Words and spin department: small business innovation. It's happening all the time, but we use different words to describe it:
But rather than calling it innovation, they simply describe what they do and the results they're looking for. Words such as "tweak," "adjust," "improve" and "change" roll off their tongue.
That's from Defining Small Business Innovation, a research brief released today by Intuit, developed jointly with Emergent Research, the first in a series on the future of small business. That's a nice juxtaposition with the Obama administration announcing plans to help small business through the economic crisis by freeing up resources for small business loans.
How important is small business? According to the report:
Small businesses are an important and growing driver of U.S. economic growth. They employ about half of the nation's 144 million private sector workers. They create 60 to 80 percent of new private sector jobs. They generate more than $6 trillion in annual revenue and create more than half of the country's non-farm gross domestic product.
Although we tend to think the larger companies, educational institutions, and government agencies develop new technology through research and develop, the smaller businesses are in the front lines. The study lists six enablers that make for innovation in small business:
- Personal passion: Personally invested, most small business owners are willing to try new approaches to make their business more successful.
- Customer connection: A deep and direct relationship with the market and customers helps small businesses understand customer needs, identify new opportunities, and fix problems quickly and efficiently.
- Agility and adaptation: Unlike large corporations, small businesses can quickly adapt to changing market conditions and implement new business practices.
- Experimentation and improvisation: When pursuing new opportunities, many small business owners and managers aren't afraid to experiment and improvise, accepting failure as part of the path to success.
- Resource limitations: Small businesses are adept at doing more with less. And these resource constraints lend to their innovative mindset.
- Information sharing and collaboration: Small businesses traditionally rely on strong social networks to share information and inspire innovative thinking.
The research concludes that "innovation will be mandatory for small businesses over the next decade." We (small business owners; I'm one of us) don't have a choice.
SBA is a joke because the bulk of the money has been given to Fortune 500 LARGE companies under Conservative rule.
Friedmanomics/Corporatism created this world where preference on academic affiliations, monopoly racketerring, taxation on only SMALL businesses, "non-compete" Corporate Communism contracts and perverted, overreaching patent-laws create a climate where only those who are already at or near the top can achieve within *legal guidelines* without the assistance of miracles.
The current system and those who rule it are the enemy of small business.
I know a lot of people from publicly traded companies. None of them went to famous schools. None of them made it to where they are because of connections. They are there because they are scientists turned executives. For most of them it was the life's savings of their parents which made it possible.
SBA is not even a topic amongst the people I know. Neither for those in small businesses like mine or those in public companies.
Small businesses don't get taxed unless you take out profits. No big deal. No profit, no tax.
Patent law only matters to you if you have IP. Do you have IP? If not, why do you even care? And if you have IP, maybe patents are not the right way to protect it, anyway. My company has a lot of IP. We don't have a single patent. We don't need them. Our secrets keep themselves.