With every New Year comes a slew of resolutions? Eat better, eat less, join a gym, actually go to the gym, quit smoking.  While well-intentioned Americans focus on getting more physically fit, how fit is your business when it comes to its legal business structure?  Have you been avoiding the question for years?

After all, as business owners, there are countless others things to focus on – keeping customers happy, finding new customers, entering new markets to name a few. Or maybe you formed one business structure years ago, but what may have worked for your business during its first few years of existence may not be optimal for you now.

Less than a tenth of the nation’s metropolitan areas have regained the jobs they lost in the economic downturn, according to a report being released Wednesday by the nation’s mayors as they gather in Washington to express their exasperation that the federal government seems more intent on cutting aid to cities than on sending more.

Only 26 of the nation’s 363 metropolitan areas had recovered their lost jobs by the end of 2011, and only 26 more are projected to recover them by end of this year, according to the report, which was commissioned by the United States Conference of Mayors. It will take at least five years for the 80 hardest-hit areas to recover the jobs they lost, the report forecast.

Every entrepreneur hopes to start the next big thing. But sometimes the first try doesn’t go as planned. Enlarge This Image

Bradford Shellhammer remembers the exact moment he realized his fledgling Web start-up, Fabulis, a review site and social network geared toward gay men, was a flop. Last November, he and Jason Goldberg, one of his co-founders, flew to London, expecting to hold a festive party for their users there. Instead they found themselves among a sparse crowd at a tacky club in Soho, listening to an off-key singer doing show tunes and being served overpriced drinks by shirtless bartenders.

The U.S. Small Business Administration supplied $6.5 billion in loans last year for New England companies, and this year is increasing the maximum size of individual borrowings from $2 million to $5 million for manufacturers, according to the agency's regional administrator.

Jeanne Hulit, who runs the SBA regional office in Hartford and is currently an acting associate administrator in the agency's Washington, D.C., headquarters, said last week during a banking conference at Foxwoods Resort Casino that the loan total supplied to New England businesses last year was a 14 percent increase from 2010. About 4,500 businesses in New England received loans last year guaranteed by the SBA, whose mission is to help smaller companies start up and expand.

The inaugural Trinity Economic Forum (TEF) will take place on 3rd-4th February 2012, bringing together over 150 students from the major academic institutions on the island of Ireland. The concept for the Forum was developed by a group of under- graduate economics students who were frustrated by the backward-looking nature of Irish economic discourse. The economic crisis has irrevocably changed Ireland’s economic path, but much of the discussion still takes the Celtic Tiger mindset as a starting point. The delegates and speakers attending TEF will be encouraged to take a positive, future-focused approach to the topics discussed in the addresses, panels and workshops.

The Forum is supported by Trinity College’s Provost and Economics Department, and is sponsored by PwC. It will take place over two days in Trinity’s Science Gallery and the new Long Room Hub building - where delegates and speakers will discuss topics from the Future of News (Mark Little, 10:20 Saturday) to the Future of Innovation (Dr Piero Formica, 20:25 Friday).

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Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.

At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering.

Love acronyms? Then this post is for you! SOPA is the Stop Online Piracy Act, a bill sponsored by Rep. Lamar Smith to prevent theft of American-produced content (and, notionally, other nations' content) via any of the classic means of accessing paid movies, music, and so on online--without paying for it. PIPA is the Protect IP Act, a bill designed to have a slightly broader sweep than SOPA with the intention of protecting goods that are copied by counterfeiters--anything from drugs to handbags. Both are massively controversial, hence the online protests today from names as big as Google and Wikipedia.

Detractors point out that there are Constitutional issues at play here, and there is already provision under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to prevent, and criminalize, this kind of piracy and counterfeiting. And also that U.S. law, as it stands, allows for seizure of online domain names that are connected to piracy--something that ICE has done many times already, sometimes wrongly (and perhaps illegally). In other words, SOPA and PIPA are moves to prevent piracy that are above and beyond existing measures--and are so sweeping in power they may "break the Internet" for billions of users inside and outside the U.S.

The fifth annual edition of our State of Green Business report continues our efforts to measure the environmental impacts of the emerging green economy. In addition to documenting what progress companies are making -- if any -- in improving their environmental performance, we track larger trends that will affect corporate America in 2012.

This free, downloadable report measures 20 aspects of environmental performance, from carbon emissions to paper use and recycling, and attempts to answer the question, "Are we bringing a green economy into being?"

Made a new year's resolution to start your own business? Before you tell your boss to stick it, know what you're forking out.

Most employees with an entrepreneurial bent have, at some point, considered going it alone.

The idea of being your own boss is tantamount to living the dream for those who have tired of others reaping the benefits of their money-making ideas and hard slog.

Advertisement: Story continues below Simon Brown-Greaves suggests seeking the help of a mentor. But your optimism and seed capital won't last long if you lack attention to detail.

Plan to plan – properly

Sitting in a café to brainstorm is a good start, but don't kid yourself into thinking it's that easy. Prior knowledge will help you dodge costly and avoidable mistakes.

There's no guarantee that the decision by Wikipedia and others to go dark in protest of SOPA and PIPA will stymie the legislation. But the blackouts are dominating media -- and that's the whole idea.

FORTUNE -- I just looked at a Google cache version of a Wikipedia page. It's easy to do that, so today's blackout of the online encyclopedia, in protest of proposed anti-piracy legislation, isn't totally effective in blocking access to the site. But it is effective in making people aware of the legislation and in spurring further protest, which is the whole point.

A week ago, the House's proposed Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) and the Senate's proposed Protect IP Act (PIPA) were getting relatively light attention. Today, they're dominating both the traditional and social media. Nothing significant has happened with the legislation itself -- it's simply the blackouts. Wikipedia is just one of a many sites that have gone dark today.

Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) January 17, 2012

Startup accelerator Amplify today announced five new startups selected to participate in its intensive, mentor-driven program. Well over 100 applicants spanning a dozen states and several international cities were evaluated based on a wide array of criteria. Those that have joined Amplify include:

GetBonkers (@letsgetbonkers) is a game publisher and aggregator building a large suite of fun and engaging mobile learning apps for children.

A new business accelerator, launching in partnership with Northern Kentucky University, aims to encourage entrepreneurs to take root in Greater Cincinnati.

Called UpTech, the nonprofit accelerator will fund 50 early-stage informatics companies, investing up to $100,000 in each. Companies must apply for the program and go through a submission process. Each round, completed over the next three to five years, will have 10 companies as winners. A panel of national informatics, futurists, business and investment experts from leading companies such as CBS    , Cisco    , Dell    and Procter & Gamble    will serve as the contest judges, according to a press release.

GE released today its second annual Global Innovation Barometer, a survey of nearly 3,000 U.S. and foreign business executives on innovation. The report identified innovation as “inextricably linked” with economic growth and as the primary driver behind job creation and the rising quality of life.

The study also confirmed the findings of GE’s inaugural Barometer from January 2011. That survey found that companies are moving beyond the traditional, closed model of innovation and embracing a new paradigm. This new model fosters collaboration between several partners, values the creative power of smaller organizations and individuals, and tailors solutions to meet local needs.

The National Science Board released a new report Tuesday, "Science and Engineering Indicators 2012," that found the United States slipping in comparison to Asian countries in "knowledge-intensive economies." Its findings echo many of the warnings about U.S. competitiveness, education and innovation found in another report issued Tuesday, that of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, "Road Map to Renewal."

From the NSB's news release:

The United States remains the global leader in supporting science and technology (S&T) research and development, but only by a slim margin that could soon be overtaken by rapidly increasing Asian investments in knowledge-intensive economies. So suggest trends released in a new report by the National Science Board (NSB), the policymaking body for the National Science Foundation (NSF), on the overall status of the science, engineering and technology workforce, education efforts and economic activity in the United States and abroad.

Randy Spaulding couldn't have picked a worse time to try and raise money for his new medical equipment company in West Bend.

It was the summer of 2008 and the financial world was in crisis. Banks were imploding and credit was next to impossible to secure, especially for risky business start-ups.

Still, Spaulding was convinced his design for a hand-held electrocardiograph device to measure the heart's reaction to certain drugs was a winner — if only someone beyond friends and family could bankroll the idea.

“It’s more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy.” This quote, made back in the days of the original Mac development team, says a lot about how Steve viewed people and selected them for teams. It also speaks to the kind of team and team behavior he admired. To build a team, all organizations seek the best and the brightest people, particularly for their innovation and new product development organizations--that’s not what’s in question here. By seeking out the pirates, Steve took the idea a big step further.

Why pirates?

A pirate can function without a bureaucracy. Pirates support one another and support their leader in the accomplishment of a goal. A pirate can stay creative and on task in a difficult or hostile environment. A pirate can act independently and take intelligent risks, but always within the scope of the greater vision and the needs of the greater team.

Abstract or dead simple? Clever irony? Cute and playful? There are endless paths to take when brainstorming your new business name. But for many small business owners and entrepreneurs, the naming process is fraught with uncertainty and doubt.

Yet, the stakes couldn’t be higher. A business begins with a name — the cornerstone of company identity that shapes branding, company tone and first impressions. Whether you’ll be name-brainstorming yourself or have hired a branding firm, here are a few tips to help you pick the right name for your new business.

If you live in Vancouver and are considering applying to join a startup accelerator, you need to check out this event tomrrow at GrowLab. But first read this article from the weekend on TechCrunch.

The GrowLab hosted event promises to answer the question: Is an accelerator right for me?

GrowLab founders and portfolio companies will be there to share some insights and personal experiences that will hopefully help you determine if applying to an accelerator is the right move for your startup.

Entrepreneurs are all about firsts, and the most important is you making a great first impression – on investors, customers, new team members, and strategic partners. Poor first impressions can be avoided, but I’m amazed at the number of unnecessary mistakes I see at those critical first introductions, presentations, and meetings.

The key message here is “preparation.” People who think they can always “wing it,” bluff their way past tough questions, or expect the other party to bridge all the gaps, sadly often find that what they think is a win, is actually a loss which can never be regained.

Raising money is hard. And when you’re relatively new to the process it’s easy to be confused by the process. There is all sorts of advice on the Internet about how to raise capital. Of course much of it is conflicting.

I’ve raised money as a “hot company” and I’ve raised capital when no one would return my phone calls. I’ve raised in boom markets and when everybody thought the Internet was a fraud. I’ve raised seed rounds and A-D rounds. I raised money as an entrepreneur, like you, in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2005 for two different companies.