New York SBDC Research Network

I heard two stories on the radio this morning – back-to-back. The first was about how the income divide is growing in this country between rich and poor (which you hardly need research to see). The second was about how the US has fallen from 1st in the world for technology adoption to 7th according to the 2006-07 Networked Readiness Index put out by the World Economic Forum www.weforum.org , which measures the adoption of information and communications technology. This year, the number one spot was taken by Denmark, which has been steadily advancing, followed by Sweden, Singapore, Finland, Switzerland, the Netherlands and then the US, Iceland and the UK. To my mind, these issues are related – the fact that wealth is not spread, that cell phone use is a status issue here more than elsewhere. Requiring that people sign on for two-year plans in order to get a cell phone also is responsible for there being fewer cell phone owners than elsewhere. US Drops in Information Technology Rankin...

Does anyone out there have a basic powerpoint presentation discussing the NYS SBDC and what we do? I bet someone does. We'd like to help you share this type of information. At many special libraries, employees are required to submit copies of all their reports and presentations to the central library. The librarians then "sanitize" these documents- taking out personal information and the like, cataloging them, and making them available throughout the broader agency. Now, don't start sending us everything you do. But when you have something that might be useful for someone else, why not share it? We'll be happy to take out (or leave in if you prefer) identifying information. I know I'm always asking for things for the public website, but what about sharing things internally? We can, and should do that too. And the Research Network would love to help.

Stolen from BUS-LIB: The person was looking for "any kind of electronic source, preferably FREE, that would notify me in advance of an earnings announcement of a U.S. public company. Not sure if any one is the best one, but the majority of the ones recommended to me certainly do seem to provide exactly what I wanted." Here's the summary: Forbes has a pretty nifty site: http://forbes.ccbn.com/earning.asp?date=20070213&client=forbes It gives Highlights, Earnings, Webcasts, Conference Calls (with links!)and major Economic Events. You can search by company ticker or by date. Earnings Whispers http://www.earningswhispers.com/calendar.asp Cantos http://w3.cantos.com/cantos/dyn/main.php?t=a (Primarily limited to UK companies.) Many firms also offer email notification of upcoming events of interest to investors...check the "Investor Relations" sections of websites of the firms you are monitoring. Of course, if you are monitoring a large number, that could be tediou...

Who among you haven't had a client who wonders or worries about being taken in an online scam? It's a topic I've written about since we developed this blog. Since e-mail & the Internet aren't going away soon, it might be helpful to you & your clients to read the Internet Crime Report: 2006 . It's a 27-page report issued from the Internet Crime Complaint Center (the IC3), and it provides insights into the current trends being used to con people out of their money via electronic means. (You can just read the highlights here , too.) The report identifies nine broad types of online fraud, including identity theft, investment fraud, phishing, spamming, cyberstalking, and other nasty things. Appendix II of the report offers tips on how to avoid falling prey to perpetrators, too. The report represents just a fraction of the online fraud that goes on. Most crimes don't get reported. If you or any of your clients feel like they've been victimized, have t...

InnovationTools provides entrepreneurs and innovators with a focused, growing collection of the best resources on business innovation, creativity and brainstorming. Our goal is to help you to learn more about the tools, strategies and techniques you can use to be more creative in your business -- and to help your company to increase its capacity for innovation and change. Brainstorming tools: http://www.solutionpeople.com/kbtool.htm A little about creative thinking and problem solving: Critical Thinking and Creative Thinking Skills Scott Isaksen's and Donald Treffinger's critical thinking and creative thinking model. By Mary Bellis adapted from materials written by the USPTO Mindmapping blog: http://mindmapping.typepad.com/the_mind_mapping_software/ focuses entirely on mind-mapping and lists many mind-mapping software products. http://thinksmart.typepad.com/headsup_on_organizational/ is another blog – this time on organizational innovation and mentions the supposed end of inno...

Unfortunatly, we at the Research Network don't always have access to as many sample marketing plans as we (and you too) would sometimes like. Palo Alto Software would like you to buy their "Marketing Plan Pro" software (much like our friend "Business Plan Pro"). But if that's not in the cards, they also offer a handful of free marketing plans at Mplans.com . These include plans for a bed & breakfast, shoe store, accountant, car wash, catering, fitness club and more. So while they don't cover every type of business, there is some variety and some fairly common businesses.

Hooray for Edgar Dworsky. Dworsky runs Consumerworld.org , which highlights consumer issues of general interest to the public. He says he scans 1,000 news stories a day to find links for his site. The site is funded by commissions from a shopping comparison tool and a long-distance service on the site. Now he has started Mouseprint.org ; the name refers to "print so small that only a mouse could see it." The site discloses that really small print at the bottom of some advertisements and those really fast-talking disclaimers on radio or TV ads. Here's one recent example: A $400 airline ticket will require 60,000 points. To earn 60,000 points under Capital One’s revised system where every dollar spent earns 1.25 points on their regular card [up from 1 point], you would have to purchase $48,000 worth of goods and services.