In this podcast, RMIT professor Kosmas Smyrnios discusses the changing face of the Australian family business. He observes the difficulties business owners are facing and the reasons why younger generations are less inclined to inherit their parents’ firms.

Building a website does not have to be difficult, as we learned earlier this month in our 7 Powerful and Free Website Builders for Small Businesses post.  Here are eight more services that offer free website building tools and hosting.

Thanks to everyone for your comment, e-mails and suggestions for other great website builders that allow small business owners to save money, time and headaches.  While these tools might be  perfect for building the most advanced website or e-commerce site,  each offers something unique that might fit for your particular situation (e.g., no time, no money, no tech skills, just need a super-simple page and so on).

Some brands are so great, they have become a part of everyday speech. Can you even think of another name for a Band-Aid?

These terms, like Saran Wrap and Chap Stick, are brands that have turned into proprietary eponyms. In other words, they are general words that are, or were at one time, company trademarks.

Last week we told you with some optimism that the Small Business Jobs Act passed through senate.

The Act is President Obama's $43.5 billion dollar pet project to stimulate growth in the private sector.

Now, the bill is almost certain to be signed into law as it currently stands. And many of you are pissed.

Though we think it's a step in the right direction, the bill has several obvious shortcomings. Yes, it does make credit more easily accessible for companies that aspire to expand.

The Global 1000 Sustainable Performance Leaders ranking for 2009 was unveiled this week by CRD Analytics, made public for the first time, and hosted exclusively in a searchable, filterable data base on Justmeans. I wrote an editorial for CSRwire.com, examining some aspects of this ranking which you can read here. In brief, this is a comprehensive ranking of Financial, Environmental, Social and Governance (FESG) performance of publicly traded companies with over $1billion in market capitalization and having produced a CSR or Sustainability report. The top 1,000 companies are selected from a total pool of over 5,000 potentials.  The ranking factors in performance data using GRI G3 indicators, and more, with 200 individual metrics. The methodology which underpins the G1000 is called Smartview(TM) and is also used to power the Nasdaq OMX CRD Global Sustainability 50 Index which was launched in June 2009.  Martin Smith, CEO of Justmeans, who co-hosted the Justmeans-CRD Analytics  webinar held on Wednesday said ” This is the most robust methodology I have seen” (for ranking sustainability performance), and I agree with him. The purpose of hosting this ranking on the Justmeans platform is, according to Martin, to “speed up the rate of disclosure” With everybody’s data out there for everyone to review, the expectation is that, in addition to the attention given to these rankings by the investor communitty, Companies will start to realize that transparency as well as performance is the name of the game for all stakeholders, and will be anxious to ensure that  their place in the rankings continues to improve. This is the essence of the race to rank. Whether you like it or not, if you are a publicly traded company, you are in the race.

When tackling a leadership challenge, it's important to know whether you're in a game of ping-pong or tennis. Do you know the difference?

In this LA Times photo, Evgueni Chtchetinine's eye is most certainly on the ball! Ping-pong balls are lightweight, and respond dramatically to the smallest nuances of the stroke. Power is a factor, but it is second to finesse.

Though the balls move very fast (nearly 100 mph at the point of contact), they're so light that they have little momentum for overcoming air resistance. As a result, they slow down quickly on their way to the opponent. And by the time they get there, spin is everything.

This week, OK Go released a new video supporting its latest single “White Knuckles.” It’s the first since they released two viral videos (here and here) accompanying “This Too Shall Pass.” Give the video a watch (above) and take into account these stats.

Quebec City, September 17, 2010 – Dr. Fernand Labrie, Chairman of the Board, and Carl Viel, Chief Executive Officer, announced the new corporate identity of POLE Quebec Chaudière-Appalaches at a ceremony today attended by Sam Hamad, Minister of Transport and Minister Responsible for the Quebec City Region. As a result of this change, POLE Quebec Chaudière-Appalaches, the Quebec City metropolitan region’s economic development agency, will now be known as Quebec International. This marks an important milestone for the organization, which is seeking to reinforce its mission on the international stage with a view to promoting regional expertise and attracting talent and investment.

“Above and beyond the name change, Quebec International’s arrival marks an evolution in our organization’s role within the regional, provincial and national economies. This change reflects the profound transformation of our economy and stands as a testament to our growing ability to occupy a prime position on the world stage,” said Mr. Viel.

If you're watching this video series, you're interested in new ways to be more productive--but when does your obsession with efficiency become a waste of time? In this week's episode of Work Smart 2, Bill Clark asks how you actually work smarter when you spend time learning new productivity tricks. I share my favorite tool for keeping yourself honest, and then asked author of productivity bible Getting Things Done David Allen for his thoughts.

The publishing world is in mass-flux.

I don’t know where it’ll end up. Nobody does.

But, I do know, as I sit and write this, that the other side of upheaval is opportunity. For both publishers and authors…who get what’s really happening here.

For generations, big publishing houses have played a huge role in:

Selecting,
Shaping,
Packaging,
Printing,
Distributing and
Marketing books.

Georgetown vs. Syracuse. Indiana vs. Purdue. Harvard vs. Yale…Michigan vs. Utah?

Get ready for the newest college rivalry, pitting two giants of student-run venture capital funds against each other for bragging rights as the undisputed leader in social-impact investing!

We’re admittedly dramatic here, but only because we’re matching the enthusiasm of two universities which lay claim on very the same day—through competing press-release services, no less—to launching the first student-managed venture fund focused on the double bottom line of earning a profit while making the world a better place.

For any industry in which scale is important – especially ones like media or consumer technology – consolidation concerns should be top of mind. Winning over a customer that’s dominated by a better-funded and more established company can be a losing proposition.

That’s why it’s often smart to seize an advantage early on once the winds of M&A begin blowing.

As a tech banker in Menlo Park, I saw a lot of consolidations early in my career. Recently, in discussions with a number of companies, I’ve heard potential acquirers are beginning to lurk nearby once more – even around businesses that have no interest in selling.

I have a confession to make.

There is an angel conspiracy.

It dark, it is devious, and it is far-reaching.

The conspirators number amongst them many of the top people in the Valley, including angels, VCs, lawyers, and yes, even journalists.

We have joined together despite our differences and conflicts for a single, sinister, self-interested purpose.

To get your attention.

When Apple's iPad launched in April, it was marketed primarily as a consumer device for reading, playing games and viewing media. But as the tablet computer's popularity has grown, so too has its usefulness in other arenas, including business.

One of the many business needs met by the 900-app strong "Business" category in the App Store is the ability to attend online meetings. The device is particularly well-suited to attending meetings on the go, with its large screen for viewing the presentation and microphone and speakers for VoIP-based discussions.

Fits.me, the Estonian biorobotics and virtual fitting room company for e-commerce clothing retailers and shoppers, has secured a Series B round of financing to the tune of €1.3 million (roughly $1.75 million). The round was led by the Estonian Development Fund and brings Fits.me’s total funding to €2.6 million.

My past several posts have looked at the density of key economic and demographic factors across America’s metropolitan regions. Today, I turn to the density of high-tech industry and of innovation. Long ago, the great economist Joseph Schumpeter highlighted the role of innovation in powering the rise of new industries, the creative destruction of existing ones, and the growth in prosperity of economies. Robert Solow won the Nobel prize for identifying the role of technology in economic growth and development. Paul Romer has shown how the accumulation of scientific and technical knowledge is the central force in endogenous economic growth. Michael Porter and AnnaLee Saxenian, among others, have shown how clusters of high-tech companies and other economic assets have propelled the rise of new firms like Intel in semiconductors, Apple in computing, Genetech in biotech, Google in search, and countless others that have introduced not just new innovations but whole new industries and epochs of regional growth.

They've been meeting for almost a year with good intent: make SBIR more "effective and efficient". They're calling it SBIR 2.0 - borrowing on the Web 2.0 lexicon that heralded the shift from passive viewing of web content to active interaction among all elements of the web community (from content creators to content users) in a collaborative fashion.

Don't be fooled. It's not the same thing. Not even close. They're talking the talk. But not walking the walk.
 
Collaboration? Among newbie Agency SBIR Directors (the content creators) - maybe. Are SBIR funded companies (the content users) involved? Nope. Were past and retired SBIR Program Directors consulted? Nope. Were SBIR's founders consulted? Nope.

Lifting the curtain of darkness that surrounds world populations that have no access to energy was never among the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals for eradicating poverty.

But Richenda Van Leeuwen, the U.N. Foundation's new point woman on energy poverty, said leaders widely recognize the impossibility of achieving universal primary school education, reducing child mortality or other development targets without access to electricity.

If Minnesota keeps this up, expanding the $60 million angel investment tax credit won’t just be a nice idea, it will be a political necessity.

According to the state Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED), Minnesota has awarded $1.5 million in credits to angels, up from $573,000 in late August — a nearly three-fold increase in less than two months.

More importantly, 11 companies have raised $6 million since July 17 when the law went into effect, according to LifeScience Alley.