Small Business Labs

AUGUST 3, 2020

The swoosh refers to the shape of Nike's logo and indicates a recession that starts with a steep decline and is followed by a gradual recovery. It's looking much less likely the U.S. will experience a sharp, V-shaped recovery. Instead, a growing amount of data is indicating a slower, "swoosh" shaped recovery is likely.

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Small Business Labs

NOVEMBER 10, 2020

Census chart below shows (click to enlarge), both solopreneur business applications (referred to as "Applications Other than High-Propensity") and High-Propensity Business Applications (those indicating they are planning on hiring employees) significantly increased in number.  As the U.S.

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Small Business Labs

FEBRUARY 6, 2018

  Social isolation refers to having relatively few relationships and/or infrequent contact with others.  Loneliness We also reviewed our coworking interviews and found many references to coworking reducing the social isolation of independent and remote workers.   Someone can be isolated and not feel lonely.

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Small Business Labs

MARCH 18, 2021

" Uber refers to this as "engaged time" and is not applying the minimum wage to the time a driver waits for a ride.  ." Despite this move by Uber, its U.K. legal battles are not over. Uber is applying the minimum wage requirement "after accepting a trip request and after expenses."

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Small Business Labs

NOVEMBER 13, 2018

Glocalization  refers to the integration of local differences in the cost and availability of skills to a standardized global structure that enables their use. This is also referred to as geoarbitrage, which is tapping into lower cost labor from lower cost countries. per hour.

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Small Business Labs

SEPTEMBER 8, 2016

So we will refer you  to the article for the descriptions of these trend areas the technologies behind them. Affective computing refers to machines that can recognize and respond appropriately to human emotions. But even we're bit overwhelmed by the plethora of buzzwords used by Gartner.

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Small Business Labs

DECEMBER 10, 2018

The article also references a prior Crunchbase article, China’s Education Startups Continue To Pull In Massive Funding Rounds. All of these changes are giving way to differentiated approaches to education, whether that be supplying an alternative way to go to school or offering courses to improve upon the skills people already have.

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Small Business Labs

APRIL 2, 2018

We refer to this as a barbell industry structure , which we cover in more detail in our Industry Structure section. These include the shift to experiences over things, growing interest in personalized services, unique products, and all things local, and the desire to be part of a community.   

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Small Business Labs

MAY 24, 2018

Instead, it's meant as a reference design for Uber’s manufacturing partners, which include Bell Helicopters, Embraer, Pipistrel and many others. Using a traditional propeller and fixed wings extends the flying time and range of the electrically driven flying taxi.    Uber is not going to build this prototype.

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Small Business Labs

JUNE 22, 2017

The study the article refers to is Deloitte's 2017 Millennial Survey. We refer to this the yin and yang of independent work.  This Study Sums It Up in 1 Sentence says Millennials want: "Freelance flexibility with full-time stability" This is, of course, not just what Millennials want. It's what everybody wants.

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2017 Payroll Stress AT&T 133

Small Business Labs

MARCH 12, 2019

   This trend towards the growth of independent professionals is so powerful that Deloitte, who refers to these workers "off-balance sheet employees", calls the growth in their use one of the two most powerful trends currently impacting the future of work —along with artificial intelligence.

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Small Business Labs

MARCH 12, 2018

  It also focuses on what they refer to as "highly skilled freelancers" These are the self-employed working in managerial, professional and technical occupations. . The study is based on data from the UK's Office for National Statistics.

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Small Business Labs

FEBRUARY 2, 2015

They're mostly referred to as "sharing economy" companies. We agree with this point of view and we referred to this sector as the "rental economy" back in 2012 for the same reasons (we've also referred to it as the variable cost economy ). 

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Suppliers 2012 AT&T UPS 100

Small Business Labs

JULY 18, 2017

Key report quote: government should introduce a new name to refer to the category of people who are eligible for “worker” rights but who are not employees. We recommend that the legislation refer to this group as ‘dependent contractors’. The other finding of note in the report is that the U.K.

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Small Business Labs

FEBRUARY 21, 2019

Referred to as "ghost" or "cloud" Kitchens, these restaurants prepare food for off-site dining only and use firms like GrubHub and Uber Eats for delivery.  And as the chart below from the Forbes article Uber's Secret Gold Mine shows, Uber Eats is about the same size as U.S. industry leader GrubHub.

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Small Business Labs

AUGUST 5, 2019

" The boutique agencies Upwork refers to are small service firms, most of which utilize freelancers as part of their project teams.    Both services illustrate two growing trends: The trend towards independent workers teaming up via online platforms and marketplaces.

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Small Business Labs

JANUARY 7, 2019

The study found "28 percent of adults age 18 and older participated in informal work for pay during the survey reference month." .  Making Ends Meet: The Role of Informal Work in Supplementing Americans’ Income looked at data from the Federal Reserve Board's Survey of Household Economics and Decision Making (SHED).

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Small Business Labs

FEBRUARY 26, 2018

For those not familiar with with the VanLife trend , it refers to the growing number of mostly millennials who have traded in their homes and apartments for life on the road in vans.  .  It includes an excellent video that is the most professionally done of any VanLife video we've seen and is well worth watching.

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Small Business Labs

DECEMBER 8, 2020

Most countries refer to them as "dependent contractors" and they get some, but not all, of the benefits and legal protections associated with being a traditional employee. The reason is Prop 22 requires firms like Uber and Lyft to provide their drivers with benefits not normally given to independent contractors.  But the U.S.

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Small Business Labs

MARCH 18, 2019

They describe this as: " building a statistical view of your project based on a reference class of similar projects." But our favorite was what they call taking an "outside view" of a project or forecast.

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Small Business Labs

SEPTEMBER 18, 2017

Since 2016 they've been using drones (more properly referred to as  unmanned aircraft systems ) to deliver blood and medical supplies in the African nation of Rwanda. We obviously like pizza delivery.    But the startup company Zipline is delivering much more important items with drones.

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Small Business Labs

AUGUST 27, 2019

points out there is a new form of remote work emerging which they refer to as "WFA" (work from anywhere). .  Two recent articles also point this out and add several new buzzwords to our remote work vocabulary. The Harvard Business Review's Is It Time to Let Employees Work from Anywhere?

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Small Business Labs

OCTOBER 1, 2018

workforce used an online labor platform during their reference week in May of 2017. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the results of their Electronically Mediated Work study. They found about 1% of the U.S. This works out to about 1.6 million people.

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Small Business Labs

MAY 23, 2016

  The "chasm" refers to the most difficult customer acquisition step in the life cycle of a technology product - moving from visionaries (early adopters) buying your product to pragmatists (early majority) buying. The framework is still used and even appears to be having a bit of a revival.

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AT&T Management UPS 180

Small Business Labs

MARCH 12, 2012

During Apple's recent iPad announcement CEO Tim Cook made several references to the "post-PC era" This led to a flurry of articles on the topic. At the simplest level, the post-PC era refers to the growth of computing devices that are not traditional PCs.

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2011 Travel AT&T UPS 100

Small Business Labs

FEBRUARY 6, 2017

The GBTA refers to this as the "the consumerization of business travel" and they are forecasting the use of sharing economy services by business travelers will continue to grow at a rapid pace. .   More corporations are also allowing the use of Airbnb and other home-sharing services.

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Small Business Labs

SEPTEMBER 21, 2015

Regular readers know we often refer to their Global Small Business blog and turn to them for information on small businesses going global. .  Sessions include information for traditional exporters as well as how digitization and global ecommerce is creating the ability to easily and effectively enter overseas markets.

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Small Business Labs

JANUARY 15, 2015

I'm a big fan of the Gallup organization and often reference their work. The 20 million "inactive" businesses Gallup refers to are "non-employer" businesses  (also called solopreneur businesses). Which is why I'm so disappointed by their article  American Entrepreneurship: Dead or Alive?

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Small Business Labs

MAY 31, 2018

refers to those who are wealthy enough to be in the top 9.9% He sums up his analysis by saying the U.S. economy is now a place where "extreme capitalism meets Social Darwinism by way of rugged self-reliance crossed with puritanical cruelty." is the New American Aristocracy. The  The 9.9% of Americans in terms of net worth. 

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Small Business Labs

DECEMBER 14, 2011

  These include the L3C, the Benefit Corporation (referred to as the "B Corp") and the Flexible-Purpose Corporation.    Because of the legalities involved, I'm referring you to the article for more details.   

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Small Business Labs

SEPTEMBER 24, 2019

This is a more stringent set of rules than was in place prior to AB5 (for those interested in legal geekery, the prior rules are referred to as the Borello factors ). Be established in a trade similar to the work being performed. Many are suggesting that AB5 will result in the end of the gig economy and gig work. This is not correct.

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Legal Travel AT&T Policies 110

Small Business Labs

AUGUST 14, 2013

 Tribes refers to what is commonly refered to as "weak ties" - a wider group of people with complimentary skills that often provide new insights, ideas and job leads. .   I also like the chapters on networks and tribes.   Many independent workers don't understand the value of weak tie tribes.

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Networking Skills AT&T 100

Small Business Labs

NOVEMBER 29, 2016

Fed Governor Lael Brainard references it often in a recent speech about the future of work. .  This study also seems to have helped convince the Federal Reserve that the gig economy is real and government statistics are not capturing it. " The Federal Reserve, obviously, has a powerful voice in DC.

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Agencies Policies UPS 100

Small Business Labs

AUGUST 29, 2017

Please refer to Andrew's article for more details. Spend Matters analyst Andrew Karpie's article Upwork Launches Talent Services Division to Enable Enterprise Use of Online Freelance Workforce provides an excellent analysis of this new effort.

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Agencies Skills International AT&T 145

Small Business Labs

FEBRUARY 18, 2016

  The article references the Harvard Business Review's  The Sharing Economy Isn’t About Sharing at All  which makes the point that the sharing economy is really about paying for access to an asset or service.  have nothing to do with sharing. 

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Temping 2012 AT&T 100

Small Business Labs

AUGUST 14, 2012

Another interesting reference to truck-based commerce comes from USA Today's Why shopping will never be the same. " The article doesn't explain this quote, nor can I find any other references to Google starting mobile retail stores. works well as low cost incubators, allowing entrepreneurs to test concepts and ideas.

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Google Equipment Purchasing Learning 100

Small Business Labs

NOVEMBER 9, 2015

This article references another Skift article on San Francisco's Workshop Cafe.  “The coworking space is intended for both locals and hotel guests as an interface for local and global collaboration, so we want to facilitate networking and offer regular events for community building.”.

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