Microbusiness News Briefs Podcast » technology

New Panel Chair Might Have An Open Mind

Dawn Rivers — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 14:55:44 +0000

There’s still a certain amount of office shuffling and furniture moving going on at this point on Capitol Hill, which surprised me when I talked to House Small Business Committee staff last week.

I guess I figured the newly elected and re-elected Republican majority was so very gung-ho to get going that they would have gotten all that stuff done in record time. I guess some things never change.

I have to tell you, though, that while I was agreeably surprised by Chairman Sam Graves’ Web 2.0 savvy (although I expect I should really just be impressed by his staff’s Web 2.0 savvy), I am still longing for somebody in his position to really surprise me.

For all the partisan Capitol Hill scuffling and sniping that I’ve been listening to over the past seven years, policy makers on both sides of the aisle are very, very close in their views on what makes for good small business policy, what small businesses need and how best to meet those needs.

I haven’t heard anybody volunteer the information that they’ve learned enough about microbusinesses to warrant a bit of investigation, perhaps a hearing or two that will create the beginnings of a record to document the unique needs of microbusinesses.

I also haven’t heard anybody say that maybe we need a better understanding of how microbusinesses and nonemployers fit into the overall economy.

For that matter, nobody on Capitol Hill has even noticed the changing nature of the labor force.

Any of that stuff would be truly, eye-sparklingly exciting! Ah well …

I also wanted to once again draw your attention to the heads-up in this week’s news about the FTC being poised to formulate some industry self-regulation (that may turn into actual legislation down the road) on consumer privacy and behavioral advertising.

The FTC needs to hear from microbusinesses and their advocates on this one. There are links below (in the For more information section below) that will get you to the preliminary report and the page to submit comments. I doubt this is going to be one of those sets of regulations that won’t apply to microbusinesses, so let them hear from you!

Also on this week’s agenda: regulatory reform from the right and the left, and this week’s Policy Matters.

For more information:

Special: An Interview with Phil Simon

Dawn Rivers — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 18:49:27 +0000

It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?

The Microbusiness News Briefs Podcast is back, and is relaunching after its half-year hiatus with a very special Podcast Special: an interview with Phil Simon.

Phil is the techno-mensch of large intellectual capacity who has just released a new book entitled The New Small. We had a nice long talk about it, in fact.

In writing this book, Phil did his scrupulous best to avoid confining his attentions to any particular firm size class or revenue category or industry sector or anything limiting like that, but he still ended up talking about microbusinesses.

Or, more precisely, microbusinesses that you’re going to hear me talking about in the coming months as being run the way microbusinesses should be run.

If you’re going to do this microbusiness thing, you might as well do it right — by which I mean that you might as well take advantage of all the inherent strengths there are in smallness.

The regular Microbusiness New Briefs Podcast will return from hiatus next week.

For more information:

House Panel Takes A Look At Broadband

Dawn Rivers — Mon, 17 May 2010 15:45:35 +0000

Yes, last week was broadband week but, as you’ll hear, it was a lot more than that.

Last week, members of both the House and Senate Small Business Committees got an opportunity to get a little bit clued in to how microbusinesses do business now, and how larger small businesses hope to do business in the future — that is, using technology to get very lean and efficient.

It’ll be interesting, because some of those larger small businesses will shrink down to micro-size when the discover they can run their businesses with far fewer personnel and far larger profit margins.

Others will chose to either stay their medium size or maybe even grow larger and graduate into the large firm category, if they can.

I have a feeling that the firm size class numbers — due out for 2007 next month — will be very interesting to watch over the next few years.

For more information:

Disastrous Data Protection Bill Passes House

Dawn Rivers — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 18:20:09 +0000

I have a confession to make.

Thanks to the fact that I am an old football fan, my brain keeps automatically translating Dr. Winslow Sargeant’s name into Kellen Winslow.

Kellen Winslow, in case you are unfamiliar with him (and I’m talking about the original, not version 2.0, Winslow’s son), was an NFL Hall of Fame calliber tight end with the San Diego Chargers back in the 1970s.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to go back and change “Dr. Winslow” to “Dr. Sargeant.” It’s kind of embarrassing.

Getting back to the week’s microbusiness news, I’m disappointed that the Data Accountability and Trust Act was passed by the House without an opportunity for the House Small Business Committee to hold a hearing on the proposal (assuming they would have held one if there’d been the time).

This bill will have massive impacts on small and microbusinesses, which somebody really needs to point out to lawmakers before they pass the legislation.

I’ve always found that complaining about a bill after it has been passed is less than effective.

This week, we also have research on college graduates and mobility (with implications for regional economic development) and, as always, this week’s policy matters.

Oh, and I’m on hiatus (as opposed to vacation) for the rest of the year — although you can expect one or two podcast specials. The next regular edition of the podcast will be webcast on January 4th. Happy holidays!

For more information:

Senate Committee Scrutinizes ARRA Spending

Dawn Rivers — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:53:22 +0000

I bet you were beginning to think I was going to skip this week’s podcast again. My apologies for being so late.

One housekeeping note, the snippet of song used in the middle of this podcast is from the pop-folk classic At Seventeen by Janis Ian. The song was released in 1975 by Columbia Records but I haven’t been able to find the precise copyright information to credit this properly.

(Sorry, Janis!)

Taking bets against the chance that another continuing resolution will be require to keep the SBA going until the agency and its programs can be reauthorized by both chambers of Congress. Once again, it’s tough to say why this has to take so long. It didn’t used to.

I now have a confession to make. At the beginning of this particular session of Congress, I thought that the noises I was hearing coming from several different quarters was a signal that perhaps there would be more discussion about microbusinesses and their idiosyncrasies and their particular needs.

That hasn’t happened, partly because everybody has been distracted by (a) the economy and (b) the health care reform shenanigans. The ins and outs of microbusiness is the sort of topic that people on Capitol Hill are likely to discuss when they have nothing better to do.

Then, too, the Man In Charge (aka President Barack Obama) clearly has no clue about microbusinesses or the self-employed and, to judge him by his rhetoric and the company he keeps, he couldn’t care less.

That’s disappointing, but not entirely surprising.

For more information:

Baucus Health Care Plan Still A Loser

Dawn Rivers — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 08:08:03 +0000

Barack Obama hasn’t even been sworn in yet, and I’m already findings things to complain about. Not that I ever thought he was perfect but some of the things that have come across my desk in the last week have been causing me to shake my head in dismay.

One piece of good news is that, Max Baucus might favor mandatory insurance coverage for everybody but Mr. Obama does not — or at least, he didn’t when he was campaigning. We’ll get to see how strongly he feels about that when the rough and tumble of White House/Congressional relations begins to take shape after January.

(I guess that’s where we get to see Rahm Emanuel do his thing.)

The auto company bailout is alarmingly stupid, though, and makes me once again wish politicians could get it into their heads that they need to just let badly managed companies fail, no matter how big they are and no matter how many workers will lose their jobs. For one thing, they’re just delaying the inevitable. For another, they are wasting my money.

And, for a third, it’s a kind of knee-jerk thing for Obama to even be considering and I had a better opinion of his intellect than that.

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For more information:

Call To Action: Health Care Reform 2009 (PDF)
SBA Office of Advocacy

Candidate Tax Plans Offer Little For Micros

Dawn Rivers — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:54:01 +0000

I’ll have to confess to you that one of the highlights of my week was viewing the spectacle of punchy Congresspersons conducting their telecommunications competition hearing. It sort of defies description but, if you want a treat and have a couple of hours to spare, visit the hearing archive, which is linked below.

There aren’t very many microbusinesses to be found among broadband providers but I cover stories like this primarily to illustrate to you the kinds of attitudes you encounter when you take a look at the folks on Capitol Hill.

I think those illustrations provide salutary lessons about what it’s reasonable to expect from them. And I think that’s worth knowing … especially in an election year.

After taking a look at the Tax Policy’s analysis of the presidential candidates’ tax plans, you have to hope Congress rides herd on whichever of them gets elected and reasserts tax simplification as a priority. That remains one of the biggest favors anybody could do for microbusinesses (along with inserting a bit more fairness into the code, in terms of tax treatment of large corporations versus the self-employed). Neither candidate appears to have picked up on that.

For more information:

An Updated Analysis of the 2008 Presidential Candidates’ Tax Plans
The Conference Board
National Federation of Independent Business
U.S. Department of Commerce
Hearing Archive: Issues in Telecommunications Competition