Today, I got the following question from Jodi Womack of The Womack Company.

How many US businesses are owned by married couples?

Gracias!!!!

(see how polite Jodi is?)
Well, we checked it out and voila!

Back in 2006, the Indy Star wrote:

“Copreneurs,” as they’re called, are a rapidly growing segment of business partnerships. The number of husband-wife companies has more than tripled since 1990, topping 3.6 million, according to the U.S. Census. Glenn Muske, co-author of a 2002 study titled “Copreneurs as Family Businesses,” believes the number of copreneur firms is “greatly underestimated.” He said couples are leaving corporate jobs and opening businesses, but for reasons beyond the bottom line.

This (even older) article from Inc. How To Work (If You Must) With Your Spouse writes:

Though there are no accurate statistics about what happens when spouses try to run a business together, expert estimates are grim: “Only 5% of couples can make all-in partnership work,” says Azriela Jaffe, a frequent reporter on the phenomenon of entrepreneurial couples and author of Permission to Prosper: What Working Wives Crave From Their Husbands, and How to Get It. (”All-in” co-ownership is tougher than a partnership in which one spouse is a subordinate who’s helping out.)

We may need to wait for the next Economic Census for an update, but I’d go with 3.6 million for now! So Jodi, you are not alone!

We were talking at dinner about the Baltimore/Washington community – how filled with deaf professionals it is here. And about the cool new website DeafMD “an innovative website providing accurate, concise, and valuable health information in American Sign Language to the Deaf & Hard of Hearing population.” I am proud to say that I brought this site to his attention.

Paul was saying that where he lives now, in Eastern Washington state, there are few deaf medical or other professional practictioners to choose from – though he does have a deaf dentist.

It made me wonder about the deaf population in the United States. Where are the clusters? Stats. Give me stats! And then, I found this repository from Gallaudet (where Paul’s wife attended, by the way…)

Demographics

Just thought I’d share.

We know exactly where to send you.

Google continues to hold us captive – but we’re not complaining. We suggest you pay a visit to Google’s specialized U.S. Government Search, which searches sites of organizations including the FDA, NIH and others. And to further focus your results, choose “advanced search” and limit the file type to .pdf documents. (Or if you’re brave, just add this to the end of your search: filetype:pdf and it will limit the search to pdf documents. Want to see if there are any PowerPoints? change pdf to ppt. It’s fun, try it!)

You won’t be disappointed. Good luck!

So, I went to check it out. It’s pretty neat and provides free patent searching, free PDF downloading, allows annotating documents and sharing them, and free alerts for new documents.

I love that James wrote to tell us about it. And I had to share.

Even researchers bring in experts sometimes. So without further ado, here is the answer submitted by generational theory expert, Jessie Newburn.

There certainly is a lot of hype, and with good reason. Every time a new generation moves into their late teen and early young adulthood years, they shift the culture as they do so. Millennials are doing this now. Unfortunately, most of the “facts” floating around – even from the most credible of national news sources — are mostly inaccurate.

There’s a field of study called generational theory. It speaks to the peer personalities and archetypal life experiences of groups of people moving through time. The core source for this information is two academics: William Strauss and Neil Howe. Together, they’ve written some well-received books on the subject including Generations, Millennials Rising and The Fourth Turning. In their work, they define generational birth years by life experiences and not by the dates typically offered by U.S. demographers. The years Strauss and Howe use will probably strike you as “not true.” But here they are: Boomers are born 1943–1960. GenX are born 1961–1981. Millennials are born 1982–2002ish. Anything else is really a discussion of demographics, which is quite different than discussing generations.

What will probably shock you even more is this simple data, vetted by 2005 U.S. Census information. GenX is currently the largest generation, weighing in at 82 million Americans. Millennials are next at 79.2 million; Boomers are third, at 64.6 million; the Silent (born 1925–1942) are 33.2 million in size. The end-year for Millennials isn’t determined yet, though it is known that the newest generation is already being born. This new batch is called the Homeland Generation, and they are most likely to be a small generation, just like the Silent Gen was.

So there you have it: Facts that fly in the face of most everything you’ll ever read or hear about American generations. Me? I’ll pick data over hype any day.

Submitted by
JessieX
Generational consultant, speaker and purist.
www.jessienewburn.com

I love Lexis Nexis. But I’m in the info biz. Most of you don’t (and probably shouldn’t) pay that kind of fee for info. Besides, you have us.But everyone once in a while, you might want to find some law-related info.

You can search the law easily (and free!) at the Public Library of Law.

PLoL is the largest free law library in the world; they assemble law available for free scattered across many different sites and put it neatly together – all in one place.

You can draw a molecule or molecule substructure – using a popup Java applet. Once you’ve drawn the molecule, eMolecules “translates” your drawing to a search engine query.

We know – this is kind of geeky. But don’t you agree it’s pretty cool?

If you want to do text-based searching, you can do that too. Even by trade name.

Here is Advil. Who would have thought?

The archives go back to the mid-1960’s. There is some amazing information here. Such as this abstract that caught my eye. (I’m sure it’s not just because I have pre-teen sons!)

Title: A Short-Term Longitudinal Study of Internet and Computer Game Use by Adolescent Boys and Girls: Prevalence, Frequency of Use, and Psychosocial Predictors

Author: Willoughby, Teena

Descriptors:Friendship; Grade 12; Grade 10; Internet; Longitudinal Studies; Psychological Patterns; Video Games; Grade 9; Grade 11; Gender Differences; Parent Child Relationship; Peer Relationship; Well Being; High School Students; Age Differences; Predictor Variables; Social Influences

Source: Developmental Psychology, v44 n1 p195-204 Jan 2008

Peer-Reviewed: Yes

Publication Date: 2008-01-00

Pages: 10

Abstract: Prevalence, frequency, and psychosocial predictors of Internet and computer game use were assessed with 803 male and 788 female adolescents across 2 time periods, 21 months apart. At Time 1, participants were in the 9th or 10th grade; at Time 2, they were in the 11th or 12th grade. Most girls (93.7%) and boys (94.7%) reported using the Internet at both time periods, whereas more boys (80.3%) than girls (28.8%) reported gaming at both time periods. Girls reported a small decrease over time in the frequency of hours spent per day on overall technology use, mostly due to a decrease in gaming. Both linear and curvilinear relations were examined between parental relationships, friendship quality, academic orientation, and well-being measured in early high school and the frequency of technology use in late high school. Being male significantly predicted both computer gaming and Internet use. There also were trends in favor of higher friendship quality and less positive parental relationships predicting higher frequency of Internet use. Importantly, moderate use of the Internet was associated with a more positive academic orientation than nonuse or high levels of use.

I am often surprised at the variety of subjects that are associated with education and how frequently our projects can benefit from a literature search of academic, educational articles.

It might come in handy for you one day, too.