Entrepreneurs are arguably the most important actors in our economy—the creators of new wealth and new jobs, the inventors of new products and services, and the revolutionizers of society and the economy
~ Lesa Mitchell, VP of advancing innovation at the Kauffman Foundation.

I have been reading a great deal recently on how small business and entrepreneurship is the potential savior of our US economy. Economist will agree that older established companies DO NOT hold the promise of job creation or a renewed and revived economy, but instead the next bright new companies.

Venture capitalist will tell you that EVERYONE is on the lookout for the next “Gazelle” or fast growing start-up with the potential of becoming the next Google or Apple. But in between the “Giants” and the “Gazelles”, lies a whole territory of smaller companies that also help to fuel the economy not only by job creation but by private wealth creation, smaller companies from yoga studios to e-commerce web portals.

How important is entrepreneurship to the US economy?

This is where the jobs are, not at General Motors. It is about creating new companies, new industries, not propping up behemoths
~ John Harthorne, a co-founder of MassChallenge

The US Government has identified entrepreneurs as an important key to turning the economy around, and in January of this year The White House helped launch the Startup America Partnership. This is an independent, private-sector entity partnership between the US Government and private equity. The US Government is committed to matching funds in this venture to encourage the creation of new startups, with a principal focus on supporting existing firms who could become “Gazelles”.

How do Women entrepreneurs stack up?

Continue Reading “Can women entrepreneurs help save the US economy? YES!”

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking that you have something to lose ~ Steve Jobs

In tribute of Steve Jobs, I wanted to highlight one of my all time favorite videos of Steve Jobs, where he urges graduates to pursue their dreams and see the opportunities in life’s setbacks — including death itself.

Transcript of Steve Jobs’ inspirational commencement address:
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

Attitudes towards this growing phenomenon amongst employers are proving fascinating…… a recent report says that our concepts of work and employment are going to have to change with organizations relying more on a small core workforce supplemented by an army of temporary or project workers. Portfolio workers typically are self motivated, self starters and reliable. They have to be as they will not survive unless they are excellent time managers and organizers. DR BARRIE HOPSON, “And What Do You Do?: 10 Steps to Creating a Portfolio Career”

I’m a SLASHER, are you?

While “slasher” might conjure up images of those bad ’80′s horror movies, the term has been reinvented to mean self-employed people who are pursuing “portfolio careers”, deriving their income from various part-time or freelance jobs. 

Recently I have come across more and more people who like myself, cannot answer the question “what do you do for a living”? in a simple sentence.  

In fact this could be the fastest growing segment of workers – people pursuing multiple career paths in sometimes unrelated fields. This trend is especially strong amongst the 40+ plus crowd and recent college graduates (I happen to be both) – there are various terms used for this emerging career segment –

Continue Reading “I’m a career “Slasher”, are you????”

Locally and globally, we continue to see that the nature of jobs is profoundly changing, and what we do in order to earn our incomes, and how we do it, will never be the same.  Importantly, none of this will ever again conform to what were the norms or rules or expectations across companies or through the years.  The business of getting, keeping, being rewarded for and losing jobs has become a virtual free-for-all.

Here are some of the things I am seeing as it pertains to current workplace trends:

Continue Reading “The Future of Getting, Doing and Losing Jobs”

As some of you have already noticed, Facebook just rolled out a huge revamp of some of its core features like News Feed, while adding new features like Smart Lists and News Ticker.

Business Insider put together a great list of privacy settings that you should pay attention to on these new features:

1. Know that anything you post or comment on a friend’s wall is public. Your posts will show up in others’ News Tickers
2. Remember to check sharing settings before you post an update.
3. Be very careful adding people to your Smart Lists associated with work or study. They’ll get notified.
4. Go to your profile and click “View As…” Then click “public” to see how your profile looks to the world.
5. Subscribing does not equal stalking someone you’re not friends with. “Subscribing” to somebody’s public updates is a public act, just like following on Twitter.
6. Click the drop down arrow in the top right of your screen, then “Privacy Settings,” then “How Tags Work.” Make sure you’re cool with each setting.
7. Want to only make parts of your profile public and parts private? Click “Edit Profile” on your profile and change these settings.
8. So who can see that picture, anyway? Find out by clicking the gear next to a picture.

Read the full article on Business Insider to see screenshots and examples of where to find all of these settings: