Business Expo speakers examine both ends of the Information Age
J.D. Power recalled the time in 1968 when he had to wheedle his way in to Toyota’s U.S. offices to propose market research to its forklift truck division. Addressing a capacity lunch crowd of about 250 at the October 19 Business Expo, he described how, on a two-week deadline, he produced his work with hand-drawn charts and typed the text on an IBM Selectric. Weeks later, Toyota offered him a work visa to go to Japan and do work for the parent company. Five years later, his report on early O-ring failure in Mazda autos brought him a call from The Wall Street Journal, which gave him hours to confirm his findings before press deadline. He sent his response via Telex, and his company, J.D. Power & Associates, was on its way to becoming the market leader in a new business sector called customer-satisfaction evaluation.
By the time he sold the company to McGraw Hill in April 2005, clients were paying the company up to $300,000 for the right to use its name in their advertising. Now, information is worth real money.
In a presentation room upstairs, Amy Zuckerman laid out a road map for how the next new wave of the information economy may develop. She is principal of A-Z International Associates in Amherst and a founder of Hidden-Tech, a five-year-old association that supports home-based technology entrepreneurs. "Small does not mean impotent," she told an audience of about 45 people, many of whom also work from home. But they’re entrepreneurs rather than freelancers. "Most of us want to maximize our income, while freelancers are looking for the next project," she said. The connectivity among Hidden-Tech members: They’re usually not incorporated - and, therefore, often go uncounted - and they use technology to drive their businesses, no matter what the sector.
Zuckerman threw out some figures: Home-based businesses generated $102 billion in annual revenue in the U.S., according to a study of 2002 data by the Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy. About 30 million-plus businesses operate this way, and their numbers are likely to grow as more baby-boomers retire from traditional employment but want to or need to remain economically engaged. "Hidden tech is the wave of the future," she says. "The economy is going underground."
Participating audience members at her Business Expo presentation work at a wide variety of disciplines, some of them mainstream, such as online realty services, to specialty niches such as Global Information Services mapping, voice-overs for commercial clients, and helping people produce books or movies.
Yes, but will the market for these home-based entrepreneurs become saturated? Zuckerman says there’s no chance of that. The increasing user-friendliness of technology is enabling more and more people to take their businesses online and out of the mainstream, the audience members concurred.
One thing hasn’t changed - the need to market one’s business and to stay connected to customers. Zuckerman, a contributing writer to numerous information outlets, works hard at getting her message out and making connections. Power made the somewhat the same observation about using information technology to connect with customers. "The possibilities are tremendous," he said. "Those manufacturing and service companies that understand what’s going on will be the most successful."
Christina P. O’Neill can be reached at coneill@wbjournal.com
WBJ Web Partners
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