Some sort of small business association that might provide a service such as group purchasing, legal services, etc. to organize around and then have a function where they can discuss, develop, disseminate, educate, and advocate for small business.
You touch on a key issue, thanks.
Only those interested at all will join, of course. Not every member, but some small percentage at least will be interested in sharing ideas and networking. The networking, however, is not the primary purpose, it’s just inherent. Every member would belong to two groups at least: their state and their industry.
The research is collaboratively developed: all business members have access to the system where we develop our research - so they can all input concerns and ideas if they want to.
Members can also attend meetings; each state can decide how often they’d like to meet; will not necessarily be monthly, since people will be able to use the collaborative system to communicate with each other.
If members have issues regarding their local town or state, they can type it right into the system and it will quickly get to the think tank’s research staff.
It’s an ongoing process, always coming up with ideas, tracking down organizations, laws, regulations, business practices or anything that is a source of problems. Our members can input whatever they want to; ideas, general concerns, etc.
Our researchers will not, however, deal with each input item as an issue all by itself. We’re not going to make a call to get a building permit issued ! Instead, the member is inputting their issue to get it into the discussion. All the input is collaboratively analyzed as a whole as part of our researchers work, which is writing white papers that analyze various issues that are systemic, then typically present solutions. Some solutions presented might be simple or conventional, others more complex or outside the box. Some papers may be more theoretical and broad, aimed at changing the overall mindset of thought leaders, others may be more concrete and detailed.
Of course, members will be able to read all these papers, peruse any underlying data, and comment back on them.
The system they have access to would therefore have input from members, paid researchers, other contacts throughout their state - every member can log in and look at things, i.e., what’s going on, probably a nice synopsis of new entries for the month, categorized, etc.
While the think tank is not a lobby group, it will work with legislators on a consultative basis; our researchers will have worked with our members to develop some super ideas that would be great for business in their state and studied problems in the state. We’re not there to help a politician get elected, we’re simply consulting with them, giving them our analysis of what is good and bad for small business. Perhaps we write a paper for a roadmap for the future regarding some topic. That will not have been developed in a vaccuum, but collaboratively with our members, so the roadmap would be one that would have a high degree of palatability. Our members, therefore, have a voice in policy, while non-member businesses have no voice nor can they see the information in our system (they’ll read about what happens in the newspaper if the paper decides to cover the story).
There would be various outreach programs, to schools and colleges, veterans groups, churches, the general public, etc., promoting things that are good for small business. Members could volunteer to work on these projects if they wanted to. The organization would take all the submitted member ideas into account when deciding what programs they undertake.
There would be State and National Conferences to attend on various topics (this represents hearing your favorite speakers, breakout sessions, networking opportunities, helpful information opportunities, food, fun, t-shirts, etc.).
Group purchasing, however, makes it not a think tank; no think tank does these things since they’re not industry organizations. If the tank did things like that, it would shift members focus to the product or service they’re buying. It’s like AARP then, hocking a product and a magazine; other than that members don’t know much about it. Research white papers would not be viewed as scholarly or intellectual. Typically industry groups have separate think tanks set up to do their research, which is then open to criticism that it was biased research put together just to promote the group’s interest. This almost made me shoot my own idea down at first; the only way around it I see is to keep the members all on board as researchers using a collaborative system together with the research staff, so they are all there primarily to think and contribute to the research effort.
For small business, there already is the chamber of commerce, national federation of independent business (NFIB), etc. Those groups, however, simply send questionnaires to a small sampling of members and tally the results. They are not owned and operated by what I call “small business types”, but folks who would be working for Fortune 500 companies or lobbying firms if they weren’t where they are.
The goal is that the organization becomes influential as a think tank but that it’s perspective stays “anti-elite”, real-world, small business.