New York SBDC Research Network

If you look to the right-hand side of this screen, you just might see a new feature we've added. There's a widget here that links to our new LibraryThing collection . LibraryThing is an online community that allows members to catalog their own book collections. You simply enter the title, or ISBN etc., and it finds the appropriate catalog record for your book, links you to others who own the same book, and can also make book recommendations and provide other user-advisory-type services. A user can enter up to 200 books for free. As our circulating collection isn't particularly large, we thought we'd give it a try. So, check out our library collection. The goal is to include all of our circulating books from this decade, but its a work in progress. Still, take a look, use the search feature, and if you find something you're interested in, send us an email and we'll send it your way.

Source: The Informant e-newsletter, Volume 4, Issue #243 -- Tuesday, August 21, 2007 Free From NASA: Rocket-science Expertise for Businesses NASA offers 40 hours of free technical advice to businesses. Overhaul by SBA to Help Fix System on Procurements Small Business Administration chief Steven Preston announced reforms aimed at cleaning up a broken system for keeping track of government procurements that has allowed federal agencies to classify billions in contracts to some of the world's largest companies as going to small businesses.

Tom Morley (from the Westchester SBDC) recently forwarded me an email that began like this: "Whole Foods Market, a national grocery chain with seven stores in New York, recently started a new program to provide low-interest, long-term loans to small producers around the country. We would very much like to let small producers of food products in New York know about the program." Part of this company's mission is that their produce be as fresh as possible, and make these loans available to farmers of "locally grown" produce (for reasons best explained here ). Of Whole Foods Market's seven locations in New York State , none are farther north than White Plains. However, they define "locally grown" as "produce that has traveled less than a day (7 or fewer hours) from the farm to our facility." Eligible products include agricultural crops, value-added food products, and other all-natural grocery items. This definition, then, makes most of the

Commissioned by Capital One and conducted by BusinessWeek Research Services , the survey looks at confidence, expectations and hopes of small business owners. The survey asks small business owners where they seek business advice, in this order: colleague, family or friends, CPA or accountant, business association followed by consultant, lawyer, commercial lender and other. “In their own words” are sections given to hearing actual comments from business owners on these topics: How Would You use $50,000 to Improve Your Business? How Did You Start and Then Grow Your Business to its Current Level?

Today's New York Times features the article "At Netflix, Victory for Voices Over Keystrokes" . It discusses how the online movie rental business is trying a new tack (actually, they're returning to an old tack) vis a vis customer service: the telephone. The company has de-emphasized its email address on its website, and has heightened the presence of a toll-free number that is available 24/7. In addition, the call center is located just outside of Portland, OR, and not in India or Singapore. I find this interesting on a few levels. Netflix believes, in the face of increased competition from Blockbuster's new online service, that they should promote the actual voices of friendly customer service reps as a distinguishing characteristic not found at Blockbuster. This kind of emphasis is something that the business literature has recommended to small businesses in the face of big-box competition, but Netflix still is the market leader in this industry. So - does locat

I tend to write “thanks” a lot. And not just because I’m a grateful person (although I am). It’s just my usual email sign-off , probably because I tend to be asking for things, or thanking you all for asking us great questions. Maybe I should start expanding my repertoire. This recent article from Entrepreneur.com discusses a variety of email closers, and what they say about you. “ What your sign-off is really saying .” Here’s an older USA Today article on the subject. Another good source of email etiquette info: Online Writing Lab at Purdue University

Ofttimes, I see someone send a URL via e-mail and it spreads onto the second line of the posting. The first line of the address is hyperlinked, but the second is not. This becomes cumbersome for the end user. Two suggestions: See if the address can be manually shortened. I've noticed that in some newspaper and magazine databases, an address is created to indicate not only the story, but the section and the date. If removing that information still gets you to the story, shorten it. An example: http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=613944&category=FRONTPG&BCCode=HOME&newsdate=8/14/2007 can be shortened to http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=613944 , and is actually more likely to work over time, for some arcane reasons. The other method is a website TinyURL!™ . Put in even that shortened, 57-character, version of the URL above and you'll end up with http://tinyurl.com/yrwmgk , a more manageable 25-character URL.

A big part of how successful we are at finding information is having the correct terms. We generally hope that the client will be knowledgeable enough in their field to provide some good key words but of course this isn't always possible. We hear of business incubators often enough but kitchen incubators are becoming more prevalent. I worked on a request yesterday for a a list of commercial rental kitchens in the NYC metro area. The examples I came across were not all in NYC area and there were a few good pieces on a kitchen incubator in San Francisco that I thought were interesting. I thought I'd share what I found here. WHEDCo Urban Horizons Kitchen rents a "4,000 sq ft state-of-the-art, commercial kitchen space." They serve the New York City metropolitan area especially aimed at women and minority businesses. They also state that "tenants are required to incorporate in order to secure insurance covering product liability. Some of their clients have been Curr

Can you walk from your home to a grocery store, library or movie theater? How about from your office? Check out Walk Score to determine just how pedestrian-friendly a location might be. You simply enter an address into the search field, and the site offers a "walk score" based on the proximity of parks, shops, restaurants, schools and all those other necessities. The site's mission: "We help homebuyers , renters, and real estate agents find houses and apartments in great neighborhoods. Walk Score shows you a map of what's nearby and calculates a Walk Score for any property. Buying a house in a walkable neighborhood is good for your health and good for the environment." I'd think it would also be useful to a business interested in attracting foot traffic, and wanting to know about nearby facilities. The site recognizes that it's algorithms can't account for features like highways or bodies of water that might make a route impassable on foot. But

From Hispanic Business : "Are there industry guidelines for how much officers of small companies [less than 10 employees] should pay themselves? Would it be 1% of sales? 10%?"

(Or so the song goes.) Last week's issue of The New Yorker features an article called "Damn Spam" - an unnerving piece that traces the recent history of this email plague. For example: * "In 2001, spam accounted for about five per cent of the traffic on the Internet; by 2004, that figure had risen to more than seventy per cent." * "The onslaught apparently began on April 12, 1994, when two lawyers . . . bombarded the Internet with e-mail offering their services to immigrants . . . The two later claimed that they made a hundred thousand dollars from the e-mail campaign - a compelling demonstration of the peculiar economics of the Internet." * "The more spam that is blocked, the greater the volume spammers will need to send in order to make money. If you used to have to send fifty thousand pieces of spam to get a response, now you have to send a million. Spammers just shrug it off and send a million." * "Spammers today almost never use t

Telling a Good Story by Michele Miller "You may have the greatest company in the world. But if you don't know how to convey that to customers, you may as well not exist." Another way to tell a story... Duct Tape Marketing , one of my favorite sites talks about an interesting idea in a blog post of theirs. by John Jantsch Mon May 14, 2007 Blurb Books a Great Tool for Telling Your Story You've probably seen these as they are popping up everywhere. In iPhoto (if you use a Mac) you can order your photographs nicely put together in a book. Wedding pictures are also offered in this format to deliver your digital memories. This blog suggests the use of polished books for businesses to use to sell themselves. Blurb shows some nice examples of how the books could be used. A sophisticated way to tell your story. Here's one last article on storytelling: How to Tell Your Story in the Media by Ilise Benun from The Art of Self Promotion #22

“Don't get too attached to MySpace. You might want to pull up stakes from Second Life, too. And you'll probably want to stop posting inanities to Twitter. Why? All of these sites will be gone before the end of this decade.” Thus begins “ MySpace, Second Life, and Twitter Are Doomed ” a recent PC Magazine article by Lance Ulanoff. We’ve mentioned a lot of Web 2.0 applications lately, but are they really the wave of the future, or just a lot of hype? The author argues that MySpace pages are ugly, and sometimes dangerous. Second Life may not be as big as reported, and Twitter is way too random and useless. As a librarian, I feel there’s a purpose in exploring all sorts of information sharing opportunities, since that’s what we do, and we want to be where our users are. And I also enjoy looking up kids I went to high school with. But while I may have a MySpace page, I rarely go there, and I don't feel any great sense of community. Second Life seems pretty neat, but I don&#

You probably know the Motion Picture Association of America, if at all, as the folks who administer the movie ratings. True enough, but it also collects a lot of statistics as well. They include: 2006 U.S. Theatrical Market Statistics A summary of 2006’s theatrical performance, looking at box office trends, admissions trends and consumer attitudes. US Theatrical Snapshot A brief summary of the domestic box office, admission and screen count trends, including the top five grossing films domestically. International Theatrical Snapshot A brief summary of international box office and admission trends by region for the past four years, includes the top five grossing films worldwide. Movie Attendance Study An annual study which provides a summary of the demographics of moviegoers and an analysis of the yearly changes in frequent movie attendance. 2005 Piracy Data Summary A summary of a piracy study conducted by LEK Consulting outlining losses due to piracy, profile of a typical pirate,

Josee often tells you about new books added to our collection. Today, I'm going to steal a bit of her thunder (sorry, J!). We recently obtained an electronic version of the book "Web & Software Development: A Legal Guide". It's published by Nolo , a publisher of self-help legal books for people & businesses (and provider of lots of other titles in our collection). I like the books from Nolo, because they're an honest attempt at boiling down complicated legal issues into terminology that's straightforward. A lot of their titles (like this one) are written by practicing attorneys with practical experience in their chosen specialty. We bought this book primarily because of a recurring type of request: Is software patentable? And, if it is, is it worth pursuing? I tried researching this question without this book, and the stuff I found was just dense and likely of little use to the client who needed it. Fortunately, chapter 9 - "Software and Internet

After reading through Mary's SPD Gazette and seeing what great things the centers are up to, I'd like to reiterate an invitation to send in DVD copies of tv spots, interviews or programs created by the regional centers. We are hoping to collect these materials in the hopes of becoming a depository for materials - printed, electonic or audio-visual for the products of SBDC collective talent. At some point, hopefully sooner rather than later, our catalog will be accessible and searchable by the rest of the NY SBDC. So, if you have materials you've produced that you can share, please do so. At the very least, we can keep a record of what materials are produced around the network and who to contact for a copy.

Want to see your colleagues on TV? Check out these video segments starring David North and Gloria Glowacki from Stony Brook (this link should open one video. There are others on the right, in the "Other videos in BUSINESS Channel" section.) The videos cover how to start a small business, financing, marketing, franchising, and businesses plans, and many of the services provided by the Small Business Development Center. And Gloria mentions the Research Network, and our market research services. Thanks Gloria!

I got an article from the Brand Identity Guru about The Art of the Tagline and Positioning which says, in part: So how important is a tagline? Well, it briefly represents your brand identity and positioning. If it's off target it hurts you and if you don't have one it hurts you. A tagline can be powerful and actionable. Let's play a little game. Which taglines do you know and associate with? If you know them and the company they belong to then they've done their job. Does your tagline measure up? Then their sales pitch. But it's a bit of fun, and maybe you can think of more to suggest to your clients. Tagline Trivia What brands are associated with these taglines? 1. You deserve a break today. 2. Be all that you can be. 3. Just do it. 4. It's the real thing. 5. Where's the beef? 6. It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken. 7. We try harder. 8. Oh, what a feeling 9. You've come a long way, baby. 10. Mmm mmm good 11. It's where you want to be

"If you want to get a VC's attention, you need to make a stronger statement than that. Here's how." By Guy Kawasaki Entrepreneur Magazine July 2007 Recently I have pointed out an article by Guy Kawasaki on how not to approach a venture capitalist. In the July issue of Entrepreneur Magazine he now goes into what a business ought to do when looking for venture capital. The article is here, but these are the highlights: "An entrepreneur seeking venture capital can feel like a knight on horseback, looking longingly across the moat at the gleaming spires of the VC's "castle" beyond. How do you bridge that gap and actually get inside the castle walls, where the money is? Here, my shortlist of tips to get a venture capitalist's attention": 1. Get an introduction by a partner-level lawyer. (for connections) 2. If you're in tech, get an introduction by a professor of engineering. (for connections) 3. Get an introduction by the founder of a c

When I’m not sure what to blog about, I read blogs to get ideas. Today I went to Stephen’s Lighthouse (by super-librarian Stephen Abram), and found a link to another blog posting, about, well, blogging. This posting, “ 55 Essential Articles Every Serious Blogger Should Read ” from the Entrepreneurial Blog of Matt Huggins , highlights articles and, of course, blog postings, that provide useful information to bloggers. Topics include getting started, creating content, increasing traffic, and making money. Helpful stuff. This blogger intends to take a closer look, and maybe your clients who are bloggers or would-be bloggers could benefit too…