Small Business Outlook: Forbes Special Report

This week's issue of Forbes Magazine has the 2008 Small Business Outlook. I never get around to filing their predictions and insights to see how 20/20 their vision is. Perhaps this year. Though Forbes is a decent business magazine, in general, their small business articles tend to have some mental speed-bumps. The articles are expansive. I think it has something to do with the scale ... their notion of "small" is bigger than my "small." Most of my work has been with businesses of five to twenty employees. Microbusinesses, I guess?

But, it is a good read. The FORBES.SBR2008 will take you to the cover page where they have links to the individual stories.

I think you will find at least a couple of them interesting. Some of the coming tech cities surprised me. And, I can appreciate the need for some changes in the patent laws. I have been concerned though about restructuring our patent laws to resemble Europe's. Could Hewlett and Packard have patented their movie sound modulator ... or their first oscilloscope in their garage? I don't know? The process seems to be tilting away from the lone inventor.

The four lead stories are:

Top 10 Up-And-Coming Tech Cities

Thanks to a potent recipe mixing hearty helpings of money, leadership, commitment and vision, a cadre of small cities is rapidly earning respect as veritable tech hubs.

Where will the next Silicon Valley spring up? Philip Auerswald, professor of public policy at George Mason University, knows where to look. He surveyed regional innovation trends across the U.S. and cobbled a list of up-and-coming tech centers.

The Biggest Business Blunders Ever

Entrepreneurs will need every drop of hard-earned wisdom to navigate the coming year--by all accounts, a challenging one, care of a deepening credit crisis and potential recession.

With those dangers and the above adage in mind, we canvassed the last four centuries for the biggest business blunders of all time, in terms of wealth destroyed and opportunity lost.

They Call This Intellectual Property?

The already arduous road to patenting a great idea is getting even longer. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court raised the bar on what the law defines as the "standard of obviousness" in patent cases. In short, if a business or technique is so obvious that anyone could have invented it, it shouldn't merit a patent.

While stricter standards may ease some of the pressure on the increasingly swamped U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the new regulations--and more being debated in the coming months--could add costs and complications down the road, too.

The Biggest Risks To Your Business

While spring is in the air, the business pages are filled with dark thoughts about recession, collapsing credit markets, $100 oil, global competition and inflation (or worse, stagflation).

But those aren't the only risks entrepreneurs have to sweat. What chttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifan happen in business will--and when you least expect it. The prepared win, the napping lose.

But what exactly can happen? You might see the thunderheads gathering this week or even this month, but what about all the nasty weather one, three or 10 years from now? You can't manage risk if you don't know where to look for it.

The stories in the SmBiz sidebar look interesting as well but I will have to save them for this weekend:

Cracking The Battery Barrier
Are You Born To Be A Billionaire?
Making Coin Off The Credit Crisis

The 2008 Outlook Report

This weekend I will also add links to Oregon's Minority Entrepreneur Association, and the Oregon Native American Business Network.

Let me know if I am missing any resources?
Joel