New York SBDC Research Network

The USPS will be displaying this poster nationwide from Feb 19 - May 31, 2010. When a “warning” from the Better Business Bureau (BBB) about how to avoid census scammers started circulating on the Internet, many educated and otherwise savvy people bought the message and passed it along. Several well-meaning friends sent the missive to me, asking in an innocent effort to be helpful (and maybe to impress their census-crazed friend), “Is there anything we should add before sending to our e-mail list?” My answer: TRASH IT, before this doctored message hoodwinks more unsuspecting readers! More here .

In honor of OSCAR season. The movie Titanic, released December 19, 1997, had a production budget of $200 million, and had a domestic total gross of $600,788,188. But what if I wanted to know its gross for every single one of its 287 days in release? The foreign gross for the film was $1,242,091,767. But when was it released in Bulgaria, and how did it do? For all things involved with movie box office, I go to Box Office Mojo . "There are currently over 9,000 movies listed and more are on the way." BTW, Titanic was released in Bulgaria on March 27, 1998 and raked in $1,024,062. Other useful movie sites: Wisconsin Center for Film and Theatre Research Motion Picture Association of America Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Screen Actors Guild

An effective, creative, and well-designed website for your small business is a critical marketing and sales tool that is essential in the Internet age. There are some consumers who do everything online, from watching TV to communicating with loved ones to purchasing services and commodities. Below are some tips to make the most of your online presence. Business Unusual : Take One Website, Add Stroke of Genius (Entrepreneur) For More Sales, Create a Landing Page (Entrepreneur) 35+ Usability Resources for Web Designers (DESIGNM.AG)

It's a new year and although I am not a psychic or business expert, I am predicting a prosperous and successful year for small businesses. Of course, not everyone agrees with me but I like my predictions more. The articles below will give you information on what business opportunities the real "experts" are saying will be hot for the coming year. 10 Hot Business Opportunities for 2010 - Anything "Green" is hot right now. Also pay attention to health, seniors, and education. Franchise Trends : The leading franchise categories poised for growth in the coming year. - The franchise trends follow the business trends above, with "Green" being one of the fastest growing franchise categories. 2010 Trends : 10 (and 1/2) trends to watch. - Further reiteration of the power of "Green" in the new year. And for a little leisurely reading... How to Be Happier in 2010 - It's easy to do. Just give away more money, be happy with less, and indulge occa

This week's New Yorker features an article by Malcolm Gladwell (author of The Tipping Point , What the Dog Saw , and other really interesting reads) called "The Sure Thing". I've always liked Gladwell's writing - not just for its clarity, but the way his iconoclastic approach never sounds contrarian just for the sake of being different. This article is more of this style. Its premise is that entrepreneurs don't succeed because they fit the romantic image of the reckless daredevil who doubles as a business savant, but rather from their innovative insights into an opportunity, combined with an aversion to risk and a predatory approach to getting the big deal done. The article cites numerous examples to back up this belief, and spends quite a bit of time detailing the exploits of John Paulson (a hedge-fund manager who made a huge fortune on short-selling credit default swaps just ahead of the housing collapse), and Ted Turner (to whom the myth of the populist bu

I thought this was an interesting article - a brief list of tips for the traveler: October 13, 2009 28 things I wish I'd known before I started traveling Posted: 09:38 PM ET Chris Guillebeau, AC360° Contributor I found a few things on this list that surprised me. For anyone traveling internationally, it is a good reminder of what to watch out for to ensure you are not taken advantage, you insult no-one and you stay out of trouble.

Marketing, sales and customer service don’t share information, according to Economist Intelligence Unit surveys . A series of surveys across six industries— financial services, technology, telecommunications, utilities, consumer goods and retail —reveals that most companies still fall short when trying to deliver value consistently in all the functions that interact with customers. In other words, cautionary tales.

It's been go-go-go here at the Research Network since the beginning of October. As a result, I've not had much chance to look at the usage statistics since then (nor has there been much in the way of blog posts lately, either . . . sorry about that). However, with the dawn of the new year, things have calmed down just enough for me to take a peek. Whoa. We've been running this library since October 1991. Among other things, I've a spreadsheet that breaks down requests from you for every month since then. From what I'm seeing, we just finished the busiest December in our history. And the busiest November. And the busiest October. I appreciate your ongoing trust in asking for our help with your clients. Discovering this is just the motivation I need during the cold, cold doldrums of early January. (And the average turnaround for each request has been just under 7 calendar days, a pace that also helps keep us warm up here.) (And sorry, again, for the lack of posts. Ha

I rather randomly came across this CNNMoney article this afternoon, but I thought it told a nice story about how one inventor managed to get her product into stores. In this case we’re talking about educational software, but the steps this entrepreneur took would likely be helpful in other fields. In a nutshell, the designer identified software publishers, and “stalked” them at trade shows. Deciding to self-publish instead she looked for major distributors and ultimatly chose to work with an aggregator. Read more here: How to get your video game into retail stores

I am already thinking about tax season and wanted to point out a couple of sources: How to Reduce Your Small Business Tax Bill A look at helpful year-end tax tips, advice on making smart elections, and good tax resources for the small business owner. By Elizabeth Wasserman Inc. Dec 1, 2009 Of course, the IRS has the Small Business and Self-Employed Tax Center . This page within the IRS site covers highlights and law changes as well frequently asked questions, forms, and workshops like the one for distinguishing betweeen an employee and an independent contractor. There is also a link to SBTV, and online TV network: SBTV.com SBTV.com is a television network on the Web devoted exclusively to providing engaging streaming video content to small businesses. It provides technical information on how to run your business, inspirational stories from entrepreneurs across the country, information about small business conferences and events, and resources to help solve day-to-day business challen

The New York State Contract Reporter is "New York’s official publication state procurement opportunities from state agencies, public authorities and public benefit corporations. The NYSCR is now free of charge for general access." Also check out OGS' Procurement Law, Guidelines and Procedures and Seller Information & Bid Opportunities . Just as important, when you find a contract that may be expiring in the next several months, TALK to the purchasing officer associated with that contract. There is a window during which they can help a prospective business, but another during which they cannot.

As I was using my usual translation sites to translate a block of text, I plugged in my paragraph and was disappointed to see half the words left untranslated and giving me a garbled mess. I remembered the Word Monkey gadget on my igoogle page and plugged the text in there and lo, it really worked. The entire paragraph made sense - a vast improvement on other translation tools. In this case, I was translating from Danish to English. Usually translation tools can get the nouns and verbs but are confounded by context. Looking at the Word Monkey site, they make clear that are not affilated in any way with Google yet are powered by Google Translate . In Google Translate, you can search for information on foreign language sites and translate the results back into your home language. There is also an option to contribute a better translation. This wiki feature may be part of the reason this translator is more accurate than others. With the ability to learn, I am liking this tool.

Surely you have tired by now of the whole Tiger Woods saga. All the articles about sex addiction, a world without privacy, being a role model, the future of professional golf, and whether we should care about any of it. But, from a business POV, here's one more article: The Ultimate Case Study In Brand Identity Vs Brand Image . It explains that brand identity really is "the heart and soul of who you are as a company or a person." Businesses can take a free "brand strength" test - go to the first link in the article - and that will be worth three minutes of a business' time.

I recently worked on a question about getting a business to want to contribute to a non-profit. (It was more complex than that, but that'll do for this purpose.) In researching the query, I came across Business Nonprofit CONNECTIONS, Inc. The About Us page poses this question: "Is your company’s giving making a difference in your community...and your bottom line?" The founder and CEO of the company, Susan Hyatt, "provides small and mid-sized companies with ideas and tools for actively managing their community impacts and giving strategies." Also, there's a lot of free, useful advice in blog articles and links to other resources at the site. And I've been getting some start-up e-mails from her that are commonsensical but useful; e.g., "Lesson One - Your Business is NEVER 'Too Small' To Make A Difference." One can sign up for a "free 12-page report, Great Gifts That Make a Difference, for ideas on alternative giving this holiday sea

Well, not really, but I needed a title to tie-in the season with this recent article from Small Business Trends , called the " Top 10 Homepreneur Trends for 2010 ". (Aside - why do so many year-end lists [or lists in general] come in a multiple of 10? Is it a common number of toes, or fingers? Anyway, it's not my list, so they can do what they like.) The article reveals the neologism "homepreneur," which I wasn't familiar with until today. Regardless, we frequently receive questions from advisors as to what home-based businesses are hot. Keep these in mind. Now, should a person enter into a home-based businesses because he or she is limited, for one reason or another, to the home, and that choosing amongst this list would yield something more promising than something that isn't hot? Or should this list be read by someone who has talent and experience in one of these fields, and decides to start out a career in the field by starting in the home? I rea

Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have been all the rage for the past few years, but the big question of profitability was always looming. Sure, they had a lot of members, but did these companies have any way to make money? Well, Twitter seems to have figured it out, at least for the time being. Twitter has just signed two agreements which will allow Twitter posts to be searchable by Google and Bing (Microsoft). The respective $15 and $10 million dollar agreements will open up your Twitter tweets to data mining, and will make the company profitable (we think - Twitter is privately held, and isn't giving away all their financials.) Read more at BusinessWeek: " Content-Search Deals Make Twitter Profitable "

The following three articles are only related because they are lists and I thought that they could be interesting and useful to business owners. 19 Blogs You Should Bookmark Right Now - Inc. scoured the Web and came up with a list of the smartest business bloggers. Their advice just might help you run a better company. (Inc.) 30 Entrepreneurs Who Are Saving the World - A look at 30 entrepreneurs who built successful businesses that were also driven by a social mission. Because, let's face it: There's more to life than simply making lots of money. (Inc.) The Best Money Management Sites - Although written as an article on personal finance software, the new generation of money management Web sites can help you take control of your financial life. (CBS Money Watch)

From the Office of Advocacy, Small Business Administration States looking to grow their economies must ensure that sufficient human capital exists to raise productivity, output, and incomes throughout the state. Some of these gains will stem from the creation of new enterprises, which previous research links to higher living standards. Each state experiences ebbs and flows of people moving in or out, but some states experience “brain drain” more than others. This paper explores the mobility of labor from one state to another, using data from the Baccalaureate and Beyond longitudinal survey and examining student outcomes as wage and salary and self-employed workers 10 years after graduation. A full copy of this report is available here , and the research summary can be found here . Should you need further information, please feel free to contact Chad Moutray at (202) 205-6533 or advocacy@sba.gov.

According to a recent survey from the University of California, San Diego, U.S. household consumed about 3.6 zettabytes of information in 2008. A zettabyte is 1,000,000,000 trillion bytes, and last year's 3.6 zettabytes are the information equivalent of thick paperback novels stacked seven feet tall over the whole U.S., including Alaska. So that's a lot of information. More interesting is where that information is coming from. Computer games, TV and movie-going were the largest sources of information consumed, and Americans spent 16% of their information hours on the internet , second only to their 41% watching TV . Read the full report here: How Much Information? 2009 Report on American Consumers

'Tis the season to point out The Bloom Report , a website that covers the toy industry that was pointed out to me by Walter Reid (in our Farmingdale office). Walter, who had worked in the toy industry for several years, calls this "the best free resource for information on the toy industry that I have come across." If it's that good enough for Walter, then I feel obliged to pass word of it on here. The site (which requires free registration) is useful mostly for its dedication to linking to nearly every toy-related item in that industry's trade publications. Philip Bloom, its creator, has been in the toy industry in some capacity since the 1950s, and this website seems to be a new outlet for the knowledge that he's accumulated. Yes, registering for it will require yet another user ID and password, but please keep this site in mind to refer to any toy store (or toy invention) clients that you meet.