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 business and other small-business owners this week.

The Big Story: Conflicting Job Numbers

ADP reports the private sector added 216,000 (pdf) jobs but the unemployment rate stays at 8.3 percent. Gallup says unemployment rose to 9.1 percent. Small businesses report their third straight month of job gains. But productivity starts to fall as labor costs jump. Weekly jobless claims rise. A study finds there is a disconnect between recent unemployment statistics and real-world demand for skilled temporary workers. A report says that cloud computing could create 14 million new jobs by 2015. The House passes a bipartisan jobs bill intended, in part, to make it easier for small businesses to raise money. A congresswoman makes a voting goof.

The Economy: Is Consumer Confidence Useless?

Forty percent of Americans believe the economy is growing, and Zions Bank says there is an upturn in optimism for small businesses. But Avi Gilburt says the United States has two choices: depression or bankruptcy. General Motors suspends production of the Volt. New manufacturing orders slowed in January. But the Institute for Supply Management says services are up.? Even though the Fed is taking a break on stimulus, Eric Parnell is concerned about ?Dr. Bernanke?s monster.? Morgan Stanley still expects another round of easing.?Consumer borrowing increases. James Bianco says consumer confidence is the world?s most useless statistic: ?The conference board index is calculated by asking consumers a series of five questions. ? To most Americans these questions are too abstract. It is like asking them, ?What is the weather in the United States and what do you expect the weather of the United States to be?? How does one answer this? You would probably look out the window and describe what you see.?

People: Destroying an Employee?s Life

Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer explain how to completely and utterly destroy an employee?s work life. As more employers demand an applicant?s Facebook log-ins, a new study finds that professionalism among entry-level and young employees has declined over the past five years. Could this also be why wages of younger workers are declining? Mike Brooks explains how to make your sales manager better. For the 12th year in a row, identity theft was the No. 1 consumer complaint. Lauren Carlson reports on five ways women in sales sabotage their success, including ?undervaluing themselves and their services.? A study finds that women who used birth control had an 8 percent higher income by the time they became 50.

Start-Up: Break Out the Booze

Nearly half of start-ups are founded by ?user entrepreneurs.? A new ?social-activation platform? raises $3.2 million to help marketers reach an influential audience. A ?Bad Girl? entrepreneur, Candace Klein, introduces a new lending platform. If you really want to get your start-up financed, try breaking out the booze. Brandon Ballenger suggests three resources every start-up should know. And could this be the best start-up video ever?

Marketing: Why S.E.O. Will Disappear

A ?trends manager? from YouTube explains why videos go viral. Meanwhile, a video about a Ugandan warlord gets seven million views in two days. Greg Shuey explains how to market your business for less than $5 a month. Bob Thompson has a great barbecue-grill-buying experience. Five platforms are excellent for tracking and analyzing customer habits. Jeff Haden says there are eight guaranteed ways to drive customers away, such as ?Focus too heavily on price?: ?If your marketing focuses mostly on price, you?ll train customers to constantly look for a lower price, both from you and your competition.? Axel Schultze explains why search engine optimization will disappear in the next 10 years.

Social Media: Where It?s Going

Kevin Kelleher talks about where social networking is headed. Kate Hyslop believes that one of the five most important things small and midsize businesses can do online is to create a compelling online-offline journey: ?Focus on offers and promotions that will turn online interest into offline purchases.? Pinterest?s rapid rise increases small-business sales and the only guy on the site says hello. Jay Baer says there are 14 ways the new Facebook betrays small businesses. Facebook Offers is one of seven changes Andrea Vahl says are now affecting businesses. Christopher S. Penn offers five tips for using Facebook?s new Timeline.

Management: Keeping Customers

Gladys Edmunds has this advice about minding your budget and adding value to your company. The influential chef Ming Tsai discusses his success starting a business (but the world?s most influential otter has died). Joseph Rangel explains why you must have passion. Eric T. Anderson and Duncan I. Simester say that stable prices keep customers coming back. And why is this goat eating at a New York pizza shop? Meg Cadoux Hirshberg offers a guide for entrepreneurs and their spouses, including: ?Turn off the phone.? Warren Rutherford says you need the right action plan. Mark Levinson explains why retailers don?t recover from bankruptcy.

Ideas: A Use for Twitter!

The Oreo turns 100, and you can now buy a Sprinkles cupcake from a vending machine. Rising gas prices create smoking hot demand for used cooking oil. You can now send beer over Twitter. ?Cash mobs,? the anti-Groupon, are the new rage. Online pet stores can be profitable. Here are 10 Google search tricks you might not know. Both Yahoo! Small Business and Orbitz introduce new services for business owners.

Around the Country: California Leavin?

Economists believe that shale gas and oil will add $5 billion to Ohio?s economy by 2014 and the Marcellus Shale Coalition introduces an online business directory to connect the natural gas industry with small and medium-size regional companies. A bunch of companies left California in 2011, and the state introduces a bill for fairer franchising. A South Carolina bill would require public restrooms in all shops. Here are a few women to watch at Austin?s SXSW this week. After 47 pitches, 16 teams, 54 hours and thousands of Post-it notes in Iowa, the ?Yankees? of Startup Weekend took home the top prize.

Around the World: Massive Spider Webs

Ashvin Pandurangi says financial projections around the world are getting ugly. Some feel that Europe?s recession has barely begun. The Australia Services Index plunges and massive spider webs engulf an Australian town. An escaped penguin outraces Tokyo authorities. Scott Lincicome offers a dose of United States-China trade optimism. Michael Beckley wonders if China is a competitive threat: ?China is obviously an important economic player. Simply because of its size, it commands attention in global negotiations on trade, finance and the environment. But China will remain poor and technologically underdeveloped for many years. As a result, its prosperity will remain dependent on ties to the global economy and, in particular, on good economic relations with the United States.? Amid signs of weaker loan demand, China cuts its growth target for this year to 7.5 percent. Some predict the country is heading for only 3 percent growth.

Boss of the Week

The John Conti Coffee Company sends trucks of supplies to help tornado victims.

Technology: A New iPad

As small-business iPad use explodes, a new model is announced. Here are the numbers ? and why every small business needs one. But watch out: the Kindle Fire is grabbing one-third of tablet traffic. And there are many ways Windows 8 outshines the iPad. Small businesses should proceed with caution on Ultrabooks. Here?s how to choose between an Android phone and an iPhone for your company. Joe McKendrick offers 10 action items information technology departments should complete by next year. A new gadget invented at Bell Labs can add capacity to data networks. Here are four techie office pranks. Harry Mylonadis offers 10 reasons to date a geek. YouSendIt introduces a collaboration tool with Sharepoint tie-ins. Fuel economy in new autos is up 18 percent since 2007. Amazon cuts its Web services prices again. Here are 12 signs you have become a tech dinosaur.

The Week?s Bests

Reasons America Is Not in Decline. Steve Yetiv, a political science professor at Old Dominion University, says the United States has ?the world?s best entrepreneurs and by far the highest number of Fortune 500 companies. It remains at the forefront of the technologies of the future, such as biotechnology and nanotechnology, and has the advantage in cyberspace, even though it has fallen behind in some other areas, like green technologies.?

Advice for Using Mobile at a Trade Show. Chad Udell has four suggestions, including, ?Allow attendees to use their own devices to interact with your content?: ?What better way to get people engaged with your content and your offering than by enabling them to use their own smartphones and tablets to interact directly with your booth??

Quick Ways to Improve Your Life. Want a quick fix? Eric Barker says, ?Visualize yourself doing, not achieving?: ?People who visualize themselves taking the practical steps needed to achieve their goals are far more likely to succeed than those who simply fantasize about their dreams becoming a reality.?

This Week?s Question: Do you think you have benefited from the government?s jobs bills?

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/2012/03/12/this-week-in-small-business-another-jobs-bill/

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