WHAT WOULD YOUR CORPORATE STRUCTURE LOOK LIKE IF YOU TRACKED EVERY EMPLOYEE, MANAGER, AND DEPARTMENT OVER YEARS? MAYBE A LOT LIKE THIS.

Unless you’re self-employed, we’re all cogs in a larger machine. The problem can be, how do you track that machine’s anatomy? How do you know what a “restructuring” really looks like, beyond that your middle manager has a new face?

This interactive map from Cloud 9 Living offers some potentially helpful tidbits on gift giving traditions around the world. For example, if you’re thinking of giving a clock as a gift in China, think again. It’s considered bad luck. Or, if you head to Russia, remember to give bouquets with an uneven number of flowers. Even-flowered bouquets are for funerals. And, when in Sweden, you can’t go wrong with a bottle of liquor. Click through to see the infographic in larger format.

I can still remember the blank stare my low-tech friend threw me in June when I started to tell him about Pebble, the futuristic smartwatch that raised more than $10 million on Kickstarter.

"What's Kickstarter?" he asked. Then I realized he wasn't kidding.

Such was the plight of the largest crowdfunding site on the Internet: Adored by the ones who adored it, ignored by everyone else. If you didn't know a musician who was trying to make an album, it's quite possible that you hadn't ever heard about the wonder that was Kickstarter, a site founded in 2009 and designed to help you fund and follow creative dreams.

Venture capitalists picking up the Moneyball strategy. It’s a fascinating idea, and I know plenty of my peers are working on algorithmic approaches to better their craft and gain an edge. As I see innumerable pitches that leverage “big data” as a key aspect of a business, and read about all of the ways that big data is changing the world, it seems natural that it will infiltrate the world of venture capital. Whether it works or not remains to be seen.

As someone who has worked at both ends of the spectrum — as a CFA performing public equity analysis, and an early stage investor — this is more than just a passing interest for me. I pay close attention to data, and I firmly believe that people who understand the numbers better than their competitors, will ultimately win. In public equities, some groups have clearly found ways to outperform using algorithms over time periods.

LANSING, MI — Internships are a “big priority” for the Michigan Economic Development Corp. as it looks to jumpstart the economy, retain talent and prepare students for careers in Michigan. “The whole concept of internships is a tremendous opportunity for the state of Michigan to develop and retain their key talent in Michigan,” said Amy Cell, MEDC’s senior vice president for talent enhancement. “It’s a big priority in a variety of ways.” Cell used to work for Ann Arbor SPARK, the economic development group co-founded in 2005 by Gov. Rick Snyder and University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman.

Mark Cuban has taken to Reddit to answer questions on everything from the NBA, to his famous confrontation with ESPN talking head Skip Bayless, to his unconventional ideas on tax policy.  He also gave advice on what made him famous before he became the high profile owner of the Dallas Mavericks and his incredible success as an entrepreneur.   When asked what people should know before starting a business, he responded: 

The thing is, it's far easier than ever before to surface your ideas. Far easier to have someone notice your art or your writing or your photography. Which means that people who might have hidden their talents are now finding them noticed...

That blog you've built, the one with a lot of traffic... perhaps it can't be monetized.

That non-profit you work with, the one where you are able to change lives... perhaps turning it into a career will ruin it.

That passion you have for graphic art... perhaps making your painting commercial enough to sell will squeeze the joy out of it.

As editors of SAI, Business Insider's tech section, we get to play with a lot of cool tech. That can make us jaded, yawning at the new stuff. Something has got to be pretty special to make us want it. With that in mind, we compiled this list of tech that we'd love to get as gifts. We bet you'll find something here that appeals to you, too.

It’s been a challenging business year, but I hope you are all taking some time off this long holiday weekend, to celebrate with the family. Even those of you who are not Christian and see Christmas as just another day should still enjoy the holiday spirit, take a break from work, and enjoy your loved ones.

Yet there will be some entrepreneurs can’t seem to make the decision to take a break. They forget that they probably became entrepreneurs, according to a recent DNA of an Entrepreneur study, for just this flexibility. More than nine in ten respondents (91%) found benefits from running or working in a small company, like flexible working hours and being in control of your life.

Predicting the future is notoriously difficult, and the volatile world of high-tech startups don't make things any easier. That's why ReadWrite turned to famous and fearless tech prognosticator Paul Kedrosky, a senior fellow at the Kauffman Foundation, focused on entrepreneurship, innovation and the future of risk capital, to ask him his predictions for the startup world in 2013.

Kedrosky shared six thoughtful insights about what the future is likely to bring. Most of them could be seen as warning signs, but there are some bright spots sprinkled in there as well.

“Frenemy” is a noun with nuance; its definition does not do it justice. A frenemy is a person who can never fully be trusted and must be approached with the utmost caution. This relational phenomenon is pretty much omnipresent in the startup ecosystem.

A Businessweek article stated frenemies in the workplace are common due to increasingly informal environments and the “abundance of very close, intertwined relationships that bridge people’s professional and personal lives.”

Productivity. Passion. Connections. Here's what Fast Company's audience learned about being a success at work this year, based on the top Co.Lead stories of 2012.

Mom always said breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and apparently that's how Fast Company readers feel about their first hour at work--it's a make or break time not only for the day, but maybe for their careers.

In the most popular Co.Lead article of 2012, writer Kevin Purdy turned to time-management gurus and startup legends like Brian Tracy, Brian Karp, Julie Morgenstern, and Craig Newmark for advice on how they knock it out of the park day after day after day--and why what they choose to do (or not do) first matters as much as it does.

In my years of following transformation and empowerment experts, I’ve heard plenty of people saying not to take a client out of need and not to price yourself on an hourly basis and how instead you should work a job and work your passion, which most times meant self-employment.

In real life, when you’re broke, all the dreaming and intending goes out the door.

No magical thinking helped me when I was desperately broke and not able to turn a profit in my business. The only other option was either giving up altogether on my business and going back to work or chanting “thoughts become things, thoughts become things”.

What happens when you stop dreaming and begin affecting your plans and actions?

As 2012 comes to a close, we asked several venture capital investors to reflect on the past year and give us their outlook for 2013. Next in our series is Jason Pressman, a managing director at Shasta Ventures.

Pressman speaks about the impact of the social graph–and the reality of the Series A crunch–on consumer startups, and how we’re only in the first inning of the enterprise migration to the cloud.

Looking back, how would you characterize 2012?

2012 was a good year for value creation by technology startups.  We saw a robust IPO and M&A market for both consumer and enterprise companies.  Perhaps more importantly, 2012 saw a tremendous amount of innovative new companies start to address massive shifts in technology including the explosion of mobile, the impact of the social graph on consumer businesses and the enterprise migration to the cloud.

A few of the top technology stories of 2012 stand out for the big numbers they generated. Here are some of the events and trends that were especially dramatic in scale.

Facebook’s big year Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard dorm room project finally hit the big leagues in May, when the company began selling shares of its stock on the Nasdaq exchange for $38, valuing the company at $104 billion. After a small uptick on the first day of trading, the stock price plunged over the next several months, dropping below $18 in September. It has since rebounded above $26, however, making the company’s market capitalization nearly $60 billion.

For scientists, an answer to a question, or solution to a problem, is not true until proven so. And sometimes that means revealing what mere mortals already knew, like, say the fact that getting to the hospital quicker can save heart-attack victims, or, the seemingly far-fetched idea that exercise is good for you.

Here are a few of the most obvious findings of 2012.

1. Good partners make good parents

Perhaps not the most shocking news in the world: Marry a good, secure partner, and you can expect them to become a good, secure parent.

The top 10 most popular stories published in 2012:

1. Men and Women Can't Be "Just Friends"

2. The World’s Last Worm: A Dreaded Disease Nears Eradication

3. NASA Crushes 2012 Mayan Apocalypse Claims 

4. How Hollywood Is Encouraging Online Piracy

5. Scientists Discover Children’s Cells Livingin Mothers’ Brains

Many more than 10 events took place during 2012 that reveal how science and technology play integral roles in our lives. As a broad topic, climate change took center stage, offering many possible choices, including efforts to combat it head-on with a rogue geoengineering experiment meant to suck carbon dioxide out of the air as well as efforts to develop clean energy, such as the creation of microbes that convert seaweed into ethanol.

The Internet and other communications technology still creates challenges for policymakers, companies and individuals. Among the most notable controversies was the one centered on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which led to a blackout protest by some well-trafficked sites, such as Wikipedia.

Scientific American asked leading scientists and science writers to look forward to what the world will be like in the years 2063, 2113 and 2163, and tell us what role science and technology will play in our future.

What scientific and technological milestones can we envision 50, 100 and 150 years hence?

Each month we have the luxury of being able to look back into the past, to what people were writing 50, 100 and 150 years ago. We can do this because Scientific American has put its readers at the forefront of science and technology for more than 167 years. To mention just one example, our October 1962 issue featured Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, explaining the meaning of this wondrous molecule, and psychologist Leon Festinger writing on what he meant by the term “cognitive dissonance.”

You don’t have to tell me how much time you spend at work. I already know. It’s hard to be an entrepreneur. There are budgets to balance. Payroll checks to cut. New business to cultivate. The work never seems to end.

Most people take a significant amount of time off for the holidays—a week off here, a few long weekends there, but they don’t own businesses. As the owner of a startup you are always—at work—but that shouldn’t stop you from being happy.

We are quickly approaching the perfect time to make a change in your work life—the New Year. The most important thing you can do before January 1, 2013, is not about a balance sheet or product launch. It is to resolve to be happy. It sounds simple—and it can be—but it is also more important than you may realize. If you’re happy (at work) you’ll have a better home life, feel re-energized, be more productive, and enjoy an overall better quality of life.