New York SBDC Research Network

State fact sheets provide information on population, employment, income, farm characteristics, farm financial indicators, and top commodities, exports, and counties for each state in the United States.

With the unemployment rate around 10% and five job applicants for every one job, there are many Americans who are finding themselves unemployed with little or no opportunity for employment in the near future. When this happens, why not create a new job (or jobs) by starting a new business. An article in the New York Times titled On to Plan B: Starting a Business recently said "CALL them accidental entrepreneurs, unintended entrepreneurs or forced entrepreneurs. A year and a half into the Great Recession, with the jobless rate hovering near double digits, corporate refugees...are trying to fend for themselves." For more information, read the articles below or contact your local NYS SBDC office here . How to Become an Entrepreneur During a Recession Becoming an Entrepreneur Can Provide Hope During the Recession Breaking the Recession Illusion to Become an Empowered Entrepreneur

Since May 6th, we at the Research Network have been damn lucky to be borrowing Amy Peker to help us out with the research. She started out in early 2009 as student help. We brought her back for a summertime gig because, well, we needed the help. Some of you (well, 57, to be exact) have been on the receiving end of her work, which I consider to be professional grade. Today, sadly, we have to bid her goodbye, and good luck. She's a librarian now . . . all grown up, and no longer an intern. Amy learns quickly, and has a laser-like focus. She was getting the hang of learning the art of reading between the lines of research requests (something that she'll never really stop learning), and then pick among the resources at our disposal to best answer what was asked. We'll miss her unique sitting posture, her love of Wheat Thins & all manner of snack crackers, and her adventures in dog training. We've never had a rugby player/librarian before - such a person is good t...

Remember the intern at Morgan Stanley who shocked his bosses when he reported that he and his peers weren't all that into Twitter ? According to a recent New York Times article, he seems to be correct about teens and Twitter. " Who’s Driving Twitter’s Popularity? Not Teens " examines the demographics of Twitter users, and argues that technological tools can succeed, even without the trendsetting prowess of the teen crowd. It's a good lesson - not every online tool needs to be marketed to the under-18 crowd, after all they are notoriously fickle, and some applications are just better suited to adults.

I found two interesting articles at ConnectIT USA last month. They seem to be two sides of the same coin. In Risky Business: How repeat customers may jeopardize your future , Jeff Mowatt suggests the possibility that "some folks who spend their money with your organization may not enjoy doing business with you at all. As a manager, how do you know that your customers are in fact loyal? Ask. In a round-about way, that is." When you read his example, I'm guessing many will nod with pained recognition. Mark Cox, in Strengthening customer relationships in times of crisis , posits: During times of economic crisis, organizations struggle to communicate unfavorable news, from lower earnings and shrinking market share, to cuts in service and increases in prices. The conventional wisdom is that bad news damages customer relationships and breeds mistrust among consumers. However, a new Simplicity Survey...finds that delivering bad news is an opportunity -- if done in the right ...

Haven't stolen borrowed from the Hill Library lately: A couple great resources to find statistics and resources on industry and business in Canada. Industry Canada is the place to go if you're looking for information on the state of Canada's industry. It includes business tools for start-ups, as well as information on electronic commerce. Use the company directories to research companies, or search for information on statistics, financing, innovation, research, science and technology, regulations and standards, and more for Canada. Canadian businesses and start-up entrepreneurs can use Canada Business to reduce "the complexity and burden of dealing with various levels of government" when attempting to start or run a business. Canada Business covers a range of relevant topics, from starting a business to taxes to selling to government. You can access Canada Business services via Web, email, or phone.

On the New York State Small Business Development Center's website today we have debuted a new section titled Recession Survival Guide for Small Business . The guide is intended to help small business owners' throughout the recession by focusing on certain topics that are universal to any small business. The subjects discussed are Advertising, The Internet, Doing Business with the Goverenment, Labor Force, Economizing, and Going Green. Each section is designed to help a business owner re-evaluate their current way of thinking to maximize the expenditures and effectiveness of each business aspect. As an ongoing document, we would welcome any comments regarding other topics business owners would be interested in reading about.

We see a lot of information on making the most of referrals, having reciprocal relationships with other businesses, but they all assume you've had your first customer. These are a few articles on starting somewhere to get that first customer. Getting Your First Customer Strategies: Getting your first customer takes work 8/7/2009 3:58 AM By Rhonda Abrams USA TODAY Recognizing the difficulty of getting the ball running, the author suggests some ways to build clientele. OnStartups Startup Diaries: Getting Your First Customer This blog entry offers a different point of view for a software developer. Getting Your First Customer: 2007 Entrepreneurship Conference Interactive presentation by Chuck DeVita, Growth Process Group. This is a video presentation from Stamford University on the same issue.

Based on how often I talk about it, you would think that I really enjoyed the movie, “Minority Report.” Well, I didn’t hate it, but there’s one part that made me really excited. You remember in the beginning, where Tom Cruise is pushing around holographic images with his hands? I want that. I’m almost there, now that I have two computer screens and can drag open windows from one screen to the other, but it's still not quite as much fun. If those holographic screens are the vision of the future for projecting images, what do you think the communication devices of the future will look like? Designers at Motorola had a go, and the results look like they’d fit nicely in almost any futuristic flick. Which one do you want? I like the bracelet…. Design World: What will communication devices look like in 2033?

I came across this article by Jeff Wuorio. "When it comes to your company's Web site, there's no shortage of advice on what you absolutely have to have there. But little is often said about those elements that should never see the light of day." Wuorio lists his nine items and the reasons. I'm going to give my observations about his major points. 1. Your photo on the home page. Interesting. Feels right. Heck, I don't even have my photo on my personal blog. 2. Visual (and audio) overkill. I HATE sites that start music as soon as I go to them. Partly, it's because I'm usually already listening to music. Partly, it's because their music is usually treacle. It happens a lot at music and wedding-related sites I go to. Sites that take too long long to load, I abandon relatively quickly. Virtually all studies suggests my reaction is the norm. 3. Too many confusing menu options. I took this website design one-day course once - I was visiting a friend in M...

comScore describes itself as "a global leader in measuring the digital world and the preferred source of digital marketing intelligence". I'm fond of their "press releases" page, as it provides links to brief articles featuring measurements of users of the Internet from countries around the globe. In the past, I came to rely on sites like this, only to see them stop publication of material without any warning. I'll keep my eye on this one, as it seems pretty hip. Pass it on to your e-clients, too.

Last night I attended an event hosted by the Albany Business Journal . The Biz Mix was a networking opportunity that brought together individuals from all types of business throughout the Capital Region. The Albany Business Journal is an American City Business Journal , the nation's largest publisher of metropolitan business newspapers. ACBJ's metropolitan business newspapers reach 4 million readers each week with exclusive, in-depth coverage of their business communities. Every day I recieve emails from the Albany Business Journal that keep me informed about local and national business news. ACBJ operates in 42 metropolitan areas throughout the U.S. and the websites associated with the 42 journals reach 8 million unique monthly visitors. I also recieve invitations to events like the one I attended last night, which provide a great forum to meet other business indivduals in the community. I highly recommend to any business individual to check out their local business jou...

If you've asked us for any information about the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in the United States, you probably saw the 2004 report, "Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use Among Adults: United States, 2002," with a note that this was the most up-to-date and comprehensive info available. Well, I'm happy to say there's a new report on the subject. " Costs of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) and Frequency of Visits to CAM Practitioners: United States, 2007 " was released by the CDC on July 30, 2009. The data covers a wide range of CAM practices, including energy therapy, acupuncture , biofeedback, hypnosis and massage, providing data on out of pocket costs, practitioner costs, and number of visits per year.

The Census Bureau released three Economic Census reports last week: 2007 Economic Census: Arts, Entertainment and Recreation Industry Series 2007 Economic Census: Construction Industry Series 2007 Business Expenses for Wholesale and Retail Trades Unsurprising, I suppose. But Census has also recently released Reports on Residential Vacancies and Homeownership , which showed "National vacancy rates in the second quarter 2009 were 10.6 (+ 0.4) percent for rental housing and 2.5 (+ 0.1) percent for homeowner housing...The Census Bureau said the rental vacancy rate was higher than the second quarter 2008 rate (10.0 percent) and higher than the rate last quarter (10.1 percent). For homeowner vacancies, the current rate was lower than the second quarter 2008 rate (2.8 percent) and lower than the rate last quarter (2.7 percent). The homeownership rate at 67.4 (+ 0.5) percent for the current quarter was lower than the second quarter 2008 rate (68.1 percent), but not statistically different...

New software titles are added to the marketplace on an hourly basis. We don't subscribe to any database that promotes itself as being up-to-the-minute with their listings. However, for requests that seek software to perform a certain function, I typically look at one or both of these sites: 1) STORES Software Sourcebook (courtesy of the National Retail Federation) - This is updated annually, and the link here refers to their 2009 version. You can search by keyword, or by the category of software being sought. 2) SoftScout - The Business Software Encyclopedia - According to its latest tally, this website has information on 24,615 products. It also can be searched by keyword & category, as well as by broad industry category and operating system. Remember these. Bookmark these. Refer these to clients who are looking for software help.