The foundation's recent public relations mess offers valuable takeaways for small businesses.

Last week, we saw one of the country’s most well-known cancer research advocacy organizations, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation, go from being revered to reviled. It’s pretty wild to see how quickly the reputation of a group that has invested more than $1.9 billion in the breast cancer movement can be somewhat permanently tarnished. But there are some things that businesses can learn from this PR crisis.

News broke last week that Komen had cut funding for Planned Parenthood, which provides health services to 5 million Americans who can’t afford insurance, to provide breast cancer screenings. They said it was because of new internal rules that bar it from giving money to organizations that are under government investigation. (A Republican politician had launched a congressional inquiry about Planned Parenthood's use of public funding.)

Immediate public backlash spread like wildfire. I, like many others, started getting tons of posts on my social media networks denouncing Komen and vowing never to wear pink again. Media stories about how Komen’s decision was politically motivated were widespread. Petitions circulated. People started to donate directly to Planned Parenthood reportedly in the amount of more than $650,000. Even New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a former Republican now independent, jumped on the bandwagon and said he’d match dollar for dollar up to $250,000.

So, what does this PR catastrophe have to do with running your own business? Here are three things that the folks at Komen failed to do:

1. Think about every possible scenario before making a decision.

We make choices about our business every day, and I know it’s hard to give every decision a thorough “vetting out.” But you should do it anyway, especially if there’s any potential for controversy or negativity. Ask for input from others beforehand and get them to play devil’s advocate; they might know, see or find something that you weren’t aware of.

2. Know customers inside and out (especially what makes them tick).

You know your customers in the context of what they buy from you and how they engage with you. But you should also know what they’re likely to be interested in outside their interactions with your business. For Komen, their “customers” are people who not only are passionate about finding a cure for breast cancer, but also are probably interested in anything related to women’s health, public health and health care equality. (Breast cancer doesn’t discriminate, after all.) It’s not a surprise these customers flipped when the foundation decided to eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood.

3. Understand the power of social media.

With social media, everyone’s a broadcaster and the snowball is on steroids. Literally within 12 hours, my Facebook wall was plastered with Komen posts, rants and links to articles. The foundation tried to manage things by sending canned talking points to its members, issuing statements filled with “corporatese” and even creating a video of CEO Nancy Brinker looking like, as one website called it, "a rich lady caricature surrounded by expensive books." (Ouch.) In today’s social media-networked world, no one listens to or believes in these “official sources” anymore–it’s all about the communication that happens with those they trust, one-on-one.

The outcry was so intense that on Friday, Komen reversed its decision. While that’s great news, Komen has a long, long way to go before it can–if it ever will–get back the public’s support.

What business lessons have you learned from this?

A communication coach offers a bevy of tips on how entrepreneurs who don't naturally excel at self-promotion can shed their cloak of invisibility and get noticed.

Introverts, due to of their reserved nature, step out of the shadows less often than the more outgoing. But thanks to a new book by Susan Cain titled Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, the quieter folks among us are having something of a moment in the sun. From a Time cover story to a New York Times Sunday Review piece by Cain, the topic of how our society undervalues introverts and the needs of those with a quieter disposition has been making frequent appearances in the media lately.

But while Cain does a great job of advocating for introverts and shining a spotlight on their strengths and preferences, for entrepreneurs in the world as it exists now, extroversion still has plenty of obvious benefits. The ease of networking and comfort with self-promotion that come with that 'E' on the Myers Briggs assessment, make it simpler to publicize and fund your venture, But that doesn't mean introverts are shut out of the start-up game. Far from it, as the head-down, detail-oriented nature of introverts gives them a leg up when it comes to withdrawing from the world to cook up new ideas.

Once you have that amazing innovation though, you need to get it out there, which is where Nancy Ancowitz comes in. The author and business communication coach was recently interviewed by Tahl Raz on the myGreenlight Blog, offering tips on how introverts can lose the cloak of invisibility that often prevents the gregarious from noticing their accomplishments. Ancowitz explains:

The way that [introversion] would hurt you the most is in the invisibility department. So if you tend to believe that you're accomplishments should speak for themselves that can hurt. Don't expect that other people are going to promote you and your work, just because you're sitting there working really hard and creating great things all day.

Instead of crossing your fingers and hoping your industriousness and innovation speak for themselves, in the 30-minute audio interview Ancowitz gives business owners a bevy of practical bits of advice on how they can use their shy nature to their advantage (and fight back against a business world that's often biased towards extraverts). These include:

• Get out there… in writing. Many introverts are naturally good writers, says Ancowitz. If you struggle to make a good case for yourself or your product in person, put yourself out there in writing instead through blog posts, white papers or whatever means is available.
• Forget winging it. Extraverts excel at thinking on their feet but introverts need to ponder before they speak. Make your life easier by thoroughly preparing a few talking points before meetings and networking events.
• Videotape is an introvert's best friend. If you're the type that cringes when you hear your own voice on your voicemail greeting, this may sound like a terrible idea, but Ancowitz suggests getting a coach, friend, or mentor to film you in a social setting or large meeting. This often quickly reveals off-putting body language or annoying verbal ticks that can cause others to view you as aloof or anti-social and which are simple to correct.

Ancowitz's chat with Raz is wide-ranging and lasts just longer than a half an hour, so there are far more tips and tricks available for those looking for a deep dive into the subject. Download the complete audio file here.

Yes, producing a podcast is a lot of work, but you are missing a major revenue driver if you don't. Here are six ways to make money broadcasting online.

I began podcasting several years ago, and like most people I didn’t fully understand what podcasting was all about. It started as a benevolent gesture to share knowledge with small business owners, but I wasn’t prepared for what this little adventure would do for my brand, and for my own business.

Many podcasters still enter the world of this digital broadcasting medium simply because they have that undeniable entrepreneurial spirit; they are people who love to jump into something new and open themselves to a world of possibilities. But some of these producers are learning how to monetize their efforts as they share their passion and knowledge with the masses—and you can be amongst them.

“There are about 30 million active blogs on the Internet, but only about 200,000 active podcasts,” says Rob Walch, vice president of podcaster relations for Wizzard Media's Libsyn platform. It hosts more than 12,000 active podcasts, including some of the top downloads on iTunes. With such a comparatively small number of podcasters on the Internet, there is plenty of room for more.

But why produce a podcast? A smart business owner may consider it imperative for his or her brand, but a smarter business owner will gather solid metrics to quantify their ROI. If you are considering sponsorships as your revenue driver, remember that your advertisers are smart too. They will want those stats as well, and they will want to see traffic to their website that converts.

“Advertisers look for niche podcasts that match up really well with what they sell,” says Walch. “They will want to see the proof that the podcast’s audience matches up with the demographic or psychographic that they are targeting. You wouldn’t want to advertise Omaha Steaks, for instance, on a vegan podcast.” Wizzard uses a double opt-in standard when they match an advertiser to a producer. Each party must agree on the arrangement so that everyone is happy.

But all of this talk of advertising may be premature if your podcast doesn’t boast at least 10,000 downloads per month. And if you don’t have a strong following via your blog or other platform, building to 10,000 and beyond may not be easy—not even in social media. “We find that a large number of twitter followers doesn’t really correlate to how many listeners a podcast has,” Walch says. Interestingly, while Twitter followers don’t appear to be fans, Facebook fans and friends do. And, according to Wizzard Media and Libsyn’s preliminary research results, Pinterest and Google+ connections seem to correlate as well.

Social media involvement isn’t the only way you will want to market your podcast. “Reach out to other podcasters and network with them,” Walch advises. “Interview bloggers that have great audience numbers—especially strong connectors in your niche.” Your time is well spent when you become active in groups and forums that are related to your niche. Relationship building seems to be the key to building a loyal fan base. “Get your audience involved,” Walch advises. “Have them promote your show. And get listener feedback to play or read on the show. If you get them involved and they will spread the word.”

To increase visibility, make sure to list your podcast in all of the podcast directories, including iTunes. Another powerful consideration is the use of a smartphone app to increase your following. Wizzard Media's Libsyn platform offers the smartphone app as a part of their hosting package.

Once you have built a following, there are other creative ways to monetize your podcast. Here are a few. If you have found another way to generate dollars via your podcast, I’d love to hear from you!

Sell Your Products or Services: Convert loyal listeners into paying customers who want to learn more from you and your information products. If you have a tangible product your listeners may prove to be great consumers for you as well.

Paid Podcast Model, or Premium Content Offer: Some popular podcasters offer a few free episodes and listeners pay to access the library to hear the rest. Combining this model with sponsorships can generate a solid revenue stream.

Repurpose Your Content: These podcast recordings are yours to do with as you please. You have some outstanding content here and you can create audio products with it. Get over your hang-up of repurposing free content for sale. You are enhancing your fans' experiences.

Affiliate Sales: If you don’t have products of your own, you can find affiliate opportunities in your niche and push traffic to your landing page. Remember to create your own affiliate offerings once you do create your information products.

Paid Placement: A sponsor may be interested in a guest interview on your podcast and will sometimes pay for the time. Of course, your numbers must be strong (with verified stats) and your listeners must fit the sponsors target audience.

Funding Platforms: Put your new project on Kickstarter or another popular funding platform. How much does it cost you in time and money to deliver your amazing content to the world? Your listeners may want to support you by contributing and spreading the word. “Fans want to support the producers,” Walch tells me. “Help them and they want to help the producer back. They like to pay back for all of the time and effort that the producers put into their work.”

So, yes, podcasting can be a great addition to your business or even a stand-alone revenue model. But there is much more to a great podcast than the hour that you spend on air. “For every minute you spend producing your podcast you have to spend at least the same amount of time marketing it,” says Walch. Passion for your niche is important to success, but time is critical to success.

Even if you never come close to buying a Super Bowl ad, you can learn a few key marketing rules from these big-game winners.

The Super Bowl highlights one great promise in the world of marketing: that advertising can be a welcome experience.

I can't think of many other events for which the advertising is as much of a part of the experience as the event itself. For $3.5 million for a 30-second spot, advertising on the Super Bowl comes with big responsibility and big expectations. Consumers expect to be entertained; they don't want to face a hard sell during the most important football game of the year.

Most of us won't be in a position to buy a Super Bowl TV spot any time soon, but I think the Super Bowl holds some powerful lessons marketers can use in crafting their own marketing plan. For four hours Sunday night, we saw the polar opposition between brands that maximize their Super Bowl moment and those brands that should have never spent the money in the first place.

So how can you get it right? I'll share three ads I thought were winners, as well as the lessons each suggested to me.

1. GE Capital: Don't Be Boring

I know, I know: Some brands lend themselves to more excitement than others. (Beer is a bit easier to sell than health care manufacturing supplies.) Still, there is no excuse for making advertising boring. One good example was the GE Capital ad. They aimed to humanize the world of turbine manufacturing—not an easy thing to do. Be funny, intriguing, irreverent, passionate, bold—be anything but boring, no matter what your product offering is.

2. Chrysler: Talk With the Audience, Not at Them

If you run the same messaging in your advertising week after week, you're likely talking at consumers and not with them. Talking with consumers is a dynamic experience: Your messaging is meant to truly connect with a consumer, providing a solution to his or her problem. Look at Chrysler's Super Bowl spot featuring Clint Eastwood. The ad focused on a central theme surrounding the economic challenges we face: "It's halftime of the game and halftime in America."

Whether you liked it or not, the ad was clearly run in context with the audience, the programming and the moment. The automaker was trying to connect with the audience, not talk at them.

In a fragmented, on-demand media environment during an economy that has stripped disposable time and income from hard working folks, the days of speaking at consumers is now long gone.

3. GoDaddy: Create Dialogue, not Messages

Advertising should not be the beginning and end of the conversation. With the right dose of creativity and consumer incentives, the possibilities for extending the discussion through social media and other channels are endless.

Look at the GoDaddy ads, which have been a fundamental part of their marketing strategy over the years. Like it or not, the ads are all about creating dialogue that goes well beyond the commercial—and the company has been masterful at it.

Most advertisers who invested money to advertise during the Super Bowl worked hard to promote the conversation beyond the ad. There is no reason the rest of us shouldn't do the same. Extend the dialogue, increase engagement and drive significantly more efficiency in your advertising dollars.

I know that few of us have Clint Eastwood in our casting list—or GE's deep pockets, or a supermodel in our rolodex—and most of us will never run a Super Bowl ad. But the fundamentals of marketing hold true despite your budget. So before you run that next ad, ask yourself: Is this Super Bowl worthy?

In the early days of a startup, it can be tough to find good data to help with decision-making. Put a priority on these three numbers, and you'll be fine.

To make good decisions, you need good data. That’s a given, right? But in a start-up, what data should you be looking at?

In the early days of a startup, sometimes there isn’t much to measure. A comparison of this year’s sales compared to last year’s isn’t all that helpful if you’ve only been around for eight months. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start collecting data right away.

So where can you find relevant information? As an investor, I would offer three metrics that will give you some insight into your current operations and help you do some short-term forecasting. For most small companies, this will be a good step toward focusing attention on the information that will lead to informed decisions.

1. Pipeline coverage

The sales pipeline is a listing of all your sales prospects. Typically, you’d include the projected sales amount and estimate the probability of success for each account. You’d update the information regularly.

Sales pipeline coverage is a fraction. The total amount in your pipeline is the numerator, and the sales goal is the denominator. So sales pipeline coverage measures everything in the sales pipeline against the sales goal. As the business matures, you’ll get better at estimating closure rates, and you’ll be able to tie closure rates to milestones. If you’ve only had one meeting with a particular customer, you might assign that deal a 20% chance of closing. Once the customer has agreed to pricing, you might bump that up to 50%.

In practice, you want your pipeline coverage to be over 2.5x. That should virtually assure you make your target, as long as you’ve got a reasonably competent sales effort and have done a good job qualifying your customers.

2. Sales per employee

This metric is simple enough, and it’s good for businesses of all sizes. Just take the gross sales number and divide it by the number of employees. Since small businesses typically scale too fast ahead of their prospects – the optimism of entrepreneurs is both their blessing and their curse – sales per employee is a critical measure within growing companies. Warning: Once you start focusing on this number, you’ll quickly see the intrinsic appeal of hiring salespeople over other personnel.

3. Customer payback period

The very best metric for evaluating your business, customer acquisition cost, takes a while to assess. Ultimately, everything your business does will either make sense or not depending on how much it costs you to acquire a customer. If you can acquire customers cheaply or profitably, you will do well.

At first, customer acquisition cost is just a rough guess. But once you have that in hand, you can start thinking about the customer payback period. If the cost to acquire a customer is known, the logical question is how many months it will take to recover that cost.

The value of this metric lies in its ability to help you figure out how much money you need to grow and how profitable your company is likely to be. Put another way, how many customers can you afford to acquire with your existing capital or operating profits? How much growth can you support? Growth is more capital-intensive than failure. The length of your customer payback period gives you a window into your growth potential.

The beauty of these three metrics is that they apply universally. CEOs can use them to better understand what’s working and what needs to be changed in order to meet short and long-term goals. For a company seeking outside funding, knowledge and management of these metrics is critical to allowing investors to understand your business and potential.

Inc. 5000 applicant The Campus Special, founded by Chau Nguyen, is growing fast by marketing coupons to college students the old-fashioned way.

As applications for the 2012 Inc. 500|5000 arrive, we thought it would be worthwhile to shine a spotlight on some of the companies that are vying to appear on our ranking of the fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. (For more information and to apply, go to http://www.inc.com/inc5000apply/2011/index.html. One that caught our eye was The Campus Special in Duluth, Georgia.

It’s no secret that college students spend money, lots of it. After all, pizza, tanning, and keeping up with the latest hairstyles doesn’t come cheap.

So back in 2005, Chau Nguyen and Joe Jacobs decided to lend a hand. Nguyen used his background in college marketing to give students something they actually needed and wanted: savings.

The Campus Special started off with one product, a coupon book with a realistic hundred-dollar bill image on the cover. They spread the books, containing coupons for local businesses on things such as haircuts and food at colleges nationwide.

Fast-forward seven years and The Campus Special is still providing savings for students, now at 342 colleges across the U.S. The company prints about six million coupon books on recycled paper with soy-based ink every year. Each book has 100 to 200 coupons.

But they didn’t stop there.

The Campus Special also has a website and mobile app with an online version of the coupon book, as well as a virtual food court where college students can order food at special online rates. The company’s Facebook app allows students to view menus and process their entire order without ever leaving the site.

The business specializes in print, mobile, and online advertising that’s targeted toward college students. They have 25 employees in the corporate office, over 10,000 clients, and a three-year growth rate just under 125 percent.

According to Nguyen, an iPad app is also in the works, but currently their print coupons are the most effective. In 2011 the company brought in over $8 million. They’ve stuck with their original goals and make all of their money off advertisers, not students.

But that’s not the only way The Campus Special helps out students. The two-time Inc. 5000 honoree also has a large paid internship program. According to Nguyen, it’s what they do best. The company takes about 400 college students during the summer months, trains them in Atlanta, and then sends them back to their respective college cities. “We teach them basically how to become young professionals,” Nguyen says. “They represent our company, meet with clients, and sell the advertisers. It’s real b-to-b experience.”

About 2,500 students have been through the summer internship. Many continue working with the company on a volunteer basis once the academic year comes around.

It’s because of the internship program that The Campus Special is able to use the slogan “made by students, for students.” The student edge also helps the national company provide coupons for local businesses the students will actually want to use—for things like pizza.

Does the press love your business as much as you do? Here are five ways to grab the media's attention--no PR expertise required.

I’ll admit it, I wasn’t a public relations expert when I started my e-mail marketing company, VerticalResponse. I’m a marketer; more specifically, a direct marketer. I need to have a result and attach it to how much I’ve spent to get that result. PR is a bit squishy, so it was hard at first to embrace having to do it. But over the years, I’ve seen the success of PR and am a big supporter of getting your business name out there in the press.

Understanding the business of PR is paramount to your success. For the most part, it’s pretty simple. The press needs really great content so that people read their stuff, so that they can get advertisers to pay to put ads in front of their readers, so that they can make money. Clear?

From my experiences over the past 11 years starting and running my business, I’ve tried many things to get the attention of the press. Some worked, others were duds. So I thought I’d come up with a quick rundown of five ideas that you can do now to get media attention – and more potential customers to know about your business.

1. Run a Cool Contest
Contests can be a great way to get ink, and the ones that are more media-friendly tend to focus on helping people, not touting a company’s product. One year, we had a video contest where we asked small business owners to record themselves describing their business, what makes them passionate and how they’d use the money if they won. We called the contest “The New Deal for Small Business,” a take on how President Obama wanted to re-invigorate the economy at the time. We received over 50 videos and entrants were sending their customers to our website to vote. In the long run, not only did we get great press, we also got our business in front of voters who might not have known about us.

In fact, we’re running another contest right this minute, “The Next Teen Tycoon” – we’re searching for the country’s best teen entrepreneurs! Do you know one?

2. Get Your Bling On
There is an award for every industry and every business, and you’re probably already aware of them but for some reason you don’t apply. Maybe it’s the time commitment or maybe you just don’t think you’ll win. I say, apply for one! Take a few minutes to answer some questions about your business, tout how great you’re performing, and/or talk about a new service you’re offering. If you win, you are now an award-winning company. The most press pickups we get is when we win awards, both from our industry trades as well as local publications. Who knows, maybe it’s the economy, but it’s good news and you should benefit from it. You also might get some great new customers and new hires because people want to work with winners.

3. Survey Your Customers
You’ve got access to something very valuable: your customers. Why not use them to establish yourself and your company as a thought leader in your industry? All you need to do is conduct an online survey with your customers about something topical or timely that you think the press might find interesting. For example, we’ve amassed many small businesses as customers and we were able to survey them about the lack of productivity on opening day of baseball season one year; we were written up on a number of websites and secured two TV spots!

4. Flaunt a Success Story
If someone has used your products or services for something extraordinary, why not pitch the story to the press? Many media outlets are struggling for “feel good” or success stories and you just might have the perfect one for their readers. When we find a customer who is having real success with e-mail marketing or doing something unique, we ask them to share their story with media that we’ve identified for them. Our company gets a mention in the article and, more importantly, we’re positioned positively as a great solution. Check out this article about Pet Camp, one of our customers, as an example.

5. Show Growth
If you’re lucky enough to be growing, tell the world! A few things come out of this: strategic partnerships, potential acquisitions, new hires and new customers. Focus on the following:

• Percent growth in revenue and customers year over year, quarter over quarter, or month over month – whichever looks better
• Number of months you’ve been consecutively profitable
• Number of new products you’ve launched
• Number of new employees you’ve hired
• Number of countries you now do business in
• Number of partnerships you’ve secured
• Number of awards you’ve won

Our press releases that focus on growth have been very successful, since it’s a positive story that a company is growing and hiring.

For press release distribution, check out PR Newswire, Marketwire or PRWeb, or you might want to try free-press-release.com, 24-7pressrelease.com or prlog.org if you’re on a tight budget. And services like Cision and Vocus offer media contact databases for you to find all the media outlets that cover your industry.

So step up your PR efforts; you don’t need to be a PR guru to get them going, and the potential return is huge!

Feel like you're always scrambling to keep up with the latest technology? Stop. These are the only five things you need to worry about.

Technology can be an enabler—or an impediment. Installing a server in the backroom for e-mail might have made sense in 2002, but today many companies are moving to cloud e-mail. Those BlackBerry phones you handed out to every employee a few years ago made sense from a security standpoint, but now everyone keeps squawking about the app selection and tiny screen.

Just when you think you have a handle on a new innovation and agree to a major technology uprade, along comes a new, improved approach. Yet, over the past 15 years, I’ve learned a few important lessons about office technology that apply to just about every situation—and they have proved nearly impervious to trends.

1. Develop a standard desktop
I remember first hearing about the standard desktop when I was a corporate manager with a team of about 30 employees. In some ways, the concept reminds me of the office management dictum: It’s best to touch a document once and be done with it. A standard desktop means you have removed the clutter—every employee has the same basic apps for word processing and browsing the Web. The “touch it once” rule applies because your tech staff only has to deal with one set of apps and utilities.

2. Use good data to evaluate employees
Once again, a lesson from a bygone era that still stands today: Let data drive your employee decisions—and make sure it's good data. As a former manager, I learned a ton about collecting data through the year. We used a time-reporting tool that gave us a wealth of insight into how employees spent their time. We used a performance review process that was not based on feelings or even experiences, but a measure of accomplishments. When I evaluated employees, I told them about how many projects they completed and reveled together in succeses, but also recounted any instances where project budgets slipped and tasks went undone. We scored accomplishments and behavior together, and came up with a mutual performance rating. One new tool to consider for this: GoWerk.

3. Choose the best software, not the least expensive
I learned this lesson the hard way. I was a penny-pincher, so I’d often approve software that provided just enough utility for a lower price. For example, my team of writers and designers wanted to use Adobe Photoshop but I insisted on having everyone use a freeware clone. Bad idea: the software crashed often, delaying projects. (As a side-note, that same freeware app eventually became a sound commercial product.)

4. Log every customer contact
During my tenor in management, I had a co-worker friend who was an advocate for a new software paradigm called customer relationship management or CRM. This was before Salesforce existed. He eventually rolled out a CRM package companywide as a way to record every customer interaction. Today, the concept exists in many forms, some of them as open-source offerings. But the idea remains the same: The more information you have about sales contacts, complaints, and even former customers the better. Interestingly, I find CRM to be somewhat overlooked at smaller companies. I know of one SMB that only records the basic address, phone, and e-mail for new customers and that’s it.

5. Break the tech rules
Another lesson I learned early on: Take risks with technology and break the rules sometimes. It’s safe to stick with your storage network in the back office, but a new cloud-based file-sync tool like Dropbox might free employees to work remotely or when they travel on business trips. At times, it's wise to wait and see how a new trend plays out, but then again, small business owners are all about risk-taking. Go ahead and dump your current smartphones and move to Android. Try giving every employee a new iPad tablet. Take a leap of faith on the cloud. These are the kind of risks that could fuel new ideas or ways of working together with your team.

Despite denials, U.S. banks are deeply exposed to Euro debt. No wonder they're turning down 90% of small business loans.

Why is this not surprising? Despite denials, it turns out that big U.S. banks are carrying a lot of risky European debt.

This matters to business owners because it is likely a key reason those same banks are approving so few small business loans. In December banks with assets between $10 billion – $50 billion OK'd only 9.7 percent of these requests.

For months soon-to-be former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has been going on about how well U.S. banks are protected from problems in Europe. Here’s what he told Congress in October,

U.S. financial institutions, including our major banks and money market funds have substantially reduced their exposure to the economies of Europe that are under the most pressure. Our direct financial exposure to those governments and their financial institutions is quite small.

Does $80 billion strike you as a small amount? Well it turns out the five largest American banks alone are holding that much debt from Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Greece – the most economically stressed nations in the euro currency zone. Doesn’t that strike you as the kind of thing the Treasury Secretary should know?

Geithner has asserted this fiction because the banks (a/k/a the usual suspects: JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley) all say their assets are covered by credit default insurance. Which means there assets are only as good as the companies that issued the insurance. If we’ve learned anything in the last few years it’s that this is the kind of situation that usually goes south fast.

Don’t worry, though, Ben Bernanke says the Fed will protect us. Bernanke told Congress yesterday that the Federal Reserve would do everything it can to prevent Europe’s worsening finances from damaging the economy. Ben promised to “continue to monitor the situation closely and take every available step to protect the U.S. financial system and the economy.” I feel better now, don’t you?

Bernanke came close to actually admitting how bad small businesses have it right now. “Though many smaller businesses continue to face difficulties in obtaining credit, surveys indicate that credit conditions have begun to improve modestly for those firms as well,” he told Congress.

Thanks for the nod, Ben. We’ll call you if anything changes.

When you're up against some of the biggest competitors in the industry, you need to learn to play the game differently.

Dear Jeff,

We’re a start-up struggling to gain traction against a few major industry players. They have well-developed systems in place we can't match. How can we develop similar systems when we don't have the resources? – Name withheld at request

You probably can’t. So stop trying.

Instead of trying to “be” another company, decide—and it is a decision—to use the fact that you don’t have comprehensive systems or widespread automation to your advantage.

For example, you probably don’t have a customer relationship management system in place. That’s okay: Just call new customers and say thanks. Pick a few at random every week to call and see how things are going. Use a spreadsheet to track leads and sales calls.

CRM systems can do a great job of managing hundreds of customer and sales relationships, but many companies rely on those systems to drive customer relationship activities. Now, while you’re relatively small, you can drive those relationships by making them a lot more personal.

The same is true with payment systems. I know companies that spent significant time and money designing robust payment systems before they had their first paying customer. For a small company, Paypal works fine and can be set up in minutes. Put your resources into things that help you land customers so someday you will need a robust payment system.

Instead of focusing on what your competitors do that you can’t do, think about what you can do that your competitors can’t. You can take on smaller customers; your administrative costs are lower. You can experiment with different product or service offerings; you don’t have to worry about negatively impacting product line synergies or whether you will create turf issues between departments.

You can provide what customers really want, rather than what the weight of your systems forces you to provide.

Stop comparing yourself negatively to your competition. Focus on what you can do that the competition cannot or does not. Even if some of the things you decide to do can't scale, that’s okay. Get customers now, and worry about scalability when you need to.

Have a question? Email questions@blackbirdinc.com and it may appear in a future column. Please indicate if you would like your name and company name to appear.

An MBA can cost you upward of $100,000. Will the investment really to pay off?

An MBA can end up costing as much as $100,000 in tuition–and that's not including the time lost that might be spent building your career outside of the classroom. Is they really worth that kind of investment?

In fact, when it comes to goosing up your lifetime income, an MBA just ain't what it used to be, according to Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford and Christina Fong of the University of Washington, writing in the journal of The Academy of Management Learning and Education. They cite studies showing that while MBA grads earned higher starting salaries than non-MBA college grads, mid-career MBAs saw no salary boost after earning the degree–and that those who pursued an MBA full time suffered from the disruption in their employment.

Declining Payoff

"It's become unclear whether it makes sense to overburden yourself with expenses and loans in order to secure the possibility of a greater salary in the future," says Pfeffer.

Unfortunately, many people still enroll in MBA programs under the assumption that it will have a huge ROI, when that's simply not true, according Anna Ivey, a former dean of admissions at the University of Chicago. "If [an MBA] is something that you're doing because you want to make more money, rather than because you're really interested in how businesses function, you'll probably be disappointed," she says.

Studying the Wrong Subjects

Another problem with an MBA: The courses you take may be too theoretical to be of much practical use. Many MBA courses are based upon "best practices" and case studies, but few students (and even fewer professors) ask the obvious questions like: What in God's name does the success of IBM in the 1990s have to do with how to run a start-up today? Or why are we studying Apple and Coke, when those brands occupy exceptional, and probably not replicable, market positions?

Another reason that an MBA investment might prove unwise is that you'll end up taking courses in management theory, which is frankly a huge load of horse manure. As former management consultant Matthew Stewart points out in "The Management Myth," management theory promotes both rationalist approaches (i.e., manage by the numbers) and humanist approaches (inspire, empower)–even though the two approaches result in diametrically different management behaviors.

The simple truth is that you can't teach management in a classroom, according to Henry Mintzberg, a professor of management studies at McGill University and author of "Managers Not MBAs," a groundbreaking critique of the business school curriculum. "The MBA trains the wrong people in the wrong ways with the wrong consequences," he says.

What About Sales?

Nowhere is the impracticality of MBA programs clearer than in the way they generally ignore sales–the single most important function of every business. Only a handful of business schools even offer courses on selling, let alone majors.

This is beginning to change. As I explain in a special report I just wrote with Howard Stevens, CEO of Chally Worldwide, there is now a behind-the-scenes movement inside some top business schools to make MBA programs more practical by adding a sales component to the course mix. However, such programs remain exceptions rather than the rule.

For the time being, you should probably look at that MBA program–and its shiny recruiting brochure–with fair amount of healthy skepticism. It's not that you won't learn something, but if you sign up for an MBA program that's impractical, you may end up learning an important business lesson: that there's sucker born every minute.

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Firing someone is hard -- but getting fired is always harder. Don't make it worse by putting your foot in your mouth.

Letting an employee go can be a stressful and even painful experience. Possibly that’s why making the firing process as easy as possible—for the boss—is something of a cottage industry.

That’s too bad, because while terminating an employee is hard for you, getting fired is way harder for the employee.

So forget about your feelings. Whenever you have to fire an employee you must protect your business from a legal aspect.

After that, your only goal is to treat the employee as compassionately and respectfully as possible.

Your feelings are irrelevant.

Which is why you should never say any of the following:

1. "Look, this is really hard for me." Who cares if it’s hard for you? The employee certainly doesn’t. Any time you talk about how difficult the situation is for you the employee thinks, "Oh yeah? What about me? How hard do you think this is on me?" If you feel bad—and you will—talk through your feelings later with someone else.

And also never say, “Look, I’m not sure how to say this…” You’re sure what to say. You’re just uncomfortable saying it.

Never even hint that the employee should somehow feel your pain; that’s just selfish.

2. "We've decided we need to make a change." You're not an NBA team firing an unsuccessful coach. And you're not holding a press conference either. Skip the platitudes. If you've done your job right the employee already knows why he's being fired.

State the reason for your action as clearly and concisely as possible. Or just say, "Mark, I have to let you go."

3. "We will work out some of the details later." For the employee, getting fired is both the end and the start of another process: Collecting personal items, returning company property, learning about benefits status, etc.

It's your job to know how all that works—ahead of time. Getting fired is bad enough; sitting in limbo while you figure out the next steps is humiliating for an employee who wants nothing more than to leave. Never make an employee wait to meet with others who are part of the process. Once you let them go, the employee is on their time, not yours.

4. "You just aren't cutting it compared to Mary." Never compare the fired employee to someone else as justification. Employees should be fired because they fail to meet standards, targets, or behavioral expectations.

Plus, drawing comparisons between employees makes it possible for what should be an objective decision to veer into the “personality zone.” That’s a conversational black hole you will struggle to escape.

5. "Okay, let’s talk about that. Here’s why..." Most employees sit quietly, but a few will want to argue. Never let yourself be dragged into a back-and-forth discussion. Just say, "Mark, we can talk about this as long as you like, but you should understand that nothing we discuss will change the decision." Arguments almost always make the employee feel worse.

Be professional, be empathetic, and stick to the facts. Don't feel the need to respond if an employee starts to vent.

Just listen—that’s the least you can do. And the most you can do.

6. "You’ve been a solid employee but we simply have to cut staffing." If you truly are downsizing, leave performance out and just say so.

But if you're not actually downsizing, and you're hiding behind that excuse so the conversation is easier for you, then you do the employee a disservice—and you open your business up to potential problems, especially if you later hire someone to fill the open slot.

Never play games to try to protect the employee's feelings—or, worse, to protect your own. Just be straightforward.

7. "We both know you aren't happy here, so down the road you’ll be glad." Whether or not the employee will someday be glad you let them go is not for you to judge. Employees can’t find a silver lining in the fired cloud, at least not at first. Let them find their own glimmers of possibility.

8. "I need to walk you to the door." I worked for a company where the policy was to immediately escort terminated employees out of the building.

An employee you fire is not a criminal. Don’t put them through a walk of shame. Just set simple parameters. Say, "Mark, go ahead and gather up your personal belongings and I'll meet you back here in 10 minutes."

If Mark doesn't come back, go get him. He won't argue.

9. "We have decided to let you go." The word "we" is appropriate in almost every setting, but not this one.

Say, "I." At this moment, you are the company (even if, in fact, you’re just an employee.) Take responsibility.

10. "If there is anything I can do for you, just let me know." Like what? Write a glowing letter of recommendation? Call your connections and put in a good word for him? (Of course, if you are laying off good employees due to lack of work you should do anything you can to help them land on their feet.)

Absolutely say, "If you have any questions about benefits, final paychecks, or other details, call me. I'll make sure you get the answers you need." But never offer to do things you can't do. You might feel a little better because you made an offer, but the employee won't.

Remember, when you fire an employee it's all about the employee, not about you—and especially not about what makes you feel better.

It's the threat you never see coming. In fact, even after you crash and burn you still might not recognize it.

Sometimes the biggest threat to your start-up is the one you can’t see.

No, I’m not talking about competitors that sneak up on you. Those eventually become obvious—albeit sometimes too late.

This threat is the one you never saw coming. In fact, even after you crash and burn you still might not recognize it.

The stealthiest start-up killer is your own hubris. Allow me to share my own story.

It’s early 2000 and I’m on fire. My fruit delivery business FruitGuys is growing fast. We’re delivering to companies with names like Scient and Red Gorilla. I’m using a secret knock when I drop fruit at the San Mateo office of an unnamed company that later would be called Napster. I’m cruising 100 miles per hour from San Francisco to Sand Hill Road in a light blue Dodge Horizon with a car seat in the back and rust growing under the wheel wells. I’m singing at the top of my lungs to the Who’s “Who Are You” and trying to make a pitch meeting by 1:00 but I’m 15 minutes late. Last night I was up at midnight to change and bottle-feed my year-and-a-half old son, was buying produce at 2 a.m., packing through the dawn hours, and making deliveries until 11. I ran home, showered and am now on my way. I’m making it. This is the American Dream.

FruitGuys is nearly a million-dollar business. I’ve busted my backside over the last two years to get it here and now I’m interviewing candidates to run it for me. I’ve come up with what I think is Internet gold: An online trading platform for the produce industry. “It’s a stock market for a perishable commodity!” I’ve told innumerable VCs. I have three partners and two interns for this new venture. We’ve decided to value the company well over a million dollars—for a start.

As I pull into the VCs’ parking lot, I try to park well in the back where my Dodge Horizon won’t look so out of place next to the Land Rovers, Bentleys, Aston Martins and varieties of Porsche and Mercedes. These are the things I remember from this time: There was a scorched thousand dollar bill hanging on the wall of the office I was about to enter. When I was asked how much money we needed I talked in millions. When I was asked how this was going to work I showed them a video we had made. We incorporated our business well before we had a business plan.

At the time there were four companies with similar ideas. Three received funding. One did not. Luckily that one was ours. Shortly after the dot-com crash, all of the “produce market making” concepts of that time failed. I was lucky that I hadn’t given away FruitGuys for a few Dot Com beans.

It’s tough to understand hubris when it is happening to you but start-up founders must try. Like Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Total Recall”—you have to keep asking yourself what is real.

Here are four ways to stay grounded as opportunities unfold:

1. Keep track of how many times you say your technology is going to “revolutionize the business.” If this (or something similar) becomes a familiar phrase, beware. I thought by adding a few technological bells and whistles I would remake the produce industry. What I forgot at the time is that technology is only as good as the underlying business idea. And we hadn’t yet worked out many of the core business ideas, things like getting farmers Internet connections, handling and transporting produce between parties sight unseen, trying to standardize an industry that had wide variances in the same product type (to name but a few). This isn’t to say that you can’t innovate with technology in old-school industries; it’s just that you need to really get deep into the details and understand the industry you want to change before you start offering technology as the solution.

2. Identify someone who will be the first to tell you that you’re wearing the emperor's new clothes. You know the small child who sees through the emperor’s charade and finally tells him he’s parading around naked? If you can’t look yourself in the mirror and distinguish between your own excitement and reality, you need someone who can. Over the years I’ve tried to play this role myself. I pretend to be a customer who is going to give push back on new ideas. Sounds crazy—perhaps it is—but you need to be able to broaden your thinking about what is an opportunity and what is fantasy.

3. Analyze why "everyone else is doing it." Are you getting into a business because you are jumping on a trend? If you can't hone that trend into a well-defined business idea that solves a real and specific problem or offers an important product or service then watch out. If you are jumping in because everyone else is, consider, why isn't anyone jumping out?

4. Answer the question, "Why?" Be honest. Why are you doing what you're doing? Is it because the opportunity is real or is there another reason? It's still hard for me to admit but wanting to get into the dot-com game wasn't about the opportunity; it was about the game and the label. I saw myself back then as just a delivery person, when what I really wanted to be was an accepted entrepreneur (preferably with a logo that looked like lightning mixed with the sound of the ocean). Make sure you know what is driving you. If it’s only your ego, then it’s time to do some critical thinking.

For many women business owners, the shortest route to a a million in revenues runs through Washington.

All business owners, especially women owners, know that getting to a million in revenues is a tough hurdle. But there is one way to lower the bar: government contracting. Almost half of the small businesses that are active federal contractors have business revenues in excess of $1 million, while only 5% of small businesses overall have broken the million-dollar barrier, according to soon-to-be-released American Express OPEN research for 2011.

Better yet, in the federal-contracting ecosystem, female-owned businesses seem to be on remarkably even footing with the male-owned competition. “Once you get through the pearly gates of [federal] procurement], the success rates are very similar for all small businesses,” says Julie Weeks, the CEO of Womenable and the American Express OPEN Research Advisor behind a recent report on federal contracts for small businesses. She notes in the report that the estimated life-time value of federal contracts doesn’t differ by gender or race once businesses have experience with federal contracting.

But isn't federal contracting all about airplanes and highways? Not at all. It’s also about healthcare benefits management, technology, professional services, catering or, as Hester Taylor-Clark found out, communications and program management. She is the founder of Hester Group, a multi-million dollar business that grew 175% from 2010 to 2011, largely due to federal government contracts.

Like other women owners, Taylor-Clark benefitted from a 5% set-aside for women-owned businesses. In 2010 that translated to quite a bit of work for women-owned businesses. “In that year, $18 billion was awarded to women-owned businesses,” Lourdes Martin-Rosa, American Express OPEN advisor on government contracting, points out. “There are fewer than 80,000 women registered [as women-owned contractors]. Do the math. That’s a large chunk of money to each one.”

Landing one of those contracts takes some investment, however. On average, it takes four tries at a federal contract before you win one, according to Weeks’ research. Moreover, the competition will only tougher as government budgets contract.

In other words, the sooner you get started, the better.

First step: Learn what products and services the federal government wants and the way through the procurement maze. Check out:

• SBA information on federal contracting
• Procurement Technical Assistance Center
• Give Me 5 which provides women-owned businesses with education and access to federal contracts
• USA Spending, which shows the products and services the federal government wants

The next step may be as a subcontractor to an experienced prime contractor. Or team up on a bid with other small businesses. Either way, you’ll learn the system and build a track record so the next contract comes quickly … and the next and the next.

Seasoned owners say that becoming a successful federal contractor is almost like starting your business all over again. You need an accounting system that can provide the data each agency wants (each federal agency has differing requirements); a marketing program that appeals to procurement officers and highlights your expertise and track record as a contractor; and the right paperwork, in this case accreditation.

But once through those pearly gates, you have a customer who pays on time and quickly, often with multi-year contracts, and tells you what will be needed next year so you can plan ahead. And this is a customer that any woman owner can reach, as long as she has the right product and right amount of persistence. As Martin-Rosa says, “The only thing that sets [successful federal contractors] apart from you is that they registered and networked.”

Finding the perfect investor can be a Goldilocks-type challenge. Here's how one company found that 'just right' investor.

Here's a tale of a business that was looking for the "just right" buyer. This manufacturing company in the aerospace industry was lost and had wondered completely off the growth track.

This company had developed a strong track record of supplying metal component systems for the big aircraft engine manufacturers, such as Pratt & Whitney. One of the aircraft they provide parts for is the FA-18. The previous owner, in his advancing age, began to manage the business for cash and delayed investment. Although the business had many strategic growth opportunities, it was never able to pursue them due to the previous owner’s mindset and personal goals. The management team became frustrated with their inability to grow the business. Their best option was to find new owners that had the appetite and ability to invest in profitable growth.

As a variety of financial buyers (e.g., private equity groups) and strategic buyers looked at the business, they realized the problem: the business required significant investment in its plant and equipment to continue to serve its customers. The previous owner had not maintained the business well enough to support sustained growth. In addition, there were some investments required to maintain environmental standards. One by one, many of the interested buyers dropped out of the bidding.

The eventual buyers, who partnered with our firm, were two former entrepreneurs who had previously built and sold a successful environmental services business. They were comfortable with investment required to meet environmental standards, and they were able to quantify the capital that was required to transform the business into a growing company. They agreed to pursue a bid for the company, and developed a plan for incremental capital investment.

Because the other bidders had walked away, the two entrepreneurs were able to buy the company for substantially less than the initial asking price. Now, the new owners are investing in growth, including possible acquisitions. As a result of the new investment, customers have increased their activity with the company and committed more orders to the business. The investors are now looking at new acquisitions, and plan to continue to target companies that may be unattractive to those unwilling or incapable of taking a longer term view and can be acquired at a reasonable price.

Do you have a story of a company who found or is looking for the right investors? Share it with us at karlandbill@avondalestrategicpartners.com.

How you use technology not only reflects on you personally, but also on your company and its reputation.

We now have the possibility to be connected continually: text messages, emails, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn… all of which can be accessed from our smartphones, our iPads, our computers. And yet, for the first time in our history, we are not in charge of our technology. Technology is in charge of us. How many people have you almost bumped into this year because they (or you!) were texting while walking? How many times have you responded to a work email while you were supposed to be having dinner with your spouse? How many times have you written something you regretted in an email because you were in a hurry and clicked send without thinking? Technology is an incredible tool— but only when it is controlled.

1. Disconnect from work when you leave the office.

Thanks to smart phones and laptops, business owners are now able to be on call 24/7. While I love that I can go to a doctor appointment and continue to work from the waiting room, I also find it drains my energy to be connected non-stop in one way or another. I am in my office 10 to 12 hours per day. Remaining accessible beyond that directly affects not just the quality of my life, but also the quality of my decisions. I now choose to disconnect in every way when I have leave the office for the evening.

2. When it's for personal reasons, use Twitter, Facebook, and the like after hours.

At many companies, employees have the freedom to do personal things like check Facebook during the day. This may seem like a cool thing to allow when courting new hires, but the result is reduced efficiency for businesses and employees. Deadlines that were once set in stone are now moving targets that can always "be finished at home," resulting in longer time for project completion. I do not allow these kind of blurred borders at my company. My employees are expected to complete all work in the office, and personal activities like texting, Tweeting, and Facebook are limited to personal time. Many technology addicts mmay be thinking they would never want to work at my company, but consider the benefits of the "work belongs at work" mindset: my employees go home on time every night, have a rich life outside of the office, and come back refreshed and ready to make huge inroads for our business the next day. Preventing burnout, and thus hanging on to valuable contributors, is my highest priority.

3. Keep email concise and complete, and off your screen.

Email is a great way to correspond with someone, both because it is fast and less obtrusive than calling, but when we fail to control our use of it, it diverts focus away from actual projects being worked on. We are constantly scanning for the red ball to pop up and provide us with a new distraction. We have become addicted to responding, and doing so quickly—at all costs. Think I am exaggerating? How many times have you sent an email to someone asking several questions only to receive his reply minutes later answering only one of the questions? Now consider how many times this happens to you each day, and all the follow-up emails this lack of thoroughness generates! I have made it a rule to re-read all emails twice before responding, and then to double check that my response answers the entire inquiry. And most importantly, I close my email box when I am working on other things, so that I can give 100 percent to the task at hand.

4. Work-related texts and Tweets should be quick, but right.

In business, it is important not only to be fast thinking, but also to be able to fully develop ideas. Pertinent questions must be asked and clear paths charted in order to problem-solve and grow. Today's technology users have yet to strike a balance between rapidity and complex communications. A customer expecting instant feedback does not want to get a half-baked answer. They want to be answered quickly, but also correctly. Business partners expecting to be answered at midnight are still in need of impactful solutions rather than impulsive ones. I try to separate my tools into categories. Emails are for fully developed ideas, texts are for quick practical information, and the phone is still my best tool when I need to get a deal done.

5. Interaction is not engagement.

With all of the great communication tools we have, it is easy to assume being omnipresent is all that's needed to generate success for your business. A company's Facebook page may be an indicator of how many people know about a brand, but in the age of technology, that does not always translate to how many people care about that brand. I think about my company's communications with our customers in every format as a means of engagement, not just a fleeting interaction. Putting it in traditional terms: as a business, having a thousand "first sales" is great, but you will survive and thrive only with repeat business. Technology can help us make the first sale, but it is how we use it that will bring the customer back for more.

Technology is a powerful tool, but only as powerful as the mind in control of it. As a business owner, you must be especially aware of this, because how you use technology not only reflects on you personally, but also on your company and its reputation. Consciousness is the first step to regaining control so that technology can work for rather than against you.

Genius sometimes just means not realizing that something is impossible.

A college student arrived a few minutes late for his final exam in mathematics. The room was quiet, with everyone working hard, and the profes­sor silently handed him the test. It consisted of five math problems on the first page and two on the second. The student sat down and began to work. He solved the first five problems in half the time, but the two on the second page were tougher. Everyone else finished the exam and left, so the student was alone by the end of the time period. He finished the final problem at the last second.

The next day he got a phone call in his dorm room from the professor. “I don’t believe it! You solved the final two problems?”

“Uh, yeah,” the student said. “What’s the big deal?”

“Those were brain teasers,” the prof explained. “I announced before the exam that they wouldn’t count toward your final grade, but you missed that because you were late. But hardly anyone solves those problems in so short a time! You must be a genius!”

“Genius” sometimes means just not realizing that something is impossible.

Some days you have have to wonder how you’ll do all you have to do. You'll ask whatever made you think that you could challenge the incumbent players in your industry, let alone create a company that could one day be worth something. Those days are inevitable, but they pass. And when they do, you're usually left with a sense of pride that you have greater capacity for achievement than you realized.

Every successful entrepreneur faced doubts, both within and without: Steve Jobs was fired from Apple. Fred Smith of Fedex was told his blueprint for overnight delivery was wildly impractical, and Jack Bogle of the Vanguard Group was told his idea for a financial services company owned by its shareholders was doomed to failure.

The only antidote is to believe in yourself and your idea–but mainly in yourself. After all, every business plan is wrong in its original form: A good part of entrepreneurial genius is being able change quickly. Jennifer Hyman of Rent the Runway, for example, originally thought her business was about saving frugal women money on their workday wardrobes. After watching one of her customers try on a couture gown, though, she realized she was in the business of helping women realize their Cinderella fantasies. Ideas change, but the entrepreneurs don't.

And what gives entrepreneurs the ability to pull off the impossible, is belief. Belief leads you to ask “what’s possible?” and then follows that question with “what else is possible?” You have to do this in your business, if you intend to survive. A positive attitude, creativity and determination combine to create genius.

Former First Lady Nancy Reagan recounts a story about the genius of the Greatest Generation. “Once, at the University of California, a student got up to say that it was impossible for people of her generation to understand the next generation of young people.

‘You grew up in a different world,’ the student said. ‘Today we have television, jet planes, space travel, nuclear energy, computers...’

“When the student paused for breath, Nancy said: ‘You're right. We didn't have those things when we were young. We invented them.’”

Mackay’s Moral: What could you accomplish if no one told you it was impossible?

Most would say you'd have to be crazy. But this Chinese gadgetmaker proves being crazy can make you $100 million a year.

In a contest with a giant, you might think that you can't win. And in some ways, you'd be right, as the David versus Goliath image is overplayed. A small or medium business that tries to compete with Starbucks in mass marketing upscale coffee will likely lose. Think your tire start-up will outsell Goodyear, Michelin, or Firestone? Good luck.

But it's still possible to compete with a massive power and carve out enough out of a market to make a good business without having to sell your first born (and those of everyone in your company) for enough cash to fund your ad campaign. Look at what Leader International, a Chinese-based company that sells Android tablets, is pulling off.

Not even the Motorolas and Samsungs of the world have shaken the Apple iPad out of first place, so what can a newcomer do? How about sell enough tablets through the likes of K-Mart, Sears, and the Home Shopping Network to expect to move 500,000 units this year for $100 million in revenue?

According to Vice-President of Sales Gary Bennett, Leader's strategy was never to become a top-tier player. "In this business, Apple has 80 percent of it, maybe 75," he says. "Then you have the Samsungs, Motorola—the second tier." Following far behind are Android tablet manufacturers that skimped on materials, used smaller screens, and made other compromises to compete on price.

Leader decided that there was an opportunity in the middle. "Our tablet is the same size as the iPad," Bennett says. "It uses the same [10-inch] panel that the iPad I and iPad II use. We use the same chip set in the iPad I, which is the single core Cortex chip." The body is brushed aluminum, rather than the black plastic you can find with many lower-end vendors. Each unit also comes with a case included. "Cosmetically-wise, we're trying to take a page from the TV business: Make your product look different and stand out on the shelf." Customer service is U.S.-based instead of outsourced overseas.

Not only does higher quality help make the products stand out, but it lowers the return rate, which would otherwise eat into profitability. Returned units do get refurbished, but the company sells them in China at a discount. Doing so in the U.S. would undercut pricing.

Better quality also made the unit attractive to K-Mart, Sears, and HSN, which was key. "To try and build a brand nowadays, you're going to have to spend $30 or $40 million a year," Bennett says. Leader didn't have that kind of money to invest. But selling through major names became a replacement.

"The trick is keeping in the monthly rotations," Bennett says, referring to the ads and fliers that retailers use to woo customers. "You try to be part of their ad planning at least once a month. If you can get in more often, that's great." And, contrary to a common view, he says that Leader does not pay co-op money to the retailers to get featured. Instead, the manufacturer offers a compelling price point.

Leader does sacrifice the mid- to long-horizon product planning that large companies undertake. That is become of the thin margins it makes on its products. (Leader tablets sell to retailers for about $200.) "What we do better is faster decisions and we can make product changes," Bennett says. "All last year, [our retailers] would make suggestions on how to make the product better. They see all the competitors. Our company reacted and that's how we got the Sears and K-Mart business and HSN business. A lot of times the bigger companies just don't move as quickly, and a lot of times when they have a product plan, they stick with it."

By listening to the retailers, Leader could create a product that the buyers wanted to promote. And that opened the doors the company needed.

Is $3.5 million for 30 seconds of fame worth it? These businesses are putting it all on the line during Super Bowl XLVI.

Some make you laugh, others (attempt to) make you cry. Others, well, they're forgettable.

It's all part of the fun at the Super Bowl, where brands spend upwards of $3 million for 30 seconds to capture the world's attention. "More than a game, the Super Bowl is a cultural event, a truly American spectacle, and the ads are very much a part of the experience," notes Advertising Age's digital editor, Michael Learmonth. To be sure, airtime in between downs will be dominated by the big players: Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and GM are steadfast Super Bowl advertisers. But the little guys are taking a shot, too. Here's a look at ads from seven (smaller) brands taking a run at prime time.

Hulu's debut Super Bowl spot, starring Will Arnett, features the Arrested Development star trying to break into the Hollywood "H." The thrust of this ad spot teaser is social media: Viewers are encouraged to tweet with the hashtag #mushymush and urged to follow @HuluPlus on Twitter. Founded in 2007 in Los Angeles, the video-on-demand service sold a 27 percent stake to Disney in 2009. In 2011, the company made a reported $420 million. Also of note: The ad was directed Crispin Porter + Bogusky, the trendy Boulder-based advertising firm whom you may recall from Inc.com's 2011 Worlds Coolest Offices.

This year, GoDaddy has gone meta. The Web-hosting service was founded in 1997 in Scottsdale, Arizona, by Bob Parsons, and sold in July 2011 for $2.25 billion to investors. After years of Super Bowl ads that drew attention—and ire—for featuring scantily clad models promoting the company's Web-hosting service (the GoDaddy Girls), the company has turned the attention inward. In the ad, Jillian Michaels, the actress and fitness guru, is painting a nude young women with the company's new product: a ".co" suffix for URLs. "Who won't notice a hot model in body paint?" she says.

Every Super Bowl has at least one advertising controversy: Will CareerBuilder.com be the company that receives that inauspicious award in 2012? The online jobs portal, which was founded in Chicago in 1995 by Rob McGowan, earned nearly $600 million in revenue in 2010, according to the latest data available. Its ad this year features chimps wearing suits and ties terrorizing a young man working a dull 9-to-5 office job, rehashes a similar theme from last year when Chimps (also in suits and ties) locked the actor in his car in the company parking lot. In 2011, one Chicago zoo even mounted a campaign against the company to remove the ad, fearing that the commercial would inspire people to buy the chimps as pets (remember: they're an endangered species).

"The next great entrepreneur is out there. Will it be you?" asks the non-profit entrepreneurship foundation's first Super Bowl ad. The 30-second spot reportedly cost less than $400,000 dollars to make, and will air in only four major markets (racking up not all, but a sizeable portion of the nearly 172 million anticipated Game-Day viewers). The Missouri-based group was founded in the 1960s by local entrepreneur Ewig Kauffman, whose mission was to foster start-ups and encourage innovation.

Stoneyfield (and also partner Dannon) are touting their line of Greek yogurt in a 30-second commercial starring actor John Stamos and a lovely lady counterpart that will reportedly air during the third quarter of the game. This is the first time a yogurt brand has paid the hefty price tag for a Super Bowl spotlight. The New-Hampshire based Stoneyfield was founded in 1983 by entrepreneur and organic farmer Gary Hirshberg.

Dubbed the “Negotiator's Last Deal," Priceline's ad features actor William Shatner—as usual—trying to save a family of vacationers from "paying too much" on travel. But unlike other ads, (spoiler alert!) Shatner doesn't survive this dramatic mission. The commercial marks the real end to Shatner's 14-years as the Connecticut company's spokesman. "One of the challenges we face is that Bill is so awesome and so closely associated with Priceline that we needed to grab back consumers' attention," Priceline.com Chief Marketing Officer Brett Keller told Advertising Age recently. Priceline was launched in 1998 by digital entrepreneur Jay Walker.

For small companies looking to make a statement in 30 seconds or less, Apple set the bar in 1984. Back then, Apple was still a growing company looking to shake up the tech world and break IBM's hold over the market. Directed by Ridley Scott (Blade Runner), Apple's Super Bowl spot, which announced the imminent release of the Macintosh computer, looked more like a sci-fi movie than a commercial—a runner throws a sledge hammer through a giant screen that was mesmerizing hundreds of people. It's arguably one of the most memorable commercials in advertising history.

As our business grew, I started neglecting my family and friends--and no advice seemed to help bring balance. That is, until I read this passage.

Is attaining balance really possible in an entrepreneurial environment? Over the past six years I have struggled to achieve some semblance of balance when it comes to managing both my business with my personal life. I have read several books, and sought counseling from wise sages. None have been able to provide me with a sound strategy to achieve some semblance of balance in my life.

This got me thinking, is balance in a start-up entrepreneurial environment really possible?

The reason why I bring this up is because one of my good friends from childhood has cancer. I went to see him a few months ago and he had just finished chemotherapy, and was recovering. Prior to that meeting, I hadn't seen him for about a year.

As I spoke with my friend and reflected on how short life is, I began to think about that factors that caused me to not contact him in the last year. What it came down to was myself becoming so immersed in the success of my business that I completely lost touch with him. This got me thinking: With all of the technology we have today to simplify, streamline, and generally make our lives easier, why I can’t achieve some semblance of balance in my life?

First let's consider: what precisely do I mean by balance? In my case, it's managing the growth and success of my business alongside my relationships with my wife, kids, family, and friends.

With a good deal of self-reflection I can honestly say that I am not successful in achieving balance. I always feel like I should or could be doing more with my business, my family, and my health. Is this just the plight of the entrepreneur, to constantly become so focused on something such that you lose sight and interest in all other things. This can't be it.

After researching the subject and looking at strategies ranging the gamut from dedicating specific times out the month to family, friends, and health, to performing yoga three times a week, the best advice I read came from a book of fiction, Suzanne's Diary to Nicholas, by James Patterson.

Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five balls. The balls are called work, family, health, friends, and integrity. And you're keeping all of them in the air. But one day you finally come to understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls—family, health, friends, integrity—are made of glass. I you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered. And once you truly understand the lesson of the five balls, you will have the beginnings of balance in your life.

That's outstanding advice. Most entrepreneurs are deeply passionate about their work and vision for their companies. The reason why we work so hard is to be able to share it with our loved ones. If we do not take the time to cherish those relationships then all of this hard work will be for naught. As you focus on growing your business and the everyday challenges that come along with that goal keep in mind the phrase above.

For my foodies and wine lovers thinking about how to better balance career and personal life, try one of the most well balanced red wines I've ever had in my life, the Lions Drift Pinotage. It's clear, bright ruby red color encourages reflection while its full body and long finish, that includes hints of blueberry pie sprinkled with cinnamon, inspires enjoyment and a sense of balance.

Sometimes, "perfect" can be a problem. Here's how to make your company more nimble.

We have a common saying in my company: You can either be slow and perfect or fast and good. Perfect a month from now usually misses the mark; the world changes too fast, leaving you not perfect, but rather perfectly late.

You may fall, of course; you do run the risk of making more mistakes this way. But what's most important is how quickly you pick yourself back up–and what you learn from the experience.

This idea of "fast and good" is crucial for small business owners who are constantly striving to be more adaptive and more nimble. When you're running a small business, you don't have months and months to get everything right. By the time it's perfect, it'll be obsolete. In order to stay relevant in the market, you have to be able to try things, take risks and be flexible enough to adapt quickly to change.

Here are five ways to take your company from "slow and perfect" to "fast and good."

1. Take Advantage of Mistakes

There's experience and then there's learning. The difference is that learning hurts. The next time something goes wrong, find a way to make sure it doesn't happen again: Break down what happened and figure out exactly what you could do differently. Then put your safeguards in place right away, before the same thing happens again.

2. Clarify Your Expectations

If part of your corporate culture is going to be to speed up the pace, you have to know what's "good enough." If there are members of your team who aren't comfortable with anything short of "perfect," help them to establish "good enough" as their new equilibrium.

A faster pace also means you'll reach your outcomes faster than you're used to. By figuring out ahead of time what constitutes "good enough," you'll know when you've arrived–and can move on to the next goal.

3. Be Intentional

To say yes to the things that will really impact your bottom line, you need to figure out when you're going to say "no." Start off each week by identifying three to five things that you need to have accomplished by Friday afternoon. Say to yourself: If nothing else gets done this week, I will deem this week a success if I get x, y and z done.

You can't do everything–but if you're preemptive and realistic, you can control what falls by the wayside rather than constantly scrambling.

4. Open Lines of Communication

As you increase your speed of operation, you'll inevitably depend more upon members of your team more. To avoid potential hang-ups, give them a heads up whenever you realize you'll be needing their input, approval, or time. When you're moving forward quickly, err on the side of keeping them too informed rather than underinformed.

5. Focus on Effectiveness

I too often see people who are so busy being "productive" that they're not effective. When you're flying at a million miles an hour, make sure you're doing things to move forward, rather than just moving to move. Ask yourself constantly: How does this task get me closer to my end goal?

I'm not promising you a bruise-free path ahead. But if you follow these tips, you'll be able to pick up the pace at which your company operates, making you both more nimble and more adaptive.

A five-time entrepreneur makes the case for launching a company in Silicon Beach. He's not the only fan.

Los Angeles is the capital of small business in the United States, according to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Ramon Villaraigosa, at a reception earlier this month for Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Finalists. L.A., dubbed "Silicon Beach," has become a breeding ground for successful Internet and advertising companies. I have a theory about why.

I moved to L.A. (from Chicago) 13 years ago, in the midst of the dot-com boom, to build an online advertising company, L90/adMonitor. In addition to warm weather and beautiful beaches, I found a very creative, innovative talent pool of agile thinkers. I think it was behavior bred from Hollywood, an industry that's highly competitive and constantly innovating. We had a great ride with the company. And we didn't raise venture capital money until our IPO.

A huge contributor to the company's success was the wealth of creative and innovative talent in L.A. While during the dot-com boom there was a lot of competition for talent and people tended to job hop, I didn't find that to be the case in L.A. The loyalty and consistency of the team created a culture that was hard to beat.

For my next start-up, I tried Northern California. I started StrongMail Systems, an enterprise software company with very different engineering, sales, and marketing talent needs. Enterprise software requires longer-cycle, hard-core engineering rather than dot-com development, which is more creative, and has quicker cycles. After raising money from Sequoia Capital, I decided to move the company to Silicon Valley, to be closer to the resources and partners we needed. But I found a very different, and less conducive culture in Silicon Valley. One that was filled with a lot of talent, but also was highly-competitive, less loyal, and focused almost exclusively on technology. Everywhere I'd go, restaurants, bars, coffee shops, I heard people talking about starting new companies or technologies. It was quite the bubble.

For my fifth start-up, I chose L.A. After hiring a management team and CEO to run StrongMail, I moved back to L.A. to start the Rubicon Project, an advertising technology company. My vision was a perfect mix of Silicon Valley technology and Silicon Beach creative advertising thinking. Why'd I pick L.A.? First, I learned that because of Hollywood, Madison Avenue has spoken the same language as those in L.A. for many years. The industry, by contrast, doesn't speak C++, Java, or SOA.

In addition, it turns out, venture capitalists are more active in L.A. than ever before. Venture capitalists often tell me they spend one-third of their time in L.A. As a result, the area (also including Orange County) is the fourth largest recipient of venture capital in the U.S. after Silicon Valley, New England, and New York; it had nearly $2 billion invested in 2011, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association.

No wonder. There have been a lot of hugely-successful exits in L.A.: Overture's $1.7billion sale to Yahoo!; MySpace for $580 million to News Corporation; Business.com to R.H. Donnelly for $345 million; Shopzilla to E.W. Scripps for $525 million; and LowerMyBills.com to Experian for $330 million. Now, IPO rumors surround eHarmony. These companies created an entrepreneurial ecosystem of talent and capital.

And many of these companies survived the dot-com bust. I believe it's because, like Chicago, my hometown, there wasn't initially easy access to venture capital in L.A. and entrepreneurs had no choice but to build profitable business models from the start. That discipline is still ingrained in L.A.'s entrepreneurial culture. It's about businesses that work, not businesses that venture capitalists will buy into.

Last, but not least, are the people in L.A., the ones I noticed when I first got here. I'm a strong believer that team and culture are what make the difference between a good company and a great one. The talent pool in L.A. is deep, creative, agile, well-balanced, and loyal. Oh, and I am writing this at the beach in January…

How do people think outside of the proverbial box? They know how to view things more expansively. Here's how.

A few years back our litigation team was faced with a seemingly insurmountable task: how to defend our client’s trademark rights against a Fortune 500 company with a massive litigation budget. They had the facts on their side. Moreover, they had money. Worst of all, they had a gaggle of lawyers that just made the case down right unpleasant. In spite of this, as luck would have it, they were missing one very crucial thing that they had never learned in law school. Something big firm life had failed to teach them. Quite simply, they were limited in their thinking to that which was rather than that which could be.

Looking beyond conventional defense methods, we deconstructed every element of the case until we discovered a plan to turn the tables. In trademark law priority of use is everything. Whoever is the first to use a specific trademark typically wins an infringement case, especially where the trademarks as well as the goods and services of the parties involved are very similar if not identical. At any rate, the other side had priority of use. The trademarks were very similar. The services were almost identical. We might as well just throw in the towel, right? Wrong!

In thinking beyond the realm of traditional defenses, we wondered what if we could find someone else who had priority of use associated with their own trademark that preceded that of the opposing party? What if we could find this mythical entity and purchase their rights to their trademark, thus acquiring their earlier priority rights as compared to those of our opponent? Could it work?

Well, not only could it, it did. After a brief search we found a small company in a Midwestern state that miraculously had been using the same trademark as our opponent for more than 50 years. They were considering closing their business already when we arrived and bought them out for a fraction of what it would have cost to defend the case in court. After acquiring their trademark rights including the priority of use date prior to that of our opponent’s first use date, that gaggle of lawyers quickly moved from shooting at fish in a barrel to being the fish in the barrel. The case settled within days.

How did we do it? How can you? Sometimes when you are losing in a game you have to stop playing by the rules, switch it up, and change the game itself.

People often speak about thinking outside the box, but how do you really do it? What does it mean to be limited to inside the box as opposed to being outside? The key is to define the box in any given situation and then to seek alternative, often unconventional solutions that would be considered beyond the norm.

When you are faced with a seemingly insurmountable obstacle, train yourself to not merely focus on the specific issue at hand but also think more expansively about all of the reasons and the paths that led to the issue. Consider every possibility and hypothetical alteration of that reality along the path, never being dismissive of anything. When you do this, alternative solutions will often materialize giving you options you did not see when narrowly focusing on a specific issue.

Here are a few tips that we have learned along the way that have aided us in getting outside the box:

1. Identify the issue.

2. Determine whether a regular or typical solution to the problem exists.

3. If one does, you’re done. If no, map out everything that went into creating the issue. In this aspect, be expansive. Include everything possible.

4. Once you start mapping out the issue more completely, start looking for ways to address the situation in one of the more outlying areas that was not considered previously.

5. Never dismiss a possible solution on the basis, “It simply cannot be done.” Consider everything. Go through every possibility until you know for a fact it can or cannot be done.

This is exactly the way we won the case referenced above. If we thought inside the box our thinking would have been:

1. Can we defend on the grounds the trademarks are not similar? No.

2. Can we defend on the grounds the trademarks are used on different goods and/or services? No.

3. Do we have priority of use? No.

In thinking outside the box we began looking at how did the opponent acquire their trademark rights they are now asserting against us? Could we acquire trademark rights that are superior to theirs? We could if there was another company out there using the same trademark as our opponent before they did that would be willing to sell it to our client for a reasonable price. Well, let’s see if we can find one. And we did.

Teach yourself to look at problems more expansively. Never be dismissive of a potential solution before you have thoroughly thought it through. Think outside the proverbial box.

As part of Facebook's IPO filing, founder Mark Zuckerberg praised the concept of the "hackathon." Could something similar benefit your company, even if you're not in tech?

Welcome to 2012, a time in which hacking is praised in S-1 filings. Facebook, you may have, just maybe, heard, is going public. The IPO has set off a flurry of interest among investors and the media. Meanwhile, the company's youthful founder took the occasion to pen a letter about the fundamental mission behind his multi-billion dollar brain child. "The Hacker Way," he writes is central to how Facebook does business:

The word "hacker" has an unfairly negative connotation from being portrayed in the media as people who break into computers. In reality, hacking just means building something quickly or testing the boundaries of what can be done…. The Hacker Way is an approach to building that involves continuous improvement and iteration. Hackers believe that something can always be better, and that nothing is ever complete. They just have to go fix it—often in the face of people who say it’s impossible or are content with the status quo.

Hackers try to build the best services over the long term by quickly releasing and learning from smaller iterations rather than trying to get everything right all at once.

How does Facebook put this hacker ethos into practice and instill these ideals in its employees? Hackathons, says Zuckerburg. "To encourage this approach, every few months we have a hackathon, where everyone builds prototypes for new ideas they have. At the end, the whole team gets together and looks at everything that has been built. Many of our most successful products came out of hackathons, including Timeline, chat, video, our mobile development framework and some of our most important infrastructure like the HipHop compiler."

A hackathon is an intriguing idea to drive talent towards risk taking, experimentation and, dare I type it, even fun. But can it work in firms that lack hackers, meaning those in older school industries that produce physical goods or analog services rather than code? Sure, says writer and entrepreneur Glen Stansberry in an American Express OPEN Forum post recently, explaining that a "hack day" might be a great idea for your business as well for several reasons:

• It's exciting and morale boosting. "The event itself was far more exciting than I thought it would be," says Stansberry of his company's hack day.
• It teaches the skill of shipping. "Shipping–as defined by Seth Godin–is defeating resistance and delivering a product, even if the product isn't perfect."
• Having a hack day project "out there" gives you something to start improving. "When our Hack Day was done, we had something that was, in all honesty, pretty terrible," Stansberry admits. "But that's not the important part. The important part was the psychological boost of knowing that it was out there, and it's driven us to improve it daily."

If you think you need to be in the tech biz to reap these same benefits, think again. Nearly all business have a problem or project that you team could tackle for a hack day, according to Stansberry:

Most likely there's a new idea, or some aspect of your business that needs some serious work. A hack day is a perfect opportunity to tackle it. The important thing is that you take a day to make a minimum viable product and release it. So the question for you is this: what can you do to improve your business in a day? What can you build or re-work in a day that will allow your team to feel the success of shipping?

Could borrowing the concept of Facebook's "hackathon" benefit your business?

It's a mistake to refuse an apology to angry customers. Here's how to get really good at saying 'I'm sorry.'

Years ago when working for a large corporation I attended a meeting that was hosted by our corporate counsel and loss prevention department. The gist was to educate all of us on the pitfalls of saying "I'm sorry" when dealing with a customer service issue or complaint. Their concern was that this might be considered an admission of liability. After several of us voiced a concern we were finally told that we could tell upset customers that "we were sorry for how they felt."

This new direction was one that I was very uncomfortable with, but to this day I remember the rigid interpretations and shake my head and smile. It seems that some corporate staffers like to create policies that deal with a statistically small number of people. So we see these policies developed due to the 2 percent but applied to everyone.

So I am going to share to share a very brief view on unhappy customers. First we all know the statistical impact on our reputations by the customer who is unhappy with our service, as well as those that are happy. Needless to say those that are unhappy are much more likely to share their bad service story than those that are satisfied. But there is a group that is often overlooked. This group starts out unhappy but is ultimately so overwhelmed by your recovery that they become customers for life.

Recovery and its strategy in service is key to successful customer service. For all you linear thinkers out there the first step should always be to get it right the first time and meet expectation. But we all know that doesn't always happen. When it doesn't, we need to recover. Done the right way, the customer who has the experience will tell a story. Not how bad their initial experience was but the story of how well they were treated, respected and cared for in the recovery.

So here are some steps to consider:

The ability to sell at the highest level is the result of genetics. But this doesn't mean you can't be a sales star.

I recently had a conversation with John Asher, the CEO of the sales training firm Asher Training, where he cited research that at least 50 percent of success in sales is directly related to natural talent. "Some people simply don't have the innate talent to be successful in sales," he explained.

What's really interesting, though, is that he says the true sales stars–the 4 percent with the most innate talent–are responsible for selling 94 percent of the goods and services. I've heard other, less dramatic, statistics, but either way: there's no question that sales stars book the bulk of every company's sales.

On the surface this might seem discouraging. After all, if only a very few people can sell well, what are the chances that you are one of them?

It turns out it's not that cut-and-dried. Not every sales job or sales situation is the same. Some require the outgoing, driving personality that most people associated with professional sales, but just as many sales jobs favor people who are introverted and detail oriented.

What Are You Selling?

For example, if you want to sell semiconductor design services to high-tech companies, you'd better be able to think and act like a engineer, because otherwise none of your buyers will even talk to you. Give a typical "sales pitch" and you'll be laughed out of the building.

The importance of finding the right match for your personality becomes clear when sales stars move from one type of sales job to another.

According to Howard Stevens, CEO of the sales research firm Chally Worldwide, sales stars often see their success rates plummet when they're assigned to a different type of products. He characterizes sales stars as "savants," who are optimized for a certain type of sales behavior and who are worse-than-average performers in another environment. "Companies often lose a lot of sales and money when they wrongly assume that selling talent can be moved around arbitrarily."

The trick to becoming a sales star is to match your personality to the type of sales that you're attempting to do. This is true whether you sell full time, or whether selling is just part of your job.

When to Hire Outside Help

For example, entrepreneurs who start companies are often very good at selling ideas to investors–but often not so good at reselling established products to existing customers. That requires a different personality, which is why smart entrepreneurs delegate ongoing sales activities to other people.

Once you've found the area of sales where you can shine, then you can start thinking about sales training and coaching to improve your performance. On the other hand, if you're trying to sell in a way that's unnatural to you, no amount of sales training is going to work.

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Don't be too focused on your product--because if you're not building a community for it, it may never get off the ground.

When you are first starting your business, it can seem as if there are an infinite number of items on your to-do list and not enough hours in the day. While it's important to put in the necessary time to build out your product or service, there is a danger in being overly focused.

As an entrepreneur you have to immerse yourself in the communities that revolve around your business. I've met a number of entrepreneurs who built their vision, but were confused why users did not come flocking once their site was live.

Case Studies: Building Community

For instance, if you're a tech startup building a fitness web application, then you should work on becoming major contributors in both the tech and fitness communities. Fitocracy—which makes fitness more engaging and addictive through game mechanics and social reinforcement—is a perfect example. In less than 16 months, co-founders Brian Wang and Dick Talens were able to create a community of more than 200,000 members—without spending any money on marketing. They openly told their own fitness stories to existing online fitness communities; they also contribute regularly on blogs and forums with fitness tips and other thoughts. The two of them were able to create a loyal following quickly by relating to others, offering solid advice and creating friendships with in the community.

Another great example is founder Kellee Khalil, of wedding inspiration site Lover.ly. Prior to moving to New York, Kellee worked to help build her sister's wedding-focused public relations company. The two of them spent years in the trenches together, learning about the industry from top to bottom. This enabled them to form close relationships with an incredible number of people in the wedding space; when Kellee started her own company, the community was more than happy to help.

Networking Goes Both Ways

It's important to realize that being part of the community is not just networking. You need to focus on building real relationships: Be authentic in your desire to contribute. Remember it's a two-way street and you should always offer to help out the others in the community.

You'll see that:

• You will get a more honest and realistic view of the industry that you're working in when you spend time with others in the community.
• Members in the community will gladly provide you with feedback and help you continually improve your product or service.
• When you launch your site, make changes to your product, or offer a new service, you will have a base set of supporters that will want—and be able—to help you.
• As you continue contributing to the growth of the community, you will start to establish credibility. It will be easier for you to start conversations with others you may need in the future.

Now of course, being a contributor to your industry's community will not make up for an inferior product or service. But it's a key step that you shouldn't procrastinate on. Relationship building can be exhausting, especially in the beginning—but you will find that the payoff for your business and personal growth will be invaluable down the road.

After all the tears and sweat you've poured into making yourself successful, you'd let these little oversights wreck your financial security?

The worst mistakes you may be making with your money aren't the ones you think you're making. Forget about the thing everyone talks about, which is investing smarts. Its practical effect is overrated. Believe me, it doesn't matter that you aren't getting a piece of Facebook's IPO. (The number of people who got rich of tech IPOs is dwarfed by the number who lost money in them.) Who cares if the only thing you think when you see an ETF is WTF? The lousy investing record of most individual investors only proves that a little knowledge, more often than not, is a dangerous thing.

Every financial planner will tell you that the most tragic money mistakes have to do with elementary safeguards that go overlooked or unused. They take no investing expertise to fix and are easy to take care of—until they become irreversible and potentially devastating. Here are four of them. If you are looking for a late starting 20120 financial resolution you can actually keep, resolve to polish off all four of these. And do it this weekend.

Not saving for retirement – Far too many business owners miss the opportunity each year to make a contribution to an IRA or SEP or solo 401(k) simply because they don’t think of it. If you have of these plans, confirm that you’re making the maximum contribution. (And don't forget: if you are 50 or older, you may get to make a higher contribution than everyone else.) If you and your spouse contribute to IRAs, check with your CPA to find out if you can make a contribution for 2011—yes, 2011. You have until April 16, 2012 to make your contribution for 2011. If you don't have an established plan, there is a chance that you can fund a company plan or an IRA for 2011 in a few simple steps. Call your CPA or financial planner today.

Not being insured – You probably already have coverage within your company to account for any type of scenario that could happen at work, but what about on the personal side? Call your insurance agent or financial advisor and have them review your current policies. In my experience, most clients who do so find an opportunity either to upgrade inefficient coverage or do away with a policy that no longer serves its purpose. At the very least, you’ll go identify what you've actually insured. Property and casualty insurance—which includes home, auto and umbrella liability—is a competitive business; there’s no reason to pay above market prices for below average protection.

Sloughing off your taxes – Don’t rush around to get your CPA everything at the eleventh hour and leave your tax filing until the deadline. It's a sure way to miss possible deductions. Call your CPA today and ask him or her to send you a tax organizer or set a meeting to sit down with them this month to be sure you have everything gathered. If you don’t have a CPA, talk to colleagues or your financial advisor about finding someone that fits your specific needs. Having a qualified professional prepare your taxes is typically worth the price and you might end up saving on taxes simply by having a fresh set of eyes review your situation.

Forgetting about beneficiaries – If you own a 401(k), any type of IRA, an insurance policy, a Transfer-On-Death (TOD) account or Payable-On-Death (POD) account, review your beneficiaries. More often than not in my experience, clients forget to update their beneficiary designations to reflect the changes in their lives. Call the financial institution that provides your statements and confirm with them that you have the proper beneficiaries listed on your accounts. Often clients are stunned to find out that they their estate—or worse, an ex-spouse—would have been the only heir to their life's work. Better for you to find this out now than for your heirs to learn it after you're gone.

Accomplish these four things and you'll have done a year's worth of good for your personal financial health. And you'll still have most of 2012 ahead of you.

Nick Cosky, CFP contributed to this article

Don't get called out on faulty numbers or assumptions. Take it from Dan Osit, co-founder of Ignighter, and create projections for best, worst, and modest scenarios.

In the race to get Internet TV shows and movies into the living room, Boxee co-founder Idan Cohen notices unanticipated advantages of being the (much) smaller player.

Determination to succeed was vital to Margaret Thatcher's drive, but left unchecked it led to her undoing. Meryl Streep personifies this leadership lesson in her latest movie.

It is not enough to be; one must do!

That adage aptly sums up the theme of The Iron Lady, the new biopic starring Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher. While some in Britain are questioning the scenes of Mrs. Thatcher in a state of old-age dementia, as a leadership drama it is masterful. Through flashbacks of key moments of Thatcher's leadership life, the film explores the nature of power and its impact on self and others.

Viewers learn that Margaret's desire to make a difference was shaped by her strong relationship with her father, a grocer, and mayor of Grantham in the East Midlands. Her spine was stiffened by her determination to succeed in the rough and tumble—and dominantly male—world of British politics. It was this drive that propelled her to speak her mind, make her mark, and eventually to become Britain's first—and only—woman Prime Minister.

Such is the drive that serves her in good stead as she fights the twin demons of this drama, the Irish Republican Army, and the militant trades unions. Peace in Northern Ireland would elude her administration. But Thatcher did break the stranglehold of union militancy and championed free enterprise that ushered in a new era of prosperity.

Another theme that runs through the film dwells on the personal cost that Mrs. Thatcher bore simply because of her gender. Her quest for relevancy meant that she had to make sacrifices at home that at times strained relations with her husband and twins. Every woman in a position of power can certainly bear witness to the struggle that Thatcher endured simply to be considered seriously.

The moral of this film—and one that resonates with leaders today—is that the quest for power does have limits. In short the same pushing to be heard that gets you considered for a position of authority must be tempered when finally reaching that position of power. Mrs. Thatcher, after becoming one of the longest-serving Prime Ministers in history, was ousted by members of own party. Many were simply tired of her single-minded and heavy-handed management style.

One scene should make every leader cringe. It features Thatcher at a Cabinet meeting snatching a document from one of her most trusted aides. As she copyedits it, she makes disparaging comments about the document and its author. No doubt many viewers will have witnessed scenes such as this when a top boss berates a subordinate over trivial matters. Mrs. Thatcher's petulant cruelty demonstrates that she and she alone is in charge. Lord Acton's mantra that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely is on full display.

Leaders who succeed are those who believe in their ability to make a positive difference. Yet sometimes, as shown in the story of The Iron Lady, too much belief in oneself leads to arrogance, hubris, and eventually undoing.

How to ask for what you want -- and get it. Eleven tips for the confrontation-shy.

I admit it. I hate negotiating. (Hate negotiating.)

To me, a negotiation always feels at least a little confrontational, and I’m a confrontation-averse kinda guy.

Unfortunately, negotiating is a fact of business life.

So if you’re like me—a negotiating sissy—here are a few ways to make negotiating a little less stressful, a little more fun, and a lot more successful:

1. Make the first bid. People hate to go first if only because going first might mean missing out on an opportunity: "If I quote a price of $5,000,” the thinking goes, “and he would have happily paid $7,000, I leave money on the table.” In the real world, that rarely happens, because the other person almost always has a reasonable understanding of value.

So set an anchor with your first offer. (The value of an offer is highly influenced by the first relevant number—an anchor—that enters a negotiation. That anchor strongly influences the rest of the negotiation.)

Research shows that when a seller makes the first offer the final price is typically higher than if the buyer made the first offer. Why? The buyer's first offer will always be low. That sets a lower anchor. In negotiations, anchors matter.

If you’re buying, be first and start the bidding low. If you’re selling, start the bidding high.

2. Use silence as a tool. Most of us talk a lot when we’re nervous, but when we talk a lot, we miss a lot.

If you make an offer and the seller says, "That is way too low," don't respond right away. Sit tight. The seller will start talking in order to fill the silence. Maybe he’ll list reasons why your offer is too low. Maybe he’ll share why he needs to make a deal so quickly. Most of the time the seller will fill the silence with useful information—information you would never have learned if you were speaking.

Listen and think more than you speak. When you do speak, ask open-ended questions. You can't meet in the middle, much less on your side of the middle, unless you know what other people really need.

Be quiet. They’ll tell you.

3. Expect the best. High expectations typically lead to high outcomes. Always go into the negotiation assuming you can get what you want. Always assume you can make a deal on your terms.

You can't receive if you don't ask. Always ask.

4. Never set a range. People love to ask for ballpark figures. Don’t provide them; ballpark figures set anchors, too.

For example, don’t say, "My guess is the cost will be somewhere between $500 and $1,0000." The buyer will naturally want the final cost to be as close to $500 as possible—even if what you are eventually asked to provide should cost well over $1,000.

Never provide an estimate when you don’t have enough information. Keep asking questions instead.

5. Concede for a reason. Say a buyer asks you to cut your price. Always get something in return by taking something off the table. Every price reduction or increase in value should involve a trade-off of some kind.

Follow the same logic if you are the buyer. When you make a second offer, always ask for something else in return for that higher price. And if you expect the negotiations to drag on, feel free to ask for things you don't really want so you can concede them later.

6. Never negotiate alone. While you probably do have the final word, being the ultimate decision-maker can leave you feeling cornered.

Always have a reason to step away and get a final okay from another person, even if that other person is just you.

It might feel wimpy to say, “I need to talk this over with a few people first,” but better to feel wimpy than to be pressured into a decision you don’t want to make.

7. Use time to your advantage. Even though you may hate everything about negotiating, never try to wrap a negotiation up as soon as possible just to be done with it. Haste always results in negotiation waste.

Plus there’s another advantage to going slowly. Even though money may never change hands, negotiations are still an investment in time. Most people don’t want to lose on their investments. The more time the other side puts in the more they will want to close the deal… and the more likely they will be to make concessions so they can close the deal.

While some people will walk away, most will hang in for much longer than you might think.

8. Ignore bold statements. Never assume everything you hear is true. The bolder the statement the more likely it is to be a negotiating tactic.

Strong statements are either a bullying tactic or a sign of insecurity. (Or, often, both.) If you feel intimidated, walk away. Otherwise, listen closely for what lies under all the bluster and posturing.

9. Give the other person room. You feel defensive when you feel trapped; so does the other party.

Push too hard and take away every option and the other person may have no choice but to walk away. You don't want that, because...

10. Don’t try to win. Negotiating isn’t a game to be won or lost. The best negotiation leaves both people feeling they received something of value. Don’t try to be a ruthless negotiator; you’re not built that way.

Instead, always try to…

11. Build a relationship. Never take too much from the table, and never leave too much. As you negotiate, always think about how what you say and do can help establish a long-term business relationship. A long-term relationship not only makes negotiating easier the next time, it also makes your business world a better place.

I've seen founders get an early share of the upside using this strategy--without putting their companies in danger or angering their investors.

It's front-page news today: Founders are getting rich. When is it your turn? It could be now before you exit--but there are several factors to consider before you even think about trying to cash out early.

Yes, despite all of the talk of a "bubble," the venture-funding environment is still hot. And yes, founders continue to enjoy increased negotiating leverage. But don't kid yourself—most founders are not in a position to cash out early. Even though we are seeing an increasing number of founder early liquidity events, they are still for the most part rare, outlier transactions. In order to take money off of the table now, your financing round needs to have a significant amount of momentum behind it. Founder liquidity is a lot more likely when the company is doing extraordinarily well and there are competing financing offers on the table.

Going into a possible founder liquidity opportunity, you've likely been running a lean start-up and paying yourself modestly (if at all) for at least a few years. Taking some chips off the table now would be a life-changing event, for you and your family. No matter how important your sale of shares could be, you should leave your liquidity aspirations out of the initial VC discussions. I've literally seen founders include a bullet point about cashing out in their pitch deck. Don't do that.

Create some genuine heat around your deal--and then once an investor has agreed to terms in principal or laid down a term sheet, make the ask. Don't muddy the waters in the early stages of the negotiation--or you run the risk of sending mixed signals about motivation and commitment to your start-up.

If you talk to anyone familiar with founders taking money off the table, you'll hear one consistent message: Giving founders liquidity is intended to relieve financial pressure and allow founders to focus on the "home run exit." This justification should be the central component of your ask. You need to convince investors and your board that you are fully committed to the company. Show them that a small payout now can help alleviate fears and encourage you to take bold, calculated risks in your efforts to create a wildly successful venture.

Don't try to set any precedent here. I am usually seeing founder liquidity in the $250,000 to $1.5 million per founder range. Founders generally sell between 5 percent and 15 percent of their holdings. Stay within the current market expectations. Your post-sale holdings need to be large enough to keep you interested in the company.

In later rounds, if and when your company is making incredible progress (like $50 to 100 million-plus run-rate progress) then there may be some opportunities for dramatic pre-exit cash outs. Investors often simply "want in" at this stage--and the need to force you to stay motivated has decreased. Realize that this kind of liquidity event is extremely rare. Unless your company is on the path to IPO or $500 million exit, this is probably not you.

The sale of stock by founders raises several issues relating to taxes, corporate governance, stock-option pricing, redemption rules and the impact on investor aggregate liquidation preference. The cash-out mechanics can be implemented in a handful of ways. Founder liquidity can be carried out via direct sale to investors or through redemption of shares by the company. We even saw an unusual dividend method in the well-publicized Airbnb founder cash-out.

In any case, company counsel needs to be intimately involved. Good start-up lawyers will have a strong grasp of the various implications--as well as a solid set of data points around what is "market." Finally, you also need to get your own tax advisor. This will be a significant income event for you. You want to avoid inadvertent tax structuring mistakes and optimize your return (legally of course). Uncle Sam wasn't there at 3 a.m. helping you ship product--why give him a disproportionate share of the proceeds?

Forget about raises and better benefits. Those are important -- but this is what your staff really wants.

Pay is important. But pay only goes so far.

Getting a raise is like buying a bigger house; soon, more becomes the new normal.

Higher wages won’t cause employees to automatically perform at a higher level. Commitment, work ethic, and motivation are not based on pay.

To truly care about your business, your employees need these eight things—and they need them from you:

1. Freedom. Best practices can create excellence, but every task doesn't deserve a best practice or a micro-managed approach. (Yes, even you, fast food industry.)

Autonomy and latitude breed engagement and satisfaction. Latitude also breeds innovation. Even manufacturing and heavily process-oriented positions have room for different approaches.

Whenever possible, give your employees the freedom to work they way they work best.

2. Targets. Goals are fun. Everyone—yes, even you—is at least a little competitive, if only with themselves. Targets create a sense of purpose and add a little meaning to even the most repetitive tasks.

Without a goal to shoot for, work is just work. And work sucks.

3. Mission. We all like to feel a part of something bigger. Striving to be worthy of words like "best" or "largest" or "fastest" or "highest quality" provides a sense of purpose.

Let employees know what you want to achieve, for your business, for customers, and even your community. And if you can, let them create a few missions of their own.

Caring starts with knowing what to care about—and why.

4. Expectations. While every job should include some degree of latitude, every job needs basic expectations regarding the way specific situations should be handled. Criticize an employee for expediting shipping today, even though last week that was the standard procedure if on-time delivery was in jeopardy, and you lose that employee.

Few things are more stressful than not knowing what your boss expects from one minute to the next.

When standards change make sure you communicate those changes first. When you can't, explain why this particular situation is different, and why you made the decision you made.

5. Input. Everyone wants to offer suggestions and ideas. Deny employees the opportunity to make suggestions, or shoot their ideas down without consideration, and you create robots.

Robots don't care.

Make it easy for employees to offer suggestions. When an idea doesn't have merit, take the time to explain why. You can't implement every idea, but you can always make employees feel valued for their ideas.

6. Connection. Employees don’t want to work for a paycheck; they want to work with and for people.

A kind word, a short discussion about family, a brief check-in to see if they need anything... those individual moments are much more important than meetings or formal evaluations.

7. Consistency. Most people can deal with a boss who is demanding and quick to criticize... as long as he or she treats every employee the same. (Think of it as the Tom Coughlin effect.)

While you should treat each employee differently, you must treat each employee fairly. (There's a big difference.)

The key to maintaining consistency is to communicate. The more employees understand why a decision was made the less likely they are to assume favoritism or unfair treatment.

8. Future. Every job should have the potential to lead to something more, either within or outside your company.

For example, I worked at a manufacturing plant while I was in college. I had no real future with the company. Everyone understood I would only be there until I graduated.

One day my boss said, "Let me show you how we set up our production board."

I raised an eyebrow; why show me? He said, "Even though it won’t be here, some day, somewhere, you'll be in charge of production. You might as well start learning now."

Take the time to develop employees for jobs they someday hope to fill—even if those positions are outside your company. (How will you know what they hope to do? Try asking.)

Employees will care about your business when you care about them first.

The best business story might not get noticed by the top publications, but there are plenty of other ways to get it published.

If you are starting a company, one of your goals is probably to get written about in an influential media outlet in your space. For us in the digital space, Inc., Mashable, Wired and TechCrunch are some of the top publications you want to be featured in. A post can fast track your company to be on the radar of venture capital firms, top talent looking for their next challenge and clients inquiring about potential deals.

Why should your story be published? What’s your engaging story? How exciting is your product? Let's be realistic, if readers don’t believe you are in a hot area or have the interest of influential investors then large news outlets won't touch you. To be fair these publications know their audience and what stories get page views and action. Given the large number of companies starting every day, the reality is that there is a bigger chance that you won't get picked up. Is your PR strategy doomed if you don't? What can you do?

The good news is that you can be extremely successful without ever having been in any of the top publications. Look at SwagBucks.com for example: millions of users around the world, nearly a million fans on Facebook, profitable without institutional investment, turning a somewhat abused business model (online incentives) into a brand that advertisers benefit from and people can trust–based on ethics that our founder, a Rabbinical student, firmly believes in and ingrained in our business.

Did you count how many great story ideas?

If you think the dearth of women polarizes Silicon Valley, just read what happened when I spoke out about the lack of black tech CEOs.

In the previous three pieces in this series, I discussed the dearth of women in technology and the way it polarizes Silicon Valley. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

According to U.S. Census Bureau data, in 2008, blacks and Hispanics constituted only 1.5% and 4.7% respectively of the Valley’s tech population —well below national tech-population averages of 7.1% and 5.3%. You hardly find any blacks in positions of leadership in Silicon Valley companies. There is at least an unconscious bias.

I was faced with the depth of the problem when one of my Duke students, a black woman, Viva Leigh Miller, approached me in March 2010 to help her get a job in Silicon Valley. I have taught more than 300 really smart students at the Duke Masters of Engineering Management program, and Viva was one of the best. With a high GPA, many awards, and degrees in science and mathematics from U.S. top colleges, I couldn’t imagine that Viva would have any difficulty gaining multiple job offers. I was sure she would one day become a hotshot CEO. But Viva couldn’t get a job in the Valley—despite introductions that I gave her to leading venture capitalists. I could never understand why. During my tech days, I would have hired Viva in a heartbeat. She had the determination, drive, and education that all tech companies look for.

Discussing the dearth of blacks in Silicon Valley is an even bigger taboo than discussing women. I learned this the hard way by having a frank discussion with black entrepreneurs that was recorded by CNN and aired in a documentary titled “Black in America.”

In the interview, I relayed my own experience building a tech company in the Deep South of the U.S. When I was looking for funding for my second startup, local VCs wouldn’t return my phone calls, even though I’d previously helped build a public company with $120 million in annual revenue. In Silicon Valley, an entrepreneur with credentials like mine would have had dozens of VCs knocking on his door. The advice that other successful Indians gave me was to have a “white guy” on my management team who would deal with the VCs. My company was growing rapidly, and I needed to hire a president and chief operating officer. So I hired a white guy for that role, and killed two birds with one stone. After that, it was easy raise millions of dollars in venture capital.

After a pre-screening of the documentary, a heated discussion broke out on Twitter about the documentary and my comments. TechCrunch founder Mike Arrington, who is considered to be the tech industry’s most influential blogger, tweeted: “the indian guy is viveck. he always plays the victim card.” When I confronted Arrington on his comment, he retorted: “@wadhwa you got rich starting companies in America. I don't understand why you then complain you weren't given a chance.” He insisted “there's negative bias in [Silicon Valley]. VCs are dying to invest in women & minorities just so they don't have conversations like this”. Arrington then “blocked” and “unfollowed” me on Twitter--the ultimate social media insult.

In the documentary, Arrington said that he didn’t know a single black entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. Then he said that he had once put one black entrepreneur on stage at a TechCrunch event—but would have done the same even if the black entrepreneur had been running a “clown show.” These are blunt comments, and they exemplify the dark side of Silicon Valley: that an elite group of power brokers, exemplified by Arrington, is totally ignorant of the hurdles faced by minority groups. Venture capitalists routinely tout their “patternrecognition” abilities -- they say they know a successful entrepreneur when they see one. Sadly, the patterns they see merely represent those who have achieved success in the past: typically young, white males.

Silicon Valley is indeed a meritocracy for those to whom these criteria are not hurdles. But others—the blacks, women, and Hispanics whom it overlooks—find it an elite private club from which they are excluded.

The good news is that these obstacles can be surmounted. In my next piece, I’ll discuss how.

Private jets? $200 million paintings? Zuckerberg's salary? Here are few things the financial analysts won't be talking about this morning.

By now, you've probably seen all the (impressive) basics about Facebook's S-1 filing. The company made $3.7 billion in 2011, saw yearly revenue growth of 88 percent, has 845 million users (about 12 percent of the world's population), blah, blah, blah.

But upon closer inspection, the S-1 reveals some pretty insane facts about the company. Here's what people are actually going to be talking about on the social network's road to IPO:

• Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sanderberg, the company's COO, are allowed to use company money to fly in private jets. Perks abound for family members too: "On certain occasions, Mr. Zuckerberg may be accompanied by family members or others when using private aircraft."

• Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, is possibly the only person in financial services whose reputation was actually enhanced by the financial crisis of 2008. Now the JPMorgan side of the business, never a tech powerhouse, has snagged the number two slot co-managing the Facebook IPO.

• "Facebook was built to accomplish a social mission." Just as Google, upon its IPO, enunciated its goal as "Don't be evil," Facebook also claims a higher mission. Wall Street doesn't. This can lead to problems.

• Mark Zuckerberg still has 57 percent of the voting rights of his company.

• The float. Facebook is only selling 5 percent of the company. Most start-ups would be scared to do that, for fear they'd be caught in a short-squeeze. But the Facebook offering is so big that Zuckerberg can't be worried. The choice of underwriters shows Facebook also isn't terribly worried about impressing institutional shareholders.

• So many people wanted to read Facebook's offering documents that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission website crashed.

• The company is embroiled in tons of lawsuits. "We are involved in numerous class action lawsuits...and, if resolved adversely, could harm our business," notes the S-1.

• The company has nearly $4 billion in cash...just sitting in the bank.

• The graffiti artist David Choe, who took stock in place of cash for painting murals on the Facebook office walls six years ago, is expected to be "worth upward of $200 million when Facebook stock trades publicly."

• There were more than 100 billion friend connections on Facebook as of December 31, 2011.

• Sheryl Sandberg, with 1,899,986 shares of Facebook common stock, and 39,321,041 options, will be worth nearly $2 billion, making her one of the wealthiest women in the world. Some said Facebook was cheating her by not offering her a board seat. Ha.

• Zynga, the social gaming company, accounted for 12 percent of Facebook's annual revenues in 2011.

• In 2013, Zuckerberg will take a $1 annual salary.

• The IPO could make magnate-slash-investor Peter Thiel (also know as a Seasteading advocate and artificial-intelligence aficionado who last year paid 20 students to drop out of college and start companies) about $2 billion (based on an initial $500,000 investment).

• Yuri Milner, the Russian billionaire, owns roughly a 7 percent stake in the company.

• Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, who is now an angel investor, owns 7.6 percent of the company, putting his net worth around $6.7 billion.

• Bono, the U2 frontman, paid $120 million for company stocks in 2010 to own about 1.5 percent of the company. After the company goes public, he could see his investment rise to over $1 billion.

• The lock-up. After an IPO, company insiders are generally prohibited from selling shares for 180 days. So they can't just dump their shares into the IPO. Facebook insiders are looking to get liquid much faster—their lock-up lasts only 90 days. Thank SecondMarket for that.

• Zuckerberg gets his own security detail—or whatever a "Comprehensive Security Program" to "Protect Mark Zuckerberg" means.

• Mr. Zuckerberg's father, a dentist living in New York, was given two million shares of stock "in satisfaction of funds provided for our initial working capital."

• Zuckerberg has retained the right to choose his successor after his death.

The best reason to buy tablets for your team? No more death by PowerPoint.

PowerPoint has been around for a quarter century. (It came out the same year as “The Simpsons” and Prozac. Coincidence? I think not.)

Twenty-five years later, the tool is pretty uniformly hated in businesses everywhere for introducing what is now known as the “death-by-PowerPoint” meeting culture.

C’mon, people! Technology has moved at lightning speed since then! Shouldn’t your meetings change too?

Here are five things you must do to save your company from bad meetings:

1. Ban laptops—and buy everyone tablets.

The feng shui of laptops in a meeting really puts a cramp on your corporate Qi. When your co-workers are staring at the butt-side of your laptop, it doesn’t engender collaboration or conversation. Instead, it kicks off an arms-race of laptopping, where each participant is trying to stockpile email and IM replies, deftly raising their eyebrows to demonstrate they are listening, while still looking down to finish that last reply. Tablets, on the other hand, are social devices. They are flat, so people can basically see what you are doing, and they really don’t multitask. So, if you are looking at a preso on a tablet, you aren’t doing email. Which, in the end, is a good thing for effective meetings.

2. Ban all big screens.

The antidote for miserable meetings is to eliminate the big, imposing, 1984-like screen and corresponding presenter. The very image of a large screen implies that people are about to be presented-to, and the presenter is likely just delivering a finished, foregone conclusion to the poor recipients. Kill the big screen, and get an app like IdeaFlight for everyone. With IdeaFlight, each meeting participant sees the presentation on her own tablet. The presenter can still advance the slides, OR they can give control to the participants to swipe through the slides at their leisure. It’s amazing how much better a meeting is when participants are invited to use their brains. They ask great questions, have the freedom to skip around to previous or future slides without having to say, “Can you go back 37 slides?” And they wind up feeling like collaborators, not hostages.

3. If you must have a big screen, get an Apple TV

Hey big spender, you just got $500 iPads for all of your employees. Now, spend the extra $100 per conference room, and outfit your joint with Apple TVs on every LCD projector you have. With Apple’s AirPlay feature and iOS5, you can now mirror your iPad wirelessly on any screen connected to an Apple TV. If you then want to hand-off to another colleague in the meeting, you simply let them connect with AirPlay from their iPad. No more fooling with wires, changing seats to get closer to the cable, or waiting five minutes for IT to come by the room to fix your screen resolution. Stop letting technology interrupt the flow of your meetings.

4. Kill your whiteboard.

How many times have you jotted a note to yourself during a presentation, and then later re-drawn it on the whiteboard during a discussion? Or wanted to but didn’t because you forgot, or there was no time or space? These days, I don’t ever bring paper to meetings. I use Penultimate (and a stylus) to take notes on my iPad. It’s great for me because I always have them and can easily email specific notes to people. But it’s also great for a meeting. I can draw a quick diagram or graph or idea, and then (with AirPlay—see previous tip) I can display it right on the screen for the whole team to see. We can even take notes together—like an iOverhead Projector—and easily send them out via email after the meeting. I’ve even handdrawn entire presentations—it’s fast, flexible, and much more interesting than a PowerPoint preso. And, it doesn’t give off the impression that I know all the answers—it feels like work-in-progress, and people appreciate that.

5. Never again hear, "I can't access your presentation!"

I manage a distributed team, and we often have Skype meetings that span two or three continents. So to share the presentation during a working meeting, we put the presentation in a folder in our cloud content management system (we use our own product, Alfresco, but Box and Huddle offer similar things). Each team member can access the presentation through a mobile app (or through a browser). Better yet, people can post comments right alongside the presentation, even as we are in the meeting, using Alfresco’s mobile app or a browser. We can display the preso using AirPlay, and then flip over to see comments that any other distributed team member has added. It’s a great way to gather questions real time and preserve the comment stream for later.

With tablets, a few great apps and an Apple TV or two, I’m confident you can save your meetings—and maybe your company—this year.

Outside investors can propel your business and create a foundation for long-term success. The trick is finding the right ones.

Every CEO of a growth company is faced with a primary challenge: funding that growth. In some cases, growing businesses can partially rely on customers (in the form of working capital), bank loans and founders’ equity. But at some point, most high-growth businesses need to find outside sources for growth equity.

You may be tempted to accept funding from any interested investor. But there is a huge benefit to finding the right investors—the ones that can propel your business and create an environment for long-term success.

Who are the right investors?

We’ve found that the best investors have three key characteristics:

There's one simple thing entrepreneurs need to do to get a banker on their side. Sadly, most of them miss it.

Does this scenario sound familiar? Your company has a long history of working with the same bank, on terms that seem fair, even though you would like more credit. You’ve had to pledge all kinds of assets as collateral, and you feel like your bank is well protected. You’ve never missed a payment, only rarely tripped a covenant, and your books are always in reasonably good order. You and your controller decide it’s time to see if you can get a better deal from another bank.

You pull together your financial data and a good summary of your company, and reach out to a banker who has called on you from time to time. After the meeting, you and your controller look at each other and say, in unison, “They didn’t get it.” And they didn’t. After a few days, the banker calls back and says he or she can’t help you.

There are all kinds of reasons why financial institutions may decline to extend credit to a small business. The one that is the most under your control, and the one a business owner can fix most easily, is simple: Make sure the financial institution understands your company. Entrepreneurs need to be able to explain what their company does in a single sentence. That may sound easy, but very few people can do it. Maybe they don’t understand how important it is.

Lenders and investors see literally hundreds of plans and ideas each year. If they’re going to make sense of it all, they need to figure out, in a very short amount of time, what a business does, how its cash flow works, how it can be financed, and for how much. The best financing sources are often experts in a particular industry or have a good understanding of how small businesses work.

Successful entrepreneurs grab the attention of financiers by clearly communicating what they do, regardless of the complexity or technology in their business.

In one sentence, you must express the core competency of your company—what it is really good at. Then, you need to follow up with a few key points:

• Place yourself in an industry: “We manufacture and distribute flexible tubing to the heavy road and infrastructure construction industry.”
• Give a size range: “We have $4 million in annual sales and 22 employees.”
• Explain who your customers are: “We sell directly to smaller regional players and to larger suppliers to the majors.”

A description like that allows me to think about:

• What’s going on in your industry? Maybe you’re dependent on large construction projects or government spending.
• Which parts of the company could be financed – maybe inventory or receivables.
• Factors that could impact sales. Maybe your company will be affected by growth in infrastructure spending or consolidation among customers.
• Larger forces that could affect your business. Factors such as the relentless drive for scale in a particular industry, the growth opportunity from new technologies, and the potential for more or less public spending could all be important.

Only after I get that picture settled in my mind can I move on to EBITDA, cash flows and collateral.

Here’s how you should practice your pitch:

• First, try it out on a friend who doesn’t know your business well, and in particular, someone who isn’t in financial services. If your friend looks at you quizzically and can’t figure out what you do, refine and simplify your story until they get it.

• Then find a safe person in the financial services industry to listen to your pitch. Having a knowledgeable third party hear your story creates conditions for the best feedback of all. They won’t be sitting there trying to decide whether or not to finance your company, and you won’t be worried about getting a check.

Then, get your controller and make a call on your new bank, and walk out of the meeting knowing that they got it.

As a business owner, if you can tap into the passion of your workforce the same way that Wikipedia taps into its army of unpaid volunteers, you can accomplish things that no amount of money can buy.

Have you ever stopped to consider how remarkable Wikipedia is?

The online encyclopedia represents arguably the greatest collection of knowledge and information ever assembled--and the overwhelming majority of the work in creating and maintaining it has been done by unpaid volunteers. 

On the surface, the success of Wikipedia makes no sense--how could (and why would) a team of volunteers possibly complete such a massive undertaking?

The answer has repercussions for leaders and business owners in every industry: Money isn?t everything. In fact, a sense of purpose is more important than the size of a salary when it comes to inspiring top performance from employees and team members.

That doesn?t mean that money isn?t important, and it doesn?t mean that you can slash paychecks without fear of consequences. But it does mean that money alone is not enough to inspire the type of passion, dedication, and peak performance that every business owner wants from their team. 

To bring out the best in your people, you need to create a fulfilling workplace environment and a sense of purpose for your employees.

Below are suggested first steps in this process:

1) Define your purpose. And no, ?make lots of money? doesn?t count. Ultimately, what is the goal of your business? At Apple, Steve Jobs's goal was literally to change the world. Amazon.com sought to completely redefine the way books are bought and sold. Your sense of purpose may not be as grandiose...but it should include some type of value which you create for your customers or your community. What is the purpose of your business beyond generating income? 

2) Integrate this purpose into your company culture. It?s easy to come up with a formulaic sense of purpose that looks great on your company website--but integrating it into the everyday environment in your office is a totally different challenge. A corny motivational speech isn?t going to get the job done. Start by practicing what you preach and by taking steps to acknowledge, encourage, and reward employees who are dedicating themselves to the company vision. Above all, this purpose must be authentic and transparent to employees and your customers!  

3) Learn to listen. Ideally, you should engage your employees into this discovery process from the beginning. You may be surprised to hear what they think the purpose of your business is. Your employees desire fulfillment, whether they explicitly recognize it or not. So ask for their input. Solicit suggestions for creating a more productive and fulfilling atmosphere. Empower employees to pursue fulfillment whenever and however you can. Be aware that some employees may not personally align with the purpose of the company and that can come to light as part of this process.  

The next time you visit Wikipedia, take a moment to soak in the enormity of the project--and reflect on the fact that it was created by individuals motivated by nothing other than their own passion and sense of purpose. As a business owner, if you can tap in to the passion of your workforce, you can accomplish things that no amount of money can buy. 

[Image: Flickr user Michael E Clark]

In the 30 years since In Search of Excellence was published, critics have found flaws in its methodology, its content, and even its writing style. But the case can be made that it is the most influential management book not only in these last three decades, but perhaps ever.

The year 2012 is not only the Year of the Dragon, it also marks 30 years since In Search of Excellence was published. While there have been voices over the years which have been critical of the book's methodology, its resulting content, and even its writing style, the case can be made that it is the most influential management book not only in these last 30 years but perhaps--just perhaps--ever. 

Hyperbole? Consider:

Peters and Waterman wrote the book while they were both at the San Francisco office of McKinsey, an outpost that Peters said in a provocative 2001 interview with Fast Company "never made any money but was well known for its weirdness." (Note: Peters was also one of the original investors in Fast Company).

The book started out as a study of 62 companies, according to Peters, and they ended up identifying 43 companies as "excellent." The fact that Atari and Wang Labs were on the excellent list and GE was not led to some of the criticism of their work, vilification that Peters said "pretty much missed the point" in that 2001 interview. According to the authors, excellence is all about a focus on people, customers, and action.

Those three focus areas of people, customers, and action in turn created the 8 famous variables or themes identified in Excellence:

For those who are twenty- or thirtysomething and who are readers of best-selling business books but who have not read "Excellence," the above list of the 8 themes might elicit a reaction of "Well, duh!" They might wonder how it is that a book full of such common sense--stuff everybody knows--sold at all. The response to that, of course, is that in 1982 those themes and best practices were anything but common sense and it was this book more than any other which created a groundswell of popular interest in leadership and management practices.

I have my hard cover edition of the book I bought and read the year it came out and having perused it for the first time in years to write this post, I'm going to put it on my reading list for this year to dig back into it page-by-page and test it with an admiring but critical eye.

The traditional gift for a 30-year anniversary is pearls--which seems apropos on the 30th anniversary of a book that has so many of them.

Mike Hoban is a management consultant in his day job and can be contacted at business-at-large@sbcglobal.net

[Image: Flickr user Dustin Diaz]

Meet Eric Kuhn, who has one of the few startups in America that isn't rushing to gain millions of users.

Eric Kuhn, 41, is the founder and CEO of FoundersCard, which offers networking opportunities, discounts, and perks for entrepreneurs and innovators. Since its founding at the end of 2009, FoundersCard, which is profitable, has been growing steadily--but more slowly than Kuhn might let it, since part of its value comes from its exclusivity.

How?d you get the idea for FoundersCard?

It was when I was on the roadshow for Varsity Books [his first company], which was going public, back in the Internet 1.0 days. The investment bankers were coordinating all the travel. Every night I stayed in a different city. I remember staying at amazing hotels: the Mandarin Oriental, the Four Seasons. I remember talking to [the bankers], asking, How much does this cost? It turned out they could travel in this kind of style because they received these incredible deals because of who their companies were. That struck me as odd, that it was the investment bankers--who leeched off the entrepreneurs, the value creators--that were getting these amazing benefits and rates. I thought it was the entrepreneurs and founders who should have this kind of access.

Your site touts ?exclusive benefits, upgrades, and amenities from the hottest travel, lifestyle, and business brands, carefully selected to meet the needs of the entrepreneur.? What are some examples?

To give you an example, we have a relationship with Virgin Atlantic Airways. Members get elite status in the frequent flyer program, as well as discounts.

I see you also have deals with Gilt City, AT&T, Indochino Custom Suits, TaskRabbit, ZipCar... It looks like you?re trying to fully equip and accessorize the modern entrepreneur.

That?s right, it?s a little bit of everything. A lot of people love the deals we have with hotels, like the Mandarin Oriental Hotels. I remember how I used to travel: I wanted to stay in a great hotel, but I didn?t want to pay for it. I wanted to stay at the Four Seasons, but pay for the Marriott, and be treated like a king. That?s how we built the program.

What about the spirit of bootstrapping? Do founders necessarily deserve these accommodations, if their companies aren?t making money yet?

Many of our members have received venture or angel backing. It?s not like our average member is 18 years old and just came up with an idea for a company, and doesn?t have two nickels to rub together. Some very well-known companies are FoundersCard members. We don?t want to give the impression that we?re starving-artist entrepreneurs.

How many nickels do you have to rub together to be a member of FoundersCard?

I?d have to do the math. Membership is an annual fee of $495.

There?s a long history of exclusive cards: the American Express black card, for example. It looks like your card is also black?

Actually, the card is a pretty sleek metal. We wanted to do something unique and innovative. We wanted it to be one of the five things you have in your wallet. At events, people are showing them off. There?s been a fantastic response. People love the card, love the design.

How many members do you have?

We have over 5,000 members now. We?re focused on controlled, quality growth. We?re looking through everything under the lens of quality. I?m learning for the first time that more can be less.

What are the criteria for joining the club?

More than anything, demonstrating a deep connection to being an entrepreneur.

But how do you screen for that?

Most members are referred by existing members. There?s an application process. We follow up with any questions if there are any things we need to know.

What might be a red flag?

We don?t want people who want to become members because of one particular benefit. I know it sounds hokey, but we built this depending on members being active and participating. It?s a two-way street. We deeply rely on members; members have opened a lot of doors for us. One cool aspect of FoundersCard is that it occurred to me, we have so many members who are founders of these companies, why not allow them to create benefits for fellow FoundersCard members?

It?s nice to have a business where members are creating value for you.

I?ve finally figured it out after all these years!

How often do you turn applicants down?

We reject roughly 30%. We accept roughly 70%--let?s look on the positive side.

It must sting to get rejected.

I remember reading a tweet from someone who said, This is the worst day ever: I lost my wallet, and I just got rejected by FoundersCard. My first instinct was, that?s terrible, but that?s kind of part of the reality of what we?re trying to create.

Clearly someone who loses their wallet isn?t someone you want in your club.

No, some of the best entrepreneurs I know are the most absentminded people on the planet.

This interview has been condensed and edited. For more from the Fast Talk interview series, click here.

Follow Fast Company on Twitter. Think you'd make a good Fast Talk subject? Mention it to David Zax.

The Coinstar subsidiary announces plans to partner with Verizon to compete with streaming video giants Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu.

Coinstar subsidiary Redbox today announced a new partnership with Verizon for the launch of a streaming video service. The joint venture will launch in second half of 2012 and be a subscription-based and "affordable service that will allow all consumers across the U.S. to enjoy the new and popular entertainment they want, whenever they choose, using the media and devices they prefer," the companies said in a statement.

With the new service, Coinstar better positions its primary business for the digital age. Redbox's kiosks, generally located at grocery or retail stores such as Walmart, offer customers dollar-a-day DVD or video game rentals. With the addition of a streaming service and its new-fledged partnership with Verizon, Redbox now further complicates a crowded field of digital streaming juggernauts that include Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu.

"When you consider the core elements the parties bring to this venture--our powerful brands; our national rental kiosk footprint; our anytime, anywhere network presence ... it's clear that Verizon and Redbox are a powerful entertainment team," said Bob Mudge, president of Verizon consumer and mass business markets, in a statement.

"Our joint venture with Verizon will enable us to bring them even more value by offering expanded content offerings and greater flexibility for how and when they enjoy entertainment," said Coinstar CEO Paul Davis. "This alliance is the result of a deliberate and strategic process to identify a partner who shares our commitment to delivering innovative solutions to consumers."

Details of the partnership are still sparse. The companies only indicated they plan to introduce a "product portfolio" and will offer "subscription services." It's unclear what these services are; how or whether they will be bundled with Redbox's kiosk business or Verizon's VOD services; what content these services might provide; or how much it'll cost.

But the companies did say they intend to go after the business from both physical and digital worlds, offering consumers in the U.S. access to content online and on mobile devices--similar to Netflix--and illustrating so in the below infographic released online. The partnership will be a limited liability company with Verizon holding a 65% ownership share and Redbox holding a 35% ownership share.

In a conference call held this morning, Coinstar's Paul Davis and Verizon's Bob Mudge provided little if any more detail about the new partnership. Mudge referred to it as a "single-source" service that will combine the convenience of DVDs-by-kiosk with on-demand streaming. Davis stressed Verizon's strong relationship with top entertainment providers, and highlighted Verizon's extensive IP network infrastructure and customer base of 30 million active rental customers and 109 million wireless customer connections. He said the partnership represented "the best of both worlds" of physical and digital offerings.

Added Mudge, "At this point, due to competitive concerns, we're limiting our description to 'subscription services and more.'"  

The announcement comes at an opportune time for Redbox, which has long been expected to introduce a streaming service to complement its DVD business. After Netflix hiked prices by roughly 60%, consumer sentiment for the popular brand fell to all-time lows, and caused an exodus of hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Paul Davis has said the company's business has benefited from Netflix's hiccup, gaining new customers from its "disenfranchised" members. Last quarter, Redbox pulled in $390 million, up 28%; Redbox generates about 84% of parent Coinstar's revenue.

But Netflix has begun to recover from its stumbles, adding 600,000 U.S. subscribers last quarter, and Redbox has said it will introduce a price hike of its own. The company has said rates will increase to $1.20 per night, to offset rising operation costs of its kiosk business--another suggestion that the long-term future of the rental business is likely online.

And while the company's kiosk business has been booming, it has a long way to go before it catches up to rivals in the digital space like Netflix, which boasts more than 20 million subscribers. Not only will it have to compete for content but accessibility. It's not so much Netflix's library of movies and TV shows that has made it a success but the service's availability on everything from video game consoles and smartphones and tablets.

That's why Coinstar's partnership with Verizon is so crucial to the Redbox's success in this area. With Verizon's network infrastructure and deep relationships with content providers and device makers, Verizon is likely to give Redbox a big leg up against competitors going forward. 

Coinstar will announce its Q4 earnings later today. We'll see how the markets react to this new Redbox-Verizon deal.

[Image: Flickr user makelessnoise]

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Fox's Glee is slumping in its third season--but does that mean people are losing interest in TV musicals? NBC's new Broadway-focused drama, Smash, which premieres February 6, is about to find out. Three industry pros share tips on how Smash can avoid Glee's missteps and become, well, a smash.

Glee

Smash

Fault: The music comes first. Glee's story line gets lost in the show's inconsistent song list. "Some episodes work, like when the Gleeks sang Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way,'" says media consultant Shari Anne Brill. "But others, like the Madonna episode, were just about music with some story wedged in."

Fix: Make the characters the priority. NBC is banking on the show's masterful cast--which boasts Anjelica Huston and Debra Messing--to build characters viewers will care about. "The more Smash emphasizes the characters, the more stickiness the show will have," Brill says.

Fault: Youth is fleeting. Glee faces the challenge of finding new ways to revive the same old high-school archetypes, says Zak Shaikh of the media consultancy Attentional. "Once you hit some story lines--like the first time each character has sex--you can't go back."

Fix: Use age to the show's advantage. Smash's older cast lends itself to more complex plot lines, a benefit in the long run, Shaikh says. "You can see the problems the characters face come out in the art they create. It's more sophisticated."

Fault: Oversaturating the franchise. Concert tours and a reality-show spin-off caused Gleek fatigue to set in early. "The music used to draw you in, but it's getting a little tired because it's ubiquitous," says Brad Adgate of Horizon Media.

Fix: Create a cult following. Serialized dramas such as Lost and 24 have been wildly successful because networks treated them as special entities. "If Smash is going to be a hit, [NBC] has to make it a destination for viewers," Adgate says. "You don't want to kill the goose when it's a golden egg."

Photo: Flickr user gudlyf (Glee)

A version of this article appears in the February 2012 issue of Fast Company.

Breaking news from your editors at Fast Company, with updates all day.

Amazon Retail Store In Seattle? Amazon is rumored to be building a retail store near home base Seattle. The pilot boutique store, Good E-reader has heard, will sell high-end electronics, Amazon products like the Nook and Kindles, and books, likely several from Amazon's own Amazon Exclusives line. --NS

--Updated 9:30 a.m. EST

HTC Reports Rough Quarter. Smartphone maker HTC is posting less than cheery Q4 results, with gloomy forecasts ahead. The company saw booming smartphone sales for 2010 and part of 2011 as it rode the android wave but the quickly crowding market and competition seems to have tripped it up. HTC is now rethinking its product strategy (we approve!) to focus on fewer, better products in the coming months. --NS

--Updated 8:30 a.m. EST

Facebook To Introduce Mobile Ads. Facebook is hugely popular on mobile phones, but Facebook has yet to effectively make money off the service. That's about to change--according to the Financial Times, Facebook may be launching ads on mobile devices in March, before its IPO expected in May. --NS

Google And Facebook Agree To Block Content In India. Google and Facebook have blocked content on Indian domain sites after a court requested they censor the material. The "offensive" content on the two sites and 19 others drew out two court cases against the companies in India. The companies' first response, as of about a month ago, was that they wouldn't remove content. But the tech giants appear to have changed their mind in this case. --NS

KLM Launches Social Networked Seating Scheme. KLM's "Meet & Seat" program, launched late Friday, will allow their passengers connect with fellow travelers via Facebook or LinkedIn before they get on board. The idea is, KLM explains, passengers could use it to select "seat partners" based on mutual interests, perhaps meet for coffee in the airport lounge, or share a cab to a conference hotel at their destination. --NS

--Updated 5:45 a.m. EST

[Image: Flickr user Johan Larsson]

Yesterday's Fast Feed: "Bouncer" Protects Android Market, Apple Drums Up 278 Claims Against Samsung, Panasonic Forecasts $10 Billion Loss.

We can't all be morning people, but we can crib from the caffeine-stained playbooks of successful early risers. Here's how.

The early bird catching the worm is more than just a tired chestnut, it?s a proven fact. Research by Christoph Randler, a biology professor at the University of Education in Heidelberg, Germany, found that people who started their days earlier were more active and goal-oriented, more active, and felt more in charge--just the right cocktail for business success. 

Though we can?t all be bright-eyed and bushy tailed at 6 a.m. (or 9 a.m.) there are some strategies that most morning people use such as exercising, eating right, and eliminating distractions in order to start their day in the most productive way. Fast Company got five early-rising, successful executives to dish about their a.m. routines and how they make the rest of the day work for them.

Hold the Caffeine

As CEO of MyCorporation.com, Deborah Sweeney is an advocate for protecting personal and business assets for consumers. Though her extensive experience in the field of corporate and intellectual property law adds the juice that?s helped hundreds of thousands of businesses start up, Sweeney credits getting off to an early speedy start each day--sans caffeine--as critical to her success. 

Early Bird Strategy 

"Skip the caffeine and spin! I wake up every morning at 5:45 a.m. naturally, without the help of an alarm clock, and for breakfast have half a granola bar with a cup of decaf tea. I spin for one hour, which truly helps me charge my batteries for the day."

Making the Day Work for You

"While spinning, I answer emails from last night, check my social networks, and watch the local news. Then I shower and get dressed. Much of my day I?ve prepped the night before because I have two sons in grade school and won?t have time to waste in the morning. That includes packing their backpacks, picking out my outfit, and putting together lunches. My husband makes breakfast at 7 a.m. while I help wake the boys up and get them dressed. I briefly go over our to-do list for the day as a family together and we pack the car up and leave at 7:40 a.m. I tell my kids about the fun after-school adventures awaiting them and after dropping them off at their pick-up spot, drive to the office.

Before I go in though, I like to stop by the local Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf across the street for another decaf tea to go. I have my tea, my agenda planned, and my iPhone alerts on--now I know I?m ready to take on the day."

Wait to Put Out Those Fires

Fahim Siddiqui is the chief product officer at IntraLinks, a provider of cloud-based solutions for the exchange of business information. Currently, its roster of clients includes more than 800 of the Fortune 1000 and more than $19 trillion of transactions have been executed on IntraLinks? platform. Working as closely with those clients as Siddiqui does requires a serious effort up front to make sure all is running smoothly before he?s off to solidify relationships.

Early Bird Strategy

"I get up at 6:00 a.m. and have a Starbucks grande mocha, no whip."

Making the Day Work for You

"The first part of my day is my thought time; when I work on any strategic initiatives. I jump ?into the fire? of the day starting around 9:00 a.m. and take care of anything that needs to be addressed immediately. I also review operational dashboards, my commitment plan dashboard, a status of all ongoing programs, and if I find any new projects to deal with I'll either email or call the person to understand the issue. I'll also get another espresso if necessary. Then I'll typically go look at news sites for industry intelligence--and to catch up on cricket scores. I find that the afternoon is a good time to collaborate with people and I find myself to be more extroverted. I spend a lot of that time working directly with clients."

Prepare Your Agenda the Night Before

Dan Lagani, Reader?s Digest Association?s president of North America, hits the ground running early. He has to, in order to maintain the global media and direct marketing company?s connection to more than 145 million consumers around the world. Reader's Digest is the world's largest-circulation magazine, operating 82 branded websites and selling nearly 40 million books, music, and videos annually.

Early Bird Strategy

"I am out of bed by 5:30 a.m. and have a good cup of coffee before my morning workout. I usually have breakfast when I get to the office or when I am having a customer meeting. I will have anything from an egg white omelet to a Power Bar."

Making the Day Work for You

"The first thing I do in the morning is work out for an hour at home while watching the local news.  I?m usually on the train to New York before 7 a.m. I try to get to the office or a breakfast meeting between 7:45 a.m. and 8 a.m. Once I?m at the office, I address administrative work and prepare for the day ahead. 

The rest of the day is focused on achieving my company?s key business activities.  I may be involved in internal meetings or in meetings or on the phone with current and potential customers and business partners.

I?m a strong believer in planning ahead, so I create a rolling 100-day plan that keeps me on track to ensure I?m addressing key items for execution during the week. Before I leave the office (between 6:30 p.m. and 7 p.m.), I list my 'to do' items for the next day and make sure it matches up with the execution necessary to achieve my strategic goals."

Feel the Burn

When Aaron Kwittken, CEO and managing partner, Kwittken + Company Worldwide, lost his father to congestive heart failure, he decided to take workouts to a whole new level. So in addition to running his multi-specialist public relations and marketing agency with offices in London, Canada, Germany, France, Spain, Brazil, and Hong Kong, he?s been in 40 triathalons and is training for the New York/New Jersey Ironman Championship race this August. So far he?s only rested for three days. 

Early Bird Strategy

"I wake up at 4:25 a.m., drink a shot of room-temperature espresso made the night before and then take the dog out because it is impossible to sneak by her. I do a quick check of email and respond as needed. I already packed a gym bag the night before and I keep my swim gear in my car at all times. I?m in the water at 5:15 a.m. and I am back home by 6:45 a.m. 

I usually make my kids breakfast (pancakes) and myself a smoothie of low-fat chocolate milk, a banana, oats, peanut butter, flaxseed oil, chia seeds and rice protein powder." 

Making the Day Work for You

"I check email again and may take a quick call with our London office. I put one of our kids on the bus and then I go for an 8-mile, slow, hilly run outside for about an hour and 15 minutes. When I am running or biking indoors, I watch HBO GO (currently Game of Thrones or The Wire)--that's 2,500 calories burned before 9 a.m. Then, I go to work. I am usually in bed before 10 p.m. every night." 

Don't Check Email

CheapAir?s CEO Jeff Klee created a company out of his college dorm room in 1989 when it was originally known as 1-800-Cheap-Air. Helping over 3 million people buy plane tickets on a budget takes a lot of dedication and though Klee?s a morning maven, he puts in a fair share of nighttime hours, too.

Early Bird Strategy

"I get up at 6 a.m. and I?m usually at the computer by 6:01. That is my sacred hour--by far my most productive hour of the day. I?ll glance through my inbox to make sure nothing catastrophic has happened, but other than that I try to steer clear of emails or any other distractions. My advice for anyone who wants to be productive in the morning: Don?t check email!

By 7 a.m., my wife, daughter, and dog are awake so the next hour I?ll shower, play with the baby, play with the dog, and make six egg whites for breakfast."  

Making the Day Work for You

"The rest of my day I?ll spend on emails, calls, meetings, putting out fires. Whenever possible I try to go for a run in the middle of the day. I?ll probably pull it off twice during the week. It?s a great way to break up the day, de-stress, and step back from the minutiae that I often get stuck in. To the extent that I ever have good ideas, they always come while I?m running.

Late at night, once everyone?s asleep, I?ll sneak back to the computer and I?ll again get to do some real work for however long I can stay awake."

Related: 

For more leadership coverage, follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

[Image: Flickr user Nathan Rupert]

Breaking news from your editors at Fast Company, with updates all day.

Amazon Retail Store In Seattle? Amazon is rumored to be building a retail store near home base Seattle. The pilot boutique store, Good E-reader has heard, will sell high-end electronics, Amazon products like the Nook and Kindles, and books, likely several from Amazon's own Amazon Exclusives line. --NS

--Updated 9:30 a.m. EST

HTC Reports Rough Quarter. Smartphone maker HTC is posting less than cheery Q4 results, with gloomy forecasts ahead. The company saw booming smartphone sales for 2010 and part of 2011 as it rode the android wave but the quickly crowding market and competition seems to have tripped it up. HTC is now rethinking its product strategy (we approve!) to focus on fewer, better products in the coming months. --NS

--Updated 8:30 a.m. EST

Facebook To Introduce Mobile Ads. Facebook is hugely popular on mobile phones, but Facebook has yet to effectively make money off the service. That's about to change--according to the Financial Times, Facebook may be launching ads on mobile devices in March, before its IPO expected in May. --NS

Google And Facebook Agree To Block Content In India. Google and Facebook have blocked content on Indian domain sites after a court requested they censor the material. The "offensive" content on the two sites and 19 others drew out two court cases against the companies in India. The companies' first response, as of about a month ago, was that they wouldn't remove content. But the tech giants appear to have changed their mind in this case. --NS

KLM Launches Social Networked Seating Scheme. KLM's "Meet & Seat" program, launched late Friday, will allow their passengers connect with fellow travelers via Facebook or LinkedIn before they get on board. The idea is, KLM explains, passengers could use it to select "seat partners" based on mutual interests, perhaps meet for coffee in the airport lounge, or share a cab to a conference hotel at their destination. --NS

--Updated 5:45 a.m. EST

[Image: Flickr user Johan Larsson]

Yesterday's Fast Feed: "Bouncer" Protects Android Market, Apple Drums Up 278 Claims Against Samsung, Panasonic Forecasts $10 Billion Loss.

The fact that the beloved charity that owns the pink ribbon decided to pull its financial support of Planned Parenthood (a decision that was reversed three days later) in the end will help the Planned Parenthood brand even more than it damages the brand of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a nonprofit to which some 200 organizations like Ford, Major League Baseball, and BofA connect. 

Here are the four key ways Planned Parenthood benefits: 

Positive PR.  The decision provided enormous publicity about Planned Parenthood and provided visibility of key statistics, like that it provides 165,000 breast cancer screens and 6,500 mammograms to low-income women who lack access to care, and the fact that only 3% of the budget is allocated to abortion services. This information got widespread exposure and, more important, an attentive, receptive, and enormous audience.

Improved image.  The decision puts Planned Parenthood in a feisty underdog position fighting back against powerful self-centered political interests. For a brand, it doesn't get any better than being perceived as an underdog taking on a bully--look at Virgin vs. British Airlines and many others. Whatever the decision process or motivation of Komen, the widespread interpretation of the decision was that it was caused by political pressure. There was, of course, the political tension around Planned Parenthood. But there was also the addition to the Komen staff of a former Georgia candidate for the Republican nomination for governor who ran with a strong anti-Planned Parenthood platform. And the ostensible reason the funding was pulled was because of an inquiry by a strong anti-Planned Parenthood Republican congressman. The lingering impression is that Planned Parenthood was a pawn that was being crushed by an ideological confrontation.    

More funding.  One role of the brand is to attract funding. Komen's decision drew many new donors to Planned Parenthood, who will provide major sources of ongoing funding. Within 24 hours of Komen's decision, donors had contributed nearly enough to cover the funding Komen pulled, and the number of online donors surged from the typical 100 or 200 a day to 6,000. This surge of financial goodwill was buttressed and legitimatized by credible sources like Mayor Mike Bloomberg of New York and the Lance Armstrong?s Livestrong Fund, who put substantial matching funds on the table. Also, the decision probably solidified the long-term support of Komen for the Cure to Planned Parenthood. The Komen brand will face problems in retrieving its image as an organization that puts care for those women that lack access to health care over political ideological pressure. Any effort that appears to withhold support for Planned Parenthood would affect the difficult journey to regain its credibility and position.

Higher energy.  The decision created involvement in the base. The social media activity, in particular, was enormous and the fundraising was also energizing. Increasing the size of the involved base, those who participate in the dialogue and donate money, will pay off for years. It is just so hard to generate this energy with normal day-to-day activity.   

There has been a lot of analysis about the brand impact of the Komen decision and how it was handled--but sometimes lost in the conversation has been how the Planned Parenthood brand was unintentionally boosted by the incident. 

Related: How Susan G. Komen For The Cure Torpedoed Its Brand 

[Image: Flickr user Timothy Krause]

What a difference a week makes.

On Tuesday, January 31, Susan G. Komen For The Cure announced that it would not renew its grants to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer exams, claiming that it doesn't permit funding to organizations under investigation by Congress. This is equal to more than half a million dollars for low-income women who otherwise would have no options for breast cancer screening and other services.

This announcement was not made publicly, but instead communicated to Komen?s 100-plus U.S. affiliates. Quietly. A done deal. Not up for discussion. Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, got the news by phone in December, and was unsuccessful in setting up a meeting to clarify the issue with the Komen board.

Critics pointed out that the Planned Parenthood was the only organization affected by the new rule, and that the real reason was that Karen Handel, the new senior vice-president for public policy, is a self-described evangelical Christian who has stated that ?I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood.? It?s hard not to see women?s health getting politicized.

And at this point you might be saying: What? Did they think people wouldn?t find out about this? Does the board of Komen not know about social media? Did they learn nothing from SOPA?

What happened next was that social media exploded. On Twitter, on Facebook, in online petitions and letters and blogs and message boards. Public figures like Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) withdrew their support for Komen. Three top officials at Komen resigned their positions. Individual Komen affiliates said they would not abide by the new rule. And 26 U.S. senators signed a letter asking Komen to reconsider its position on Planned Parenthood.

The term ?backlash? is an understatement. Yet Komen?s CEO Nancy Brinker (pictured, top) insisted that the public response had been ?very, very favorable.?

Then the spin started. On Wednesday, Komen claimed the decision was made ?in the best interests of women? (by denying poor women breast cancer screening?). And on Thursday, Brinker said that "You have to be sure you are granting to the right people."

The ?right? people?? Hey, dig yourself a little deeper!

Finally, on Friday, Komen did the obvious and reversed their decision. Brinker apologized in a statement and said that the new rule would only apply to investigations that were ?criminal and conclusive in nature." They didn?t promise to renew the grants, only to ensure that Planned Parenthood is eligible for them in the future. They said "sorry," but it was a not-pology.

It?s incredible that the folks who run Komen were so clueless about the effect their actions would have on a brand that?s been built over three decades. They completely ignored both the mainstream press coverage, as well as social media outcry; they chose not to communicate with their supporters, either through Facebook or Twitter, and made transparently disingenuous statements to the press, in light of information coming from former Komen employees and documentation. 

Will the Komen brand ever recover? Unfortunately for them, they were already getting some negative publicity for their tendency to sue anyone using the phrase ?For The Cure? and the color pink for other charities. While they certainly have the right to protect their intellectual property, Komen comes off as a big bully when they start sending cease-and-desist letters to tiny charities run by individuals.

They are going to have to work long and hard to win back the masses of people who now view them as an organization driven more by politics and the personal beliefs of its executives than its concern for women?s health, in whatever form that may take. One wonders if Handel or Brinker will have to step down to effect the change. Or perhaps they?ll decide that they want to hitch their wagon to a particular ideology, and stop pretending that they aren?t pushing an agenda.

The good news out of this debacle is that Planned Parenthood has raised an enormous amount of money--nearly a million dollars, donated directly to them. You can, too, if you're so inclined.

And while you?re at it, write a letter to Nancy Brinker to let her know what you think. Perhaps someone can explain that ?very, very favorable? does not mean what she thinks it means. 

Related: Planned Parenthood's Unplanned Branding Bonanza

Laurel Sutton is a partner and cofounder at Catchword, a full-service naming firm.

[Image: Flickr user Elaine]

In a previous Fast Company article, I wrote about hitchhiking. Specifically, what I?ve learned about hitching a ride in semi-rural South Africa and how these strategies apply to marketing. I learned something by accident last month that took my thumbing skills to a whole new level.

I Buy a Bicycle

I live in an area with steep hills, dangerous switchbacks, potholes the size of dorm refrigerators, and occasionally incompetent and frequently insane motorists. So naturally I thought: ?A mountain bike would be fun here.?

My friend Anthony was selling his old Merida Matts Sport 500. I took it for a spin around his yard, liked it, and told him I?d be back with the money after my next encounter with an ATM.

Given the risks and the fact that most of my income-producing power begins between my ears and ends up at my keyboard, I also picked up a helmet and a pair of bike gloves. And at 8:30 a.m. on a momentous Wednesday, I began walking up the road to Anthony?s house wearing, rather than carrying, the helmet and gloves.

I hadn?t walked 20 meters when a big, new, shiny Toyota SUV roared past, slammed on the brakes, and backed up toward me. A genial tourist leaned out his window and beckoned, ?Need a lift?? 

Gratefully, I accepted. I had been feeling a bit dorky about wearing the helmet and gloves on the walk, so I was glad to speed up the trip and reduce my exposure. I wondered about my good fortune; in my experience a man traveling alone is more likely to have a pair of bluebirds alight on his head than get a ride if he actively solicits one. To get offered a ride, unasked, is unheard of.

When I plopped myself down, SUV Man inquired pleasantly, ?Your bike broken??

So that?s what was going on. My helmet and gloves had provided a Reason Why.

Not a Fluke

Later that day, after Anthony couldn?t find a pump with a Presta valve, I walked my flat-tired Merida several kilometers to the cycle shop at Mountain Splendour. Again, wearing helmet and gloves. This time, for added effect, I was pushing a big blue bike down a hill. And again, I received an unsolicited offer of a lift.

How to Hitch a Ride in South Africa

So now I know how to reliably get a ride around here. I just wear my Bell Slant helmet and start walking. Before, drivers had to wonder why a healthy-looking white guy didn?t have his own car. (In South Africa, that?s pretty much an anomaly.) Now they know why I need a ride: My bike must have broken down somewhere.

Once my situation makes sense to them, the ride offers come easily, often unrequested. The Reason Why alleviates their fears that I might be a Psycho Killer or Unpleasant Travel Companion. It also gives them a reason to pick me up: I?m in need, and they?re the kind of person who helps strangers in need.

The only thing that had changed about me was the Reason Why. The power of that insight applies to our businesses as well. 

The Power of Reason Why

Human beings are programmed to make sense of the world, to look for patterns and predict outcomes. It?s how our species survived, adapted, and thrived in so many different environments. And one of the strongest patterns is cause and effect--reasons why certain things happen.

Social psychologist Ellen Langer found that human beings exhibit an automatic response pattern of saying yes when given a reason. In a fascinating study reported in Robert Cialdini?s Influence, Langer and her colleagues asked to cut in line at a library photocopy machine with one of three statements:

The first request (?because I?m in a rush?) worked 94% of the time. The second request (no reason) received only 60% positive responses. The third request (?because I have to make some copies?) succeeded in 93% of cases. ?Because I have to make some copies? is not, of course, an actual reason. It?s simply phrased in the form of a reason, and that was sufficient to trigger the automatic ?that sounds reasonable? response.

Reason Why Marketing

I?m not suggesting that you pepper your marketing with meaningless reasons (?Buy our product because we say so?). Rather, acknowledge the natural skepticism of your market to any claim of superiority or dramatic difference and tell 'em why it?s so.

All business advantage is founded on some anomaly. You have a unique set of experiences that makes you better than anyone else at a particular skill. You engineered a new business model. You found a pool of talent that others had overlooked. You have a patent on a process or material that sets you apart.

It?s not enough to describe the difference or the advantage you hold in the marketplace. Reason Why Marketing explains the difference and makes it believable, credible, even obvious. 

People are naturally skeptical of competitive claims, but we want to believe. We cling to Reasons Why as life vests in a sea of mediocrity and sameness. We?re passionate about the companies that create, and demonstrate, and justify their Uniqueness.

Some Examples of Reason Why Marketing

Why are Apple products so good? Because Steve Jobs was a hyper-driven visionary perfectionist who imbued the company with an ethos of innovation and elegance.

Why is Zappo?s customer service so good? Because Zappo?s spends huge amounts of money on training, creates a fantastic workplace environment, and empowers employees to do almost anything to make customers happy. 

Why are Surefire flashlights so good? Because the company was founded by an engineer with a PhD in laser design who saw the potential of outfitting weapons with laser sights almost 30 years ago.

Why is your company so good? If the answer doesn?t immediately pour out of you, go into reminiscence mode. Why was the company founded? What?s the background of the founders? What was missing in the industry that they wanted to deliver? What was their particular passion? What unique set of perspectives influenced their decisions?

If you truly offer something dramatically better in your marketplace, Reason Why Marketing may be the missing core of your message. In a world where most businesses rely on meaningless platitudes (?Value, service, integrity?) or unfounded claims (?The leading purveyor?), a simple ?This Is Why? explanation can cut through the clutter and position you as the obvious choice.

Now if you?ll excuse me, I have to go to town. Wallet, keys, phone, helmet?

[Image: Flickr user Nemodus]

Months after India's healthily anticipated $35 tablet was first unveiled, its owners are embroiled in a spat that is raising questions about its future.

A $35 Indian Aakash tablet may turn out to be a pipe dream after all.

In the most recent twist in the development of the unbelievably cheap piece of tech, the Indian government is trying to break a manufacturing stalemate by taking the decision away from the Indian university that created tablet prototypes.

As we wrote in early November, professors at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Jodhpur, along with students at the institute, created the first models of the device, before handing over manufacturing responsibility to U.K. company DataWind. IIT is designing more advanced affordable prototypes, while concurrently testing the first batch of tablets that DataWind has made.

But over the past weeks, DataWind and IIT have disagreed on the final specs of Aakash 1. The difference of opinion, director of IIT Jodhpur Prem Kalra tells Fast Company, involves DataWind skimping on what IIT believed were minimum features. Suneet Singh Tuli, head of DataWind, has rejected the proposed "military grade" specifications but Kalra says they're only insisting on basic necessities for a tablet meant to be used by customers in rural India. DataWind's Tuli says there's no need to build a tablet that can be run over by a truck, while Kalra insists, in his own incindiary way, that his team's priorities are usability and safety. "If you drop it, it should not catch fire," he says. Meanwhile, several reviews of the device, including this recent one from IEEE Spectrum, have dismissed it as clunky and slow.

The recent move by the government could prove to be a butterfingered attempt to break the stalemate. The Economic Times reports that the government's Department of IT could be responsible for picking multiple manufacturers who'll take on production of Aakash 2. In a puzzling second twist, government sources have told the Times of India that two other universities--IITs in Chennai and Mumbai--will join the project as well. However, it is unclear what role they will play.

But there's a chance that the government's decision to hire a third-party tender writer, well-versed in the ways and wiles of commercial contracts, could avoid a future spat of the kind IIT and DataWind are mired in. In that case, this decision could actually streamline manufacturing of the Aakash 2, with the parties involved avoiding roadblocks like this one.

Kalra has been deeply involved with the Aakash project from its early days, and amid this recent fuss, he's keeping a brave face. He says that the decision will allow IIT to be involved, while letting it do what it does best--innovate at the early stage and continue designing. "Our main agenda is to come up with the new devices."

"As far as the first testing phase was concerned, we took that on because it was part of our research agenda," Kalra says. Now someone else has to handle the testing, supply chain, and whole manufacturing loop while IIT continues to research and develop low-cost devices. "That's a good step because we alone cannot do it. But, our research for improving the devices will continue."

In advance of its sales, demand for a souped-up commercial version of the tablet (costing about $50) appears strong. In early January, Suneet Singh Tuli announced that DataWind had seen 1.4 million preorders on its website. The question now seems to be, with all the added performers in this escalating Greek tragedy, what will it take for them to all agree so that Aakash can hit the market?

Nidhi Subbaraman writes about technology and the world. Follow on Twitter, Google+.

They were doing just fine before, but Facebook's biggest minority owners are about to be catapulted into a far more elite bracket. As we ponder what Li Ka-shing will do with his extra millions, here's a look at what got him where he is today.

Who he is: Sir Li Ka-shing is a Chinese businessman based in Hong Kong, currently chairman of Hutchison Wampoa Limited and Cheung Kong Holdings. In 2010 the companies he manages were worth about 15% of the entire Hong Kong stock market, which qualifies Ka-shing as a magnate of epic proportions, rather than a mere businessman. He's commonly considered Asia's most powerful man, has the nickname Superman, and like many powerful figures associated with Facebook, he's a a dropout, having left school at 15 (though that led to 16-hour work days at a plastics company). A serial tech investor, he's philanthropic to the extent he thinks of his charity, the Li Ka-shing Foundation as his "third son." Through it he's already given away over $1.4 billion.

What's his connection with Facebook?: In 2007 Ka-shing poured some $120 million into Facebook for a 0.8% share at the company's then valuation of $15 billion. 

What he's currently worth: Ka-shing may be the best example ever of nominative determinism--the notion that your name decides your career. He's considered the 11th richest man in the world with an estimated worth of $22 billion in 2011. Ka-ching, indeed.

What Facebook's IPO will bring: A 0.8% stake in a Facebook worth $85 billion at IPO would equate to $680 million for Ka-shing.

What he may do with the money: Invest, acquire, give it away, dive into piles of it à la Scrooge McDuck: The new value is equivalent to just 3% of his current riches.

Read about others in the Facebook IPO Players Club:

[Image via Li Ka Shing Foundation]

Chat about this news with Kit Eaton on Twitter and Fast Company too.

Quadrocopter Swarms Go Tiny

If you're a fan of This Week In Bots you'll be exquisitely familiar with quadropters--the technology is blooming right now because the battery, motor, and control technology is ubiquitous and the stable flight platform offered by the design promises so much for the future of aerial robotics. That's why we've seen them dance, perform ridiculous aerobatics, and even build things. Now UPenn's GRASP lab, behind so many of these innovations, has taken the design and added a sci-fi spin: Miniaturization. They're calling them nano-quadrotors, and as the video below shows, by making them small you can pack more together in a limited flying space and create truly astonishing swarm behavior.

[youtube YQIMGV5vtd4]

It's not just for show, though. If you equipped each of these devices with some AI and a degree of autonomy plus a sensor suite, they could be far more efficient than many other methods in searching a collapsed building (or the upper decks of a sunken cruise liner?) after a disaster--snaking in and out of confined spaces and where terrain would be tricky for humans. Alongside that there are policing and military uses that should be obvious, and one can maybe imagine news agencies adopting the technology to gain incredible footage of developing news scenes.

Lobby Greeters Go Robotic

You've seen telepresence work in medical environments and for remote-attendance of office meetings, but now the makers of one type of telepresence robot have a new and quite remarkable spin on the tech that mixes in telepresence and a dab of call-center thinking. Anybots will now, for $2,400 a month, send you one of their QB telepresence droids and hook your business up with its 40-hour-a-week AnyLobby service so that your offices can get a human-ish face to meet, greet, and help visitors to your office lobby.

As pointed out over at Automaton blog, not only can these robots offer a cheaper alternative to a real person and a better service to visitors than a depressingly inhuman lobby phone with a note saying to "Call Jim on extension x" or whatever, but if your needs are pretty sporadic, then one professional human robot operator could manage a number of robots--and be located anywhere.

Virtual contracted employees--a whole new layer of robot tech to think about. Will your office cleaner be replaced by one operated over telepresence soon, or will your IT support staff spin up to your desk in robot form before visiting in person?

[youtube PtXtIivRRKQ]

Real Estate Demos Go Telepresence

Lest you think telepresence lobby staff is just a single example of virtual staffing, the Personal Robotics Group at MIT recently hit the press because of its ideas for telepresence meeting-and-greeting of a different nature, where the job of showing prospective buyers around a property could be delegated to a telepresence droid. The team has been working on the tech for some years, tyring to hone the real-feel qualities of the robots so that a task as highly personal and important as helping someone buy a home doesn't feel odd or less satisfying than talking in person.

There are years to go before artificial agents like MITs can do the job, but we see no blockages to a getup like Anybots trying a telepresence version sooner rather than later. Stairs would be an issue, with most telepresence robots opting for a wheeled chassis to keep costs low, but there are creative solutions that could solve that problem. Plus it saves real estate agents time purring up and down the streets of town in their cars--thus lowering their costs (let's not go crazy and imagine these savings would be passed on to their clients, though).

Cancer Surgery Goes Robo-crab

This slightly stretches the definition of a robot (especially if you go with Douglas Adams' famous "your plastic pal who's fun to be with!" version), but technically the device is designed to replace the work of a human--and potentially do it better and more reliably: It's a novel robot for tackling stomach cancer.

Inspired by a meal of Singapore's famous chilli crab dish, a surgeon and roboticist in Singapore have come up with MASTER, the Master And Slave Transluminal Endoscopic Robot. Designed to be deployed through an endoscope, the robot is a claw-like tool that both grips cancerous tissue and precisely excises it while simultaneously cauterizing the wound. It avoids bigger open-surgery trauma to the patient, and because the robot's limbs don't tremble or slip the way human hands do, it can offer more precise treatment. A company was formed to commercialize it late in 2011, and the team hopes to sell it within three years.

Mannequins Go Sci-Fi

If you're of a certain age, this story will prompt a famous late-1980's film theme tune to worm into your thoughts...and if you're a Doctor Who fan you may get a chill: Dr Hiroshi Ishiguro, the Japanese roboticist behind the freakishly real-looking Geminoid robots, has turned his skills to improving boring, static store-window fashion mannequins. By making them move like a human model may.

[youtube 9TayMJ1pqzo]

As part of a Valentine's day promotion an Ishiguro Geminoid robot is sitting in a display at Takashimaya department store in Tokyo, doing familiar human things like smiling, yawning, adjusting her position in her chair and nodding at visitors--with a degree of interactivity when she senses passersby. The droid's face is capable of over 60 human-like expressions.

We're not sure what expressions you might suddenly display if the droid activated near you when you weren't expecting it, but we're guessing that even Ishiguro can't quite make his robots display sheer pant-wetting terror yet. He does think it's the "future of shop displays."

Car Robots Go Best-Selling

Skeptics among you may doubt that the robots we write about here will touch your daily life anytime soon, and true many of them are research devices designed to inform far-off consumer tech. But don't believe that the robot revolution is already underway, because as IndustryWeek notes, sales of industrial robots in North America in 2011 hit an all-time high. Well over a billion dollars of robot tech was brought into the U.S., beating the previous record set in 2005, and it's not just car-making robots: Non-automotive customers went up 27%, with the metalworking and semiconductor industry pushing the market. Better yet, while overall orders jumped up 47% compared to 2010, the dollar amount only went up 38%. Robots are getting cheaper, more reliable, and more capable. 

Flapping Bots Go Butterfly-Like

We write a lot about biomimicry in all sorts of technology because it's an important idea--life has already come up with many creative solutions to some of the scientific and engineering tasks we set for ourselves and our devices. Now butterflies are in the mix, as researchers at Johns Hopkins have realized that the efficient way that butterflies can propel themselves through the air can help build better nano-drones. Technically called ornithopters, flapping-wing robots may be the best aids for some search-and-rescue and military purposes due to their efficiency and ability to deal with unexpected air gusts--which is why engineering student Tiras Lin has been photographing them in lab conditions. You may be wowed by nano-quadrotors, but imagine the sensation you'll get in a while seeing a fleet of robo-butterflies perform similar tasks.

Chat about this news with Kit Eaton on Twitter (he's not a Geminoid) and Fast Company too.

Before political campaigns were all over blogs, Meetup.com, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, there was USA.gov, cofounded by David Binetti in 2000. The site, which was the platform for the first ever webcast from the Oval Office, is now the U.S. Government's official portal.

Binetti's new venture is a Silicon Valley tech startup called Votizen, a social network where voters can campaign for a candidate or a cause. Users reach out primarily to friends or acquaintances, leveraging their own social networks to organize. Votizen was used heavily in last November's San Francisco mayoral race, which resulted in the election of Ed Lee, the first Chinese-American mayor in that city's history. With the 2012 campaign heating up, we spoke with David Binetti, Votizen's CEO and cofounder, about the disruptive impact of technology on the political landscape and the challenges of innovating in the federal government.

FAST COMPANY: Technology is obviously playing a critical role in every part of our politics now. Tell us about how you first got started bringing the power of the web to the political world and what you have seen since.

DAVID BINETTI: In 1995, I created a website that did online campaign finance disclosure. In 2000, I created USA.gov, which is now the official portal of the federal government. Over the first decade of this century, web politics developed quite a bit. In 2008, the Obama campaign took advantage of technology in very innovative ways. Something was qualitatively different in the grassroots nature of the Obama campaign and its use of social media in particular. People were willing to share to a degree that they had not been willing to do before. Those channels allowed people to come together--voter to voter--which is a major departure from the fundamentally one-way, tight-message-control nature of the last 50 years of political campaigning. Social is completely the opposite. It's about connecting with other people and it's about having messages transfer organically, shift a little bit along the way, and having the people come to their own conclusions about what they want to say and what they want to share.

Although we're living in a sharing revolution, certain aspects of politics, specifically who people are voting for, have always been treated as private. What has changed that now allows a platform like Votizen to be built on the premise of actively sharing your political views and allegiances?

I think people realize that to share is to gain. So the benefits of sharing outweigh the potential costs. Mostly it's people saying "I'm willing to share information about myself in order to have an impact." Most people are willing to give up assets that are considered private as long as they are fairly compensated. A club card at the grocery store is an example of that. People are saying to the store, you can watch my purchases, but I want to get a discount. The same thing is happening here. People tell their network who they're voting for and, as a result, they get connected to people who share their viewpoint and grow that impact for a candidate, a cause, or an issue.

Give us a picture of how Votizen works.

Votizen empowers people to take action directly with the people in their networks. The first thing people do is connect with the voters that they already are connected to in their social networks, reach out to them, and ask them to take an action on behalf of this candidate because they believe it's important. Votizen is an open platform as opposed to a candidate distributing a call list or dictating what actions you take. In the San Francisco mayor's race, we piloted a new technology called a "Virtual Precinct Walk." For a lot of candidates, particularly local candidates, a precinct walk is one of the main things they and their supporters do. You walk through a neighborhood and you knock on doors for your candidate. We moved that online. Instead of walking through streets and knocking on strangers' doors, you are going online and connecting with your friends. Ed Lee's mayoral campaign used this tool and found many advantages. You don't have to worry about whether or not the person is home, you don't have worry about the weather, you can cover much more ground more rapidly. You can do it on your own time; it doesn't have to be done on Sunday afternoon. The person who answers your social door is always the person you're seeking. And of course you're connecting with friends. That one-to-one connection is really important.

Political campaigns today are waged primarily offline--person-to-person and through traditional media. While online is growing, most analysts doubt it can ever have as much impact as traditional political media.

The difference between online and offline might not matter as much as those analysts think. Is it reasonable that on the presidential level, candidates can have one-to-one connections with 200 million voters? No. But think about where connectedness to voters is going to matter most: Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, the swing states...mobilizing supporters' connections to their own networks can have disproportionately valuable effects. In the Iowa Caucuses, Rick Perry got 12,557 votes. It turns out he spent $480 per vote, almost all of it on traditional media. Well, if you know two people in Iowa who you can win to voting for your candidate, you are effectively a $1,000 donor to that campaign. Given that money can be a proxy for getting votes, if people are actually able to deliver votes through their connections online that could have a huge impact on the race. In presidential politics today the money is being spent primarily on television, direct mail, and robocalls. Yet those media are losing effectiveness quite rapidly. In the future these social network channels are going to matter more and more. Ultimately it's going to be much more about "friend-raising," than fundraising. Candidates will still ask how do I get enough votes to win, but which channels they use to gain those votes will change, it already is changing.

Amplification was obviously key on an issue like SOPA. What is your power to amplify something perceived as a small issue and make it bigger?

Where I think Votizen is going to have the most impact is on the long tail of politics. A year and a half ago people on our site organized around cabin fees. New rules had been proposed that would raise fees on people who owned personal property on federal forest land. There are only 5,000 people who are directly affected by this issue, but they are all super connected. So one of them started a campaign and within 48 hours, 1,000 of those people had signed on and written letters to the legislators. One legislator in particular took on that issue--because it made a difference to someone in their district, and served as their advocate and so far, they have succeeded in holding off those fee hikes.

Obama talked a lot about innovation in his recent State of the Union speech and offered some promising ideas. But what are the challenges and roadblocks to innovating in government?

People working in the government are amazing, hard working, thoughtful people who want to do good. But the government, as a whole, is not in the innovation business. Individual people are not rewarded for innovation. In fact, they are frequently punished. The system is designed to be stable, so when you actually try to make change, it's really hard. Private-public partnerships can be very valuable for innovation. These formats allow you to innovate on the private side with a path to become more public. That's something we pioneered with FirstGov, which became USA.gov. A lot of the innovation happened on the private side when we were a private company. Eventually, it transitioned to a public platform. It took us 90 days to build USA.gov and more than three years to give it away to the government. That was largely a result of the government procurement rules. There was just no system for dealing with what was essentially a donation of services and intellectual property.

One of the concerns about the political process is the need to engage new voters and new communities. How are you seeing new groups use your platform?

In a campaign, members on our site ran in support of Startup Visa [an effort to change immigration laws, making it easier for foreign entrepreneurs living in the United States with successful businesses to stay in the country] and 80% of the people who used the system had never engaged in the political process before. What brought them in was the fact that they felt that they could actually make a difference. If you look at the SOPA debate in January, online activism made a huge difference--in fact, it made all the difference! Now people see that the actions they take can have an impact. Voters are realizing: I can make something happen. This is where the 2008 Obama campaign nailed it because they realized that by letting people take direct action in the campaign, supporters were encouraged to take more action. Freeing people up to believe that they were participating directly gave them the huge benefit of seeing themselves as involved with something greater and more important than themselves.

Note: This interview has been edited for content, clarity, and length.

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David D. Burstein is a young entrepreneur, having completed his first documentary 18 in '08. He is also the founder & executive director of the youth voter engagement not for profit, Generation18. His book about the millennial generation will be published by Beacon Press in early 2013.

[Image: Flickr user Thomas Hawk]

They were doing just fine before, but the biggest of minority owners of Facebook are about to be catapulted into a far more elite bracket. As we ponder what they'll do with with new millions (money being no stranger to early investor Jim Breyer), here's a look at what got them where they are today.

Who he is: When we profiled him back in 1997, Jim Breyer was simply a Managing General Partner at Accel Partners, who spent the "bulk of his working hours in meetings" but who "comes to the table only if the stakes are high and the action is guranteed." Now he's also president of Accel Management Company, and founder and CEO of Breyer Capital, and sits on various boards (including Booyah). He's got a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science and economics, which must certainly have played a part in his interest in Facebook. In October 2011 he was elected to News Corporation's board, just in time to be in the middle of the phone hacking scandal, but that probably doesn't detract from his nomination as Forbes' "smartest investor in technology" in 2010.

What's his connection to Facebook?: In 2005 under Breyer's pressure, Accel invested $12.7 million in the nascent Facebook enterprise, and Breyer was so seemingly smitten with the technological and financial promise that he invested one million dollars of his own money too, establishing an ownership share of about 1%. 

What's he worth now: Estimated at $1.1 billion in late 2011

How much could the IPO make him: An assumed 1% stake at an $85 billion IPO would equate to $850 million.

What he may do with the money: Invest, invest, invest! But not necessarily where you may think: His economic smarts also bring caution, and recently Breyer said too much startup funding could be a bad thing, and the current frenzy "may end badly."

Read about others in the Facebook IPO Players Club:

Chat about this news with Kit Eaton on Twitter and Fast Company too.

Whether you love him, hate him, or are just a little jealous of his newly minted multi-billionaire status, you have to admit that Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, has made some visionary leadership moves.

In less than 10 years, Zuckerberg?s taken an idea for an online social network from his Harvard dorm room and delivered it into the homes, offices, pockets, and purses (via mobile phones) of 845 million users around the world. Last year, more than half of Facebook?s users logged in every single day, spending a whopping 4 hours and 35 minutes posting, reading updates, and ?liking? more than 2 billion posts a day.

And how many CEOs anywhere in the world can say the company they founded before they were old enough to drink generated a net income of $1 billion in 2011 on revenue of $3.7 billion, up from $606 million on revenues of $1.97 billion in 2010?

Zuckerberg?s had his share of growing pains, too, but he?s held fast to Facebook?s helm as well as its stock. He currently owns 28.4% of the company, which at a valuation of $100 billion, translates to a stake worth just under $30 billion.

Despite that dough, less than 10% of Americans relished the thought of walking the halls of Facebook in his sneakers, and even fewer (9% to be precise) wanted to work for him.

As Facebook takes its first steps under the glaring klieg lights of its planned public offering, you can be sure Zuckerberg?s management moves will be subject to even more scrutiny, dissection, and criticism. For now though, we want to take a look at the leadership qualities that brought on this dizzying success.

Have A Strong Personal Philosophy

Amid the astounding numbers of revenue and users, and the cast of characters that reads like an A-list index to the high-roller investors of the tech world, the S-1 document that Facebook filed yesterday also held the personal manifesto Zuckerberg plans to use as a guide for the company after the IPO.

"We don't build services in order to make money, we make money in order to build better services. Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission--to make the world open and more connected."

Zuck?s trotted out this ?open and connected? tenet at various times, most recently in an impassioned post on Facebook opposing SOPA and PIPA. ?We will continue to oppose any laws that will hurt the Internet,? and with equal furor in a rebuttal to the FTC touting how much social media has contributed to the government, the advancement of democracy, and the growing cottage industry of social software.

Make It Not Always About The Money

Naysayers were quick to wag tongues and fingers when Zuckerberg turned down Yahoo?s nearly $1 billion offer to buy Facebook in 2006. But the decision to keep Facebook independent was far from a lapse in judgment. In less than two years, Myspace accepted $580 million to join News Corp., and YouTube took $1.5 billion from Google.

As valuations fluctuated between $10 billion and $1 trillion, Zuckerberg stuck to his simple resolution. He?d consider an IPO when it ?made sense? rather than make himself and investors rich. "I'm here to build something for the long term. Anything else is a distraction." Even Cameron Winklevoss agreed.

Know How To Scale In Multiple Ways

Zuckerberg recognized early on that scaling a business was a balancing act. Now topping 845 million members, there?s only so many more users Facebook can add to its base. Instead, he?s focused on increasing the amount of time people spend clicking around the network, so it can serve up even more ads at higher rates.

This scheme has already been in play with a number of Facebook?s features such as games and shopping. Though not all of have been successful (hello, FB email service) it?s clear that the bottom line gets a boost the longer users are on the site.

Support A Culture Of Innovation

Zuckerberg worked with only a handful of developers in the early days of Facebook but when the ?snakepit? of angst-ridden, overworked staff got to be counterproductive, he made some important additions. Chris Cox became the evangelical HR executive while newly installed COO Sheryl Sandberg ushered in an era of stability in 2008.

Things still retain the playful air of a tech development hive, but with an edge. At its HQ, male Facebook employees vanquish distractions even when they go to the bathroom (which is frequently, thanks to all those free beverages).

Recognize You Don?t Have To Be First To Market

Myspace and Friendster both predate Facebook, yet are now virtually extinct. Facebook trumped those earlier social networks because it provides more of a compelling pull, rather than a push. Likewise, when it entered the deals game last year alongside veterans Groupon and LivingSocial, it took their existing model and did it one better by adding polls and encouraging users to share. All of that fits with Facebook?s core mission, ?Giving people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.?

Take Pride In Hacking

For Zuckerberg, hacking goes way beyond the allegations that he coded his way into the Harvard Crimson and ConnectU. Zuckerberg?s hacker culture is about using shared effort and knowledge to make something bigger, better, and faster than an individual can do alone. His "hackathons" at Facebook are legendary and help foster innovation in all manner of projects from building better data centers to crowdsourcing urban planning for its surrounding neighborhood.

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Play To Win, Without Competing

Zuckerberg's social-networking juggernaut is the smallest and youngest of Silicon Valley?s Fab Four, but it?s killing it with stellar results in the ad business and attracting all kinds of talent. The Great Tech War of 2012 may be on, but Zuck?s not going to play. "People like to talk about war...There are real competitions in there, but I don't think this is going to be this type of situation where there's one company that wins all this stuff."

Let Them See You Sweat

Between his awkward, perspiration-soaked appearance at D8 last year and presentations peppered with hesitant "ums," it?s no wonder Zuckerberg?s drawn fire for his lack of polish for such a loftily placed CEO. No matter, he?s still smarter and more successful than the rest of us, which sets him in a league of his own.

Now it's your turn. What leadership lessons have you taken from Mark Zuckerberg? Tweet us @FastCoLeaders with the hashtag #FCweighin to join the conversation, or leave a comment below.

Read the rest of Fast Company's coverage of Facebook's IPO. 

[Image: Flickr user dfarber]

We sifted through media coverage of Facebook's imminent IPO to bring you the mother of all news roundups. Get ready to ride the linked-up lightning.

Now it's Facebook's turn to share. 

Facebook Inc. filed for an initial public offering... that could value the social network between $75 billion and $100 billion, putting the company on track for one of the biggest U.S. stock-market debuts of all time. The company that has redefined the way millions of people worldwide interact and share information on the Internet may command a valuation more than five times higher than Google Inc. as it seeks to raise $5 billion. 

Depending on who you ask, Facebook is either the best company to go public since Google or the hallmark of another tech bubble. Facebook's IPO could be a bellwether for the entire social networking world; it could help generate interest and money for other big Internet players, like Twitter while a huge influx of cash could enable the social networking company to topple Google from its dominant position in the online world. 

Just about everyone in Silicon Valley has dreamed of striking it rich with a well-timed investment? Facebook's biggest shareholder and chief executive owns 533.8 million shares, or a roughly 28 percent stake, worth around $28 billion. That would make the 27-year-old the fourth-richest American, according to Forbes' 2011 rankings, surpassed only by Microsoft Corp's Bill Gates, legendary investor Warren Buffett and Oracle Corp's Larry Ellison. Zuckerberg has 56.9 percent of the voting shares, followed by Accel Partners with 11.4 percent, James Breyer with 11.4 percent, co-founder Dustin Moskovitz with 7.6 percent, DST Global with 5.5 percent and entrepreneur Peter Thiel with 2.4 percent. The company's board of directors--including Washington Post Co. Chairman and Chief Executive Don Graham--were also listed as stakeholders. Former Google executive Sheryl Sandberg, now Facebook's chief operating officer, has a smaller Class B share allocation, as does Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen, a member of the Facebook board since 2008. 

With approximately a third of Facebook's roughly 3,000 employees becoming millionaires overnight, thousands of new ?millionerds? will have vast amounts of disposable income, and the local economy hopes to reap the benefits. Some vendors are already experiencing the ?Facebook Effect.? Two brand-new Porsches, price tags still stuck to windows, were seen leaving the Facebook campus yesterday. The graffiti artist who took Facebook stock instead of cash for painting the walls of the social network's first headquarters made a smart bet. The shares owned by the artist, David Choe, are expected to be worth upward of $200 million when Facebook stock trades publicly later this year. 

One of the biggest challenges Facebook will face is the gulf between the have's and have-not's within Facebook. It can create tremendous internal stress and can result in people leaving to follow their own entrepreneurial dreams. The Facebook IPO will make some people very rich, but social-media experts suggest that it could force Facebook to put profits over user experience--and that could cause problems. 

Just as Google, upon its IPO, enunciated its goal as "Don't be evil," Facebook also claims a higher mission. Wall Street doesn't. This can lead to problems.  

Investors will be clamoring to get ahold of Facebook stock, with many hoping to get in before the company figures things out and the stock takes off. Actually, those wanting to get in on the Facebook IPO might soon find out what it feels like to get "unfriended." When it comes to the initial public offering of Facebook, the world's largest social network, there's ironically very little for the masses. Facebook's IPO, as with most IPOs, will only be sold at the offering price to privileged investors. 

The investing world certainly seems to be working itself into a frenzy over the looming Facebook IPO. But before you jump in thinking you finally have a way to make real money from FarmVille and Words With Friends, you had better know your history? 1999 was a spectacular one for IPOs with 555 companies raising a record $73.6 billion, [yet] half of all issues lost money. Even more amazing, nearly 75 percent of all U.S. Internet-related IPOs since mid-1995 were trading below their offering price at the time of publication. 

Let's do the math. Microsoft is trading at only 11 times its net income for fiscal 2011. Google is valued at about 20 times its 2011 profits. If Facebook were to fetch a $100 billion market value, that would give it a price-to-earnings ratio of 100. 

The numbers in Facebook's IPO filing on Wednesday give us the picture of a juggernaut, but not an unstoppable one. What could go wrong on Facebook's march to one of the biggest IPOs in history? Let Facebook tell you--a fall-off in growth of users, a clash between Facebook's culture and the expectations of public investors, and advertiser resistance to the company's advances. [Its] revenue total disappointed some people who pored through the documents. One reason: The company generates about $4.39 in revenue per user. 

Every service Facebook offers, from photo sharing to music streaming to virtual animal husbandry, is designed to gather information about users in the hope that online advertisers will pay a premium for specific targeting. So far, enthusiasm for the idea has reportedly generated modest annual profits for Facebook of around $1 billion, or just over $1 per user per year. But the biggest opportunity may yet lay in getting users to participate in and distribute to their friends ad campaigns that are part of their social experience may yet hold greater promise. It is a long way from there, however. The precise ad targeting enabled by that information is why Facebook now claims nearly 30 percent of online display advertising, having long since blasted past the runner-up in the category, Yahoo, according to ComScore? But when you get down to it, as a colleague of mine said, "It's a thin coat of paint over a massive data-mining operation." 

Despite money generated from advertising accounting for 85 per cent of Facebook's revenues last year, and its net income in 2011 reaching $1billion, the company will have to radically change the way it cashes in on its users' data to make good on its valuation. In its IPO filing Facebook mentions the word "mobile" 123 times, which, given the term's buzz-worthy status, is hardly surprising. But in most cases Facebook doesn't use the word "mobile" in positive ways. They make no money from mobile.  What's worse, the more people use Facebook's mobile services, the more money it loses. As Facebook states in its list of risk factors, "if users continue to increasingly access Facebook mobile products as a substitute for access through personal computers, and if we are unable to successfully implement monetization strategies for our mobile users, our revenue and financial results may be negatively affected."

Why? No ads. 85% of Facebook's $3.7 billion revenues in 2011 came from advertising, and those ads were all on its website. Facebook's advertising strategy has, as yet, not made the leap from web to mobile. 

Among the more colorful details of Facebook's 150-page S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission is a letter from founder Mark Zuckerberg setting out the social network's "mission." In the letter, the 27-year-old Harvard University graduate grandly draws comparisons between Facebook and the invention of the printing press for changing the way the world communicates. "Facebook was not originally created to be a company," Zuckerberg wrote. "It was built to accomplish a social mission--to make the world more open and connected." He added: "Facebook aspires to build the services that give people the power to share and help them once again transform many of our core institutions and industries."

Critics say users don't need friends like Facebook. "Facebook is incredibly greedy with our personal information. It wants to own us and our online identity," said Andrew Keen, author of the upcoming book "Digital Vertigo," who calls himself the founding member of what he calls the "Facebook resistance." "There is nothing altruistic about it. This is a pure financial play. Tech workers and investors are going to become obscenely rich." 

Adam L. Penenberg is a journalism professor at NYU and a contributing writer to Fast Company. Follow him on Twitter: @penenberg

Sources:

1. Jessica Guynn, Los Angeles Times 

2. Shayndi Raice, Wall Street Journal 

3. Jon Swartz, Scott Martin, Matt Krantz, USA Today 

4. David Randall, Reuters 

5. Sarah Gaudin, Computerworld 

6. Sarah Gaudin, Computerworld

7. Sarah McBride, The Baltimore Sun 

8. Hayley Tsukayama, The Washington Post 

9. James Rogers, The Street 

10. Stephanie Soderborg and Lu (Laura) He, Peninsula Press

11. Nick Bilton and Evelyn M. Rusli, New York Times 

12. Om Malik, GigaOm 

13. Gloria Goodale, Christian Science Monitor 

14. Eric Markowitz and Kimberly Weisul, Inc.

15. Roger Cheng, CNET

16. Matt Krantz, USA Today 

17. Larry Swedroe, CBS Money Watch

18. Paul R. La Monica, CNN Money

19. Chris O'Brien, Mercury News 

20. Shira Ovide, The Wall Street Journal

21. Michael Liedtke, Christian Science Monitor

22. Reuters 

23. James Temple, San Francisco Gate 

24. Emma Barnett, The Telegraph 

25. Keith Fitchard, GigaOm 

26. Eric Jackson, Forbes 

27. Stuart Dredge, The Guardian

28. Katherine Rushton, The Telegraph 

29. Huffington Post

30. Jessica Guynn, Los Angeles Times 

[Image: Flickr user ssoosay]

They were doing just fine before, but Facebook's biggest minority owners are about to be catapulted into a far more elite bracket. As we ponder what they'll do with with new millions (maybe over $4 billion for Dustin Moskovitz!), here's a look at what got them where they are today.

Who he is: Dustin Moskovitz was born May 22, 1984--the year the Apple Macintosh landed, if that makes you feel old--and he's just eight days younger than Mark Zuckerberg. Wikipedia calls him an "internet entrepreneur," the Los Angeles Times labels him a "self-taught programmer" while Forbes considers him a "drop out, Harvard university." Roommate to Zuckerberg at Harvard where for two years, he was an economics major, he's a native Floridian, and in 2008 he founded and is CEO of Asana--a company who's eponymous app helps people organize group collaboration and project work. He's also the biggest angel investor in new social network darling Path. He dislikes Google+, still flies Virgin America (not in first class) and Zuckerberg once noted he'd "always be someone I turn to for advice."

His connection to Facebook: He left Harvard with Zuckerberg and other friends and moved to Palo Alto to cofound Facebook proper, after first building it as thefacebook.com in their dorm to help resident Harvard students relate. He was its first CTO, followed by being VP of Engineering, building many infrastructural elements still in place today.

What he's worth already: Forbes guesses his net worth as of September 2011 at around $3.5 billion, and once called him the world's youngest billionaire--based on his stake in Facebook.

How much Facebook's IPO will earn him: Moskovitz has a 5% stake in Facebook, which for an $85 billion company would equate to $4.25 billion. That's around $157 million for every year of his life.

What he might do with his money: Moskovitz is, so the rumors go, pretty unassuming about his billionaire status. He's invested in Path and other startups like Venmo and Flipbook, so we may guess he'll do a bit more of this--and probably Asana will get some attention too. Philanthropy could follow, as he signed up to Giving Pledge late last year, and has established Good Ventures with his partner--a mechanism for donating to worthy charities.

Read about others in the Facebook IPO Players Club:

[Image: Flickr user Kevin Krejci]

Chat about this news with Kit Eaton on Twitter and Fast Company too.

The private company behind the Super Bowl's official Social Media Command Center isn't just tweeting fans transit tips, they're monitoring social media for game-day threats by would-be terrorists. And Madonna.

What do Justin Bieber and potholes have in common? This isn't, actually, a joke. The Super Bowl Host Committee in Indianapolis, along with Indiana-based private social media company Raidious, have set up a giant Social Media Command Center in downtown Indianapolis (right, and yes, those are Macs) for the Super Bowl, and they're already monitoring Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, YouTube, and Flickr. They'll watch for tweeted gripes about roads and statuses about parking--plus, you know, any chatter from would-be terrorists looking to create panic with a dirty bomb.

Oh, and they'll keep extra special sharp tabs on Madonna, Justin Bieber, and any other A-list attendees to make sure they find Indianapolis' amenities suitable.

Running the Super Bowl's social media operation will be Raidious's largest project to date (other corporate clients include the Indianapolis Colts, Comcast, and Adidas). Big-game ops will be staffed by 50 employees and volunteers--college students, mostly. 

According to Raidious CEO Taulbee Jackson, the Command Center's main goal is to actively work with visitors and respond in crisis and safety situations if needed. Staff, working on an Awareness, Inc. platform, have a list of approximately 300 keywords to be monitored (along with the Twitter hashtag #social46). Visitors to Indianapolis will receive assistance with their visit--and monitoring for other purposes will continually take place.

Tweets and other social media are filtered by geolocation; Raidious is focusing on tweets and Facebook posts made in Indianapolis and the immediate vicinity. A major part of Raidious' strategy focuses on sentiment response--Twitter messages ragging on Indianapolis or the Super Bowl visit experience are much more likely to get a rapid response. As of Thursday night, the official Super Bowl Host Committee Twitter account @superbowl2012 was busy steering Indianapolis visitors and guests to weekend concerts and festival events; Raidious was also running an extremely busy guest services operation on the Super Bowl 2012 Facebook page.

Then there's the whole first-line-of-defense-against-terrorism thing. A major part of the Social Media Command Center's duties will consist of emergency management and as-needed crisis assistance. Just outside of Indianapolis, a federal command center has been set up with officials from the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who will be in contact with the Social Media Command Center--its staffers and supporting undergrads. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced at a Wednesday press conference that over 35 federal or component law enforcement agencies were collaborating on Super Bowl security. At the Command Center, redundant Internet connections and network infrastructure have been added; all employees are also equipped with smartphones in case of a power outage.

One of the Social Media Command Center's stated goals is to ?respond first to any safety oriented issue/crisis.? So while the FBI monitors social media for a variety of keywords that could refer to a terrorist attack or criminal incident at the Super Bowl, the Command Center does its part (while also making sure you don't get a pricey ticket for parking in the wrong zone).

In fact, all social media data related to the Super Bowl is being subjected to intensive post-publishing analytics: Purdue University's Homeland Security Institute has been producing daily reports on Super Bowl social media chatter on behalf of the Super Bowl Host Committee and the Indiana Office of Technology. As a sort of tit-for-tat, the Homeland Security Institute's reports also include information on parking, traffic, and public safety trends.

The Command Center is also actively monitoring the Twitter feeds of celebrities attending the game or participating in concerts or events Super Bowl Weekend. If a famous musician, athlete, or actor makes a negative statement--say criticizing an aspect of their trip--Raidious' team will be able to quickly help sort things out. 

After the Indianapolis Super Bowl Committee bought Raidious onto the project in 2010, the project and Command Center were set up over a period of nine months. Volunteers for the Command Center were trained in corporate PR best practices and set up to work on a stripped-down version of the Awareness interface.

As for learning to spot bona fide terrorist threats--how hard could that really be?  

For more stories like this, follow @fastcompany on Twitter. Email Neal Ungerleider, the author of this article, here or find him on Twitter and Google+.

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