A Weekly Roundup of Small-Business News - NYTimes.com

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A weekly roundup of small-business developments.

What?s affecting me, my clients and other small-business owners this week.

Jobs: Everybody?s Talking Small Business

Dean Wormer sums up August?s job growth, and the president counters with his $447 billion jobs plan. Here are the key points. Paul Krugman says it?s big and bold. Mark Zandi, who?s no Obama guy, thinks it will create two million jobs. Megan McArdle says it?s more of the same. The thoughts of other economists are summed up here. Mike Brownfield offers four ways that President Obama has blocked job growth. Mike Mandel shows which occupations have grown since 2007 and 24/7 Wall St. predicts the 10 best paying jobs of the future. Barry Ritholtz offers a few great charts on historical unemployment. The health care sector adds 30,000 more jobs. A Pepperdine University study suggests that most small businesses would like to hire in the next six months (but are hindered by uncertainty, capital and regulations). Lawmakers in Utah scratched their four-day workweek experiment. July job openings are the highest in three years. This guy is the world?s fastest cigarette roller.

The Data: Climbing the Walls

July capital goods orders are revised upward. A nonmanufacturing index indicates expansion in August. Weak housing numbers may be concealing higher inflation. Traffic through the Suez Canal points to a slowing global economy. Mortgage rates fall to a record low. The trade deficit decreased (pdf) in July. Weekly unemployment claims increased. The Fed?s beige book says that economic activity is increasing (although the One Eyed Guide says it?s a ?dead economy walking?). All of this data makes one little girl climb the walls.

The Economy: Less Competitive, but Still Cool

Scott Grannis revisits 20 bullish charts about the economy. The Fed considers ?operation twist.? Our postal service nears default, and the chief says radical changes are needed. According to Citibank, entrepreneurs are poised for growth. But there could be a double dip. The firearms industry?s doing great. We may be losing our competitiveness, but at least the world still thinks we?re cool.

Starting Up: Justin Bieber?

Laura Petrecca says fewer people are choosing to be self-employed. The Baltic states hold a start-up competition. Justin Bieber becomes a start-up investor. Gerri Harrison offers video tips for starting a small business. Austin holds a start-up camp. Here are 20 international start-ups to keep an eye on. Leena Rao explains what to look for in a company board.

Red Tape Update: Patent Laws Change

Congress passes big changes to our patent reform laws, and Brad Plumer? explains it all succinctly. The Tax Foundation reports that ?a review of actual Internal Revenue Service corporate tax return data shows that while the largest corporations in America (those with assets larger than $2.5 billion) represent a tiny fraction of all corporations, they pay an overwhelming share of all federal corporate income taxes.? Catherine Clifford?s opinion on President Obama?s 17 tax breaks for small business? ?Big whoop!?

Marketing: Warning ? Actual Humans

Marketers plan to increase their social media spend. Neal Rodriguez writes about small-business social media myths. Mobile search increases during the holidays. Digital spending is expected to be about 70 percent of marketing budgets by 2015. Mike Fladien explains consumer equilibrium in three and a half minutes. New infographics sum up the e-mail marketing world. Here?s how one guy generates bigger, better sales prospects. (Warning: actual humans are involved.) Here?s how some small businesses crowdsource on a budget. Twitter has 100 million monthly active users but 40 percent don?t tweet! Kelley Robertson lists 11 things that make a big difference in sales. A Dutch woman calls her boyfriend 65,000 times.

Ideas: Finding the Bedbugs

Hertz offers electric bike rental in London. InternMatch raises $500,000 to connect students with internships. A single molecule is the tiniest electric motor ever. A start-up tells us where the bedbugs are. Anita Campbell says the Amish are turning their cultural propensity for self employment into business opportunity wherever they find it ? even at the side of the road. Jason Hiner lists four industries that will be transformed by the Internet. John Hawkins offers seven tips for tomorrow?s entrepreneurs.

Your People: Work Longer, Be Happy, Avoid Bullies

Staples says that one in three people would work an extra week for the right incentive program. Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer say that happiness helps: ?Employees are far more likely to have new ideas on days when they feel happier.? Deborah Gains suggests professional ways to say something stinks. Leslie Allen gives advice for employees who are bullied (personally, I prefer this approach). Joy Powers lists 10 inexpensive ways to raise employee morale.

Around the World: What a Croc!

Thanks to Legos, I finally understand the Euro crisis. China?s growth may slide below 9 percent in 2012, but those guys are still so busy they have 4-year olds driving people around. TechCrunch decides to host its first-ever international Disrupt conference in China. The United States becomes a $1.8 billion exporter of solar technology. A giant croc is captured in the Philippines.

Finance: Making Venture Capitalists Sing

How bad is the I.P.O. market? It?s so bad that a respected V.C. firm made this music video. The Treasury Department says that August brought a wave of small-business funding. William Dunkelberg says loan money is available but qualified applicants are not. Jill Schlesinger tells us what financial data to shred and what to keep.

Technology: Will Amazon Change Everything?

A new television show evaluates tomorrow?s tech stars. Despite speculation that it might get out of the personal computer business, Hewlett-Packard unveils two all-in-one desktop computers for small businesses. Kevin Casey offers five questions we should ask about cloud contracts. A cloud-based phone provider, RingCentral, raises $10 million. Andrew Lock lists three cheap online tools. Intuit introduces Salesforce for QuickBooks. Snoop Dogg campaigns to be Yahoo?s new chief executive. Dropbox still wants to raise $300 million. Groupon pulls its I.P.O. GigaOM lists 25 mobile payment companies. Amazon is redesigning its Web site for tablets and prepares a device that ?could change everything.? Apple?s coming iCloud service relies on Amazon and Microsoft. John Paczkowski says that enterprises like Research In Motion?s new BlackBerrys, but consumers are ? meh. A Pew survey says that 28 percent of American adults use mobile and social location-based services. An airline passenger is arrested for not turning off his cellphone. Google buys Zagat.

The Week Ahead: Inflation, Sales, Manufacturing

Both consumer and producer price indexes will be released, showing us whether inflation has increased. We also get to see how retailers did last month. Near the end of the week, both the New York and Philadelphia Feds will report on manufacturing activity in the region and the University of Michigan will release its? closely watched consumer sentiment index.

This Week?s Bests

Way to Use Fear as Your Compass Jim Connolly has one simple idea to attract the attention and respect of your marketplace: ?In my experience, those who express themselves honestly and those who are too fearful to express what they believe use fear as their compass. Where the difference comes, is in the way they navigate with that compass.?

Reason to Not Use Social Media Megan Leap shares her three all-too-common social media marketing myths The one I like the best is ?Myth: everyone needs social media marketing. It?s sexy, it?s fun, and everyone ? from enterprise organizations to small businesses ? thinks that they need to add it to their marketing mix. But you know what? That?s not quite the case. Before you invest more resources into social media marketing, ask yourself these critical questions. Does my target audience use social media networks? Can I reach them there? Do I have competing, higher-R.O.I. priorities that can potentially drive better results more efficiently? Will it help me achieve my goals? Do I have enough time to invest to do a worthwhile job? (Good social media marketing is time-consuming!) If you answered ?no? or ?not sure? to any of the above questions, please take some time to reconsider your social media marketing investment.?

Reason to Win an Inc. 500 Award Nathaniel Broughton shares the good and bad of winning an Inc 500. award, including: ?an invite to the conference in D.C. It?s littered with top-notch speakers (I saw Jim Collins and Tony Hsieh, among others), and every other attendee is someone else who?s making waves in the business world. You can strike up a conversation with any person in attendance and know it?ll be worthwhile. It?s truly hard to find that at most conferences.?

This Week?s Question: Does social media really work for your business?

Gene Marks owns the Marks Group, a Bala Cynwyd, Pa., consulting firm that helps clients with customer relationship management. You can follow him on Twitter.

Source: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/12/this-week-in-small-business-uncompetitive-but-very-cool/

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