New white paper: Microbusiness and the Human Economy

Posted By Dawn Rivers Baker on March 6, 2009

It’s been awhile since I wrote my last white paper but this one has been several years in the thinking.

For a number of years now, I have been thinking about the different way that microbusiness owners do business and trying to figure out how that fit in. My thinking was dominated by ideas of sustainability but I couldn’t seem to find a good fit because, while “sustainability” might make for a good buzz word, I couldn’t see any evidence of the economy trending in that direction.

Still, I knew that microbusinesses really do have a different way of doing business, that it wasn’t just that they are inclined to be satisfied with less money and more interested in their human legacy.

Then I came into contact with the ideas of Umair Haque, particularly his writings on the Smart Growth Economy. That’s when I was able to put it all together.

The new paper is called Microbusiness and the Human Economy: the evolution of the new business rules for the 21st century. You can read the abstract and download the paper from the Resources page of this web site.

Happy reading. Feedback is welcome.

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AEO National Summit on Entrepreneurship

Posted By Dawn Rivers Baker on February 14, 2009

Association for Enterprise Opportunity At this year’s AEO annual meeting, I will be presenting a workshop on how microenterprise development professionals can teach their clients to advocate on behalf of their businesses with their elected representatives.

The need is very real. Most microbusiness owners assume they are powerless to influence public policy because they have neither the contacts nor the cash to make themselves heard.

What they don’t realize is that most lawmakers want to do the right thing. And, while they may not have contact, those can be acquired. They may not have cash but they do have something equally valuable: votes.

The Association for Enterprise Opportunity (AEO) is the national trade organization for the microenterprise development industry. Microenterprise development organizations specialize in helping low income aspiring microbusiness owners to secure the funding and acquire the skills to run their own firms.

I love what they do. I love the whole “teach a man to fish” poverty alleviation strategy, for so many reasons that I couldn’t list them all here. Microenterprise development is a win-win-win-win proposition that deserves a lot more support than it gets.

The Summit will take place in Arlington, VA this year, from May 16th to the 19th. For more information on the Summit, visit the AEO web site.

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America's Microbusinesses

There are about 26 million of them and they are everywhere. In fact, they are more than ninety percent of all U.S. businesses. They are not small businesses as you know them, yet they are almost all the small businesses in the country.

Dawn Rivers Baker’s consulting services bring this elusive group into sharp focus with a mixture of research, focus groups, and/or deep insight and experience that can help you understand who they are, what they care about, how they buy, how they vote.


About Dawn Rivers Baker

One of the nation's most prominent experts on microbusiness, Dawn Rivers Baker has been researching, writing and thinking microbusiness for over a decade. Her activities on behalf of these very small businesses range from offering input on federal legislation to addressing audiences around the globe to serving as the nation's only microbusiness journalist. (more ... )