From Small Business Trends on May 29, 2010 by Ivana Taylor: About a month ago I received an email from Erik Wesner asking me to review his new book “Success Made Simple: An Inside Look at Why Amish Businesses Thrive.”  I said “Yes” because I was completely intrigued by the topic.  This is about the second time in as many months as I’ve seen Amish and business success linked together. And I couldn’t wait to receive the review copy of the book and see what all the chatter was about.

I wondered what it was about Amish simplicity that called to Erik Wesner over the siren song of technology, social media-driven relationships and mobile apps that the rest of us have been following.

Erik Wesner Was Inspired By The Amish

After getting about a hundred pages into the book, my curiosity got the best of me.  So I reached out with an e-mail and asked Erik Wesner what inspired him to become an expert on the Amish and to write this book.  Here’s what he said:

“I was really impressed by the caliber of Amish companies.  All the informal indicators were there; these small shops were very busy, they were getting a lot of outside attention, and even in plain Amish society you could see indicators of financial success among the businesspeople.

I ran my own business in Amish  communities.   After selling in non-Amish communities, you see certain cultural contrasts.  And that is what intrigued me.  This includes everything from an appreciation for books, to an inherent anti-waste mentality, to an emphasis on relationships.  For instance, I found Amish always know their neighbors, something I found a lot less likely in “English” communities (and I’m guilty of this myself).  Not to “nostalgize” the Amish too much, but I feel a lot of these traits are things we once “knew” as a society but have maybe lost touch with a bit. “

New York (by Saqib Rahim of ClimateWire in New York Times, published: May 24, 2010):  On a good day, Michelle Charak might haul away 300 boxes of outmoded buttons from a factory that's all too happy to lose the clutter. At her shop in New York City, she'll hand-stitch the buttons into chic necklaces and bracelets, then sell them on her company's website, Chelcnyc.com, for hundreds of dollars a pop.

Is that a "green job"? Charak says so. "They think it's junk. So I take their junk and I make something," she says. "It's not your typical green job, but it has probably a lower environmental impact than most of the green jobs out there."

According to the Department of Commerce, she may be right. Last month, the agency released "Measuring the Green Economy," an early attempt to take inventory of how many "green jobs" exist today -- and what should count anyway. The report says selling "used merchandise," including toys, books and jewelry, can be thought of as a green job.

Kansas City (May 20, 2010):  Rather than making history for its deep recession and record unemployment, 2009 might instead be remembered as the year business startups reached their highest level in 14 years – even exceeding the number of startups during the peak 1999-2000 technology boom.

According to the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity, a leading indicator of new-business creation in the United States, the number of new businesses created during the 2007–2009 recession years increased steadily year to year. In 2009, the 340 out of 100,000 adults who started businesses each month represent a 4 percent increase over 2008, or 27,000 more starts per month than in 2008 and 60,000 more starts per month than in 2007. In 2009, 558,000 new businesses were created each month (0.34 in 2009). The index increased for the second straight year, from 0.30 percent in 2007 to 0.32 percent in 2008.

"Challenging economic times can serve as a motivational boost to individuals who have been laid-off to become their own employers and future job creators,"said Carl Schramm, president and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation. "Because entrepreneurs drive the economy, the growth in 2009 business startups is encouraging and hopefully points to a hopeful trend in terms of our economic recovery.”

Washington, DC:  Hispanic students generally graduate from four-year colleges and universities at lower rates than their white peers, even among schools with similar admissions standards, a new report from the American Enterprise Institute finds.  Click here to download the full report.

Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the report, Rising to the Challenge: Hispanic College Graduation Rates as a National Priority (48 pages, PDF), found that 51 percent of Hispanic students who start college complete a bachelor's degree in six years, compared to 59 percent of white students - a disparity that holds true regardless of student ability or school competitiveness. Even many federally designated "Hispanic-serving" institutions are graduating fewer than half their Hispanic students. Colleges and universities that do a better job graduating their Hispanic students typically have high completion rates across the board, suggesting that institutional commitment to college completion drives higher graduation rates for all students, including minorities.

In response to these and other factors, the report calls for institution-wide commitments to ensuring that all students graduate; the dissemination of information about schools that have a successful track record with Hispanic students to help better match Hispanic students with colleges and universities; and reforming government funding to colleges and universities so that it is tied more closely to how well schools serve their students, rather than how many students they enroll. With the Hispanic population in the United States growing rapidly, the report questions whether the nation will be able to achieve the president's goal of reclaiming its status as the world's best-educated country if changes are not made to help boost Hispanic college completion rates.

"Educating all students well and getting them across the finish line is the biggest challenge facing higher education today," said Hilary Pennington, director of education, postsecondary success, and special initiatives at the Gates Foundation. "These are the students who are going to replace the baby boomers and who we will rely on to drive our economy over the next several decades."

New York:  As expected, economic activity in March was significantly improved over February's
weather-related sluggishness according to the montly Economic Update from Deloitte. Gains in some areas were even stronger than anticipated.  To download the full report, click here.

• Retail: A slightly earlier Easter, compared with last year, helped sales in March. Gains are becoming more widespread
• Motor Vehicles: Unit sales of vehicles in March rose, helped by incentives
• Consumer Products: Increasing retail sales are helping production, which has risen for 7 of the last 8 months
• Aerospace & Defense: Production remains wobbly. It rose slightly in March, although it had declined in 4 of the previous 5 months
• Process & Industrial Products: With signs that capital spending is picking up, machinery production has been rising sharply. Production of nonenergy basic materials has improved for 3 consecutive months
• Lodging: Revenue per available room rose in March on a year-over-year basis. It was the first increase since mid-2008