New York SBDC Research Network

Earlier this week while doing research on the Hot Dog Industry, I stumbled across the interesting article directory SME Medic . A business resource blog providing advice for companies looking for help with growing their business, the website provides tips, articles, guides, and solutions designed to "Take Your Business to the Next Level". There are 3659 published articles and 3203 registered authors in the article directory. You can find articles with interesting and useful information on most popular business themes, including: Advertising Business Startup Careers Computers Finance Human Resources Internet Marketing Legal Logistics Marketing Office Equipment Real Estate

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.

For those of your clients who would like to make and maintain contact within their industry but may feel a bit out of place in Facebook or MySpace, the social network arena still appears to be narrowing to a few main players. As much as people who write about these products often make it sound like there is only one reasonable choice: theirs; I'll be interested to see what lasts in the long run and becomes the standard. Will it play out that this is something we really need or will social network sites never replace the usual ways we keep in touch and make new contacts? It seems that whatever social networking program used has to come out of email. It seems silly to me to have to read my email to tell me to go to Facebook to read the message. What for? It has to be integrated - I have enough stuff to check up on with multiple email addresses. I was not aware of VisiblePath but now it sounds like a good solution. www.Jigsaw.com Jigsaw is an online directory of business people who

There are lots of information sources about corporations and executives, but I though this beta directory at Condé Nast Portfolio.com was quite nice. The site offers "company information, news, and financial data on more than 500,000 public and private companies" here ... .. and executive profiles, with "backgrounds, including employment history and compensation data, and news on more than 500,000 executives of leading public and private companies" here . And if you find that any of those executives should be incarcerated, why not send them this piece ( C.E.O. Survival Guide: Pre-Prison Prep ), to help them prepare for life in the slammer.