New York SBDC Research Network

Today's New York Times features an article called " Small Business is Latest Focus in Health Fight ". It focuses on the efforts of individual states around the U.S. in helping small business employers to provide health care to their workers. (New York isn't mentioned by name, though.) Two sentences jumped out at me: 1) "Of the 47 million uninsured people in this country, at least 20 million are employed by small businesses or work for themselves — a figure that has increased by an average of more than 500,000 a year since 2000." 2) "State laws now typically make it impossible for businesses to cross state lines to create their own purchasing pools, and small companies have had little success to date in being able to band together in sufficient numbers within state borders." Regarding the latter, Federal legislation has been introduced that would ease restrictions on small business' forming pools, even across state lines. The National Federatio

You may have come across articles celebrating this very old-school business as an example of extreme customer service success. Dabbawallas are tiffin-meal delivery men in India and have a remarkable success rate for accurate delivery of hot meals. Now, the business journals are looking at this human-driven, personalized service model with interest. The cult of the dabbawala The Economist Management trends Jul 10th 2008 From The Economist print edition Business-school gurus take lessons from an unexpected source The Dabbawalla's Secret Seth Godin's Blog Dabbawalla Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Here's something I didn't know: The average age of a U.S. head of household is 49.5 years old. According to Advertising Age's " The Changing Face of the U.S. Consumer: What We Can Learn from Census Data, and Why It Matters for Brands ," households headed by two age groups, 35 to 44 and 45 to 54, currently account for almost half of U.S. consumer spending. But these groups are shrinking, so in the future more spending come from households headed by someone 55 or older. And they may be looking for different things to spend their money on.

Survey: 40 Percent Of Small Businesses Have No Disaster Preparedness Plan "A new national survey reveals that a startling number of small businesses remain unprepared to face a potential disaster, be that a hurricane, tornado, wildfire or computer virus, and the majority of these businesses have no plans to change. Commissioned by Office Depot, the survey of small businesses shows 40 percent admit they are not ready for a disaster and one-third indicate having no current plans to get prepared."

We'll get inquiries once in a while on finding contact information for school districts around the state. For years, we'd rely on a database generated by the State Education Department that was a bit cumbersome to navigate. Here, then, is an alternative, from the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics: http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/districtsearch/ Regardless of the geographic scope of your results, you can choose to download your findings directly into a spreadsheet. Note that this database is for public schools only.

There is a future of droughts and downpours for the U.S.A., according to the the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Climate Change Science Program . The specific report is here with the press release here .

At a Staff Training event years ago, I encountered Bonnie Gestwicki in the lobby of the hotel. She had a glow about her (she usually did). I asked where she got it from. She mentioned that she attended a kind of meditation session, which ended with the instructor saying that he "honored the light within you". From there on out, this became a running greeting between us. Today is the last day of Bonnie's run as director of the Corning SBDC, and I'll miss her insight on Finger Lakes wines, her wit & wisdom, and how she sent birthday email greetings to so many of us. Most of all, I'll miss that glow. So long, Bonster! We honor the light within you. Just don't head for the light any time soon!

Roger blogged about Canada earlier this week. Since Canada Day is next Tuesday, I'll continue the theme. Recently, Health Canada published Reducing Work-Life Conflict: What Works? What Doesn’t? While Canadian in focus, it discusses issues that transcend borders. From its summary: "More and more workers are finding it difficult to balance the roles of employee, parent, spouse, and eldercare giver. Trying to balance paid work, family responsibilities, and personal needs takes a toll on employers, families, and workers. And it shows up as higher absenteeism, reduced employee commitment, declining job satisfaction, lower workplace morale, and reduced satisfaction with family life . . . the report examines what employers, employees and their families can do to reduce work-life conflict." It's lengthy (325 pages), but if you're facing this conflict (and have the time), I recommend giving it a read.

Earlier this week I stumbled onto The Franchise Mall , an online directory of franchises. The reason why I prefer the Franchise Mall over other franchise directories is the amount of information given about the company. The Franchise Mall lists the number of franchises in operation for the past five years, start-up costs, statistics on business operations, similar franchises to look at, and much more. There are many other excellent franchise directories to choose from and since results vary from database to database, I would suggest using a few when searching for franchise opportunities. The Franchise Registry - SBA list of franchise companies whose franchisees enjoy the benefits of a streamlined review process for SBA loan applications. Franchise Search - Resource for franchising lifestyles and personal ownership. Franchise Opportunities - Directory of available franchise and business opportunities. Best Franchise Opportunities - Best franchise opportunities, franchises for sale

Are you on Facebook, but wondering what it can do for your small business? On June 24 th , Visa unveiled a new Facebook application, the Visa Business Network . While still in beta, the application claims that "Here you can connect with other small business owners, learn ways to manage your business more efficiently, and grow by reaching the millions of potential customers on Facebook." Visa's also partnered with the Wall Street Journal, Google and Entrepreneur to bring small business content and applications to its Facebook presence. Read more about the Visa Business Network in this article from ComputerWorld: Visa, Facebook unveil social network for small businesses

Sharing your best pics Beautifully crafted cabinets, comical before and after plumbing or electrical shots, clothing, jewelry, interesting photographs of anything - this is an opportunity to be creative and show the beauty in daily life. While you cannot use Flickr to advertise your business, you can still use it to store and share photographs. And like LinkedIn, and Facebook, it is another social networking resource. Build a repository of photos to share with colleagues or the world at large and you can decide who can see which photos. Label them with your website name and without screaming your message, you can still show your stuff. In this situation, less is definitely more. But check out Flickr and just browse and see the beautiful and interesting things you can see.

Canada at a glance presents the current Canadian demographic, education, health, justice, housing, income, labour market, economic, travel, financial, and foreign trade statistics. This booklet also includes important international comparisons, so that readers can see how Canada stacks up against its neighbours. Updated yearly, Canada at a glance is a very useful reference for those who want quick access to current Canadian statistics. Remember, Canada Day is July 1.

When a new business is started, it is rare of the entrepreneur to own the necessary machinery and supplies. While the Yellow Pages might be the first place an entrepreneur thinks of to search for supplies, there are better options. Earlier this week I learned about ThomasNet , where users can search for manufacturers, distributors, and service providers. According to the website, "ThomasNet is the leading online industrial destination site where buyers and engineers from companies of all sizes, including the government and the military, go to search for and purchase everything needed – from printed circuit boards to laboratory equipment to machinery." The site provides an easy-to-use keyword function for the user to search products, services, companies, brands, news, and more.

A mashup is an application that is developed out of existing APIs (application programming interface). The same way an operating system integrates various functions, a programmer can develop a new service or product out of freely available applications. So, when two or more tools are married you see new products like PolicyMap that uses Pushpin Location Data which gives lots of place data tied to maps. The creators take an existing tool and expand or marry it to another to create something new. Another is Big Contacts that pulls together three different tools to create a new web-based organizer. It consolidates email, phone, documents, syncing and task lists. API Dashboard A source for many, many applications used in mashups. Aimed at designers and programmers, it is still interesting to see the variety of tools that are being incorporated into new applications. It descibes which API are used and has links to the site.

I thought this was an interesting article from Friday's Business Review: " Web site turns cars into moving billboards--and extra gas money for drivers " discusses a new Saratoga Springs business that offers free gas cards to drivers willing to advertise for local businesses. Interested drivers volunteer to soup-up their cars and trucks with vehicle graphics, and hand out cards and brochures. Local businesses can select drivers based on their age, what type of car they drive, how much they drive, and where they go. And all that driving is made possible by the gift cards for gasoline. Win/win? The next edition of What's Your Signage? will include a section on vehicle graphics/wraps, maybe discussing concepts like this one. Until then, don't forget about Whatsyoursignage .com for all sorts of information about signs and small business.