New York SBDC Research Network

I invite you to visit and follow the Pinterest page for the NYS SBDC Research Network . You've probably heard a lot about Pinterest lately and noticed that familiar little P popping up at the bottom of articles and in catalogs and so on. This visual venue lends itself very much to the sharing of ideas, in our case, ideas about business. Most people who go on may not be impressed initially because having a good experience on Pinterest requires a bit of cultivation. Browsing the "popular" page will only show you things you've likely already seen and are the common denominator, and not tailored to you. However if you search for specific topics of interest to you, then you can begin choosing carefully the people and boards you wish to follow. Using Pinterest to promote business is becoming more and more common although not everyone "gets" it. Authenticity is important in this medium and overt selling is out. But you can present the culture of a business

Michael Gragg, John Narciso, Amy Amoroso, John McKeone The NYS VBOC was recognized at the SBA National Business Awards Ceremony in Washington, DC on June 21, 2013 as the 2013 Veterans' Business Outreach Center of the Year. We are especially proud of the services these staff members deliver directly to veterans as well as the support they provide to other SBDC Advisors who regularly work with veteran clients. The sponsoring SBA Office of Veterans' Business Services made the selection from among its national network of 15 VBOC programs. The NYS SBDC network has been assisting veterans since its inception in 1984. For the first 15 years of its existence, the statewide program assisted veterans along with other entrepreneurial individuals in the state. In September 1999, assistance to veterans became a new priority when the NYS SBDC became one of four SBDCs in the nation to pilot the Veteran’s Business Outreach Center (VBOC) program that is funded through the SBA’s Office of

A report published by the Office of Advocacy analyzes the impact of an internet sales tax on small business. As the popularity of online shopping has grown, states have seen their sales tax revenues drop. Federal legislation has been introduced over the past several years to authorize online sales tax collection. With small business owners on both sides of the issue, the Office of Advocacy recognized the need for objective research for small businesses and policymakers. This report analyzes the number of firms that will be affected by the small seller exemption (SSE) if current legislation passes and how much e-commerce is likely to be affected. The report, An Analysis of Internet Sales Taxation and the Small Seller Exemption , was written by Donald Bruce and William F. Fox of the University of Tennessee’s Center for Business and Economic Research.

The Securities and Exchange Commission voted unanimously to propose rules under the JOBS Act to permit companies to offer and sell securities through crowdfunding. "Consistent with the JOBS Act, the proposed rules would among other things permit individuals to invest subject to certain thresholds, limit the amount of money a company can raise, require companies to disclose certain information about their offers, and create a regulatory framework for the intermediaries that would facilitate the crowdfunding transactions." Note the SEC is "seeking public comment on the proposed rules for a 90-day period," which will end sometime in mid-January. See more from the SEC .

Politicians, policy makers, parents and students assume that the straightest path to a great job is by majoring in what is often called a STEM discipline -- science, technology, engineering or math. Indeed, President Barack Obama has set a goal of creating a million new STEM college graduates in the next 10 years, along with 100,000 new teachers in those fields. Meanwhile some politicians are urging state universities to ditch unpopular liberal arts and embrace more STEM education instead. The popularity of STEM majors can be explained in large part by the belief that there are plenty of jobs in these fields. Under this view, these jobs that are going begging because not enough Americans have the skills to qualify for these positions. Americans also widely believe that students who graduate in STEM subjects will earn higher salaries. If many STEM majors aren't enjoying outsized salaries, maybe the assumption that there are many jobs available in these fields is wrong, too. In a

Think in an uncertain economy there's some safety in buying a franchise of an already-established brand? A new report suggests that's true only if you choose very, very carefully. Seeing a Pattern The report found that 11 franchises—more than half ice cream or fast food—had the highest rates of failure of their federally guaranteed loans used to buy them in the first place, according to analysis of U.S. Small Business Administration figures done by BlueMauMau.com, a franchising news website. This is the same list that the agency provides loan officers of its most trusted lenders and banks throughout the country, the site says. See the list on Open Forum

From MoneyWatch : Managers, you may rate 10 percent of your people "superior performers," 40 percent as "exceeds expectations," 40 percent as "meets expectations" and the remaining 10 percent as "below expectations." Sound familiar? This breakdown is known as a "stacked ranking" or "forced bell curve ranking." Microsoft (MSFT) was one of the many big companies that used this method to classify how their employees perform. No more. The software maker has declared that approach a failure and scrapped it at precisely the same moment that Yahoo (YHOO) is embracing it... But, what is so bad about stacked rankings?