The Small Business Economy

The following two pieces were provided through the courtesy of the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.

The Small Business Economy: 2006

A new report issued by the Office of Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business Administration, "The Small Business Economy for Data Year 2005" examines the economic contributions of small business using data from a variety of
sources.

The report released before the National Economists Club in Washington, D.C, highlights some of the following:

** Business borrowing in 2005 was at an all-time high, and commercial banks expanded lending and eased lending standards in response to competition from non-bank lenders.

** Women’s contribution to business, using multiple data sources, the most recent show that women owned 6.5 million, or 28.2 percent, of non-farm firms. These firms employed 7.1 million workers with $173.7 billion in annual payroll.

** Three economic indicators key to an analysis of the economy’s performance—output, productivity, and unemployment—were up.

To obtain a copy of the report visit:

http://www.sba.gov/advo/research/sb_econ2006.pdf, and the research summary
at http://www.sba.gov/advo/research/rs286.pdf. Should you need further information, please feel free to contact Chad Moutray at (202) 205-6533 or advocacy@sba.gov .

Regional Asset Indicators

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City has recently unveiled an excellent resource to assess regional innovation and entrepreneurship assets. The web site hosts a variety of interesting tools for judging how your region is performingon key economic and demographic factors.It includes spreadsheets and maps that track important categories such as innovation, creative workforce, humanamenities, wealth, infrastructure, and entrepreneurship. It also includes useful articles providing further informationon each of the indicator categories.To access the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s Regional Asset Indicators web page, visit http://www.kansascityfed.org/RuralCenter/Indicators/Indicators_main.htm.

In praise of The Ghost Map, by Steven Johnson

Absolutely wonderful read - instructive on many levels.

Most of the reviews of Steven Johnson's "The Ghost Map" have focussed upon the map itself. The strength of the book likes in its exposition of:

• How the 1800s bureaucracy of public health had anchored upon the "miasmic" theory of disease at the cost of not seeing or considering *other* data which could point to the vector for cholera.
• The gritty analytical "hard work" done to identify the sources and courses of the epidemic
• The vivid description of the horrors of Dickens' London. As a contemporary, Dickens presumed a common point of refrence to the squalor. Mr. Johnson makes the despair and filth vivid for the contemporary reader.

What a (gritty) great read which should, I believe, augment courses in Public Health, Management Science, History, and English Literature. The meta book is the profound overall cautionary and instructive impact of his writing.

Suburban Revitalization - Lofts

The St. Louis Post Dispatch recently examined the boom in suburban loft space in the Metro East (e.g., Illinois) bedroom communities. Pray for density and diversity as a result.....

Meanwhile kindred zoning and planning issues drive density with "granny flats" as reported in the New York Times:

"Hundreds of communities across the country have rewritten their zoning rules in recent years, to eliminate longtime bans on apartments in single-family houses and encourage new ones to be built."

Prahalad on Strategy

Planning under constraints is the essence of good planning. C.K. Prahalad covers this well in a recent Strategy + Business report.

Prahalad's also the author of Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid (mentioned earlier here).

His style reminds me very much of Victor Papanek's reality-based thinking in Design for the Real World.

Math is hard.

More on Downtown Development

From the New York Times:

Mobile but not flighty, fresh but technologically savvy, “the young and restless,” as demographers call them, are at their most desirable age, particularly because their chances of relocating drop precipitously when they turn 35. Cities that do not attract them now will be hurting in a decade.

Interesting nuggets about what makes a city, or a region, attractive to "the next generation." I suggest that emphasis upon elementary to high school competencies would pretty well fit out the beginnings of a "complete" basis for strategy.

Solar Energy + Manufacturing (From the Washington Post)

This "Solar Energy" story is another take on the "not dead yet" aspects of the United States manufacturing capabilities from the Washington Post (as reported by the St. Louis Post Dispatch).

About a month ago, I had advocated understanding "core competencies" - such as making complex shapes from sheet metal - as a *better* way to think about how the (local) economy can be reinvented from extant resources. The listener took it as a criticism.... bang head here.

Long Tails, Fortunes and Pyramids

Both of these books provide well-articulated frameworks for "how to think about problems."


The Long Tail - good summary of how the networked economy changes aspects of marketing, inventory, and reach. Highly recommended, pretty quick read with little slogging. I'm starting my second pass on it today.

The Fortune At The Bottom Of The Pyramid - Valuable collection of case studies and derived principles. Among other things, it has me thinking about reverse engineering offshore innovations to bring back to the states. Wonky but worth it.

NY Times On Venture Ecosystem

It Pays to Have Pals in Silicon Valley examines the aspects of personal networks.... persistent personal networks.... pervasive persistent personal networks. NY Times registration will be needed.

I keep seeing people praying to buildings rather than listening to markets and customers.... Didn't bad things happen to old civilizations obsessed with buildings rather than substance?

This amends the "Silicon Valley" piece a while back on venture capital.

Southern Illinois - Perspectives

Peter Gregory's Blogging about Carbondale - from the Daily Egyptian

after my own heart.....

NPR TOTN On Childhood Cancer and Long Term Recovery

"A recent study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, reports that more than 1/3 of childhood cancer survivors can expect to have a life-threatening illness or serious chronic disease by the age of 45."

The Talk of the Nation Interview is here. What's interesting to me is that the theme involved here has such broad implications for health care generally.

From the New England Journal of Medicine:

"Chronic Health Conditions in Adult Survivors of Childhood CancerOeffinger K. C., Mertens A. C., Sklar C. A., Kawashima T., Hudson M. M., Meadows A. T., Friedman D. L., Marina N., Hobbie W., Kadan-Lottick N. S., Schwartz C. L., Leisenring W., Robison L. L., the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study Abstract Full Text PDF N Engl J Med 2006; 355:1572-1582, Oct 12, 2006. "

Alternate Fuels - From Wired Blog

Wired's notes inspired by the recent St. Louis renewable energy conference.

I'm also rather curious about the effects of subsidies on all sides of the equation.

Policy can shape manufacturer and consumer behavior (think Federal Highway System versus Railroads or tariffs on Brazilian ethanol) with flaming unintended consequences.

Flatlined: Illinois Education

Illinois is particularly dependent upon property taxes for public education.

Flatlined: How Illinois Shortchanges Rural Students streaming audio (~30 Minutes) on the effects of Illinois property tax policy and public education atChicago Public Radio.

Early Stage Venture Capital

More observations on the startup and vc ecosystem by Matt Richtel (NY Times). Interesting comparisons of industries by region. Good follow on to Paul Graham's piece on "How to be Silicon Valley".

Good, Tight Article On Network Neutrality

Excellent short form summary from Nate Anderson(arstechnica).

Paul Graham on How To Be Silicon Valley

Credible insights from Paul Graham on the terroir for re-creating the successes of Silicon Valley.

This sounds hard. Actually it might be easy. My professor friends, when they're deciding where they'd like to work, consider one thing above all: the quality of the other faculty. What attracts professors is good colleagues...

Paul Graham

More of Mr.Graham's thoughts on "Why Startups Condense In America".

NPR Science Friday On Future Of The Internet

The May 26, 2006 Science Friday discussion on the future of the internet provided a decent overview of design and development issues; particularly good introduction of the concept of the capacity and capability of the internals of the net, versus edge access capabilities (e.g., local loop) and services. Not "deep" but lots of good thoughts and links to resources.

Opie's Day: The True Story Of Filming The Da Vinci Code

Dunno, just sounded like a punchy book title to me.

The other one... Producers Agree Lestat Sucks.

Back to work.

Sustainable Energy, Urban Revitalization, and Jane Jacobs

The first part of the broadcast is of interest relative to Illinois energy issues, etc., and the brownfield issues in and around Syracuse. Governor George Pataki wants a quarter of New York State's electricity to come from renewable sources by the year 2013.. Is that possible -- and where will the power come from?

The second part concerns common issues on revitalization of urban areas, issues of sprawl, and reasons for re-populating "downtowns". How can aging towns remake themselves for the better, while protecting or improving air, water, and living conditions for the people who live there?

I'm slowly re-reading Jane Jacob's "Death and Life of Great American Cities". The above Science Friday discussions echo a lot of her themes and memes.

Brew Your Own Ethanol & Biodiesel

Heard an interview on WKMS (public radio) regarding Dogwood Energy's home brew plans for ethanol.

Interesting - is there an In Situ trend *finally* emerging? I had hoped for InSitu by the mid 90s... Of course, I'll beg for any data that proves my conjecture.

NB - my vote is not for corn based ethanol given what I understand are current production economics. But, things change.

Small Business Issues from National Federation Of Independent Business

The National Federation of Independent Business is the nation's largest small-business advocacy group representing the consensus views of its 600,000 members in DC and all 50 state capitals.

Interesting perspective on the needs of small businesses and related policy issues at The NFIB Small Business Policy Guide. The site has numerous white papers. My eyes glaze over.

NPR Justice Talking: Whose Internet Is It?

Interesting discussion at NPR's Justice Talking.

Straw men a-plenty regarding municipal networks, WiFi, and etc. Good review material for folks who are going to go into policy conversations. Sort of broadband kata.

Scribble Scribble - Illinois Broadband Meeting Notes

Been in read/write/edit/repeat for a couple of weeks. But I did find these Meeting Minutes on Illinois Broadband Planning from September 2005. Not "movie of the week" material... but feeling blog guilt for my lack of posts.

Joined Rural Telecommunications Congress

Finally got around to joining the Rural Telecommunications Congress. Got wrapped up in writing this last month.... but better late than never. I like the "attitude" of the RTC, from my few months of lurking there. What becomes apparent, in reading their site and others... is that public policy at the Federal level can (will) make or break timely and cost effective deployments.

Hmm.... Template Problems

Ok, mebbe my bad... but on Saturday my template and css customizations apparently went pfft. Scribble scribble time. -30-

Blogger Problem Test Post

Test post, nothing to see.

NY Times On WiFi, Broadband, and "New" Media

String of interesting pieces in the New York Times on the Politics of WiFi, the Telcos and Network Neutrality, and Live Entertainment. Gotta love the NY Times....

My take: the same logic that wanted to price data as a per-minute voice call is alive and well.

New Madrid Fault, Bandwidth And Disaster Planning

In trudging through some desk research on rural Broadband networks, I've found some interesting pieces which apply to the Southern Illinois Area.

We've just had a small earthquake here, but it serves to jog the memory (and the china) that getting ready for "a big one" requires advance planning.

A local paper, the Southeast Missourian covers one representative's issues regarding coordination of "local" states.

History does, fundamentally, repeat itself, regarding the Seattle Nisqually Quake of 2001...

At 10:55 a.m. (PST) February 28, 2001, a major earthquake occurred in the greater Puget Sound region. The earthquake registered 6.8 on the Richter scale, causing 200 injuries and more than $1 billion in property damage. The event, now officially known as the Nisqually earthquake, set the (coordination)process on the fast track in Washington State.

Immediately following the earthquake, the commercial telephone system bottlenecked.

This rendered cellular, personal communications services (PCS), paging and other private wireless services effectively useless in the affected areas. The equipment did not go down or fail—the system just became overloaded. The telephone companies restricted incoming calls from out of the earthquake zone, which further hampered the public’s already limited communication capabilities.

In sharp contrast to the pervasive loss of service to commercial telecommunications, Washington’s comprehensive public safety communications networks fared far better. Fire and law enforcement agencies using dedicated systems reported no loss of or damage to service.

The dedicated networks even permitted a clear option for public safety agencies to work around the commercial blockage using equipment that would have otherwise been ineffective. The WSDOT (Department of Transportation) radio system performed similarly without incident. Personnel could communicate between offices in Olympia and Seattle, and the system neither slowed down, as it could have under overload conditions, nor dropped any calls. Both the WSDOT and WDNR (Natural Resource) networks also continued to operate despite temporary building evacuations.

These and other experiences unquestionably demonstrated the value of dedicated public safety systems as opposed to reliance on commercial providers.

At the same time, however, the Nisqually earthquake revealed the serious shortcomings of standalone systems with little or no capacity to interoperate.

Washington State SIEC 14 October 8, 2001
Best Practices Guide

Unfortunately, more experience was gained in September 2001. The point - that there exists substantial "findings of fact" which, with peer review applied, could point the way to the rapid (not panicked) development a roadmap for inter-regional coordination.

One impression from Katrina: why do the emergency plans, emergency reach numbers, and etc. become available ONLY AFTER the event in any meaningful way?

Example: With Katrina, multiple telephone numbers to call to report ones survival and check on the status of others. Why not one telephone number? Why not one website? Why not pre-position "end of the world" supplies (within budget) at a few locations in a region and encourage inter-state sharing before, rather than after, the event? And, what should happen if the Emergency Management Agency facility (here, they resemble rugged pole barns) is itself destroyed? What's plan B?

This is not critcism of status quo, but reflects my concern of status quo. The answers are out there; is there leadership commensurate with this need?

The Whine Continues: Charleston WiFi

Interesting history of the Charleston SC WiFi developments...

The network is launching in January 2006

A September 2005 interview on the project (plus video Part 1 and Part 2) is provided at charlestondigitalcorridor.com, as is an interesting earlier piece with quotes from incumbents in August 2005.

The "net" - innovation will continue based upon technologies (especially wireless broadband) and the inability of incumbents to "make the food taste bad". Beware of Spectrum Policy (e.g., what will the government do with all of the bandwidth freed by Television Moving to Digital?)