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Showing posts from July, 2006

Green Seal

Both Van Morrison & Kermit the Frog know that bein' green isn't easy. However, for clients whose businesses are environmentally-conscious, there exists the Green Seal website to help them out. Its home page describes this group as "an independent non-profit organization dedicated to safeguarding the environment and transforming the marketplace by promoting the manufacture, purchase, and use of environmentally responsible products and services." If your client has an environmentally-friendly product, a link exists to information as to how they can get a Green Seal certification to add to the product's resume. If your client seeks a "green" product, a link exists to a member directory that'll help find out who sells it.

CNNMoney.com Best Places to Live 2006

Two cities in New York State made the list: New York City and Ramapo. Have a look to see where your city ranks. Top 100 finalists City Population New York 8,143,200 Ramapo 112,500 Other cities City Population Albany 96,253 Amherst 114,942 Brentwood 55,720 Buffalo 285,058 Cheektowaga 77,785 Clarkstown 85,350 Clay 59,679 Greenburgh 89,942 Hempstead 58,010 Irondequoit 51,903 Levittown 52,577 Mount Vernon 69,884 New Rochelle 74,320 Niagara Falls 53,728 North Hempstead 223,903 Rochester 216,598 Schenectady 61,698 Syracuse 146,404 Tonawanda 59,894 Union 54,827 Utica 57,721 White Plains 55,763 Yonkers 199,611 Also, check out http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2006/faq/ for "how we picked fthe Best Places to Live".

Exit 5A Corporate Woods Blvd mile 3.9

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Have you ever tried to give driving directions and you just can’t remember the number of the highway exit you take everyday to get to work? Here’s useful tool. The Upstate New York Roads Site http://www.upstatenyroads.com/ An independent labor of love, this site provides massive amounts of information about New York’s highways. Find the highway you need, and the page provides a list of all its exits, complete with numbers and the towns or routes listed on the highway sign. You can even find out what vendors are in the rest areas! There is also a mileage chart, and links to other New York road web sites.

Of prototypes and other things

There's a column in the Wall Street Journal called "Small Talk", which currently appears every Tuesday. Readers are encouraged to send their small-business questions to smalltalk@wsj.com . A question last month was about prototypes. Columnist Kelly Spors recommended Thomasnet.com/ , from the people who put out the Thomas Register. Click on Engineering & Consulting, then Prototypes. Also, the United Inventors Association makes recommendations. Another more general useful tool from WSJ is the Startup Journal , from the paper's Center for Entrepreneurship, with tabs for franchising, finance, running a business and more.

Daily Candy

If you work at Central, you have the option of getting candy every day. However, that's not why I blog. Recently, I did a request for a client who wanted to open an environmentally-friendly cleaning business. As with many research requests, this one included an inquiry as to how to begin marketing this type of service. During my work, I came across the aforementioned Daily Candy site. It promotes itself as being "The Insider's Guide to the Sweet Life". It has several online "editions," each focusing on a specific metro area. One for New York City is available. Once there, the site fancies itself as a broadcaster of what's new, hip, or innovative in that city's scene - fashion, food & drink, beauty, etc. So I read an article on a "green" cleaning service that promoted itself through this site. It exists for businesses to promote themselves (as long as they meet the site's criteria), as well as for people looking for such pla

What will those search engines do next?

While it is not particularly new, visual searching seems to be catching on. With a visual search, users type in their search string, same as always, but results are displayed visually and clustered into subtopics, related areas, etc. The goal is to conceptually organize results and to allow users to look beyond the top 10 that appears in a traditional results list. Check out a couple of these engines on their own: http://www.kartoo.com/ http://www.grokker.com/ Grokker’s homesite allows users to “Grok” (and get visual result displays) using Yahoo’s search engine, but more and more databases are using it too. EBSCO Publishing and Factiva now use Grokker to provide a visual results display for several of their databases, and even the Internet Public Library, http://www.ipl.org/ , is now on board. Read more about the use of visual searches in these articles: http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6328082.html http://library.stanford.edu/about_sulair/special_projects/stanford_grokker.html

2006 Investment Company Fact Book

A Review of trends and Activity in the Investment Company Industry 46th Edition146 pages; PDF. ICI Investment Company Institute www.icifactbook.org For an overview of the investment landscape, this report lays out what investment customers are doing, and how the various investment funds work, and industry employment facts. This 146 page report offers a detailed look at how people are investing. It also includes a description of the roles involved and a glossary of terms.

Census budget slashed

You may recall that I have mentioned the American Communities Survey (ACS) and other enhancements to the Census process, contingient on the budget process. Those improvements have been severely compromised recently this past week, when the House of Representatives shifted $50 million from the Census Bureau to the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) program. From Census Briefs: Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Frank Wolf (R-VA) countered that the amendment would "devastate the census" and "impact fundamental missions of the Census Bureau." "The immediate ramifications are a disproportionate impact on vulnerable populations, irretrievable loss of testing opportunities to identify problems," the chairman warned, referring to efforts to improve coverage of historically hard-to-count populations in the census. Noting that the Census Bureau is "vulnerable" to cuts to fund other popular programs, Rep. Wolf said, "There is not a

FindLaw.com

An advisor recently called me on behalf of a client, who sought legal information relating to commercial leases. I'm very leery about passing as a legal research expert (that's a whole other world of librarianship, unknown to me). However, there does exist a site that attempts to provide insight into common legal issues (both individual- and business-related). It's called FindLaw.com , and its home page breaks down its contents into several recognizable broad categories (bankruptcy & debt, real estate, intellectual property, and so forth). By drilling down from there, you'll eventually encounter articles written in clear language that provide brief, introductory articles relating to a specific subject. The site is also useful for finding attorneys in the numerous specialties within the legal profession. FindLaw.com is similar in intent to the web site for Nolo Press . They're a publisher of self-help legal books, and have been mentioned in previous Research Net

RN Summer Interns

By popular demand, a little bit about our summer interns: Chunhui Song is a graduate student in the Department of Information Studies at the University at Albany. She obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Information Management & Information System from University of Science & Technology of China in 2000. Following graduation, she served as a Computer Support Consultant in China Construction Bank, Fujian Branch, and was responsible for providing technical assistance, support, and advice to the branch until she came to the United States. Chunhui started attending the University at Albany in January 2005 and will receive her Master’s degree in August 2006. She has worked as a student assistant in the reference department in the Science Library at SUNY Albany for one year. She is also a member of American Library Association and Special Libraries Association. "I like traveling. I have been to many places in China and plans to travel around the US as much as possible. My other int

Clip Culture

With broadband Internet access, comes the ability to do more, share more, in particular, the sharing of short clips, vlogs etc. Like when brief segments of video were circulated of the tsunami hitting a coastal hotel, or various humorous tidbits, stupid pet tricks, sports highlights and now more regularly, ads, and news stories. These video clips have for the most part been supplied by amateurs but I’m sure will become more popular in the business world. To help get businesses going, there is Coull , a British company, here to rescue those without video editing knowledge and get them playing too. They offer a software product called coullvlogger that allows the user to edit and upload video simply and quickly. Lycos offers JubiiBlog , a blogging service available in 7 European countries, is now using the coullvlogger tool to enable users to vlog for free. Another opportunity for business owners to get creative!

A Different Kind of Demographic

Each year Beloit College releases the “Mindset List,” a list meant to show the world view of incoming freshman. The list presents many of the things this class has not grown up with (like rotary telephones) and the things that have existed all their lives (MTV). There’s nothing too scientific here, but it is an interesting way to think about a group of people and to explore what seems normal to them and what doesn’t. While its target audience may be college professors, this type of information would be useful for anyone marketing to a younger generation. Check it our yourself: http://www.beloit.edu/~pubaff/mindset/ N.B. Okay, my class is still listed on the site, and I have to admit that it is not all correct. I do remember the Challenger blowing up, and just because I didn’t see the original “Mork and Mindy” doesn’t mean I didn’t catch it on Nick at Night…

Free e-books online

From our intern, Chunhui Song: The World e-Book Fair , sponsored by Project Gutenberg and World eBook Library, will be offering up to 300,000 books online from July 4 to August 4, 2006. Fiction, nonfiction and reference books plus classical music scores and recordings will be available for free downloading.

Five Words to Never Use in Advertising

From the Brand Identity Guru: Google the term "magic advertising words" and you'll instantly get over 8 million results. But caveat emptor -- don't buy into everything you read, because your prospective buyer certainly won't. From the time marketing began, there has never been a shortage of self-appointed experts who claim to have identified the words that will unlock your customer'swallets. In the Internet age their advice is even easier to come by. They promise that words such as "you," "guarantee," "easy," "limited-time," and the old standby, "free," will generate surefire results. If only it were that simple. As a smart businessperson, you probably know that there are no such things as magic words, particularly in a culture that has been saturated with advertising. But there's something else you should know: Not only do magic advertising words not exist, several of them actually work against you. And ch

Big.com

For those of us whose eyes strain at the end of the day from viewing the tiny text of Web sites, here's an option that might bring some relief. Big.com is a search engine that, among other things, enables a viewer to see search results (and photos) in a larger font. In addition, the site is now promoting their "Big Toolbar," a free download that can help you make any page look bigger. You can increase text size in Internet Explorer or Firefox, but this toolbar makes it an easier process.

Licensing

Licensing is a form of strategic alliance which involves the sale of a right to use certain proprietary knowledge (so called intellectual property) in a defined way. The intellectual property may be registered publicly, for example in the form of a patent or trademark, as a means of establishing ownership rights. Or, it may be retained within the firm: referred to as know-how, it is commonly based on operational experience. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licensing_(strategic_alliance) LIMA or the International Licensing Industry Merchandisers’ Association Who publish the Who’s Who Licensing Resource Directory and compile statistics and other information on the industry as well as organize an annual convention. Their website has licensing database available to members and a database of licensing agents and consultants open to all. Licensing and Licensing Agreements in a Nutshell also The Royalty Deal byRobert Townsend, Attorney At Law Is a good overview article on licensing and other informatio

Tasty Business

Grants are not so easy to find. So when I saw an article about a grant awarded to a company that sold New York food products, I wanted to know just who it was giving out this free money. Turns out it was New York State’s Grow New York program, a “multi-faceted program that assists the economic development efforts of New York's agricultural production, processing and marketing industries.” More information can be found at: http://www.agmkt.state.ny.us/GROWNY/GNYHome.html Looks like a good resource for those food entrepreneurs. From this site it is just a hop to the Farm & Market Search through the NYS Department of Agriculture & Markets. While the library has a paper copy of the Farm Fresh Guide, there is an online version as well: http://www.agmkt.state.ny.us/AP/FFGSearch.asp This database has information on different farm products or services organized by region or county, particularly useful for restaurants wanting to use local products. There is also the Farmers’ Market

Census of Government

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Perhaps you thought the Census Bureau only tracked people and housing. Or perhaps you were also familiar with the Economic Census of businesses. But did you know that there was an Annual Survey of State and Local Government Employment and Payroll? The 2005 data on the number of government civilian employees and their gross payrolls is now available. The 2004 report showed most full-time equivalent employees worked in education. Other employment categories include corrections, financial administration, fire protection, health, hospitals, judicial and legal, police protection, public welfare, streets and highways. For details, go to http://www.census.gov/govs/www/apes.html .