By Rich Bockmann
A recent report shows that while all small businesses — even the corner bodega — can benefit from Internet technologies, less than 20 percent of the city’s small companies are using them effectively, with experts citing a lack of awareness as one of the key obstacles.
A week after the report was released, Mayor Michael Bloomberg was in downtown Jamaica to announce a new city initiative called the Small Business Digital Toolkit, designed to help small businesses get online and use tools like websites, payment systems, search-engine optimization techniques and social media sites such as Facebook, Foursquare and Tumblr.
“If you have a very small business, you don’t have the kind of resources to have a staff to do these kinds of things,” Hizzoner said last Thursday. “They read about it and they have friends who have businesses and it’s working for them and they say, ‘Well what about me?’ They don’t even know what the questions to ask are.”
According to the public policy think tank Center for an Urban Future’s “Smarter Small Businesses” report, small business owners — especially those with low-to-moderate incomes — are largely aware of the importance of such technologies, but many are only beginning to scratch the surface when it comes to using them in meaningful ways.
Jorge Borges, of the Queens Business Solutions Center, is quoted in the report as saying that while cost is an issue, most business owners can rationalize spending money as an investment.
“The bigger issue is the fear of learning it — the complexity of the software and the education level of the business owner,” he said. “Many are good at what they do for a living, but they’re not tech-savvy.”
Bloomberg made the announcement at the city’s Business Solution Center, at 168-25 Jamaica Ave., where Chief Digital Officer Rachel Haot will teach a free class Sept. 20 on creating an online presence, digital and mobile payment systems and how to market a business and advertise through digital media.
The free courses, along with the how-to guides offered online at nyc.gov, will teach people “everything from using Foursquare customer specials to launching a blog on Tumblr or accepting payments on Shopkeep,” she said.
The guides and the class curriculum, Bloomberg said, were developed at no cost to the city in partnership with Mashable, a social media news website.
City Councilman Leroy Comrie (D-St. Albans) and state Sen. Malcolm Smith (D-St. Albans) were on hand to lend their support.
“Clearly we need to make sure that New York City’s small businesses stay competitive,” Comrie said. “As their needs and technological needs and especially the need to stay Internet-savvy and have an Internet presence become more and more critical to every business, we need to make sure our small businesses have a leg up and a better leg up so that they can stay competitive.”
The digital toolkit is a part of the mayor’s digital road map, a larger initiative aimed at making the city a premier technological hub.
Reach reporter Rich Bockmann by e-mail at rbockmann@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4574.
