Obviously there are a lot of good top 10 trends lists for small business, social media, technology and all, as seems to happen every year at this time. I’ve seen a lot of them, and I recommend Steve King’s Top 10 Small Business Trends for 2010 from Small Business Labs, posted yesterday.
One big point in Steve’s favor, and a big credibility boost as well, is that Steve starts the piece with links to his trends posts for each of the previous two years. Good touch. And I’m impressed–he called things fairly well.
Comparing all three posts–2008, 2009 and 2010–I see some broader trends. It reads like the spread of more and smaller: more solopreneur; more baby boomer businesses; something like economic diffusion spurred on by the multiple whammy of the big recession, baby boomer demographics and technology. Green business shows up in all three. Buy local shows up in two of three. Social media and closely related factors show up in all three.
This makes interesting reading, and good food for business thought.
Here’s a very brief summary of his top 10 for 2010:
Economic Trends
- The Shift to Contingent Workers Turns Employees into Entrepreneurs
- Personal Businesses on the Rise
- Small Business Lending Returns to Pre-Bubble Levels
Social Trends
- The New Local Movement
- There is No Place Like Home for Small Business. (More home businesses)
- Clean and Green Creating Small-Business Opportunities
Technology Trends
- Social, Mobile and Cloud Computing Converge
- Location Technology and Services (GPS and so on)
- Analytical Tools Lead to Data-Driven Decisions
- Online Training Brings Professional Education to Small Business
Tim Berry is the founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software and Bplans.com. Follow him on Twitter @Timberry.
