33 
The Rise of Smart Farms
Small Business Labs
MAY 25, 2017
Plant Data/Analysis : systems that help farmers understand plant composition (microbial makeup, genetic expression, etc.) Tech startups are increasingly targeting agriculture.
Small Business Labs
Analysis Related Topics 
Coworking Forecast - 26,000 Spaces and 3.8 Million Members by 2020
Small Business Labs
AUGUST 2, 2016
How coworking is defined is an important attribute of any coworking industry analysis. Coworking is booming. The industry is growing and hybridizing so fast , we're having a hard time keeping up with it.
Psychographic Profiles and Working Yourself to Death in the Gig Economy
Small Business Labs
MARCH 27, 2017
It pushes against bureaucratic overthinking, analysis-paralysis, and excessive whiteboarding. A recent ad campaign by Fiverr attracted a lot of attention, most of which was negative.
Intuit Future of Small Business Report
Small Business Labs
OCTOBER 25, 2016
Technological advances such as machine learning are taking the complexity out of data analysis, providing small businesses with the ability to make faster, better decisions. Last week Intuit released the Slideshare presentation The Future of Small Business.
Using Satellite Imagery for Investment Analysis
Small Business Labs
NOVEMBER 15, 2011
But they've expanded their product line to include investment analysis. According to their analysis traffic fell in both August and September, so October showed a positive turn around (and yes, the pun was intentional if not good). DigitalGlobe is a fascinating company. According to their website: DigitalGlobe owns and operates the most agile and sophisticated constellation of high-resolution commercial earth imaging satellites.
Gartner's Top Trends for 2017
Small Business Labs
OCTOBER 31, 2016
Key quote on what this means: Employees, already familiar with behavior influencing through contextual algorithms on consumer sites such as Amazon, will be influenced by an emerging set of “persuasive technologies” that leverage big data from myriad sources, mobile, IoT devices and deep analysis.
The Five Faces of the On-Demand Economy
Small Business Labs
FEBRUARY 9, 2016
These profiles were developed using cluster analysis to group ODE workers who share similar motivations and attitudes. Last week Intuit released The Five Faces of the On-Demand Economy , which covers 5 common profiles of on-demand workers.
Great Visualization of the Changing Part-Time Workforce
Small Business Labs
JULY 23, 2014
This analysis shows fewer part-timers for economic reasons and a decline in the overall percentage of people working part-time. We really like interesting data visualizations here at Small Business Labs.
Insight, Innovation and Finding Aha's
Small Business Labs
OCTOBER 28, 2014
But we consider two to be of the greatest importance to us in our trend spotting and analysis work. 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.
Study: Gig Economy Growing Fast, Creating Mostly Part-Time Jobs
Small Business Labs
FEBRUARY 22, 2016
For another analysis of these studies, see Bloomberg View's Your Uber Driver Probably Has Another Job.
Top Ten Small Business Trends for 2012
Small Business Labs
JANUARY 5, 2012
Big Data – the collection, manipulation and analysis of large datasets – allows large companies to look, act and compete like a small business by using data and analytics to provide personalized products and services. Below is our fifth annual Top 10 Small Business Trends list. Links to our prior lists are available here. Our overall economic outlook is for continued moderate growth with U.S. GDP increasing 2.5%-3.0%.
Key Smart Manufacturing Technologies
Small Business Labs
DECEMBER 8, 2016
Computer-Aided Design (CAD) : Refers to the use of computer systems to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of designs of parts, final products, and even entire production systems or factory environments.
Is a War for Talent Starting in the On-Demand Economy?
Small Business Labs
MARCH 31, 2015
Zen99's interesting analysis of recruitment spend by on-demand economy companies, which we covered yesterday, shows the extent of the industry's recruiting efforts. It seems almost every day an on-demand economy company announces a big fund raise. For example, the delivery service Door Dash announced last week it raised an additional $40 million.
Three of Our Favorite Trend Sources
Small Business Labs
JULY 27, 2011
We've also found cross discipline trend analysis is much more powerful and accurate than focusing on a single or small set of trend areas. Our job is tracking and forecasting small business trends. As part of this task, we keep up with a lot of trends which at first glance don't seem directly related to small business. We do this for two reasons.
PwC's When Megatrends Collide
Small Business Labs
MARCH 9, 2015
Strategy & Business , one of our favorite publications, has a good article on trend analysis. When Megatrends Collide is written by a trio of partners from the giant accounting and consulting firm PwC. The article provides a primer on identifying and using megatrends.
Disruption in the Industy Analyst Industry
Small Business Labs
APRIL 9, 2014
There are several worth noting: Industry Analyst/Journalism Hybrid : These are firms that are augmenting or replacing their traditional advertising based business models by adding industry analysis and/or research services. BI Intelligence : provides data and analysis on a wide range of digital topics. They do more in-depth analysis than the typical news site and claim they are filling a gap between traditional journalism and industry analysis.
Labormetrics, Autonomy and Employee Tracking
Small Business Labs
OCTOBER 30, 2013
The growing use of labormetrics - a buzz word that's a play on sabermetrics , baseball's term for the use of statistics and empirical analysis - is interesting to us on two levels. The Wall Street Journal's Memo to Mobile Workers: The Boss is Watching covers the growing use of labormetrics systems to monitor and track their employees.
Moonlighting: Booming or Declining?
Small Business Labs
SEPTEMBER 9, 2014
Pew's analysis is based on data from the U.S. Let me say up front our research indicates moonlighting- working 2 or more jobs - has become much more common in the U.S. over the past decade. But not everyone agrees. According to the Pew Research Center's article Moonlighting is less common now, despite what you might have heard , moonlighting has been declining for years.
Consulting Firm Thought Leadership Sites We Follow
Small Business Labs
OCTOBER 20, 2011
We get a lot of questions about what information sources we use in our trend analysis work. A couple of months ago we posted on our favorite trends sources. We also follow several of the major consulting firm thought leadership sites. For example, yesterday's post on trends featured infromation from Bain and Company and tuesday's post had info from the Boston Consulting Group.
Bitcoin Gaining Funding, Market Momentum
Small Business Labs
JULY 16, 2014
Also released recently was Business Insider's analysis of the amount of venture capital flowing into the Bitcoin industry. CoinDesk, an online site that covers the Bitcoin industry, released their State of Bitcoin Q2 2014 report.
Small Businesses Want Tech Help From Accountants
Small Business Labs
MARCH 5, 2013
We found small businesses are looking to their accountants for help with a mix of technology issues, including security, data analysis, application integration and general IT advice.
Is Small Business Ownership the Great Equalizer?
Small Business Labs
JULY 12, 2011
The analysis was based on data from the Small Business Success Index (SBSI) produced by the University of Maryland and Network Solutions. Our analysis of the SBSI data shows that established small businesses owned by women and minorities perform roughly the same (no statistically significant difference) in terms of competitiveness as small businesses owned by white men.
Is the Venture Capital Industry Broken?
Small Business Labs
MAY 9, 2012
And He Is Us" is a damning analysis of Venture Capital as an asset class and the Venture Capital industry in general. According to the Kauffman Foundation, the VC industry is very broken. Their report "We Have Met the Enemy. The news here isn't that the VC industry is broken. This has been actively discussed for years. The news here is who's saying it's broken. The Kauffman Foundation has long been a close friend of the VC industry.
The Growing Role of Analytics in College Basketball
Small Business Labs
MARCH 25, 2011
But what is new is the amount of data being collected and the sophistication of the analysis. Meteorologist Becomes a Go-To Guy from the New York Times covers a free college basketball statistics website used by many college coaches. The site and the analytics were developed by a Utah based meteorologist as a hobby a few years ago. Using data in sports is not new.
Coworking and the Blending of Work and Life
Small Business Labs
APRIL 14, 2015
But it's clear from our preliminary analysis of the results that work/life blending is common among coworking members. We quit using the term "work/life balance" many years ago. It simply doesn't fit the world most of us live in.
The Tablet Revolution - Tablets Taking Over
Small Business Labs
OCTOBER 26, 2011
Journalism.org's How People Use Tables and What it Means for the Future of News has an excellent analysis of what it means for news and new organizations. In case you've been living in a cave the last year or so, the use tablet computers (and especially Apple iPads) is surging.
Using Digital Data For Economic Analysis
Small Business Labs
JULY 23, 2015
One of the biggest shifts going on in economics is the growing use of digital data for research. The Internet and cloud computing platforms are generating large amounts of digital data on pretty much all areas of business and economics. In fact, the amount data is growing much faster than our ability to analyze and use it. In our work we've seen a clear shift to using digital data and away from our traditional sources - surveys and government produced data.
What is Computational Anthropology?
Small Business Labs
JUNE 12, 2014
It's also leading to more timely and accurate analysis and deeper bahavior insights. MIT Technology Review's The Emerging Science of Computational Anthropology covers how digital data is creating new opportunities to study human behavior.
Why Everyone Wants Small Businesses as Customers
Small Business Labs
SEPTEMBER 18, 2012
Enterprises have gotten so good at contract analysis and negotiation that it's very hard to wring profits out of this segment. One of the most interesting shifts we've seen since we started researching small businesses is the change in view of small businesses as a target market. A decade ago relatively few firms - large or small - considered small businesses a key target market. Today, lots of firms do.
Thomas Friedman's Darwinian Theory of Everything
Small Business Labs
AUGUST 15, 2011
" One theme we're constantly struck by in our trends research and analysis is how Darwinian the world of work and small business has become - and how it's likely to become even more Darwinian in the future. If you haven't read Thomas Friedman's piece A Theory of Everything (Sort Of) in Sunday's NY Times, I suggest you do. I don't think Friedman covers new ground in the article.
Major Shift in Thinking About Americans with Multiple Jobs
Small Business Labs
JULY 30, 2015
This is done by thorough data collection and rigorous analysis, both of which require a lot of time - often years in the case of the data. Fusion's There are probably way more people in the 'gig economy' than we realize covers a major shift in thinking about how many people in the U.S.
The State of Telework in the U.S.
Small Business Labs
JULY 11, 2011
In addition to insights and analysis, the report is full of interesting data. One of our "go to" sources for insights and information on distributed work and telework are Kate Lister and Tom Hamish from the Telework Research Network In addition to deep knowledge on the topic, they are also data intensive - much appreciated here at Small Business Labs.
Making Serendipity Happen
Small Business Labs
APRIL 10, 2013
Lindsay's article points out the promising areas of serendipity research, with social network analysis likely the best way to attack this problem. Greg Lindsay's NY Times article Engineering Serendipity is a fascinating look at how companies are trying to increase the amount of serendipity that happens at their firms.
Confirmation Bias and Decision Making
Small Business Labs
JULY 23, 2012
They're also more willing to challenge our assumptions and analysis. Regular readers know survivor bias is our favorite bias here at Small Business Labs. But if we had a 2nd favorite bias, it would be confirmation bias. This is the tendency for people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses. There's been a flurry of recent articles on confirmation bias: 1.
Benefit Declines Makes Self-Employment More Attractive
Small Business Labs
JULY 28, 2011
Most people looking at becoming self-employed or starting a small business go through a risk/reward analysis of their choices. We've found that corporate benefits tend to be overvalued in this analysis. There are a lot of other factors people include in their analysis - work/life balance, job security, advancement potential, social factors, etc. - It's no surprise that companies continue to cut workplace benefits.
Brookings: Natural Gas Best Path to Low Carbon Future
Small Business Labs
JUNE 9, 2014
Brookings Why the Best Path to a Low-Carbon Future is not Wind or Solar provides a detailed analysis of why natural gas is the best choice for reducing carbon emissions associated with the production of electricity. It's good see a group like this come out with a balanced analysis showing the advantages of natural gas - and more importantly the drawbacks of wind and solar - in the production of electricity.
What is a Spurious Correlation?
Small Business Labs
APRIL 17, 2013
It's beyond the scope of this blog to fully cover this topic, but there are two new books well worth reading that do cover it: Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data does an excellent job of describing the basics around statistical causation and the limitations of statistical analysis in layman's terms. He successfully called the last presidential election and his book covers nicely covers the strengths and weaknesses of statistical analysis.
Behavioral Finance Lessons for Entrepreneurs
Small Business Labs
JULY 29, 2013
The academic fields of behavioral finance and behavioral economics have changed this by including social, psychological and emotional factors in the analysis of economic and financial issues. Despite ample evidence this approach was wrong, until relatively recently the vast majority of economic and financial theory was based on the assumption that people always made rational decisions in these areas.
More on the End of Men and Rise of Women
Small Business Labs
FEBRUARY 16, 2012
Although not new (the trends have been discussed for many years), new information and analysis on these trends continues to surface. Earlier this week we posted on the End of Men and the Rise of Women trends.
Book Review: Raw Deal - How the Uber Economy is Screwing American Workers
Small Business Labs
NOVEMBER 3, 2015
Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently did an analysis of contingent work and found 85% of independent contractors are content being independent and would not want to be traditional employees.
Let's personalize your content