New York SBDC Research Network

When we get a question about starting a specialty food business we frequently turn to Stephen Hall’s From Kitchen to Market for some practical advice. There is now an accompanying website for the book, complete with a free discussion forum and a Food Entrepreneur eZine, available at http://www.specialtyfoodresource.com/ . The eZine has a variety of short, helpful articles and the issues are archived. The forum includes topics like “Pricing your product,” “Getting distributors” and “Understanding the industry” and Mr. Hall seems to be a frequent contributor. Looks like a great way for our clients to ask questions of other entrepreneurs and an expert in the field.

American Consumer Satisfaction Index "ACSI reports scores on a 0-100 scale at the national level. It also produces indexes for 10 economic sectors, 43 industries (including e-commerce and e-business), and more than 200 companies and federal or local government agencies. The measured companies, industries, and sectors are broadly representative of the U.S. economy serving American households." A blog post from a Usability and Design firm called Adaptive Path . The blog as a whole is rather interesting, too. A recent National Retail Federation/American Express study placed Amazon at the top of online and brick & mortar stores . *** And, apropos of nothing, Keith Richards turned 63 yesterday.

Sometimes I come across a site and marvel at the amount of work put into its upkeep. A few weeks ago, I read about a site called NationMaster . It's a site where you can glean data for a single country from a huge variety of topics (economic, geographic, income, labor, religion, and on and on). The site originates in Australia, but collects data from a wealth of resources and arranges them in a very easy interface. Since our clients are interested in importing and/or exporting with just about every nation on Earth, this site is extremely helpful. As a bonus, this site links to a companion page called StateMaster , providing an additional wealth of data for each state in the U.S. These two sites are great for us researchers, and great for kids out there with a paper to write on the main exports of the Maldives. (And speaking of kids & the Maldives, NORAD once again presents its annual Santa Tracker website . For those of you interested in tracking ol' St. Nick on Christ

The Future of Web Ads is in Britain The New York Times By Louise Story and Eric Pfanner Published December 4, 2006 According to this article Britain is leading the way – way ahead of the US in terms of online advertising and suggests that maybe we can learn from the UK experience. eMarketer NOVEMBER 27, 2006 “An emerging consensus paints a positive picture. The trend began early last week, when the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) released new data showing that US Internet advertising revenues reached a record $4.2 billion in the third quarter of 2006.” British Online Ad Spending Outpacing U.S. By Nearly 2 to 1 Seeking Alpha Posted on Dec 4th, 2006 Carl Howe ( Blackfriars Communications ) The Federal Trade Commission – Facts for Businesses Dot Com Disclosures A guide for the ecommerce marketer.

On Monday I finished a question about marketing to baby boomers. That night, I happened to see a piece on the news on marketing to baby boomers. That to me is a sign that I should blog about marketing to baby boomers. Here are a few interesting articles (and a video) that discuss some prominent marketing campaigns, the use of baby boomer celebrities in advertising, and offer some information about boomer spending patterns: Business Week: Love Those Boomers US News: Oldies but goodies (Personally, I would never refer to baby boomers as "oldies." The nerve!) MSNBC: Baby Boomers Create New Marketing Frontier

Parody: copyright infringement or fair use? It depends. One interesting article that my colleague Amelia came across is "Who owns Barbie?; CORPORATIONS ARE SUING ARTISTS OVER POP CULTURE ICONS" by John Petrick, in the September 25, 2005 Sunday Record (Bergen, NJ) "Parody by its nature requires that you make reference to the original. So once something is determined a 'parody,' there's a lot of breathing room," says John Koegle, an attorney who represents artists. Nevertheless, some companies feel they should be able to control any depiction of their work in public life. And in some cases, they have prevailed. There was the 1978 case in which Disney sued an underground cartoonist who depicted Mickey Mouse engaged in various adult behaviors . While the artist argued it was clearly parody - or "fair use" under the law - the court didn't buy it and ruled the images were copyright infringement. In 1994, on the other hand, 2 Live Crew was sued fo

I freely admit to finding ideas for this blog from other blogs that I read. Not everything, mind you (I am capable of some original thought). For instance, not long ago I read on ResourceShelf.com that the editors of the World Almanac - that most venerable of reference tools - had created a blog of their own last October 1st. I received my first World Almanac as a Christmas gift when I was eight years old. I won't say that I heard my calling as a librarian that very day (there was an ill-fated stretch of years when I felt destined to play centerfield for the Red Sox), but it was certainly a harbinger of things to come. The WA blog won't necessarily be of everyday benefit to you & your clients, but I include it here as a tribute to an old friend.

WHO: Thomas P. Ochsenschlager, vice president of Taxation for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), will host the SBA’s December Web chat on "Year-End Tax Planning for Small Business Owners." Chat participants will receive valuable information about the importance of year-end planning and steps small business owners can take to reduce their 2006 tax bills, as Ochsenschlager answers questions on year-end tax savings. WHAT: The SBA’s live Web chat series provides business owners the opportunity to have discussions online about relevant business issues with experts, industry leaders and successful entrepreneurs. Participants have direct, real-time access to the Web chats via questions they submit online in advance and during the session, with instant answers. WHEN: Thursday, December 14, 2006, from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., ET. Ochsenschlager will answer questions for one hour. HOW: Participants can join the live Web chat by going online to www.sba.gov , and cl

Want to see some SBDC folks on TV? The Mohawk Valley SBDC turned 20 years old, and Syracuse's News 10 was there to cover it. Luckily for the rest of us, this clip is online too, here . I wanted to share the fun, but also remind you all to send me your clips, your news articles, your business advice. . . It's nice to share.

The Handbook of New York State and Local Taxes provides a general descriptive overview of the taxes which New York State and its local governments impose, and is revised periodically to reflect recently enacted law changes. It does not include non-tax revenue sources such as motor vehicle fees and the Lottery. Instead, it focuses on taxes, especially those administered by the Department of Taxation and Finance. To download the entire publication, the October 2006 Edition, please visit here . *** Tax Department Announces Discontinuation of Publication 352, which is Income Tax Forms and Instructions and Selected Corporation and Withholding Tax Forms . However, the CD-ROM of the publication is available for sale. View the document . *** For you policy wonks, Streamlining New York's Sales Tax: Examining Requirements for Compliance with the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement The Streamlined Sales Tax Project was founded in March 2000, with the purpose of developing measures to simp

Recently, Walter Reid from the Farmingdale SBDC forwarded me an article that originally appeared in Derek Gehl's E-Business column , part of the Entrepreneur magazine website. The article presented brief, straightforward strategies to boost traffic to small business websites. It is not geared at those who are super-proficient in the ways of website marketing, but rather to the (I suspect) vast majority of business owners who are not. I'm not going to reproduce the article here, mainly because I went to his website & found many, many articles of his that were worth telling you about. The worth of an article is not always just what it tells you, but what thoughts it triggers in your head. Each of these provides a wealth of suggestions & links to other sites, and might be worth keeping in mind the next time you have a tentative e-businessperson in your office. (Thanks, Walter!)

Ok, so I have not felt inspired. But, today I was dealing with a request for copyright free quotes and this led me to a few sites of general interest. (Incidentally, many quotes are copyright free by nature – since so many of them are from historic personages, but the arrangement of those quotes in a given collection would be copyright protected.) The usual suspects are: The Quotations Page is a labor of love created and maintained by Michael Moncur and his wife Laura Moncur. They offer Quotes of the Day , Motivational Quotes of the Day and the usual search function by author and subject. There is also Quoteland.com Wikiquote which further breaks categories down to those such as: Epitaphs Misquotations Films and Proverbs CoolQuotes.com IMDb.com also has a Movie Quote page. And for a laugh: Things People Said which a collection of quotes from everyday people.

Guess which day of the year is the busiest for most online retailers. Here’s a clue: Its not “Cyber Monday”. Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving, when shoppers return to work and their speedy internet connections, has been heralded as the top online shopping day. Turns out it’s really probably the 12th busiest day of the year. But that’s not stopping online retailers from using this term for their own marketing purposes. Read about the myth and the reality in this Business Week article . With all this online shopping, one might think that the paper catalog is a thing of the past. Turns out that catalogs (like many other paper-based products, including books and the clutter on my desk) are not leaving us just because a digital alternative exists. Read why the catalog is here to stay here . P.S. The busiest online shopping day is probably between Dec. 5 and Dec. 15.

The purpose of copyright is right in the U.S. Constitution, Section 8 of Article 1: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries Notice a few things: -the words copyright, patent or trademark are never used -the word "limited" is specified -the exclusive Right is designed to promote progress Some folks either do not understand this or choose to ignore it. An example from the workshop I attended is the Boston Globe reprinting the Declaration of Independence last year. At the end, it says (c)2005 Boston Globe. Interesting because the Declaration is not copyrightable! That's true on two fronts, actually: 1) material printed by the federal government (or what would become same) are not copyrightable - so go ahead, steal away from the Census Bureau, e.g., and 2) even if it HAD been copyrighted, the item by now would have lapsed into the public domain.

Wow . . . now there's a snappy, exciting title! When our clients are buying or selling a business, they sometimes need a formula that they can use to calculate a fair price. We have several books on determining a business' value, but none of them are comprehensive. There are always certain types of businesses for which formulas are not provided. I've come to like one resource in particular, because it does cover a wider scope of businesses. It hails from ValuationResources.com. Here's a link to a sample of their 2006 version (it's a PDF file, just so you know). Page 1 provides a basic review of some pretty simple formulas, while the remaining 8 pages list multiples for various SIC codes. We have the 2004 edition in our collection, and plan on purchasing this 2006 edition very soon. Should you ask for a valuation formula in the future, it's very likely that data from this resource will be part - if not all - of the response.

Phone Spell http://www.phonespell.org/phoneSpell.html The PhoneSpell search engine allows you to look up your number to see what it spells. This service offered by Phone Spell works on the honor system - if you find the service useful, they ask that you make an appropriate donation. Seems fair enough: "The PhoneSpell® search engine provides three 4 services in one! You may have heard that now you can take your phone number with you when you move. Enter a 6 to 10 digit phone number and we'll show you what words and phrases your phone number spells to help you decide if you want to keep it. Opening a business and need a new phone number? Pick a new 7 or 8 digit phone number by typing in an available exchange (first 3 to 5 digits) and see what one-word numbers you can choose from. Searching for just the right toll free number to advertise? Type in letters and we will show you the corresponding phone number. We can even dial the number for you!"

Its turkey! For many of the major holidays the US Census website prepares fun factoids related to that time of the year, calling them "Facts for Features." Did you know that there are three towns called Turkey in the United States? Or that 1.6 billion pounds of sweet potatoes were produced in the United States in 2005? Yummy. Read more about it here or just click on the turkey on the left side of the main census page, http://www.census.gov/ . Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Here's the good news: there are annual data available from the American Community Survey . It now covers geographies of 65,000 or more, compared with the 250,000 population limit from last year. The ACS is designed to replace the 2010 Census long form questions. Here's the bad news: because of previous cuts in the Congressional funding, the 2005 ACS does not capture data from group quarters, which include prisons, college dormitories, and nursing homes. So, for instance, the population estimate for the city of Albany - calculated through a different methodology - is 93,523, down from 95,658 in the 2000 Decennial Census. But the 2005 ACS shows 78,404. One cannot make any population comparisons. Depending on the category, one may or may not be able to compare other characteristics either. For instance, 2005 ACS data in a place with dorms will skew older than what's really happening, whereas a place with a large nursing home will skew younger. Data on race, place of birth, vet

Not a day goes by here without fulfilling a request for a client who needs a list of this business or that. For years, the Research Network used a CD-ROM product called the American Business Disc (ABD) to make these lists possible. Last summer, InfoUSA announced that it was no longer making this CD-ROM available. The company (like every software provider in the information industry) is trying to steer former CD-ROM subscribers towards their web-based equivalent, called Reference USA. Many of you might be familiar with Ref USA. It is a common presence on databases offered for free to cardholders of local public libraries (as well as the New York State Library). If you're not familiar with it . . . you're about to be. Starting later this month, the Research Network will be creating business lists from this website. You shouldn't see much difference in the end product. Oddly, the web version of this product isn't nearly as versatile as the CD-ROM (a lot of useful sea

Angel Roman sent us a link to an interesting report with housing and community stats by community board, issued by the Furman Center: State of New York City's Housing and Neighborhoods 2005 . "Every year the Furman Center compiles statistics on housing, demographics and quality of life in New York City’s neighborhoods from a variety of sources. "This edition streamlines the presentation to focus attention on the critical data that reveals how the City, its five boroughs, and its 59 community districts, have fared in recent years. It shows how each of the City’s neighborhoods is progressing, both in absolute terms and in relation to other areas of the City. It provides the first independent analysis of the just-released results of the 2005 Housing and Vacancy Survey. Finally, it adds a chapter analyzing how the affordability and availability of housing has changed between 2002 and 2005."