By Murray Wennerlund published 6-24-2020 updated 1-11-2022
How to become a research guru is easy. You may actually do it every day now and not even realize it. You may research things related to your business effortlessly daily. This is what you do, you're working for yourself, you're a business, independent contractor an entrepreneur.
It's easy, you do your research before you sign your name and you avoid long term disaster debt.
My personal list of websites for all things COVID-19 that impact my federal disaster recovery assistance are:
www.FederalRegister.Gov I can find just about anything using their internal search or even a good Google search hack.
www.Congress.Gov Bill searching and list by views bills even order by activity which makes tracking your creative thinkers a bit easier.
www.Regulations.Gov I use this site to find public comments on the new regulations published by the US Treasury and SBA concerning the PPP. The famous "Interim Final Rule" that has part after part added, defined and changed. You would find the updated links in the announcement pages.
www.Senate.Gov I use this site to really follow senators and their committees. This section then leads me to the next site.
www.House.Gov We bring things together in the House of Representatives aka House . Gov and from here we can get a better understanding of the following sections.
USCode.House.Gov This is where all of our reading, comments and pushing comes to rest, but it's not stagnate. This section changes often, so often I open the COVID-19 page up every day and do a quick view of topics that concern me directly. I look for changes that I didn't see coming or that slipped into wording by the executive branch directors. My bookmarked favorite page at House.Gov is:
Home.Treasury.Gov PPP information is published on this page and at the SBA. I find it's best to read all the documents not just the ones your lenders tell you to read. Lender documents give you insight to the processing and what they are looking for while the borrowers side and forgiveness instructions help you as a business owner or independent contractor. The key is to read this page every day for changes and then find the changes published in the Regulations.Gov pages and read the comments made by others to get feedback on what others are saying.
www.SBA.Gov This is another website I used to research SBA loans but I don't use their actual front page or anything that is linked. I use this website to find training, standard operating procedures, OIG reports, etc. I Google hack documents related to my research and typically follow the chain of changes dating from Hurricane Katrina 2005 to present. This method allows me to find the changes and then working backwards with other sites I find the influences behind the change.
I start with SBA SOP published in 2015 because of the 2016 disaster I was involved with. This document helps identify the changes created from experiences with the 2016 and 2017 disasters. It's also related to all the LA&A's of that time period.
SBA SOP 50 30 9 published 2018 which covers the COVID-19 2020 Pandemic is linked.
I also research training, lender information and sales methods that are designed to bring in investors during disasters. Basic information about credit checks. This is from 2014 but not much has changed and other documents are available if you search.
Other Resources like DOL.Gov , IRS.Gov , Whitehouse.Gov , CDC.Gov , HUD.Gov , OSHA, State level DES (Unemployment), Housing assistance, etc.
The Internet should be your main resource for learning. But you have to learn where the information starts, it's roots, it's origin, it's creation.
Communities like Facebook are nothing more than a news cycle bloggers page with a mix of the old AOL communities and advertisements.
Today you'll find better research by individuals than news outlets. You'll find most of those "Professionals" that number in the 10's of thousands listed in databases and placed in a writers pool category don't read much more than what others in their community publish. Keep your minds open to change and keep your brains focused and engaged when you are talking disaster survival.
I hope to see your name in the comment sections of Regulations.Gov and not so much on Facebook unless you are cross posting. If you haven't noticed, our government has no real clue about disaster recovery and by the time they think they know something we'll be finished with Hurricane Season. It's the same thing every year, our Politicians all tell us to "Plan for the worst and Pray for the best." Thoughts and Prayers are not what we elected politicians to do for us in times of disaster. But from my experience, if it's not in print from someone else local and state government acts as it's business as usual which usually means they are working their own agenda that may not include you.