, this clip is online too, here . I wanted to share the fun, but also remind you all to send me your clips, your news articles, your business advice. . . It's nice to share.

The Handbook of New York State and Local Taxes provides a general descriptive overview of the taxes which New York State and its local governments impose, and is revised periodically to reflect recently enacted law changes. It does not include non-tax revenue sources such as motor vehicle fees and the Lottery. Instead, it focuses on taxes, especially those administered by the Department of Taxation and Finance. To download the entire publication, the October 2006 Edition, please visit here . *** Tax Department Announces Discontinuation of Publication 352, which is Income Tax Forms and Instructions and Selected Corporation and Withholding Tax Forms . However, the CD-ROM of the publication is available for sale. View the document . *** For you policy wonks, Streamlining New York's Sales Tax: Examining Requirements for Compliance with the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement The Streamlined Sales Tax Project was founded in March 2000, with the purpose of developing measures to simp...

Recently, Walter Reid from the Farmingdale SBDC forwarded me an article that originally appeared in Derek Gehl's E-Business column , part of the Entrepreneur magazine website. The article presented brief, straightforward strategies to boost traffic to small business websites. It is not geared at those who are super-proficient in the ways of website marketing, but rather to the (I suspect) vast majority of business owners who are not. I'm not going to reproduce the article here, mainly because I went to his website & found many, many articles of his that were worth telling you about. The worth of an article is not always just what it tells you, but what thoughts it triggers in your head. Each of these provides a wealth of suggestions & links to other sites, and might be worth keeping in mind the next time you have a tentative e-businessperson in your office. (Thanks, Walter!)