We’re in the New Year and the time for making resolutions about health, wealth, family and oddball bucket lists. Don’t forget about making resolutions about your online presence as well. Your website 2012 resolutions should include content, communications, community, conversations and conversion.  The secret of successful small business owners is that they spend more time “on the business” than “in the business.” One of the tools for spending on your business is your web presence.

Small businesses are great at customer service and realize that their next customer will come from a current customer – Word of Mouth. In the digital world word of mouth is “word of mouse” a powerful tool to gain new customers. A new era of marketing is unfolding and digital marketing helps you in your objective to influence behavior to change positively towards you.  The audience who need your product and services are increasingly searching for them online. It is interesting to see how the communication tools are coming together.

The 2012 business year officially starts today. With the mini-breaks and shortened weeks gone, all that’s left to do is tackle that To-Do list that’s twice the length of your arm once and for all. If you need help figuring out where to start or what habits to pick up in social media this year, below are 10 social media resolutions every small business owner would be smart to make.

We’ll start slow.

1. Claim everything: Your brand is your identity in business. If you haven’t already taken the steps to protect it and claim your username throughout the Web, start the year off by doing just that. Knowem is a fantastic service that allows you to easily search and claim more than 550 popular social networking sites at little cost. Even if you don’t plan on using all 500 (or even five) of these sites, protecting your username will ensure that you’re able to use them in the future should you change your mind AND that no one else can hijack your brand’s identity and speak to your customers. It’s your first step to social media success.

SV Angel's Ron Conway has been an investor since 1994.  In this month's issue of The Economist, Conway writes his 2012 startup predictions.

First he says the social web has hardly reached maturity. We've only seen the beginning of what's possible via Facebook. "Some 90% of the world's data have been generated in the past two years," he writes.

Conway thinks social interactions will be at the heart of most new products moving forward. They'll influence everything from search results to how mom and pop shops conduct their businesses.

The seal of the high school I attended contained two Latin mottos: Non Sibi and Finis Origine Pendet. Despite seeing those words everywhere, I paid little attention to them. I later learned they mean “Not for one’s self” and “The end is determined by the beginning”, respectively.

Years of studying neuroscience and psychology has led me to believe those are truly insightful mottos that should be instilled not just in high school students but company employees as well

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) today announced that it has selected 73 individuals from 27 States and the District of Columbia for its Innovation Advisors program.

A list of Innovation Advisors can be found at http://www.cms.gov/apps/media/press/factsheet.asp?Counter=4240.

The initiative, launched by the CMS Innovation Center in October 2011, will help health professionals deepen skills that will drive improvements to patient care and reduce costs.  After an initial orientation phase, Innovation Advisors will work with the CMS Innovation Center to test new models of care delivery in their own organizations and communities.  They will also create partnerships to find new ideas that work and share them regionally and across the United States.

Carl Schramm, who led the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation as CEO for almost a decade, has stepped down.

In a Tuesday release, the foundation said Schramm is leaving “to return to scholarship and business.” Starting Sunday, he was replaced in the interim by foundation Trustee Benno Schmidt. The search for a permanent CEO will begin this year.

“We appreciate the valuable service of Carl Schramm and his many contributions to entrepreneurship and education,” board Chairman Tom McDonnell, who also is CEO of DST Systems Inc.    (NYSE: DST), said in the release. “He has served the Kauffman Foundation longer than any former leader of the foundation and longer than almost any non-founder executive. His service has expanded the influence of the Kauffman Foundation to have a truly global impact on the appreciation and development of entrepreneurship.”

While the year of the protester has just passed, 2012 looks to be the year of the entrepreneur.

Jobs are in scarce supply, and underemployment is at an all-time high. Things look bleak. But, truth be told, there has never been a better time for individuals to start new businesses. Taking up entrepreneurship is now an extremely doable means to overcome unemployment and underemployment, and perhaps even get rich. There are certainly enough global, national and local problems that need solving–and worldwide, 2012 must be a big year for innovative problem solvers.

As a long-time entrepreneur, I’ve had the opportunity to found and co-found a variety of businesses and non-profit organizations. More recently, I’ve sat on advisory boards for other companies and have been mildly surprised at the nature of the common struggles they each face.  While there are many moving parts required to build a successful business, I’ve encapsulated the most common obstacles into the “Three F’s” every startup must master.

Future

If you’ve read the E-Myth, you know not many businesses come as a ‘vision from above.’ Most are born out of a hard reality: getting fired (like me), laid off, bored or are somehow inspired to make a change. Most entrepreneurs are technicians within a specific discipline expertise (sales, plumber or engineer) who decide it was time to go out on their own. Many of those new business owners start with a new company name and an email to their network informing them of the news. Very few take the time to flesh out the “why” or purposes of their business, let alone create a concrete vision for the company. Some business owners require years of reflection and even failures to clearly identify why they are in business. The backside of initial strategic planning relates to the exit strategy. Most exits involve acquisition, few have a secession plan (for handing over the reins to family or employees) and even fewer ever achieve IPO. While it’s not critical to finalize your exit strategy on day 1, having definition or agreement on which one (or more) of the options is most desirable greatly aids in making business decisions moving forward (even affecting corporate structure during incorporation).

The future cities of biotech. As big biotechs and pharmas continue their attempt to slash costs by outsourcing research and manufacturing operations and forming partnerships, emerging biotech regions could take some of that business and become actual clusters, suggests a report from the real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle, which highlighted nine emerging biotech cities.

We’d argue that the firm stretched the meaning of “emerging” with its list — as it features both Minneapolis and Raleigh-Durham, plus well-established biotech hub Seattle (all of which were featured on our top medical cities list, too). The other six areas it says are poised for growth in bitoech are Chicago, Denver, Houston, Florida, Atlanta and Indianapolis.

Fewer U.S. startups saw mergers, acquisitions or IPOs last year, but the ones that did nabbed more capital than all the deals in 2010, according to a report from Dow Jones VentureSource.

There were 522 venture-backed exits last year --  a 4% slip from the year before. But together, they netted $53.2 billion – a 26% increase.

That’s because the prices paid for young companies and the amount raised in initial public offerings spiked in 2011.

The median price purchasers shelled out in merger and buyout deals was up 77% to $71 million.  And the 45 companies who went public last year – including major firms such as Groupon, Zynga, LinkedIn and Pandora -- raised $5.4 billion, more than the $3.3 billion raised by 46 IPOs in 2010.

Over the past year, Marc Andreessen invested in a series of high-profile Web companies, including Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and Groupon Inc. Now the Silicon Valley venture capitalist is hitting the pause button on such big-name deals.

Since participating in a $112 million funding of Web darling Airbnb Inc. in July that valued the online room-rental company at more than $1 billion, Mr. Andreessen said his venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has "taken a step back."

Once an innovative leader in the technology sector, Canada’s presence on the world stage has been slipping for a few years now. Consistent stumbles for Research In Motion are at the forefront of what has been a fairly disappointing year for the Great White North, with usage-based billing exposing the oligopoly of carriers for what it really is and the auctioning of the final Nortel patents serving as a cold reminder of former greatness.

If there’s a bright spot for Canada heading into 2012, it could be venture capital. Back in May, I wrote about the “paucity of venture capital” and how Canadian firms have struggled to get funding to kick-start products and new tech ventures.

Would you like to help the Department of the Treasury, Office of State Small Business Credit Initiative?  If so, we invite you to apply for this position.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has a distinguished history dating back to the founding of our nation.  As the steward of U.S. economic and financial systems, Treasury is a major and influential leader in today's global economy.  We have over 100,000 employees across the country and around the world. Come Join the Department of the Treasury and Invest in Tomorrow.

Treasury headquarters, the Departmental Offices, has responsibility for formulating policy and the overall management of the Department of the Treasury.  The State Small Business Credite Initiative (SSBCI) was created by the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 to promote access to credit for small businesses by spurring business lending and investment through approved State programs.

This position is in a small office, with top staff members who work on a wide array of interesting issues.  We offer both flexible schedules and an opportunity for teleworking, as well as challenging and interesting work.

We are located in the heart of Washington, DC with offices on 15th and Pennsylvania, next door to the White House, a few blocks from the McPherson Square and Metro Center metro stations, and close to shops, museums, and restaurants.

This is an excellent opportunity to advance your career and your salary!

To learn more click on this link: USAJOBS - Search Jobs

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Technology entrepreneurs love to talk about disruption while simultaneously touting themselves as job creators, but the two roles are often contradictory.

By definition, disruptive innovations are characterized by a streamlining of process or product that is more efficient. Typically, the inefficiencies removed from the incumbent system result in less required labor. Less labor means fewer jobs.

Consider Amazon. For all the jobs created by Amazon’s online sales model, I suspect there were significantly more jobs lost at Borders, Barnes and Noble, and the countless smaller bookstores that closed their doors across the nation.

During the Innovation Conference several speakers referred to structural impediments in Europe that hinder or prevent innovation. The chief among these was the hierarchical structure of tightly-bound corporations and government as these structures were seen as anathema to creating a culture of innovation. Several presenters said that hierarchies simply don’t work in a multi-polar world where innovation is sparked by highly-educated mobile work forces.

Furthermore, as transaction costs plummet and Internet-enabled collaboration blossoms, the boundaries of the firm are breaking down with open innovation as only the first indicator of the virtual firms (individuals or SMEs – the so-called micro multi-nationals) that may well be at the heart of future innovations and that are driving North American breakthroughs.

Traditionally, the technological and economic changes in the business environment took place in the US, Europe, and Japan, but today the emerging economies such as Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa are playing a minor, but fast-growing role in such developments, writes Prasada Reddy in Global Innovation in Emerging Economies (www.idrc.ca). They have emerged not only as large potential markets, but also as noticeable competitors and attractive locations for strategic innovation activities, he observes.

While, at the moment, the emerging economies do not pose a significant direct threat to the industrialised countries, the author foresees that in the medium term, with the existence of large domestic markets and the availability of low-cost resources, some of the companies located in emerging economies are likely to narrow the technological and economic gap with the MNCs.

2012 is thought to be the year of the Ultrabook, but though these slim machines may prove successful they can't disguise one odd fact: The laptop is a dead design. When will it actually pass away and leave room for a future device?

Intel has been pushing a reference design on Eastern manufacturers for months now, and the pressure is finally paying off. Maker after maker has revealed its own take on what's dubbed the Ultrabook. Consumers may be pleased by the focus on high design, Intel will be pleased it has a new vehicle for its processors, and manufacturers will be pleased they have a seemingly new toy to promote and sell for profit. The Wall Street Journal has even written a piece on them: "For PCs, Hope in a Slim Profile," and they're predicted to be everywhere at CES 2012. The thing is the Ultrabook isn't new, nor is it revolutionary. It's proof that the laptop is now an evolutionary dead end in computer history.

The economy is getting better. Didn’t you notice? We’re in a “technical recovery,” which is economist jargon for “screw you.”

About 25 million Americans are unemployed, underemployed or have simply given up looking for a crappy job. Millions more—the lucky ones—are unhappy and underpaid. More than 6 million Americans have not worked in 27 weeks or more.

With a lost generation graduating into this jobless economy, we’re going to have to come up with some creative ideas for staying fed and housed without a paycheck. Here are 10 survival schemes, ranging from adventurous to asinine. Hey, beggars can’t be choosers—and we’ll all be begging soon enough.

The technology space in India is undergoing a major transformation. India’s well-known software services companies created the first wave of success and global recognition for India’s technology industry. The next wave is now under way, being created by a new generation of start-up companies. Most of these technology companies are in the product space, and many play in India’s rapidly emerging domestic marketplaces.

What has created the necessary ambience for these start-ups to grow and flourish? It seems to me that the stars have finally aligned, with most of the factors required for success finally coming together, creating, perhaps, the most exciting times in recent history for start-ups. I’ll classify the factors into four categories: markets, capital, technology skills and service providers.