[Hidden-tech] Huge need for funding of biz development - how you can help

[A - Z International]

Hi all,

Enclosed is a press release I backed financially that had the support 
of the Association of Small Business Development Centers -- the 
organization that funds our buddies at the Western Mass SBDC down in 
Springfield, where many of us are clients and also have been 
sponsored as consultants and speakers.

When you read what Don Wilson, President/CEO has to say about the 
ASBDC's treatment over the last seven years, and its impact on all of 
us, I'm sure you'll agree this is an issue that needs addressing. You 
can do a lot of things, mainly reach out to our congressional 
delegation in western Mass to lobby for more funding, and also reach 
out to congressional folk in your home region as most of us came from 
somewhere else.

You can also pass this release onto any media folk you know. It's 
going out to key journalists covering the presidential campaign, the 
campaigns' press staff and a number of hand-selected journalists in 
this region and nationally. But those of us involved in this effort. 
If you want to help out, reach me at az at a-zinternational.com.

best,

Amy Zuckerman

Hidden-Tech Founder


VIRTUAL WORKFORCE AND CAREER EXPERTS URGE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES TO 
FOCUS ON BOOMER CAREER RETIREMENT ISSUES

Warn of an "Avalanche of Need" that Could Sweep the U.S. For 
Financially Strapped Boomers

Burke, Va.  - Jan. 24, 2008  -- With the U.S. and global economy 
gyrating, national experts in career transition and the virtual, 
home-based workplace are urging all presidential candidates to place 
the needs of retiring boomers among their top priorities, 
particularly in regard to career retraining, small-business 
development and management support where there is evidence of growing 
demand for assistance.

Don Wilson, president and CEO of the Association of Small Business 
Development Center Network (ASBDC), representing 1,000 service 
centers nationwide that provide no-cost consulting and low-cost 
training to half a million small businesses annually, says he is 
grateful for this year's $10 million increase to ASBDC's budget. 
However, he points out that the amount is a drop in the bucket 
compared to demand his centers are starting to experience from 
retiring boomers seeking help starting or growing small enterprises 
to augment their incomes during retirement.

"The candidates are talking about education and here we are offering 
education for businesses," said Wilson, adding that the ASBDC was 
level-funded from 2000 until 2007. Despite the recent budget 
increase, he said in today's dollars ASBDC needs at least $115 
million "to have the same buying power as we did in 2001. We actually 
served fewer counseling clients at a national level in 2006 (no 
numbers were available for 2007), which was down from 2005," and this 
is despite the fact that the first wave of boomers hit retirement age in 2007.

"For the past five or six years, we've been seeing an increasing 
number of older Americans coming in. As they reach retirement age, 
they want part-time work, or they say they want to start a home-based 
virtual business, a small manufacturing, or retail brick and mortar 
business," explained Wilson. Many have broad experience or great 
skill sets, "but need business management knowledge," he said, adding 
that "this does not come automatically."

By virtual business, Wilson is referring to a small business that 
relies on advanced technology to operate, whether from a home, a 
rental office or elsewhere.

Georgianna Parkin, vice-chair of ASBDC's board of directors and state 
director for the Massachusetts Small Business Development Center 
(SBDC), is also witnessing "a continual increase each year among 
boomers who want to start a business. Some expand from hobbies, some 
for social reasons and others due to a perceived need in the market."

When asked if SBDC funding was adequate to meet projected boomer 
career or business counseling needs nationally, Parkin said 
"absolutely not." She pointed out that it was "critical to keep these 
boomers employed and active contributors to the economic base. 
Otherwise, we could have a population in debt, as well as ignoring 
the tremendous talent this population possesses."

Those serving boomers on websites and in private practices are 
equally concerned, particularly given the many boomers who are 
purported to be in debt. Amy Zuckerman, an award-winning author and 
consultant based in Amherst, Mass. who was recently profiled on 
CNN.com (12/17/07), warns candidates of an "avalanche of boomer need" 
that is about to sweep the country. Through the many blogs and groups 
she manages on boomer social networking sites such as EONS.com, 
Multiply, and TeeBeeDee.com, she is encountering many older boomers 
struggling to survive on Social Security and dwindling revenue.

"With boomers starting to retire in 2007 and many in debt, I am 
deeply concerned about the future. While the media and candidates are 
focusing a great deal on health care, which is positive, they are 
missing the enormous need for career retraining, as well assistance 
to the millions of boomers who are telling pollsters they intend to 
start their own businesses during retirement," said Zuckerman who 
also writes the blog: "Living a Virtual American Dream" 
(http//:www.virtualdream.amyz-blogspot.com).

She points to new data from a pilot Virtual Business and Careers 
survey currently housed on her EONS.com "Building a Virtual Company" 
group page (URL below). Preliminary findings, based on a sampling of 
EONS members, indicate that 77 percent of EONS respondents plan to 
operate a small, home-based business during their retirement years.
(The survey can be found at http://www.eons.com/survey/welcome/10.)

Although numbers from mid-December to the first week in January were 
based on a sample of only 170, they correlate with earlier polls by 
Yahoo.com and MassInc's Commonwealth Magazine, as well as anecdotal 
reporting from Newsweek's "Boomer Files." All of these regional and 
national sources have indicated that a majority of boomers - between 
60 and 75 percent - plan to run home-based, virtual companies of 
various types when they are in retirement.

"The problem for many boomers, particularly those who have always 
worked for an employer, is that they don't have a clue about how to 
make money outside of a full-time job," said Zuckerman, who was the 
Small Business Administration's 2005 Home-Based Business Champion for 
New England and Massachusetts. "They don't know how to manage their 
time, manage technology, or market themselves. And many are falling 
prey to scam artists promising them a solid income from web-based schemes."

Zuckerman says she is pleased to see a new bill - The Parents' Tax 
Relief Act of 2007 - including tax incentives for those working at 
home. However, she points out that polls she has conducted with the 
members of Hidden-Tech (www.hidden-tech.net), an organization she 
founded in 2002, and from interviews nationwide, indicate that many 
boomers and others are operating virtual enterprises outside the 
home. "I'm concerned that that this bill will not assist many in the 
burgeoning virtual economy who do not operate strictly from their 
homes," she explained.

"The government," Zuckerman said, "needs to drastically beef up 
funding for boomer retraining through the ASBDC's small business 
development centers, as well as the SCORE program. And Congress needs 
to redraft the U.S. Census to gather data on the virtual economy, as 
a whole, and not focus solely on home-based companies."

Wendy Spiegel, founder of GENPLUS (tm) - Reinventing 50 Plus 
(www.genplususa.com) in the Los Angeles area, cautions that "over the 
past several years of receiving e-mails from mature workers desperate 
for employment, it is clear that we are still five years or more away 
from large numbers of employers being truly willing to hire-or 
recruit for-a 50 plusser." Spiegel, who authors the popular Gen Plus 
blog (http://genplus.blogspot.com) and, like Zuckerman, has been an 
expert blogger on EONS.com, collaborated with Zuckerman in developing 
the survey that appears on the EONS.com site.

She believes that "as a result of the employment challenges and lack 
of financial security facing the mature worker, more and more 
jobseekers are going to have to find alternative ways to make a 
living. Multi-channel careering is going to become the new boomer 
trend, and that includes a significant increase in virtual industry, 
flex jobs, telecommuting, and virtual contact center positions."

On the flip side of the job coin, businesses will be "facing a 
massive talent shortage as all these boomers move out of full-time 
employment," said Charlie Grantham, co-founder of Work Design 
Collaborative and the Future of Work program with bases in California 
and Prescott, Ariz. "Companies will have to turn to the boomers as a 
part-time labor force," he said, "but the boomers won't be willing to 
commute to central-city corporate offices. We're going to have to 
learn how to manage a widely distributed work force whose members 
have a very different set of values and expectations about how, when, 
and where they work."

"We need a ton of new public policies to deal with this massive 
transformation in the workforce," argued Jim Ware, co-founder with 
Grantham of the Work Design Collaborative and the Future of Work 
program. "Work force development programs will have to include 
post-65ers, and we should be rethinking Social Security, health care, 
and 401K programs to be sure they meet the needs of both employers 
and all these 'free-agent' seniors," he says.