New York SBDC Research Network

"Every cell tower in the Long Island community stopped working and representatives from wireless companies were nowhere to be found…Schnirman (Long Beach city manager) said he spent a week after the storm trying to persuade a wireless carrier, which he declined to name, to deploy a portable cell tower -- known as a "cell on wheels" -- to restore service in Long Beach.  “We reached out to the carrier’s customer support to ask about getting a cell on wheels and the voice on phone said ‘You might want to look that up on Internet. I don’t know what that is,’” he recalled. “ Of course, we had no Internet. " (smith 2013) What is your Businesses’ Communications Backup Plan? When disaster strikes, when the coming spring brings floods, tornadoes or the unexpected ice storm, are you prepared? And the power and communication outages that come with it, are your businesses prepared to keep open the lines of communication. Do you have an emergency communications plan? Cons

The end of this month brings the deadline for signing up for the Affordable Care ACT.  So how do you face this deadline and what are people doing to face the deadline?  Below are some articles from popular news sources on what the deadline means, whether it affects you, and what people are saying about the deadline. Disclaimer:  News from popular news sources are not always accurate or up-to-date, so it important to read  from multiple sources. Millions May Avoid Obamacare Penalty as Deadline Looms Deadline looming for Affordable Care Act enrollment Obamacare enrollment bests 4.2 million; more young adults signed up Facing Obamacare enrollment deadline, these states are pushing for more time

Whether you work in a hazardous environment or in a comparatively safer zone, workplace safety is important to prevent mishaps. Since you are spending most of your time at your work place, it must be safe so that no threat to health is posed. Thus, health and safety of employees are major concerns of an organization. Health and safety programs are an important part of preventing injury and illness in the workplace. Health programs help employers and employees understand the potential hazards they are exposed to on a daily basis. Effective health and safety programs educate workers on the benefits of practicing proper workplace behaviors. When companies understand the impact injuries have on their bottom line, they are more inclined to implement programs to keep their workers healthy and safe. Understanding the importance of safety at workplace should be the concern of the management. Certain norms are established that an individual should know to ensure self-safety. There should be

From USA Today : Q: Just when I thought I had it all going on with regard to my website, it turns out that I am now supposed to have a mobile version of my site, right? Is this really necessary? I have more important things to spend my time on, don't you agree? -- T.J. A. I would like to agree, but unfortunately, I cannot. Consider, just for starters, these statistics I recently saw from Visual.ly: • Mobile search has grown five times in the past two years. • 52% of all local searches are done on a mobile phone. • Nine out of 10 mobile searches end in a purchase. So, no, you cannot ignore your mobile website; indeed, for most small businesses, it needs to become a priority. Look, we live in a world where mobile is taking over (or has taken over.) More and more, people are using smartphones and tablets as their main access point for the Web, and that means that sites that are not optimized for mobile devices have a problem.

Over the last year, the Federal Trade Commission has continued aggressive enforcement of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act by bringing or resolving nine debt collection cases, according to the agency’s annual summary of debt collection activities. “When it comes to debt collection, the FTC has many tools in its arsenal, including research, enforcement, and consumer education,” said Jessica Rich, Director of the agency’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “But in the years since the financial crisis hit, we have increased our emphasis on law enforcement.” In 2013, the FTC obtained court orders stopping illegal debt collection activities in seven cases, and referred two other debt collection cases to the Department of Justice for civil penalties. In several of the cases, the FTC obtained temporary restraining orders halting the unlawful conduct, freezing the defendants’ assets, and appointing receivers to take over operations while court proceedings progressed. More from the FT

Different industries are having different reactions to the Affordable Care Act.  Below are some articles on different industries and how they say the ACA will effect them How latest change in health care bill impacts restaurants Manufacturers warn of ObamaCare fallout New Obamacare Regulations Spark Growth in Vending Industry Companies Say Obamacare Is Slamming The Health Care Industry I've tried to provide a mix of industries above.  If you are interested in finding information on an industry that I haven't touched on, please comment below, and I will try to find information for you.  If you would like to search on your own, I advise looking at an association website.  Associations are valuable sources of up-to-date information on specific industries.

Once upon a time, syndicated data providers were the main source of retail POS data, and what was available was limited and extremely expensive. But times have changed, with richer, more detailed demand data becoming available from more and more sources: syndicated data providers, brokers, third party data managers, and increasingly, retailers themselves — usually for free. But not all consumer goods (CG) companies are aware of who’s sharing and what’s available — even from their own customers. While it’s true that few retailers share data on the level of Walmart with its Retail Link® portal, more and more are grasping the benefits of enabling their suppliers to access store-level sales and inventory information in virtually real time, and taking steps to make it more available. Store-level demand sensing is the fuel that fires a responsive, profit-enhancing CG demand chain. The ultimate goal is a robust analytics solution that drives actionable business decisions, from supply and

Get Business Continuity Tips at Free Webinar Hosted by SBA & Agility WASHINGTON – Floods are a threat for areas hit by heavy late-winter snowfalls. Severe storms—sometimes in the form of deadly tornadoes or massive rainfall—often wreak havoc across the U.S. during spring. There are many low-cost, efficient steps you can take now to make sure your company, clients and employees are safe in the months to come. Join the U.S. Small Business Administration and Agility Recovery on Tuesday, March 11 at 2 p.m. EDT for a free webinar on best practices for mitigating spring weather risks. These preparedness tips are based on real-life recovery experiences from business owners. The SBA has partnered with Agility to offer business continuity strategies through its “PrepareMyBusiness” website. Visit www.preparemybusiness.org to access previous webinars and for additional preparedness tips. The SBA provides disaster recovery assistance in the form of low-interest loans to hom

The New York SBDC's Procurement Assistance program has updated the following list of procurement-related events in 2014:  2014 Procurement Events New York State Syracuse – March 20, 2014 Operation:  Start Up & Grow Veteran Business Conference Onondaga Community College, Gordon Student Center; 8:30 AM – 1:00 PM Register at http://www.sba.gov/operationstartup ; ( 315) 471-9393 Plattsburgh – March 21, 2014 ( Date Confirmed ) Plattsburgh Small Business Development Center and Empire State Development Team Up for a Small Business Matchmaker SUNY College at Plattsburgh, 194 US Oval, Plattsburgh, NY Karen Stehlin; Karen.Stehlin@plattsburgh.edu ; (518) 564-2042 Watertown – March 25, 2014 Watertown Small Business Development Center and North Country PTAC Matchmaker 2014 Jefferson Community College, Jules Center; 8:00 AM – 2:00 PM www.northcountryptac.com   (315) 788-4400 Robin Stephenson; rstephenson@sunyjefferson.edu ; (315) 782-9262 Buffalo –

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Small Business Administration will join the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development (NCAIED) at its National Reservation Economic Summit (RES) March 17-20, 2014 to sign a strategic alliance memorandum (SAM) to widen reach to Native American entrepreneurs and boost entrepreneurship opportunities. The National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development (NCAIED) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. With more than 40 years of assisting American Indian Tribes and their enterprises with business and economic development, they have evolved into one of the largest national Indian specific business organizations in the nation. The 28th Annual National Reservation Economic Summit in Las Vegas, Nev., will feature respected tribal leaders, state and local elected officials and top CEOs, networking, teaming opportunities, business development sessions and American Indian Procurement opportunities.

It is unlawful to harass a person (an applicant or employee) because of that person’s sex. Harassment can include “sexual harassment” or unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature. Harassment does not have to be of a sexual nature, however, and can include offensive remarks about a person’s sex. For example, it is illegal to harass a woman by making offensive comments about women in general. Both victim and the harasser can be either a woman or a man, and the victim and harasser can be the same sex. Although the law doesn’t prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or isolated incidents that are not very serious, harassment is illegal when it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision (such as the victim being fired or demoted). The harasser can be the victim's supervisor, a supervisor in another area, a co-worker,

In general, in the US, funds raised on Kickstarter are considered income. In general, a creator can offset the income from their Kickstarter project with deductible expenses that are related to the project and accounted for in the same tax year. For example, if a creator receives $1,000 in funding and spends $1,000 on their project in the same tax year, then their expenses could fully offset their Kickstarter funding for federal income tax purposes. If a creator receives funding in one year and spends money on their project in a later year, consider whether their expenses can still offset their Kickstarter funding using the accrual method of accounting. More from Kickstarter . From one Kickstarter alum: "Approximately 33% of the funding goal goes to pay the state and federal taxes that will be levied against the money raised. American tax law doesn't count up-front production costs as an immediately deductible business expense, so at first I'll have to pay taxes on n

Hybrid Organizations, also called Social Enterprises or Social Ventures, are organized to include a for profit business with a non for profit entity. Hybrid corporations usually consist of a charitable organization that has established a related way to earn revenue. For example a company, Toms , sells shoes and for every shoe they sell they will send a pair to children in need in a different country.  So what is a hybrid organization? The Social Entrepreneurship Spectrum: Hybrids  (Inc., May 2011) Entrepreneurs And The 'Hybrid' Organization  (Forbes, August 2013 Research finds rising numbers of 'hybrid organizations' across sectors  (Devex Impact, June 2013) In Search of the Hybrid Ideal  (Stanford Social Innovation Review Summer 2012) Low-profit limited liability company  (Wikipedia) - This link provides a summary of a new legal business structure for hybrid organizations.  A L3C is currently only available in 9 states, with legislation proposed in 26 more.  

February is heart month. We wear red, we have heart healthy screenings, and we are reminded that heart disease is the leading cause of death among Americans. During the month, we learn how to mitigate heart disease. While our bodies and our small businesses may not be an exact parallel, it makes for a good analogy. Your small business is like your body. The heart of your small business is finance related. Most businesses fail because of lack of financial management - lack of capital. Finance, generally speaking, pumps life in (or out of) your business. Your financial statements are like an EKG. It can help identify problems or underlying issues. While you should have a check-up on both your body and your business frequently, it's advantageous to at the least have an annual checkup. But what good is your EKG if you don't know how to read it? More from the ASBDC .

See the Death/Closing of Enterprises statistics from Census 1977-2011.

Nolo.com : The Internet takes tax-free shopping to a new level. In fact, no-tax shopping has become a prime lure of online retailers looking to hook consumers on click-and-charge buying. Despite what you sometimes hear, however, some Internet sales are subject to sales tax, and even when a site doesn't collect sales tax, consumers are technically responsible for remitting any unpaid sales tax on online purchases directly to their state. For information on the Internet sales tax laws for each state, see Internet Sales Tax: A 50-State Guide to State Laws . Collecting Sales Tax: Some Sites Have To, Some Don't If an online retailer has a physical presence in a particular state, such as a store, business office, or warehouse, it must collect sales tax from customers in that state. If a business does not have a physical presence in a state, it is not required to collect sales tax for sales into that state. This rule is derived from a 1992 Supreme Court decision which held that

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, initially priced at $787 billion and later revised to $831 billion, included $212 billion in tax cuts (mainly through the payroll tax cut), $296 billion in mandatory spending on programs including Medicaid and unemployment benefits, and $279 billion in discretionary spending targeting areas such as aid to individuals to investments in infrastructure, energy, education, and health care. The report says the array of measures is expected to pump $763 billion into the economy by 2019, with most of it being released before the end of fiscal year 2012. Read more from the White House and two popular news sources below. The Economic Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 5 Years Later  - A report from the White House Council of Economic Adviser's. The Fifth Anniversary of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act  - A White House blog post that provides an overview of the above mentioned report. 5 Years After Stimulus, Oba

Credit conditions for small businesses have been gradually improving, which is portrayed in Advocacy’s updated Small Business Finance: Frequently Asked Questions . You'll find answers to questions on the general small business financial borrowing, government financing, as well as policy issues on this matter. Should you need further information, please feel free to call (202) 205-6533 or email advocacy@sba.gov.

How much is everything on your computer worth to you? About $300? The criminals behind a new malware program are betting on it. The Federal Trade Commission, the FBI and other federal agencies are warning consumers and businesses about “Cryptolocker,” a malware program that holds the files on your computer for ransom, and doesn’t allow you to access them until you pay up. Even then, there’s no guarantee. It’s essentially extortion, with all your personal documents, photos, and files at risk. Cryptolocker is spread mostly through email and “drive-by” downloads. The email might look like a routine message from a legitimate company, like a tracking notice from a shipping company. If you click on the hyperlink in the email, Cryptolocker encrypts everything on your hard drive and in your shared folders. When the job is done, you get a “ransom note” demanding payment via Bitcoin or some other anonymous payment method. The criminals behind this malware say they’ll give you the encryptio

On a section of our Facebook page, we had higher engagement figures than reach, meaning more people were said to have clicked on or interacted with the content than Facebook said viewed it. In searching for a possible answer, we found this article: Facebook Admits Organic Reach Is Falling Short, Urges Marketers to Buy Ads . Essentially, Facebook is saying that the fewer people are seeing free posts from pages, and that you’re going to have to pay to promote your content if you want it seen. Kind of depressing, but our numbers seem to reflect this change. Somewhere or other - can't seem to find it presently - I saw a video about how the Facebook model of having to pay to have them see you seems backward, compared to the YouTube model, where the people who drive traffic to the site actually can benefit from their cleverness.