New York SBDC Research Network

I feel for small business owners - from my perspective, I hear their tales of woe and I am impressed with their initiative and drive. But every once in awhile I find myself on the other side of the equation as the small business customer and I really wonder how they function. I have been trying to find a contractor to do some work. It occured to me that I had already met a person refered to me by a local architectural planning non-profit- someone I trust and have faith would do a fine job. So I emailed him - via his web site. He replied promptly - to say that I should call for an appointment. And I thought, why? This is after all a form of communication. But I called, and left a message. Then he called me back and left a message. Then I called and left a message and then he called me at work on a national holiday and left a message and so on. And I thought, this is ridiculous. If he had emailed me back and said: "I have time here, here and here: choose one." I would have and...

Do you have clients interested in reaching the Generation Y crowd? You may want to recommend that they check out Ypulse: Media for the Next Generation - “Daily news and commentary about generation Y for media and marketing professionals…” Here’s a few highlights: “ College Student Love Their Video ” On any given day 19% of internet using adults download online video. 62 % percent of college students are watching, most often at their parents' houses . “ The Ypulse 2007 [Y]ear in Review ” Trends include changes in the gaming industry, celebrity gossip gone wild, and the expansion of virtual worlds. A link to “How Fashionistas Shop” is on this page (The short answer: they gather information online, but often make in-store purchases)

Now that the Research Network has a membership with Hill Library , I decided to take some of the free classes they've offered. One dealt with finding information about companies. Here are a few tips, some of which you know about, I'm sure. PUBLIC COMPANIES Reference USA database (available from Hill on a trial basis, but also found at many public libraries) Dun & Bradstreet Hoovers SEC/EDGAR ; if you don't know the stock market ticker symbol, check the CIK, for there may be several companies with similar names Big Charts - US and Canadian stock market wsjie.com - articles Annual reports (lots of sources on the Internet, many of them free); I found the Financial Times site easy to use Company websites Periodicals PRIVATE COMPANIES D&B, Hoovers Secretary of State of the state in which the company is incorporated Secretary of State association site www.nass.org . (Incidentally, the NASS has 2008 Presidental primary information , as well as a regional Presidential ...

Here's a new tool to help businesses see how they do in comparison to the rest of their industry. Entrepreneur.com and a research organization, CentrisPoint , have teamed up to create the Business Performance Dashboard . The Dashboard provides business performance data by industry, and covers quite a few. The data describes all businesses in that industry, as well as top performing companies (the top ten percent), including stats on average revenue, revenue per employee and years in business. Thanks to the J.J. Hill Library's " Business Web Site of the Week " for pointing out this resource.

I sometimes get the impression that our advisors are less than inspired by some of the inventors they meet. It does seem that inventors are so taken with their idea they have not actually stopped to see if anyone else has done it. This always amazes us - but also we do see some odd but interesting ideas. It is hard to imagine them in the world. Today I was reading an article in the most recent issue of Inc. Magazine (Feb 2008) by Joel Spolsky called " Inspired Misfires: Why the most important innovations are often those that appear to be fatally flawed " which goes into some of the hallmarks of truly original idea. He says it's easy to buy into some ideas precisely because they exist already. The hard to imagine ones are - new. Time Magazine Invention of the Year 2007 A review of all the wacky and wonderful products that have come out in the past year. And then this morning, a friend sent me an email with this list of nifty products . I try to keep an open mind - and ...

The following appeared originally in the October 2007 "LaGuardia SBDC Quarterly Newsletter". It is an interview with an owner of a successful manufacturer & distributor of ethnic food items. I think that it could be of interest to any number of our clients. It is reproduced here with the permission of the LaGuardia SBDC. My thanks to them. *** House of Spices was started in 1970 with one store in Jackson Heights, New York by brothers G.L. Soni and Kumar Soni. In the following years they experienced extraordinary growth and opened up warehouses around the U.S. that import, store, manufacture, and distribute over 3,000 different food items from all over the world to the ethnic as well as mainstream markets. The following interview was conducted with Mr. G.L. Soni: Q: House of Spices has grown to be a large and successful wholesaler with exclusive distributorship of major food labels including several of its own. However, it all started as a small retail store. Lookin...

How does the economic safety net really hold? See The Effects of Taxes and Transfers on Income and Poverty in the United States: 2006 from the US Census.