In a new study released today, April 2 by Thumbtack.com in partnership with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Utah ranks as the friendliest state to small businesses overall, while Massachusetts trails with a C- grade. The second annual Thumbtack.com Small Business Survey (2013), which polled 7,000 small business owners, found that licensing regulations and training programs are even more important when measuring the business climate.

“Within search results, information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification, which will result in most users naturally clicking on the top (verified) results. The true cost of remaining anonymous…might be irrelevance.”

 Eric Schmidt. CEO of Google

Depression, rejection and failure are no longer anonymous. In 2013, business is getting more competitive and there is an inherently increasing need for business owners to put themselves “out there” from both a sales and marketing standpoint to stay in the game.

Innovation thrives when successful entrepreneurs stay involved and give back.

We’re honored to have Steve Case join us for this Q&A.  Steve embodies the generous “pay it forward” philosophy at the foundation of healthy innovation ecosystems, what we call Rainforests.

Despite a highly successful business career—as co-founder and CEO/Chairman of American Online, and later Chairman of AOL-Time Warner—Steve has not rested on his laurels.  In recent years, he has taken on a visible role as a supporter and mentor of new startups through his investment firm Revolution, LLC, where he serves as Chairman and CEO, and the nonprofit Startup America Partnership, where he serves as Chairman.

There was a time when middle-class parents in America could be — and were — content to know that their kids’ public schools were better than those in the next neighborhood over. As the world has shrunk, though, the next neighborhood over is now Shanghai or Helsinki. So, last August, I wrote a column quoting Andreas Schleicher — who runs the global exam that compares how 15-year-olds in public schools around the world do in applied reading, math and science skills — as saying imagine, in a few years, that you could sign on to a Web site and see how your school compares with a similar school anywhere in the world. And then you could take this information to your superintendent and ask: “Why are we not doing as well as schools in China or Finland?”

Technology and innovation magazine The New Economy has compiled a list of the 40 foremost innovators of 2012. Though many bemoan the floundering furtherance of corporate innovation, there are many - or at least 40 - who defy the masses in their sustained endeavours towards transformation. The Innovation 40 is The New Economy's celebration of the pioneering and often defiant parties who prevail at a time when many rivals continue along a straight, dull and narrow path.

Thomas Mallick, Strategy Editor of The New Economy heralds "those creating new markets, to those who succeeded in refining strategies or existing products," all of whom "have positioned themselves to evolve, regardless of what financial constraints may have hindered their efforts." Whether they have contributed to sustainability or aggressive growth strategies, each of the selected innovators has, in some sense, furthered industry or the economy by ensuring a better future.

Wondering what secret weapon could take your productivity to the next level? Richard Branson, Meg Whitman, Deepak Chopra, and dozens of other professional thought leaders might have the answer. We asked some of LinkedIn’s Influencers to describe their toolkits for success for “Things I Carry,” the latest in our series of special features by Influencers.

For a definitive guide to success, you may as well look to some of the most successful people in business, and it turns out that the hundreds of items named can be distilled into a few categories. To sharpen your daily routine the way these thought leaders have, make sure you have these five things:

They're small things, but each has the power to dramatically change someone's day. Including yours.

Want to make a huge difference in someone's life? Here are things you should say every day to your employees, colleagues, family members, friends, and everyone you care about:

"Here's what I'm thinking."

You're in charge, but that doesn't mean you're smarter, savvier, or more insightful than everyone else. Back up your statements and decisions. Give reasons. Justify with logic, not with position or authority.

I’ve always been focused on performance. I’m a list person. I love the feeling of crossing things off. It makes me feel productive. Plus, consistent productivity has the wonderful byproduct of accomplishing more. Jeff Haden’s recent article on Linkedin summarizes the value of having a daily to-do list beautifully: You don’t wait to do the work until you get the dream job - you do the work in order to get the dream job.

There used to be a lot of discussion about the necessity and appropriateness of state-funded and directed venture capital programs. That was before the burst of the dot.com bubble and the impact of the 2008 global financial crisis drove down investment in private sector venture capital funds.

Since 2006, the national supply of venture capital has declined 32 percent. A recent report for the U.S. Treasury Department states that the United States has “the lowest pool of venture capital available to high potential businesses in at least fifteen years.”

Crowds have already demonstrated their value as a source of capital for start-ups. Support via donations or pre-purchasing on sites like Kickstarter has set high expectations for equity-based crowd funding in the United States.

Discussions often focus on how crowds can and will compare to traditional institutions like venture funds or angels. One can argue simultaneously for the madness and wisdom of crowds, so it's not yet clear how crowds will compare at picking the best startups. However, there are some areas in which crowds might outperform existing institutions. And for these contributions, crowds deserve serious consideration for startups and their stakeholders.

When Qualcomm Ventures unveiled the QPrize competition in 2009, Nagraj Kashyap told me a key factor in the decision to create an incentive prize was the evaporation of venture capital amid the liquidity crisis that followed the financial meltdown of 2008.

Kashyap, who heads Qualcomm Ventures, says the need for startup funding is less acute nowadays in the United States. “But outside of North America, there still is clearly a need for this,” especially in places like China, India, and Brazil. Kashyap says he’s also heartened that the competition has attracted a broad following among venture investors.

From entrepreneur to EIR to ... mayor?

FORTUNE -- Matt Lauzon last year stepped down as CEO of Gemvara, the Boston-based online retailer of customizable fine jewelry that he had co-founded back in 2006. Today he has resurfaced as an entrepreneur-in-residence with venture capital firm Matrix Partners.

I reached out to discuss the move with Lauzon, and an edited transcript of our conversation is below:

Fortune: You had talks about becoming an entrepreneur-in-residence with several VC firms, before settling on Matrix. What interested you in the position, generally speaking?

Members of the Millennial Generation are predisposed to start organizations and businesses, with 15% doing so right out of college, an increase of 300% from 20 years ago. Here are the stories of seven people under 30 who are making this kind of impact from Fast Future: How the Millennial Generation is Shaping Our World.

IT'S NOT UNUSUAL TO HAVE HUNDREDS OR EVEN THOUSANDS OF LINKEDIN CONNECTIONS--WHICH CAN MAKE YOUR SOCIAL-MEDIA WORLD AS MESSY AND NOISY AS A CROWDED PARTY FULL OF STRANGERS. WHICH IS WHY KNOWING "SUPERCONNECTORS" IS PRICELESS.

They say, “Those who can’t do, teach.” In business circles, a cynic might adapt this cliche to say, “Those who can’t do, network.”

And at more than a billion people now connecting on online social networks, there’s a fair amount of evidence that this is the case. According to a Twitter bio search on FollowerWonk.com, more than 180,000 people identify themselves as social media gurus, mavens, experts, and ninjas. Thousands more declare themselves "networkers.” Truth is, even we non-“networkers” are more connected than ever.

Entrepreneurs are a unique group of people, but they behave in patterns. In fact, as I recently wrote here on HBR, my firm's research shows that most serial entrepreneurs display persuasion, leadership, personal accountability, goal orientation, and interpersonal skills. But in that same study, we also discovered a set of skills they do not possess.

To rehash our methods, we assessed subjects identified as serial entrepreneurs on what personal skills they possessed. Then they were compared to a control group of 17,000. As before, this group was assessed on their mastery of 23 practical, job-related skills. We measured whether skills were well developed, developed, moderately developed, or needed developing.

Future potential matters (much) more than past performance. That's the new quantitative consensus reshaping professional sports worldwide. After looking hard at the numbers and algorithms, the smartest — and richest — general managers and franchises have made up their collective minds: They're not paying a premium for yesterday. Period. Iconic athletes from Barcelona to Manchester United to the Chicago Bears to the New England Patriots to the New York Yankees have been effectively cut loose.

Thanks for the memories. See you at the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies, dude. We simply can't — or won't — afford you anymore.

GIVING PEOPLE COMMUNITY TABLES INSTEAD OF CUBICLES IS NOT THE ANSWER TO BAFFLING MANAGEMENT CONUNDRUMS. GIVING YOUR EMPLOYEES REAL "OFFICE FREEDOM," ON THE OTHER HAND, IS. 

Traditional work environments are being challenged. Many managers are taking notice and are trying to change with the times. But, what they need to understand is that it’s employees’ motivations that are changing. In order to speak to these new motivations, deep-rooted culture of the traditional corporate world must evolve.

YOU'RE NOT BEING OUT-EARNED BECAUSE YOU'RE OUT-SKILLED. PEOPLE OFTEN HAVE BLIND SPOTS ABOUT GETTING PAID--SO PULL BACK THE VEIL AND START EARNING WHAT YOU'RE WORTH.

While Teddy Roosevelt may have been onto something when he said that "comparison is the thief of joy," the 26th president probably wasn't concerned with getting paid.

We are.

For about a decade now, people have been slamming California as being one of the least business-friendly states in the Union. The refrain goes something like this: taxes are too high, Sacramento too dysfunctional, pollution too suffocating. And there is definitely something to this. 

If biologists could put computational controls inside living cells, they could program them to sense and report on the presence of cancer, create drugs on site as they’re needed, or dynamically adjust their activities in fermentation tanks used to make drugs and other chemicals. Now researchers at Stanford University have developed a way to make genetic parts that can perform the logic calculations that might someday control such activities.