Small Business Labs

JUNE 29, 2017

The iPhone was released on June 29, 2007. As the article chart below shows, gum sales have declined substantially since the release of the iPhone.    The reason, according to the article, is we're now too busy looking at our phones in check-out lines to buy gum.

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Small Business Labs

APRIL 4, 2017

A key reason we started following coworking back in 2007 was it provided a flexible alternative to the traditional long term commercial office lease. Because of this, a recent article by the CEO of the coworking chain Industrious grabbed our attention. It also covers two key trends they see driving change in commercial real estate.

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Small Business Labs

AUGUST 13, 2018

Allwork's recent article The Top 5 Most Valuable Companies that are Using Coworking nicely covers this trend. As anyone who's recently visited a newly designed corporate office knows, they look a lot like coworking spaces.    And, of course, corporations are increasingly housing employees in coworking spaces.

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Small Business Labs

SEPTEMBER 17, 2015

Key quote from the article, which is written by a MIT engineering professor: I nonetheless believe that the slowdown is due, in part, to an acceleration of “near-shoring,” the practice of producing closer to the customer. The article lists 4 main drivers of the shift to near-shoring: Lower US energy prices.

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Small Business Labs

JULY 23, 2014

 The size of the "lolly" represents the size of the industry and the bottom of the stem shows the mix in 2007.  All industries had a greater share of PTER workers in 2013 than in 2007 (all the lollipops point upwards). The article goes on to compare 2013 with 2012.   Go to the article for more details.

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Small Business Labs

SEPTEMBER 24, 2015

  We've been following coworking since 2007 and one of the most interesting aspects of this industry is how consistently people all over the world describe coworking and its benefits. At the event it was announced that there will be a coworking conference this December in Shanghai. 

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Small Business Labs

JANUARY 22, 2014

  It's from the Wall Street Journal article Stores Confront New World of Reduced Shopper Traffic. The startling chart below shows shows retail foot traffic is rapidly and dramatically declining. They're also increasingly browsing online and then going to stores to make purchases.

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Small Business Labs

NOVEMBER 13, 2013

  As the chart below - from the New York Times article Three Questions on the Jobs Picture - shows, it's down to levels we haven't seen since the 1970's (the blue line is the actual data as reported by the BLS, the red line is the trend).  In 2007 54% of Americans aged 25-54 were working.

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Small Business Labs

OCTOBER 19, 2015

  The article focuses on  Prime Produce , a New York city coworking collective. Again from the article: Prime Produce is exploring a model in which many members will be co-owners of a cooperative firm, which will manage the proceeds of their dues and pay rent to the sympathetic investors who own the buildings. 

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Small Business Labs

MARCH 12, 2013

Last fall our article Are We Becoming a Part-Time Nation covered the trends leading to the growing number of part-time workers in the U.S.   The recent New York Times article The Rise of Part-Time Work covers some of the same ground. million fewer Americans working full time.

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Small Business Labs

OCTOBER 28, 2014

The Harvard Business Review article Where to Find Insight provides a good primer on how to spot trends and create business insight that can drive innovation. The article defines insight as: an imaginative understanding of an internal or external opportunity that can be tapped to improve efficiency, generate revenue, or boost engagement. 

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Small Business Labs

AUGUST 24, 2015

The Internet has lit up with reactions to the New York Times article on Amazon's bruising, data-driven, "purposeful Darwinism" culture. This not surprising given how harsh the article makes Amazon sound - people crying at their desks, sick people callously culled, lots of backstabbing, etc.

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Small Business Labs

AUGUST 15, 2012

There's been a flurry of articles on Gen Y (also called millennials, born 1980 to 2000) not being as interested in owning cars as prior generations. " The quick summary of these article is Gen Y doesn't view cars as a necessity like prior generations. ."  Key quote: "The rate of U.S. Polk & Co."

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Small Business Labs

FEBRUARY 12, 2014

By late 2007, it was 13%.  Although the economy is improving and the unemployment rate is falling, 17% of working-age men weren't working in December <2013>   The article is based on Brookings research. .  Key quote: In the early 1970s, just 6% of American men ages 25 to 54 were without jobs.

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Small Business Labs

JULY 30, 2015

  The Fusion article also says Kruger and Katz point to tax and non-employer business data as additional evidence the gig economy is growing.  We first wrote about this almost a decade ago (and we were by no means the first) and some of our first blog posts  --way back in 2007 -- are on these topics.

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Small Business Labs

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

We first wrote about the growing demand for butlers in 2007.  We wrote a follow-up article on this topic in 2012 after we learned high end nannies in New York and London could make more than $200,000 per year in total compensation. But the butler boom continues to grow.

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Small Business Labs

OCTOBER 6, 2011

MSNBC has an interesting article on the steps required to keep a civilization-ending asteroid from hitting the earth.    The term was popularized by the 2007 best selling business book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable.    Greece's financial woes are an example. 

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Small Business Labs

JUNE 6, 2011

  The New York Times has two articles on major law firms hiring associates in smaller cities.  Cost .  The main advantages are lower costs without the cultural, language and time zone issues associated with outsourcing work overseas. Call centers are a popular example of this trend. 

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Small Business Labs

MAY 17, 2011

  As  a recent Wall Street Journal article points out , "Wages are rising in China, heralding the possible end of an era of cheap goods."  ." The big driver leading to higher overseas manufacturing costs are higher wages.    This is particularly true in China. 

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Small Business Labs

MARCH 27, 2012

 A related Huffington Post article points out that high-end nannies in Europe are also hansomely rewarded.  We first wrote on this in 2007, when we covered the Butler Boom.  The New York Times nanny article and the book on sports coaching cover this fear in more detail.

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Small Business Labs

OCTOBER 18, 2011

The last point is growing in importance and is nicely illustrated in the New York Times article A Company Grows, and Builds a Plant Back in the U.S.A. .  To paraphrase our Vice President, adding 2-3 million manufacturing jobs would be a big "bad word" deal.  strong U.S. productivity. rising transportation costs.

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Small Business Labs

JUNE 27, 2012

He also closes his article by saying: Patterns like these suggest that we need to understand why fewer and fewer American entrepreneurs are starting businesses with employees.  Back in early 2007 we released a research report forecasting the continued growth of personal businesses.

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Small Business Labs

JUNE 18, 2010

" Tim has written a follow-up article on his un-retirement - How to Rewrite Your Job Instead of Retiring - over at Small Business Trends.  This blog posts, several blogs … in fact since I named the new CEO in April of 2007 I’ve done slightly more than 2,000 blog posts, and three books. And speaking, and teaching."

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Small Business Labs

DECEMBER 9, 2013

 Portfolio careerist Marci Alboher called people pursuing this approach "slashes" in her 2007 book One Person/Multiple Careers: A New Model for Work/Life Success. Multiple income streams from multiple jobs or tasks: This is the more classic definition of a portfolio career.

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Elance Retirement 2007 2020 100

Small Business Labs

AUGUST 6, 2019

Key quote from the Associated Press article Richer US households fueling a hot job sector: ‘wealth work’ : The main driver of growth in these jobs is the expansion of the upper-middle class. That figure is up from just below 6% in 2007, adjusted for inflation, when the recession began. Nearly 8% of U.S.

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