Philippe Matthews Show Guru Advice, Author Reviews, Tech Reviews, Entertainment News

The Study: "Legitimacy Vacuum, Structural Imprinting, and the First-Mover Disadvantage," by Stanislav D.

The numbers say the economy is growing. But what does that look like on the ground? To take the pulse of the recovery, we polled our Inc.

The book: Killing Giants: 10 Strategies to Topple the Goliath in Your Industry, by Stephen Denny; Portfolio. The big idea: Dominant, deep-pocketed companies are often so myopic they don't notice the upstarts sprinting between their feet.

WHAT'S HOT, WHAT'S NOT Sales increase for fitness and sports centers, the small-business sector with the strongest growth from 2009 to 2010: +13.62% Sales decrease for car washes, the small-business sector with the weakest growth from 2009 to 2010: -12.18% Sageworks TRENDS Among people who text, the average number of text messages sent per month: Men: 555 Women: 716 The Nielsen Company State of the Media 2010 THE WORKPLACE Area, in square feet, of workspace lost by the average office worker from 1994 to 2010: 15 International Facility Management Association HIRING The portion of small businesses hiring in 2010 that said they added fewer workers than they needed: 42% Reasons for hiring: Replace an employee who left: 41% Support growth or expansion plans: 21% Some other reason: 18% Don't know: 1% Revenue or sales has increased: 13% Economy is getting better: 5% Tax credit for hiring unemployed workers: 1% Wells Fargo/Gallup TAXES Lowest and highest overall tax burdens for entrepreneurs: South Dakota: 1st New Jersey: 50th Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council REALITY CHECK Retail price, per gallon, of black ink in the average printer ink cartridge: $4,371 PC World THE ECONOMY Increase in the sales of trucks and cargo vans—considered a useful indicator of small-business activity—in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared with a year earlier: 24% Edmunds.com

Fashion designer Marc Ecko will offer internships at start-ups funded by Ecko's venture arm. "Kids spend a great deal of money on college," says Ecko, who is launching his program with the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. "Our goal is to get them teed up for employment."...After an American Red Cross worker tweeted about getting "slizzered" on Dogfish Head beer, dozens of the brewery's fans donated blood and money to the Red Cross.

A sampling of Wayne Rogers's business ventures: Wayne Rogers & Co. After providing financial advice to fellow actors, Rogers launched this investment firm in 1971

Product designer Amir Khella ( amirkhella.com ) writes that when he couldn't quite pull the trigger on his start-up, he tried scaring himself into action. It worked.

Civil servants are widely denounced for being neither civil nor offering much in the way of service. Drivers trying to replace lost licenses and companies seeking permits for underground storage tanks don't normally encounter a lot of beaming faces inquiring, "How may I delight you today?" The state of Michigan wants to raise its service game, and it is turning to entrepreneurial businesses for help.

In a hip loft, in the hippest borough of the hippest city in America, a hundred or so energetic young people wearing vintage dresses, modded Nikes, and skinny jeans turn to face a makeshift stage. This is Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where a selection of creative types have congregated on a Friday night in January to enjoy free beer and celebrate the opening of the neighborhood's newest clothing store, Ruffeo Hearts Lil Snotty.

Today, BMW announced the planned creation of a tech incubator in New York City to seed innovations in mobile and location-based services. The announcement follows the automaker's establishment in February of a venture capital company, BMW i Ventures, with an investment fund of as much as $100 million, and serves as yet another indication that BMW is turning its eye toward the mobile startup scene

Milton Glaser, the legendary graphic designer best known for the "I Love New York" logo, says that it has to do with simplicity.

It's bad enough that the U.S.

Scientists have taught flying robots how to juggle.

A new Harvard University study details how American and Canadian companies provided Internet filtering and monitoring software to the Iranian government, Mubarak's Egypt and other repressive states. It's still going on

Turning bedbugs' own pheromones against them. Bed bugs are the scourge of New York, and of other cities as well. And yet, for a number of reasons, the long-awaited War on Bedbugs has yet to arrive