Small Business Labs

APRIL 20, 2017

Again from the article: As pet travel becomes more common, the amenity bar gets higher.   Pet trend fans will no doubt remember we covered  the trend towards hotels offering specialized doggie services in 2013.  In 2014 (the most recent data available), that number nearly doubled to 37 percent.

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Small Business Labs

JULY 23, 2014

 The "lolly" end of the lollipop denotes the average mix part-time due to economic reasons versus part-time due to non-economic reasons by industry in 2013. 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.

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Small Business Labs

AUGUST 7, 2018

employment has grown consistently since 2013. The chart below, from the New York Times article  Workers Hardest Hit by Recession Are Joining in Recovery , shows this group's unemployment rate is down to 5.1%. As the chart below  from the Washington Post  shows, U.S.

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Small Business Labs

JANUARY 24, 2017

As the chart below shows, the percentage of full-time independent workers with health insurance has increased from 64% in 2013 to 83% in 2016. million more independent workers have health insurance than in 2013.  Hoffman's article references a recent U.S. This means about 3.3

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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. The data firm tracked declines of 28.2% in 2011, 16.3% in 2012 and 14.6% " The reason, of course, is growing online sales.

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Small Business Labs

JUNE 5, 2017

The 2013 Harvard Business Review article Work-Life Balance Isn't the Point  nicely covers this shift. .  New York University sociologist Dalton Conley coined the term "weisure world" about a decade ago  to describe this shift.  

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Small Business Labs

JULY 24, 2017

Again from Wheatley: ‘The positive effects associated with informal flexibility and working at home, offer further support to the suggestion that schedule control is highly valued and important to employees “enjoying” work.’. " In other words, independent workers with autonomy and control are highly satisfied and like their work.

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Small Business Labs

SEPTEMBER 6, 2016

The author of the article is a partner at Drive Capital , a VC firm based in Columbus, Ohio.  Key quote from the article: "We also believe that if you are an entrepreneur with a fledgling company in 2016, you are an idiot if you don’t consider building it in the Midwest." The Midwest is the fifth.

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Small Business Labs

JUNE 18, 2014

.   On the buyers side,The Staffing Industry Analysts article Online staffing is the new frontier: CW managers’ interest rises sharply says: A survey of contingent workforce buyers found a sudden jump in plans to use online staffing. The marketplace themselves are also reporting continued strong growth. 

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Small Business Labs

AUGUST 1, 2013

An alert reader sent me to the article  Market Trends Show the Power of Pet Humanization. They recently released their 2013 - 2014 U.S. pet market will reach $62 billion in 2013, up 4.7% It's from the research folks at Packaged Facts. They do studies on consumer markets, including pet spending. Pet Market Outlook.

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Small Business Labs

FEBRUARY 4, 2014

Two related articles on how freelancers and micropreneurs look at the world and their businesses caught my eye this week.  This schedule control and flexibility is echoed in the article. We even included this in our 2013 Top 10 Small Business Trends List as a trend we call Time is More than Money. We certainly agree.

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Small Business Labs

JUNE 2, 2014

Key quote from the article: "Just putting the bowl on the ground and walking away isn't the humanized experience that pet parents are looking for." " As the article points out, pet food is a big industry. .       The shift towards cooking for pets is part of the broader pet humanization trend.

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Small Business Labs

MARCH 13, 2013

 Key quote from the CEO of Atlas of Giving in a Barron's article : "The philanthropic sector’s 2012 growth of 6.7% increase in 2013. was remarkably strong, he says, in no small part due to Warren Buffett’s and the Bill and Melinda Gates’s charitable push, The Giving Pledge.

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Small Business Labs

MARCH 15, 2016

Key "wow" producing quote: the share of exports by large multinational corporations dropped from 84 percent in 1977 to 50 percent in 2013. Companies with fewer than 500 employees accounted for 97.8 percent  percent of all identified US exporters and 97.2 percent

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Small Business Labs

APRIL 22, 2014

As the chart below from their article shows, page views have exploded since they started using this model.  According to Forbes: Individually, 60 made as much or more in 2013 than the $45,250 a year the Bureau of Labor Statistics says is the nationwide average for a professional reporter or correspondent.

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Small Business Labs

SEPTEMBER 18, 2013

There's been a regular stream of articles about robots and automation taking jobs from humans of late.   This article focuses on growing income equality. This is similar finding to a study that we covered last year in our article The Polarization of Jobs. jobs will be automated over the next 20 years.

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Small Business Labs

MARCH 5, 2015

In 2013 Linda Tirado saw the following question on an online forum she followed: Why do poor people do things that are so self-destructive? Our article The Lean Years describes this trend in more detail.  But everyone should read the essay.   Economic Uncertainty'

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Small Business Labs

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

 Key quote from the article: Organizational psychologists are finding that self-expression has deep links to productivity. Fast Company's Why Everybody's Going Freelance  explores a key issue why the self-employed tend to be more satisfied with their work than traditional employees - autonomy.

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Small Business Labs

OCTOBER 8, 2013

New Data Reveals Why Freelance Writers are Smart from the Make a Living Writing blog provides an excellent summary of the information contained in the 2013 MBO Partners State of Independence report. Another article on this topic is The "New Professionalism" from the oDesk blog. But I love it wholeheartedly.

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Small Business Labs

FEBRUARY 24, 2015

  Forbes article G oogle Cabs and Uber Bots Will Challenge Jobs Below the API basically states that all sharing economy jobs will eventually be bad. SF Gate's Growing Voices Say Gig Workers Need Protections, Benefits claims the gig economy exploits workers.    Freelance Independent workers'

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Small Business Labs

NOVEMBER 20, 2012

Business Insider has a good article on this startup cash crunch. Expect this problem to continue in 2013 and get worse before it gets better. But at the same time, it's becoming much harder to raise 2nd and 3rd rounds of funding.   This cash crunch was one of our Top 10 Small Business Trends for 2012.

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Small Business Labs

SEPTEMBER 1, 2016

Here's how we described Smart Dust in our 2013 article: Smart Dust refers to tiny wireless sensors that detect anything from light to temperature to humidity to vibrations.  For more on Smart Dust, see the article Smart Dust Will be the Future of the Internet of Things.  

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Small Business Labs

MAY 22, 2014

The chart below, from the New York Times article Housing is Recovering. GDP in 2013. Most housing analysts expect it to continue falling. At the same time, the nation is seeing an increase in the number of apartments being built. Single-Family Homes Aren't  shows the steady growth of multifamily housing starts.

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Small Business Labs

SEPTEMBER 11, 2013

Two articles on what it's like being a freelancer caught my eye this week. " I was a bit surprised to see an article on freelancing in Cosmopolitan, but What it's Really Like to Work from Home  is both clever and funny.  Key quote: "Going it alone is liberating – and tough."

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Small Business Labs

APRIL 21, 2016

The Economic Policy Institute's (EPI) article Low-Wage Workers Are Older than You Think  provides a good, demographic snap shot of low wage workers in the U.S.  Alert readers will remember we covered this topic back in 2013 in our article Low Wage Workers Getting Older.

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Small Business Labs

JUNE 30, 2014

 Adweek quickly countered with an article titled Gallup's Buzzy Social Media Report 'Deeply Flawed' Key quote: These claims have caused a pretty good media ruckus despite having a methodology that appears flawed on multiple levels. .     Needless to say, not everyone agrees.

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