New York SBDC Research Network

This source offers a look at various factors that would demonstrate the relative ease or difficulty of starting a business in a great number of global economies. This is produced by the International Finance Corporation. These are electronic versions of the annual print reports on the regulations affecting business. The economies can be grouped by high or low or middle incomes, and will allow you to create reports. You can create a report on a number of topics, such as employment laws, enforcing contracts, property ownership, paying taxes among others. There are also sub-national reports for major metropolitan areas. Rankings Rankings of countries by various factors such as ease of doing business, or getting construction permits, getting credit and employing workers among others.

Copyright law has been long a fascination with me. And I spent over nine years selling comic books. So the news that Jack Kirby’s four children filed notices of copyright termination for 45 Marvel Comics characters fascinated me. Wait, you ask, who is Jack Kirby (August 28, 1917 – February 6, 1994)? He was only the co-creator of such characters as the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Avengers, and the Hulk in the 1960s for Marvel Comics, plus many more before and after that period for a variety of publishers. I even got to interview him once. But didn't Kirby sign a standard "work for hire" contract? That's a bit murky, but so was the "work for hire" provision before its 1976 revision . The LA Times has details . This is the same legal maneuver that the Siegel family employed to get back their half of the Superman copyright . Notices were sent to Marvel, Disney, Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures, suggesting that the

I'm as guilty as the next person when it comes to using search engines - I tend to use one search engine for every search. Obviously, I use databases and specific resources when I am doing research, but if I want to start a search from scratch, I head straight to Google. If I were to search for a video or audio file, I use Google. If I want to search for a topic or article, I use Google. But by doing this, I am limiting myself. There are hundreds of search engines available for use and many of them are geared toward searching for a specific type of file or result. 100+ Alternative Search Engines You Should Know lists many niche search engines that allow the searcher "to search for the things you’re looking for, and because they are more focused, their results tend to be more accurate." For example, MyPlick is a free service that lets you share, embed and discover presentations and slide shows online. TooDoc searches the web for PDF files and nothing else. You can even

A couple of website development tools: At the ASBDC conference in Orlando, I went to a presentation by Jan Zimmerman, author of Web Marketing For Dummies . On that book’s web page , she offers some tools helpful to clients planning a website or selecting a web developer. There’s a planning form, web marketing spreadsheet to analyze costs and sales objectives, and a website assessment form which might be really useful for advisors wanting to offer feedback on client sites. All these tools can be downloaded here . Jan also discussed how we typically read websites ( ie , not very thoroughly, most important things should be in the upper right, then left side, middle is often less important. ) If you’re interested in learning more about where the eye travels when viewing a site, Jakob Nielsen offers several articles about eyetracking , with some great advice for website usability .

Unsurprisingly, we at the Research Network are keen on blogs and blogging. But it's true that a blog that's not updated regularly is probably more problematic than no blog at all. Chris Crum over at Small Business Newz addresses this issue in Business Blogs Only Work if You Use Them . After he notes all of this blogs lying abandoned in cyberspace, Chris notes the benefits of sticking with it: Chris notes that a business blog "can inspire trust and keep the public informed about your business activities. However, it's only going to be a great tool if it is maintained. "I realize an update every day is not always practical, but I wouldn't advise against it unless there is nothing to say. You probably don't want to force your writing, but regular updates are key to making sure people know you are taking the blog seriously, and it will give them reason to come back (or hopefully subscribe via RSS). If your business is on Twitter (or other social media sites)

There has been a lot of hype in the news lately about whether or not the recession has ending or is in the process of ending. Both President Obama and Ben Bernake, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, have stated that they believe the recession to be over, or at least near its end. Whether or not is has ended is certainly up for debate and below are articles from both sides of the argument. Recession 'Likely Over' Conference Board index shows continued economic improvement Job cuts ease in August 86 percent in US believe recession continues Economist sees strong chance of 'double-dip recession'

I've pulled together a few articles on developing a pricing strategy as this is something that comes up frequently. Starting Up: Pricing Your Products September 29, 2008 By Diana Ransom How to Calculate Your Breakeven Point You need to keep this figure as low as possible. But do you know how to calculate the breakeven point when you sell multiple products? Entrepreneur.com By Ian Benoliel May 27, 2002 Calculating Overhead and Price http://www.missouribusiness.net/docs/calculate_overhead.pdf 1999 This school of management has a breakeven calculator to help student work out a pricing strategy: http://connection.cwru.edu/mbac424/breakeven/BreakEven.html