Archive for the 'Regulations' Category

Look for your sustainability letter

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on February 7, 2012
in Future thinking, Green public policy and Regulations
. 0 Comments

This article is about three letters to small businesses.

The first letter was born in the 1950s, when the quality ideas of an American, Edwards Deming, reversed “Made in Japan” from a metaphor for cheap to quality. During the 1980s, after American industry had lost competitiveness with Japan, quality processes like ISO and Six Sigma were adopted and “Made in America” returned to prominence.

By 1990, now with their in-house quality act together, big businesses realized they needed similar commitments from integrated vendors. That’s when small businesses started getting letters from customers requesting evidence of their quality process – or no new contracts.

The seed for the second letter was planted by computer programmers in the 1960s. To conserve expensive data storage, program date codes were written with six digits, as in 121565, for December 15, 1965. They didn’t realize they had created the Y2K ticking time bomb.

Around 1995, experts started worrying that when the clock ticked midnight, January 1, 2000, zillions of lines of date-sensitive computer calculations would fail by going back a century – 010100 would be January 1, 1900 – instead of forward to 2000. Consequently, the codes in millions of programs had to be fixed. And by 1998, small businesses started getting letters from their larger customers requesting evidence of their “Y2K compliance” – or no contracts with eight-digit dates.

The third letter was born in the middle of the 20th century, when we started realizing that the solution to pollution was not dilution. Since then, environmental stewardship has evolved from not polluting to sustainability.

Sustainability means doing more with less, including making waste useful – especially water. It’s the right thing to do, but businesses are also learning that sustainability can be profitable and good for public relations.

The sustainability letter hasn’t been sent yet – but it’s coming. Within the next five years, small businesses should expect to hear from big customers about their sustainability plan. And like the quality and Y2K letters, your first motivation will be to keep a customer.

Start thinking about the resources your business uses, including energy, consumables, production waste – especially water. Establish programs for recycling, reusing, conserving, etc., and document your execution. So when you get that first “Sustainability Letter,” you won’t look like a deer in the headlights.

Sustainability is good business, good public relations and good karma.

Check out more great SBA content HERE!

Small Business Advocate Poll: To Keystone or not to Keystone?

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on February 2, 2012
in Economy: National and Global, Presidential policies and Regulations
. 0 Comments

The Question:
Construction of the Keystone Pipeline to bring Canadian crude oil to U.S. refineries is being debated in Washington. What do you think?

87% - Yes, it will create jobs and reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil

9% - No, it could be an environmental nightmare

4% - Uncertain

Jim’s Comments:
Let’s get one thing out of the way first: The United States of America, which consumes more carbon fuel per capita than any other nation on the planet, has NO national energy plan. Not now, not ever, nor is one even being considered.

So, when the Keystone Pipeline - which would bisect the U.S. by carrying Canadian crude oil to Houston, Texas - was proposed, it’s not like it either fit into or violated some kind of a grand plan. But it does push the buttons of a lot of people and create a few strange bedfellows.

  • Environmentalists hate it because: 1) it might break and contaminate the environment; and 2) they don’t like anything that promotes the use of more carbon fuel.
  • Unions like it because: 1) it creates thousands of jobs they hope will be union jobs; and 2) they desperately need more union dues from those jobs.
  • The Obama administration hates it because: 1) they only like green jobs and crude is either black or brown, but never green; and 2) they made the calculation that they can get more votes by ticking off the unions than the environmentalists.
  • The petroleum industry likes it because: 1) they like anything that puts the word “more” in front of “oil”; and 2) it ticks off the environmentalists.
  • The marketplace likes it because: 1) it will create thousands of jobs; and 2) and we desperately need more new jobs.
  • Most members of Congress like it because: 1) it creates jobs and, unlike the Obama administration, they don’t care what color jobs; and 2) they can take credit for creating jobs.

So, that leaves only one U.S. group to poll: small businesses. And when we asked our small business audiences what they thought about the Keystone Pipeline, here’s what we learned.

Almost nine of ten - 87% - said “Yes, the Keystone pipeline will create jobs and reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil.” Apparently, we don’t think Canadian oil is “foreign.” Less than 10% said, “No, it could be an environmental nightmare,” and the rest were “Uncertain.”

Consequently, if you just do the math, clearly more groups want the Keystone Pipeline than don’t. And since I believe that small business votes should get double weight, the pipeline should be a slam dunk.

But since Barack Obama has that Oval Office thing going for him, which he used last week to reject the pipeline, it looks like the Keystone Pipeline is in trouble. Stay tuned.

Yesterday on my radio program I talked more about why we need the Keystone Pipeline. Take a few minutes to listen or download and leave your thoughts.

Check out more great SBA content HERE!

Take this week’s poll HERE!

Take our poll on government regulations

Published
by
davonna
on July 6, 2011
in Entrepreneurship and Regulations
. 0 Comments

As America celebrates its independence this week, how concerned are you that your business’ independence is being eroded by government laws and regulations?

Click on the question and give us your opinion — it will just take a few seconds and you’ll immediately see the current results of the poll.

Have more you’d like to say? Leave us a comment.

Small business owners answer questions about growth

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on September 1, 2010
in Economy: National and Global, Government, Regulations, Uncategorized and Universal health care
. 0 Comments

One of the big issues these days is why the economy isn’t growing. Many people believe one reason is because businesses, especially small ones, are so uncertain about the future that they aren’t taking the risks associated with growth activity, like hiring more people, borrowing money or other expansion steps.

We wanted to know what small business owners think about this, so we asked our NEWSLETTER subscribers and website visitors to tell us about their perspectives on growth opportunity. Here is the question we asked: Please, tell us where you fall in this issue. “I am not taking growth steps because…”

Here’s how our respondents answered:

23% said:  I’m worried about the economy in general.

15% said:  I can’t get financing to fund growth opportunities.

58% said:  Government actions make me uncertain about the future.

4% said:  We are not experiencing growth opportunities

Perhaps the good news is that only four percent of our respondents indicated they were not experiencing growth opportunities.  The bad news is, as you can see above, 96% of responders were so troubled by three issues that they either can’t or aren’t growing their businesses.

These responses track pretty closely with others I have seen lately.  There is no way to sugar-coat this: When small business owners are troubled, the economy is troubled.  I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but I do know that my prediction earlier this year in an article titled, “The shape of this recovery is M” is coming to pass. This recovery is more of a marathon not a sprint.

But we’ve come too far to quit now.  This is no hill for a climber, and you’re a climber.  I’m proud of you. You should be proud of yourself.

To participate in next week’s poll question, visit www.smallbusinessadvocate.com and vote.