New York SBDC Research Network

As I mentioned back in July , the American Community Survey is now the new source of Census data. Go to the Data Sets section of the Census page . Click on any of the tabs to the right (data profiles, detailed tables, e.g.) Pull down the counties of New York. You'll only find 15 of the 62 counties for the state: Albany, Dutchess, Erie, Monroe, Onondaga, Orange, Rockland, Westchester, plus the counties of New York City and Long Island. Why is that? Because this is data based on sampling, and only the locations that have 250,000 people have data that are "statistically significant" in this round. You'll also notice that the data are presented differently than you may be used to, with a lower bound and an upper bound. In fact, these parameters have been calculated before, but not shown. Next year, the threshold will be 65,000, as the Bureau expands the process. The places with 20,000 to 65,000 people will be calculated based on a rolling three-year average, so there w

Some of you may have already seen this, but I'm posting here for general consumption. This and other SBA news items can be found here . "SBA Increases Small Business Size Standards Due To Inflation Interim Final Rule With Request For Comments SBA has adjusted its monetary-based size standards (e.g., receipts, net worth, and financial assets), for the effect of inflation that has occurred since the last inflation adjustment in February 2002. Since the last inflation adjustment, the general level of prices has increased 8.7%. This action restores small business eligibility to businesses that have lost that status due to inflation. In addition, this rule changes the process for determining the size of small business concerns applying for SBA Business Loans and Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL) from a test considering only the primary industry of the applicant, to a two-part test considering both the primary industry of the applicant and the primary industry of the applica

These days I'm feeling a bit out of the loop. I'm not up on the latest trends in fashion. So, when we took a recent request on hip-hop clothing, I knew I had to do some background research. One of the clients was interested in several brands. I found myself getting nowhere on my search for the brand Academic. I tried doing a literature search, even narrowed the search to a specific fashion industry publication, WWD (Womens' Wear Daily) , but found nothing. Darrin stopped by and I explained my quest. He suggested that the spelling of the brand might not be so obvious (and I had already searched for Baby Phat , another spelling for a clothing brand that wasn't exactly intuitive). I pressed forward searching under alternate spellings and lo and behold , there is a hip-hop brand called Akademiks . If you have a research request for a brand, company name, or trademark, you'll save the Research Network some time (and get more accurate information) with the correct spellin

These are books offered to the Regional Centers from the RN shelves. In most of these cases we have purchased the latest edition. While in some cases it is not advisable to rely on information from an outdated volume, some of these may still be quite useful. Please contact me should you be interested in having any of them. First-come, first-served. Bond’s Franchise Guide 1999 DMA Statistical Factbook 2001 Franchise Opportunities Guide 2002 Kids Count Databooks 2000, 2001, 2002 New York Public Sector The Community Sourcebook of County Demographics 2004 The Community Sourcebook of Zip Code Demographics 2004 The Lifestyle Market Analyst 2004 The Service Business Planning Guide by Warren G. Purdy The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2003

The Empire State Development Library created a list of the NYS County zip codes arranged alphabetically. "Please note: Zip codes bear no relation to county or other administrative boundaries. They are established by the U.S. Postal Service for mail delivery. In many cases a zip code may cover areas in more than one county." For instance, 10466 is primarily a Bronx ZIP Code, but it also appears in part of Westchester County. Albany County, NY (county) Zip Code(s): 12007 12009 12023 12041 12046 12047 12053 12054 12055 12059 12067 12077 12083 12084 12110 12120 12122 12143 12147 12158 12159 12183 12186 12189 12193 12202 12203 12204 12205 12206 12207 12208 12209 12210 12211 12303 12304 12309 12469 Allegany County, NY (county) Zip Code(s): 14060 14065 14536 14708 14709 14711 14714 14715 14717 14721 14727 14735 14739 14744 14754 14777 14802 14803 14804 14806 14807 14813 14822 14836 14846 14880 14884 14895 14897 Bronx County, NY (county) Zip Code(s): 10034 10039 10451 10452 10453 1

Last week, I sought an answer for a client who was planning to open businesses in more than one state. Part of the question focused on which state, then, should her corporation be registered in. I found some information in a book we have in our collection. Here's an excerpt of what it says: "So what state should you incorporate in? It's my opinion that you should incorporate in the state where you are doing business. That is, where your office is located. There are only two reasons to incorporate in another state - first, if you are going to have offices in many states, and second, for tax planning. If you are going to have offices in more than one state, Nevada makes a good choice because it is 'friendly' to corporations. Also, since Nevada has no state corporate income tax, you can lower your taxes by shifting income there from a taxable state. Needless to say, this is a sophisticated tax strategy meant for those with large tax bills and a good CPA. The b

This article gives an overview of author Kevin Maney's quest to identify the top inventors in the U.S. His own attempt to cull a list from the database of the United States Patent and Trademark Office proved futile. He called in some experts who were also befuddled and concluded: "The question, with variables including inventors with same last names and multiple names on patents, is apparently a database operator's nightmare." So, Maney was left to try other avenues to come up with some prolific patent-holders. The top inventor may surprise you. Click on the title of this entry, Top Inventors , to find out.

We’ve all grown accustomed to a certain amount of SPAM in our e-mail accounts, and I know many who choose to sacrifice an account on one service or another to SPAM while keeping their main address free of junk. Naturally then, there are products available to outfox spammers. Here are a few. GishPuppy.com Assures you can “take back your email” by registering with their free service which enables you to make aliases that you can use for online registrations and then easily delete whenever you want. This service is praised for it’s simplicity. Jetable.org Disposable Email These aliases automatically expire after a certain amount of time; 1 to 8 days. They are not connected to your actual email at all, so the down side is they stop forwarding to your regular email when they expire and cannot be manually reinstated. Emailias.com Offers a few more features. You set up an emailias button in your toolbar and when a registration asks for your email address, you click that button and it generate

It used to be that when I would Google for some obscure statistical figure, as often as not, I would hit on something from Statistics Canada , which would be irritating, because I wanted numbers for the United States. Statistics Canada is a centralized statistical agency that serves the federal and provinical governments. It originated in 1919 as the Dominion Bureau of Statistics. It conducts over 400 surveys. While some of the raw statistics are available on the page, many of the reports are only available for a price. It is supposed to operate on a cost-recovery basis. One section that is totally free, as far as I can tell, is the Canadian Census . It is similar to the U.S Census in that it depends on self-enumeration (the US since 1970, Canada since 1971). Both countries use short forms (100% response requested) and sample data long forms. Some of the geographies (metropolitan areas, census tracts, blocks) are comparable. Conversely, Canada has collected data about religion since

We frequently receive requests on behalf of clients who are Native American, wondering if they qualify for any grants based on their heritage. As usual, there aren't any grants available specifically for Native American businesses. Recently, though, I received an e-mail that announced the arrival of a company called Native American Capital . Their mission, according to their Web site, is to "foster and promote business and economic development in Indian Country through investment of private equity capital in promising new and developing high growth businesses in Native American and Alaskan Native communities." As they are new, I don't have much information as to their effectiveness. However, if you've clients of Native American descent who have a promising business venture, this is a potential source that ought to be investigated.

Allyn Hirsch, Certified Senior Business Advisor, at Stony Brook, has retired after 10 years of service. Allyn’s background was in the defense industry and expertise in engineering and technology, which had enabled him to offer clients a wide variety of assistance, especially manufacturing companies and inventors of technical products. He had assisted clients in obtaining venture capital as well as traditional bank financing. Allyn is a graduate of Polytechnic University with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. His last day was November 30. He was one of the top five counselors in 1998. We in the Research Network will miss him, not only because he asked really well defined questions, but also because he always showed a personal interest in our well-being.

Ever come across information on the web and wondered about its accuracy? Here in the Research Network we try to evaluate web content by checking for: credibility authority reliability relevance date sources behind the text, and scope and purpose. For example, a recent article in USA Today found a false Wikipedia 'biography' for John Seigenthaler, Robert Kennedy's administrative assistant in the early 1960s. Seigenthaler himself found the inaccurate text on Wikipedia and his son located the same inaccurate information on Reference.com and Answers.com. "Representatives of the other two websites said their computers are programmed to copy data verbatim from Wikipedia, never checking whether it is false or factual." So, how do you know if the Wikipedia entry you found or anything else on the web is true? Use the web with caution, verify facts and try to find cooberating evidence from articles or books by experts in the field. Keep in mind that just because it's i

Federal yellow book: Fall 2005 New York State government directory 2005-2006 New York State Farm fresh guide 2002-2003 Central Region Western Region Metro Region Eastern Region Clinkinbeard, Curtis J. Hypergrow your business -- double, triple or quadruple any business by harnessing the natural laws of growth. Aiken, Richard The Relationship between wildlife watchers, hunters, and anglers Report 2001 Private and public land use by hunters Report 2001 We also get a number of special issues and supplements from journals in our collection that we don't always get to share. A few on my desk are: Advertising Age's Hispanic Fact Pack: An Annual Guide to Hispanic Advertising and Marketing, 2004 and 2005 Fact Pack: An Annual Guide to Advertising & Marketing, 2004 and 2005 Agency Preview Guide 2004 Point: Marketing at C-Level, March 2005 American Demographics Marketing Tools Sourcebook 2003 Diversity in America

Purloined verbatem from an e-mail. For all except the first article, tou will have to register with BNET, but it's free. BusinessWeek has a great interview/book review on the importance of details to customer service. Author Michael Levine says that operational details, such as limited hours and dirty bathrooms send a message to customers about the general quality of a business. These details have a more significant effect on customers than you might think: "The consumer mind has a logical and emotional part, and if you don't speak to both, you will lose them, especially when they're hungry, tired, angry, or lonely. "We're living in an age of anxiety. When people are not hungry, tired, angry, or lonely, the emotional side will win the debate with the logical part of the brain 80% of the time. When they're hungry, tired, angry, or lonely, emotion wins 100% of time. We are often hungry, tired, angry, or lonely, so it's exceedingly dangerous if you'

The Web site for Private Label Buyer magazine has a searchable database of their 2005 Supplier Source Book: http://www.privatelabelbuyer.com/guide/ This magazine describes itself as being geared towards supermarkets and other retail chains selling store-brand products. This section of their Web site is aimed at buyers for supermarket or grocery stores. Every supermarket has a line of products that they sell as their own, but, in actuality, are obtained from one of these manufacturers. Clients who've manufactured a product typically sold in such a place have this site, then, as a possible marketing tool. The site allows for three ways to search - by a specific company name, by a location, or by a product category. If you have a client who's interested in getting placed on this database, contact information for the staff at Private Label Buyer can be found here: http://www.privatelabelbuyer.com/contact.php

I was very excited to go to a session at the State Data Center affiliates meeting in late October. It was designated with the title listed above. We often get requests for regional tourism data. I was less excited at the end of the session. I assumed that the folks who bring us I Love NY would have great statistics that would show the success for ther campaign. Unfortunately, most of these statistics are for sale, if they are available at all. The state Department of Economic Development receives merely a summary of the data compiled by D.K. Shiffet & Associates . For your clients to buy them would be extremely expensive (five figures). As for the hotel occupancy numbers, they are tallied by Smith Travel Research , which will cost at least a few hundred dollars. Fortunately, many newspapers subscribe, so we CAN often provide data based on articles. Other sources cited but not discussed: Travel Industry Association of America Decent state level data. U.S. Department of Commerce .

This post covers two distinct situations: 1) There've been questions asked recently at certain Regional Centers regarding what constitutes clerical time in the Counselor Hours section for WebMQS case records. Some advisors feel that they're doing clerical work (such as doing data entry on WebMQS), while others feel that clerical work is exclusive only to office managers or other support staff. To clarify, time spent by the advisor to prepare for a client meeting, to review documents, to follow-up after a meeting, and in completing other tasks relating to the case (including data entry for WebMQS) should be counted as Prep Time. Conversely, time spent by the office manager or other support staff to prepare for a client meeting - such as making copies, assembling information packets, and so on - should be counted as Clerical Time. 2) To reiterate from my 6/20 blog posting, some advisors are in the habit of adding the time spent in communicating a request to the Research Network

An article in yesterday's New York Times discusses how "the Internet is allowing small stores...to develop the niche products that shield them against big-box retailers." Small-Town Shops Bulk Up on the Web gives several examples of small-town shops meeting success through a combination of Internet sales and Main Street store fronts. In upstate New York, downtown Ithaca is a hub of new retail activity and tourist trade generated by Internet marketing and sales. "There's an upside and a downside of marketing on the Internet," said Gary Ferguson, the executive director of the Ithaca Downtown Partnership, a business development group. "The floral business has been changed dramatically by the Internet. More and more people are buying flowers online. We had a business called Plantations that had been here for 30 years and had a hard time with the transition and didn't make it. "On the other hand, we have three used-book stores, and they do half the

Wikipedia has a pretty tidy definition of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) exists “to enable organizations to better manage their customers through the introduction of reliable processes and procedures for interacting with those customers.” This is a bit more than a mere definition; it covers some tips on improving customer relationships. Worth a visit. Obviously written by someone who cares, albeit with some differences of opinion on whether CRM is a “real” area of expertise. These pages can be quite lively with discussions about issues relating to the main topic. I would argue that these “specialties” pop up because so many businesses fall down in these areas. There is often money to be made on someone else’s failures. So, it seems that there is the idea behind CRM and then the technology. IT Toolbox: CRM Knowledge Base A community of IT professionals sharing best practices, discussion groups, and newsletters as well as white papers and links. One of many key topics, CRM or

The BEA, a federal agency, is where you will find an Overview of the Economy , including: Sales of U.S. Tourism Industries Gross Domestic Product Personal Income and Outlays (including Disposable Income) U.S. International Transactions (including Balance of Trade) Most of these are detailed, but national. One obvious exception is the Gross State Product Click on the article title for more data.