New York SBDC Research Network

Here's a fun U.S. government site (and you thought the Census pages were about as good as it got): Recreation.gov offers this handy database of Federal recreation sites nationwide. Users can search recreational facilities by keyword, state, agency, or activity. The activities range from auto touring to winter sports, and include favorites like fishing, hiking, climbing, horseback riding and picknicking. Useful for small businesses related to recreational activities, or just planning your next vacation.

I think this is really nifty, not to mention useful for importers and exporters: the IBM Globalization Locale Database . It lists, for most countries of the world, the national currency. But then it shows one how the money and other numeric values are formatted. For instance, what one writes as 1,234,567.89 in the United States would be written as 1.234.567,89 in Argentina. You'll find the days of the week and the months of the year in the language, or in the case of Belgium, three languages, of the country. Today may be 5/29/2007 in the United States, but it's 29.05.2007 in India.

While truth-in-advertising rules apply to business advertisements, what about political advertising? Nope. That's why its a good thing that there are people out there, willing to check the facts, and provide voters and viewers with important background information. Check out Factcheck.org . A project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, Factcheck.org keeps tabs on claims and statements made by politicians and political candidates, monitoring "the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews, and news releases." Their postings offer a summary of the peice in question (an ad, speech, or the most recent round of debates), provide an analysis of the facts in questions, and cite their sources. NPR recently featured a piece with Factcheck.org directors, Brooks Jackson and Kathleen Hall Jamieson. Listen here .

One of our more recent library purchases is Streetwise Low-Cost web Site Promotion: Every Possible Way to Make Your Web Site a Success - Without Spening Lots of Money by Barry Feig . This book covers topics such as creating traffic, developing a promotion plan, what makes a good web site, how to measure success and how to use email to your advantage among many other things. A section I stopped at was on how to use language effectively. Some of Mr.Feig's guidelines are: "create keywords you think people would type in the search engines to find the types of products or services you offer. don't just use nouns. Use phrases rather than a single word. Use descriptions also." "Use multiple, specific headlines. Headlines and subheadlines create immediate context when a visitor is exploring your site. There should be a headline on your screen at all times...Your headline should summarize what's inside your web site... make your copy brief...avoid generalities.&quo

Taken at 4:42 pm, April 27, 2007 The blog's two years old this week. In the 12 months, from May 2006 through April 2007, we've had an average of 292 hits (a median of 272) per month. There's been a decided uptick in recent months, with 461 hits in March and 602 in April. While 75% of our traffic is coming from New York State, a quarter is coming from especially Europe. Similarly, about 1/4 of the domestic visitors are from outside New York State. Though some of the people who found this blog came to follow up some demographic or program detail we'd mentioned, at least one recent visitor came as a response to a piece that Darrin wrote nearly two years ago about a scam . I cite these statistical notes to show that a blog, initially designed for a fairly small niche of a couple hundred NYS SBDC advisors, can become a broader tool. I am curious, though as to which is better: the reminder on Wednesday, which we do now, or Friday, which we used to do? There's always a spi

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

There are lots of information sources about corporations and executives, but I though this beta directory at Condé Nast Portfolio.com was quite nice. The site offers "company information, news, and financial data on more than 500,000 public and private companies" here ... .. and executive profiles, with "backgrounds, including employment history and compensation data, and news on more than 500,000 executives of leading public and private companies" here . And if you find that any of those executives should be incarcerated, why not send them this piece ( C.E.O. Survival Guide: Pre-Prison Prep ), to help them prepare for life in the slammer.