New York SBDC Research Network

From BoingBoing : You'll remember Derek Khanna as the Republican House staffer who got fired for writing a paper that used careful objective research to argue for scaling back copyright. Now, Khanna is a fellow at R Street, where he's expanded on his early work with a paper called Guarding Against Abuse: Restoring Constitutional Copyright [PDF] , which tackles the question of copyright terms from a market-economics approach, citing everyone from Hayek to Posner to the American Conservative Union... Khanna recommends new copyright policy based on a House Republican Study Committee proposal in 2012. Under this proposal, there would be a free 12-year copyright term for all new works. Following that, there could be an elective 12-year renewal, at a cost of 1 percent of all U.S. revenue from the first 12 years. There would then be two elective 6-year renewals, at a cost of 3 percent and 5 percent of revenue, respectively. There is one final elective 10-year renewal period at a

Carmen Sognonvi, owner and general manager of Urban Martial Arts in Brooklyn, NY, had the pleasure of hosting a workshop with Ramon Ray and InfusionSoft a few months back on how bricks-and-mortar businesses can combine old-school marketing tactics like flyers and signage with new technology like marketing automation. She finally had a chance to edit the darn thing! So check out this video with some clips from her workshop.

The Business Idea Center can be very helpful to the budding entrepreneur. Click on the industry, or interest, and drill down to the business you are interested in. You'll read: Business At A Glance, including startup costs, home based (whether it can be operated from home), and whether franchises are available. More detail in the business overview.

With SBA and PayPal, learn about the latest technology trends and best practices to help your small business increase sales, streamline operations and improve the customer experience. Tune in to watch at 2pm on Wednesday, May 14 at www.sba.gov/smallbusinessweek . SBA is also offering a series of business webinars during National Small Business Week on the following topics: • Smart Small Business Travel: Strategic Ways to Increase Your Return on Travel with Marriott, Visa and SBA, May 12 • Growing Your Business with Direct Mail with the United States Postal Service and SBA, May 12 | Register • Voluntary Benefits 101 for Employees with Colonial Life and SBA, May 13 • Achieving Big Customer Loyalty in a Small Business World: 10 Tips to Create A Killer Customer Loyalty Program with Manta and SBA, May 14

When you first started your business, you probably did a lot of research. You may have sought help from advisors; you may have gotten information from books, magazines and other readily available sources. You invested a lot-in terms of money, time and sweat equity-to get your business off the ground. So...now what? For those of you who have survived startup and built successful businesses, you may be wondering how to take the next step and grow your business beyond its current status. There are numerous possibilities, 10 of which we'll outline here. Choosing the proper one (or ones) for your business will depend on the type of business you own, your available resources, and how much money, time and sweat equity you're willing to invest all over again. Amazingly still useful article from Entrepreneur magazine, 2004 .

While residential leasing often places the burden of maintenance and upkeep on the shoulders of the landlord, commercial leases are different. Just because the landlord owns the building, it would make sense to believe that they are responsible for repairs and upkeep – this is not the case. Commercial leases vary in their approach to this – some stipulate that the tenant is responsible for all property upkeep and repairs while others specify that the tenant is responsible for systems such as the air conditioning, plumbing , etc. Check your lease – in addition to stating who is responsible for what it may also contain dollar limits on how much the tenant must pay for maintenance and repair. This 2011 article from SBA was useful this past week.

The laboratory environment poses unique challenges resulting from specialized equipment and work areas. Increasing your awareness of existing and potential ergonomic issues in the lab and knowing how to adjust workstations to fit the employee can have a huge impact. Humantech's complimentary e-book introduces tools and provided guidance to help make your laboratory a productive, comfortable, and safe place to work by applying ergonomics principles.

Google Search is a web search engine owned by Google Inc. Google search is the most-used search engine on the World Wide Web, handling more than three billion searches each day. The main purpose of Google Search is to hunt for text in publicly accessible documents offered by web servers, as opposed to other data, such as with Google Image Search. Although many are familiar with the basic uses of Google search, there are a few tricks that some people don’t know of. The most basic example is the “I’m Feeling Lucky” search option on the home page. When you search using the normal Google Search option it brings out a list of possible results from different websites. However, Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” option opens the very first link it generates from your search. It can save you time if you are searching for websites, but may not be accurate when searching for people or some products. Yet, this barely scratches the surface of Google Search’s capabilities. Have you ever struggled to fi

The Internet Retailer bills itself as the portal to e-commerce intelligence, and it is. The site contains articles, a vendor directory, many free resources, and a helpful blog.

From IRS Publication 587 (“Business Use of Your Home”) : Qualifying for a Deduction Generally, you cannot deduct items related to your home, such as mortgage interest, real estate taxes, utilities, maintenance, rent, depreciation, or property insurance, as business expenses. However, you may be able to deduct expenses related to the business use of part of your home if you meet specific requirements. Even then, the deductible amount of these types of expenses may be limited. Use this section and Figure A, later, to decide if you can deduct expenses for the business use of your home. To qualify to deduct expenses for business use of your home, you must use part of your home: Exclusively and regularly as your principal place of business, Exclusively and regularly as a place where you meet or deal with patients, clients, or customers in the normal course of your trade or business, In the case of a separate structure which is not attached to your home, in connection with your t

The Office for New Americans is designed to assist newcomers to New York State who are "eager to contribute to our economy and become part of the family of New York State." It helps newcomers to fully participate in New York State civic and economic life by strengthening New York State’s welcoming environment for New Americans. ONA facilitates success by: Creating a network of neighborhood-based “Opportunity” Centers Increasing access to English-for-Speakers-of-other-Languages (ESOL) training. Preparing New Americans for the naturalization process. Connecting New Americans to business resources to harness their entrepreneurial spirit. Developing and leveraging the professional skills of New Americans. Maximizing the number of young people receiving Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Strengthening the connections between New Americans and their communities through civic engagement and other opportunities. Reduce exploitation of New Americans by scammers and con

What is the most-debated question in social media today? One candidate is, “Should my company have a Facebook page?” The tension comes from several angles. It could be due to: •The company is not culturally-ready to deal with comments from real people. •The company has whacked-out expectations about how sales will increase once they have a Facebook page. •Their social media guru, Timmy from Accounting, has set their marketing strategy. •They are doing it because their kids told them it would be cool. So how do you decide if a Facebook page should be a priority for your company? More from SmallBusinessNewz

Empirical and anecdotal data tell us many people with intellectual disabilities do work and contribute enormously, but that, unfortunately, most are denied the opportunity. A recent Special Olympics survey conducted by Gallup and the University of Massachusetts at Boston identified a few startling statistics on this front: Only 44 percent of adults with intellectual disabilities are in the labor force, which is defined as either employed or actively seeking work. In contrast, 83 percent of adults without disabilities are in the labor force. Furthermore, the unemployment rate for adults with intellectual disabilities (21 percent) is more than twice as high as those without disabilities (9 percent). Someone is considered unemployed if he or she is without a job and actively looking for and available for work. Special Olympics’ mission may not be to place people in jobs or force employers to employ people with intellectual disabilities. Its ultimate goal, however, is to enable people

Search engines like Google are wonderful for anyone wanting to perform standard searches. Google has an amazing ability to cover the depth and breadth of the internet, which is a major reason why so many people depend upon it. Google also has a real knack for always providing the most popular search results first. What happens, however, if you are looking for something that is not popular like ancestral records or obscure historic documents? Now there is another way to perform searches on the internet for your ancestors. It is called Million Short. The name Million Short derives from the fact that this search engine basically ignores the 1 million most popular websites on the internet. Instead, it focuses on less-common websites. Basically, it specializes in what are known as long-tail searches, which focus on the obscure and the uncommon. Many genealogy records are obscure. The search engine worked well in general when looking for ancestral records. It worked even be

Potential Medicare providers: Start with Medicare Provider-Supplier Enrollment This section is designed to provide Medicare enrollment information for providers, physicians, non-physician practitioners, and other suppliers. Please review the downloadable fact sheets to learn more about Medicare provider and supplier enrollment. CMS has established Internet-based Provider Enrollment, Chain and Ownership System (PECOS) as an alternative to the paper (CMS-855) enrollment process. Internet-based PECOS will allow physicians, non-physician practitioners and provider and supplier organizations to enroll, make a change in their Medicare enrollment, view their Medicare enrollment information on file with Medicare, or check on status of a Medicare enrollment application via the Internet. See also Your Provider Manual to the New York Medicaid Program , which offers a wealth of information about Medicaid, as well as specific instructions on how to submit a claim for rendered services.

Getty Images, the premiere collection of professional quality photos on the Internet, has for years charged licensing fees to those who wanted access to its extensive portfolio, but that is changing. In a surprise move,  Getty Images is freeing up around 35 million photos from its collection spanning over a hundred years  so that websites and bloggers can post them without getting smacked in the face by a lawsuit. These images will not contain a watermark, though people who post them will need to use Getty's Embedded Viewer tool and abide by the company's Terms of Use. Acknowledging that its images have been widely pirated on the Web for years by users merely right-clicking on photos, Getty says the purpose of the program is to find new revenue streams for the photographers and the company.                  Because the metadata remains with the image, users can click back to Getty Images for more information on the image or photographer or to license the image for other purpos

The Human Rights Campaign Foundation recognizes 304 major U.S. employers as its 2014 "Best Places to Work for LGBT Equality". The list of top rated businesses has grown exponentially from 13 to over 300 since the report’s first launch in 2002. For twelve years, HRC has been working with Corporate America to maintain and establish best practice for LGBT inclusion, and this gathering of over 240 executives from top Fortune-ranked business, leading law firms, and other major employers reflects the absolute best in corporate leadership on LGBT equality. These are businesses that haven’t been waiting for legal mandates, but rather have extended equitable health insurance benefits to LGBT employees and their families, establishing a the new standard of truly inclusive employer-provided benefits, adding transgender inclusive health care coverage. This elite group of companies spans all industries, from manufacturing to banking, as well as all geographies. Companies receiving the

I strolled through the paths of the web wilderness to cull some of my favorite lists of prepare, respond and recover apps for crisis and disaster management….but..you say…but what about...? But What About …No Cell Service? “Anyone that’s been through a   natural disaster   realizes cell service is often times one of the 1st things to go! Sometimes having good cell service is tough enough, so why would you bother downloading apps to your phone if a disaster is going to wipe them out? Well, a lot of these apps once downloaded do not need to be connected to the internet or have cell service to run them. Many are informational apps and will still be able to show you how to do CPR, act as a flashlight, or pull-up important documents as long as they have battery power.” source:  ( http://prepared-housewives.com/emergency-apps-that-might-just-save-your-life/ ) Of course, you can’t count on cellular, Wi-Fi service or power to charge your batteries during a disaster, but even a pa

Why does anybody swap suppliers? Sometimes it’s because there is a cheaper alternative but mostly it isn’t. Would you swap dentists because a cheaper one set up next door? This is very unlikely. In reality people keep the status quo and only move on for a reason and in most cases whether they stay or go is up to you. Here are three of the most popular causes for client departures:  -“Perceived indifference”: The client thinks you don’t care anymore even though you do. They feel neglected and can only look back with wistful fondness to the days when you were courting them and couldn’t do enough for them. They just want to be loved and cared for but sadly you’re just not hitting the spot any more. -Poor quality: You simply aren’t delivering the quality they expect for the money they’re paying and because of point 1 above you don’t even know it. Regardless of the product or service you offer great quality is the best form of protection you can get. -Knock-out deals: One of yo

Now that Open Enrollment under the Affordable Care Act is actually over, the appeal process has started.  Appeals can occur for many reasons, including eligibility, enrollment post-open enrollment,  lowering costs and increasing savings, and more.  The articles below from government agencies can help answer any questions you may have about your right to appeal.  Also provided is detailed information and forms to help you go through the appeal process. Can I appeal a Marketplace decision?  (Healthcare.gov) Appealing Health Plan Decisions  (US Department of Health and Human Services) The Center for Consumer Information & Insurance Oversight - External Appeals  (Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services)