Microbusiness News Briefs Podcast » Specials

Special: An Interview with Anita Campbell

Dawn Rivers Baker — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 06:59:20 +0000

Well, here’s something completely different.

I decided to take a break from complaining about politicians for this final podcast of the year, and turn instead to the much more pleasant task of talking about ways and means to spot opportunity that are accessible to the typical microbusiness owner.

And, really, what could be more accessible than watching and listening to our customers. If we have any sense at all, we’re doing that anyway, aren’t we?

I’m talking about turning our hands to trend-watching, a topic about which I had a fun and informative conversation with my good friend, Anita Campbell.

Anita offers us tips on

how do you spot trends and what can you do about them?
how early is “too early” to take advantage of new trends?
what’s the window of opportunity between “fad” and “trend” and “mainstream”?
… and much, much more!

Give a listen. What with all the planning that is going on among small business owners along about now (or should be), it’s a timely topic.

The regular edition of the Microbusiness News Briefs Podcast will be back next week, on January 4, 2009.

For more information:

Special Commentary: Microbusiness Manifesto

Dawn Rivers Baker — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 05:19:36 +0000

As I mentioned last week, both my newsletters (The MicroEnterprise Journal and the Microbusiness News Briefs) are on hiatus until next year — January 4th, to be precise.

However, when I take these little year-end breaks, I generally try not to leave you completely. One of the things I try to make arrangements for is this podcast.

This is the time of year for podcast specials.

This first special is a commentary from yours truly, a little ditty that was originally published over at The Journal Blog on December 11, 2009. Regular Journal Blog readers seemed quite enchanted by the Microbusiness Manifesto. I hope you are, too.

Merry Christmas!

Special Commentary: Labor Day 2009

Dawn Rivers Baker — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 21:34:23 +0000

Have you ever noticed that we have emerged from recession to ‘jobless recovery’ in every economic downturn the U.S. has suffered since 1990? Indeed, the ‘jobless recovery’ is becoming the norm.

Economists speculate that perhaps productivity has generally increased to the point that our economy can drag itself out of a recession, with businesses ramping up production but without the need to hire new workers to meet pent up demand.

Another change that seemed to have caught conventional economists by surprise was that those productivity increases did not result in wage increases.

So, out of the 1990s and into the 21st century, we seem to have an economy that creates fewer jobs for lower wages, and even our benefits packages are costing us more.

This is supposed to get it done for American workers.

And yet, over the same period in which traditional 20th century sources of jobs have largely dried up, you can’t help noticing that there has been a positive explosion of new nonemployer businesses.

From 14.3 million in 1992 (74% of U.S. firms) to 21.7 million in 2007, fifteen years later. They have increased in number by 51.7%; employer firms don’t even come close.

If these trends continue, then it would appear that we are on the cusp of a fairly gigantic shift in the way individuals interact with the production end of the economy.

I hope this special commentary provides a little food for thought, to go along with the backyard barbecue, and I hope you enjoyed your last weekend holiday of the summer!

Unconventional Thinkers: Len Nichols

Dawn Rivers Baker — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:35:53 +0000

I know I keep saying this but it is a great pleasure to me to have a conversation with somebody who thinks for a living.

So many people don’t — think, that is — that it is pure joy to encounter somebody who not only does but does it well enough that they get paid for it.

In all the time I’ve spent listening to pundits and experts pontificate about health care reform, I keep hearing about the need to cover everybody and I keep hearing about the problem of how to pay for it.

Dr. Nichols was the first person I’d encountered who addressed the issue of how the insurance companies make money in a new universe that includes a universal health care system.

And that was the piece that has always bothered me about it, partly because the insurance companies are going to need to figure out where their profits will be in order for them to buy into whatever reform is put into place, and partly because (as you know if you’ve been reading my blogs for awhile) there are cost problems inherent in using insurance to pay for something you want to purchase regularly, like well-patient care.

Besides, talking about health care reform in terms of new and innovative business models can’t but appeal to a microbusiness owner, right?

For more information:

New America Foundation Health Policy Program

Unconventional Thinkers: Paul Glover

Dawn Rivers Baker — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:49:09 +0000

As advertised, here is my interview with Paul Glover.

This was a really fascinating conversation (if I can channel Mr. Spock for a few minutes) and I’ll be interested to see how Glover’s vision plays out over the next few years. He had a tremendous success with his work in Ithaca, to be sure. But Philadelphia is a much, much bigger place and it is always hard to get people in large cities all moving in the same direction.

But I certainly wish him much success. The city could use it.

Speaking of fascinating, I also discovered that Paul Glover and I are connected across places in several ways. After all the work he did in Ithaca, Paul seemed both amused and fondly nostalgic when I told him that my daughter would soon be entering her junior year at Ithaca College.

And, of course, he is currently aiming to work his magic on a place of which I am fondly nostalgic, since I grew up there.

How about that, huh?

For more information:

Unconventional Thinkers: Michael Shuman

Dawn Rivers Baker — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 14:00:52 +0000

What has changed in the economy to cause such a surge in the number of microbusinesses that are staying micro over the last decade or so?

Why, if there is so much evidence that microbusiness development work better than smoke stack chasing, do policy makers and economists still dismiss the smallest of businesses?

What could President Obama do that would be a better use of taxpayer dollars than throwing them at huge corporations?

These are some of the questions I was able to explore in my interview with Michael Shuman, author of The Small Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Are Beating The Global Competition and the Small-Mart.org blog, and the first in this series of Unconventional Thinkers.

Shuman has wonderfully workable but different ideas about microbusiness, about economic development, about relocalization and capital markets, and more. We only talked for about half an hour but, besides making me want to dash out and buy his book, that brief conversation gave me so much to think about that my brain was busy for days.

His are exactly the kind of untried but true ideas that we need right now. Once you’ve listened to this podcast, you’ll know exactly what I mean.

For more information:

Small-Mart.org

Year-End Tax Tips for Microbusinesses

Dawn Rivers Baker — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 20:28:22 +0000

The Microbusiness News Briefs Podcast closes out the year with a conversation with Keith Hall, tax wonk for the National Association for the Self-Employed, repeat visitor to the Podcast, and one of my favorite guests.

It’s always fun to talk to Keith, even about such a dry topic as taxes, but it was pretty clear during this conversation that he is feeling just a bit nervous about what that Obama guy and his Democratic friends in Congress are going to do with the tax code. I thought it was pretty significant that this is the first time in any of my interviews with him that he advised microbusiness owners to get active about advocating for advantageous tax policies.

I think that tells its own tale.

The Microbusiness News Briefs is sponsored by GoToMyPC.

Access Your PC from Anywhere with GoToMyPC. Try it FREE for 30 days!
www.GoToMyPC.com/podcast

For more information:

National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE)

Kristie Darien (NASE) Post-Election Interview

Dawn Rivers Baker — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:46:14 +0000

As promised last week — and just to demonstrate that I haven’t abandoned my subscribers completely during my usual annual hiatus — here’s a bit of a preview of microbusiness policy in 2009 by a real feet-on-the-ground: Kristie Darien, executive director of the National Association for the Self-Employed Legislative Office.

As I mentioned in the podcast, a lot has happened since this interview was recorded just a few days after Barack Obama was elected 44th President of the United States.

All things considered, it’s kind of silly to start complaining about him when he hasn’t even been sworn in yet. There are question marks about his choice for SBA Administrator and how in-touch she really is with small businesses (as opposed to entrepreneurial gazelles).

For that matter, I’m wondering how in touch Mr. Obama is when he keeps talking about jobs and wages (as opposed to work and income). In some ways, some of the languages he uses seems to indicate quite a bit of 30-year-old thinking.

The Microbusiness News Briefs is sponsored by GoToMyPC.

Access Your PC from Anywhere with GoToMyPC. Try it FREE for 30 days!
www.GoToMyPC.com/podcast

More to the point, as I discussed with Kristie, the new Congress will be interesting to watch. “Ever time there’s an election, it’s a whole new ball game,” and since Committee assignments haven’t happened yet, we don’t know what we’re working with yet.

Plenty of time to really start complaining down the road, right?

For more information:

National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE)

Tom Sullivan: Exit Without Fanfare

Dawn Rivers Baker — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 20:53:50 +0000

Today was Tom’s last day with the SBA Office of Advocacy as its chief counsel.

Now, I’ll admit it. I have opinions. I take sides. And, I’m told, it’s pretty clear how I’m inclined to vote based on the things that I write.

Among other things, my admiration for Mr. Sullivan can serve as a refutation of those who have sometimes accused me of partisan bias. Not that I’m saying I’m not biased, because I am.

I’m biased in favor of microbusinesses.

As for Tom, he is smart as well as shrewd, and perhaps one of the most outstandingly qualified individuals who has served in the Bush Administration. The only down side is that what he has been doing is relatively obscure and un-sexy, and far too few people pay attention to it.

Yet, his work has impacted the bottom line of millions upon millions of small business owners, who have been able to save billions of dollars in regulatory compliance costs over the last seven years through Advocacy’s … um … advocacy.

And the research funded and published by his office in that time has accomplished a very great deal for our overall understanding of small businesses, of microbusinesses, and of how both groups make critical contributions to the economy.

And you wonder why I’m a Tom Sullivan fan.

Best of all things to you, Tom. We’ll miss you.

The Microbusiness News Briefs is sponsored by GoToMyPC.

Access Your PC from Anywhere with GoToMyPC. Try it FREE for 30 days!
www.GoToMyPC.com/podcast

Interview: 2008 Tax Tips from the NASE’s Keith Hall

Dawn Rivers Baker — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:09:12 +0000

So, yes … as I was saying yesterday, it’s April now and time for you to get to work on those taxes (unless you’re like the 61% of Americans who had filed by February).

For those procrastinators, I bring you Keith Hall, certified public accountant and tax expert for the National Association for the Self-Employed, with a few last minute tips and reminders for microbusiness taxpayers.

I spoke to Keith from a hotel in Philadelphia — my home town, I hesitate to add. Keith told us that evidently there had been a shooting at the Starbuck’s in said hotel the previous evening. It made for some interesting banter before the interview about what would happen if I had to edit gunfire out of the podcast.

Fortunately, I didn’t.

Technical glitches aside, Keith was his usual highly informative self and simply a pleasure to talk to.

Another side note: contrary to what Keith let slip, Schedule C: From A to Z is not available from Amazon.com. But that’s okay; it is available as a no-cost download from the NASE web site. You’ll find the link below.

For more information:

National Association for the Self-Employed
Schedule C: From A to Z (PDF)
NASE Tax Talk
NASE Business Resources

[tags]taxes, microbusiness, National Association for the Self-Employed, NASE, Keith Hall[/tags]