New York SBDC Research Network

I have suggested the language podcasts on iTunes . They also have business podcasts on various issues. I've been listening to one called How to Give Feedback About Attire on Manager Tools by Michael Auzenne and Mark Horstman. It's free and you can also get it from their website . One of the sessions I listened to was about talking to employees about dress codes. It is interesting and talks to this team's approach to managing employees in general. For the purposes of this topic they discuss the ways managers talk to employees - making judgements versus offering feedback on employee behavior with an explanation of impacts. In this scenario, not criticizing clothes specifically, but talking to the choices employees make and how to separate the person from the behavior. They describe situations where a dress code is too specific and tries to codify clothes. The difficulty is where a person is not breaking rules but is making choices that creates less than positive results. Th

I learned of a new website from a recent e-newsletter from ASBDC. It's called TheFunded.com , and it has a feature that comes at the need for venture capital from a different angle. Since we frequently have clients who seek this kind of financing, the site is useful in that they can search for VC firms in their part of the country. They can also narrow their search by the size of funding being sought. The results of their search, however, aren't simply contact information for the fund. In most cases, each firm will have written commentary by business owners who've had experience with them (usually a paragraph or so). Each firm gets rated (on a scale from 1 to 4, I believe), and the firm's rating appears prominently when the search results come in. The site doesn't appear to have a function where you can search for firms that deal with a specific industry (we have a tool like that in the library). However, getting the feedback directly from those with past exper