New York SBDC Research Network

March Road Tour: 4 Cities. 6 Workshops. 24 Opportunities to Grow NY Agriculture. State Agriculture Commissioner Patrick H. Brennan announced "March Road Tour," a series of workshops that will enhance the awareness and understanding of economic resources available for the agricultural industry. "Over the past eleven years, Governor Pataki has established numerous programs and incentives to assist farmers and agri-businesses in New York State," Commissioner Brennan said. "We want to make sure these resources are known and thoroughly understood, so they can be utilized effectively on the local level. I encourage anyone interested in agriculture, from farmers to local elected officials, to take the time to attend one of these sessions and learn what the Department of Agriculture and Markets has to offer you and your business." The free sessions will run from 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at the following dates and locations. • Tuesday, March 14 Canton Best Western, ...

As my own wedding day approaches, people around Central know that wedding planning details are never far from my mind. Last week, though, it was sheer serendipity to find a site called The Wedding Report . Clients involved in any of the numerous industries related to weddings would find this site interesting. While the site is primarily interested in selling market research reports, it does provide enough free snapshot data to be of immediate use. The site shows the average amount spent by couples on receptions, invitations, apparel, hair, etc. You can see data on a state-by-state basis (go here for New York State ), or enter a ZIP code and get more precise county-level data. $26,800 for a wedding in Albany County! Good thing I work for the SBDC . . .

Have you ever sent an e-mail that was misinterpreted? The recipient's response showed that your message was completely misunderstood? Apparently, this happens a lot. An article from Wired.com states that recent research shows that people have "only a 50-50 chance of ascertaining the tone of any e-mail message" yet "people think they've correctly interpreted the tone of e-mails they receive 90 percent of the time." This might not be too much of a problem at home but be careful - "many companies battle workplace lawsuits triggered by employee e-mail." See Wired.com for the complete article .

Today I was asked if I knew of any networking Internet sites for small business. I tend to see those geared specifically to a particular industry but I thought, there must be some tools for this sort of thing, after all, people love to get connected. So, I came up with a list of tools, while not specifically geared to business applications, certainly could be. It’s kind of sideways from what I started out looking for, established sites with a ready made group of contributors gathered to broadly discuss issues facing small business owners, but, if you can get a group of people on board, potentially very useful. Of course, they are all only as good/active as their members so I suppose, they are what you make them. Some of these do smack of elitism which is annoying at best. I have no personal experience on any of these sites so if anyone else can vouch for any of these or other sites, feel free. Keep in mind that the oldest and probably best networking opportunities come through profes...

Podunk: a term for a quintessential "jerkwater town" . E-Podunk, though, is a great website when trying to find information about places all over the country, including, but hardly limited to, Podunk, NY . One can find a list of attractions, communities, media, cemeteries, and much more, within a certain radius of the town. It provides links to sources of businesses, Census data, weather and much more. The community information is useful, especially gathered, as it is, in one place, though one could find the data in various locations. However, the religion by county data is not readily available in most sources. They've provided studies of the most liberal place in each state (for NY, Ithaca), best home town (Batavia), highest coffee quotient (Westbury). Single women should move to Wyoming County, single men to the Bronx. The item I'll likely use the most, however, is the ancestry section, which delineates the places with the greatest concentration of peoples of diffe...

We receive a lot of questions on behalf of clients who have new recipes and new food products, but aren't sure on how to bring them to market. For them, I'd recommend either (or both) of these: 1) Northeast Center for Food Entrepreneurship - This group is part of Cornell University's "NYS Agricultural Experiment Station". The mission of this Center is to "provide comprehensive assistance to beginning and established food entrepreneurs, thus promoting sustainable economic development of rural communities." While they are not a source of grants or loans, they are a source of answers on things such as labelling requirements, laboratory testing needs, packaging, and other issues critical to the start-up of a new food line. 2) From Kitchen to Market: Selling Your Gourmet Food Specialty by Stephen F. Hall. 4th edition, 2005-06 The Research Network has this book in its collection. According to its blurb, this book "will show you how to: Identify a winni...

There seems to be a trend lately in offerings of online training for small business. This morning I came across the small business how-to seminars from the New York Public Library's Small Business Resource Center . Topics include: Pricing your product or service: Break Even Analysis Primer Quick Guide to Building a Successful Export Business Retail Essentials: How to Open and Run a Successful Retail Store Each session can be viewed in parts - watch the video and text slides together, or download the audio only to an MP3 player. You can also find links to other online training opportunities on the NYS SBDC web site.