INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Communication

Interagency Network of Enterprise Assistance Providers

Carroll Thomas

Less than ten years ago, twenty million small businesses across America faced the catastrophic year 2000 crisis! Y2K, as it was called, threatened computers around the world because they were based on a DD/MM/YY formula. This formula made computers believe that the year 2000 was actually the year 1900, rendering them unable to correctly calculate any information dealing with time.

Enter a fairly young public-private program—the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), headquartered at the National Institute of Standards and Technology—which focuses on assisting small manufacturers around the country. Through collaboration, MEP was able to broker a deal with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Small Business Administration Small Business Development Centers. Working together, they leveraged their reach and resources to small businesses across America and helped them avert the crisis. The successful collaboration helped millions of small businesses survive, but soon thereafter the synergistic collaborative efforts between the organizations ceased.

The looming Y2K catastrophe spurred the federal agencies that serve medium and small businesses to work together, but in today’s interconnected world such collaboration needs to be routine and continuous. This article explores how in January 2006, this need led to the formation of a more formal public-private network, the Interagency Network of Enterprise Assistance Providers.