We love reading business blogs, and also love sharing great small business facts and advice with our fellow entrepreneurs. Here are some business blog posts we liked this week. We hope you enjoy them, and let us know what you think!

• “Organize Your Home Office” For A Workable Office Space at Small Business Trends
• 11 Proven Keys for Getting Your Emails Read at Blogtrepreneur
• Is Your Tablet Bad For Your Posture? That Depends on How You Use It at Techvibes
• Is Your Startup on Google+? at Babson Entrepreneurs Blog
• Some bad customer feedback can make your good customer feedback shine even brighter at The Small Business Blog

It’s the end of December, which means you’ve probably seen your fair share of “end of the year” lists. We have too, and wanted to share some of our favourites from the business, social media and entrepreneurship blogospheres. Enjoy!

• Some cautionary tales from Inc., including Bizarre HR of 2011; and
• Top 12 Social Media Blunders of 2011
• The 25 worst passwords of 2011. A must-read for all small business owners.
• From Popular Science, 10 Top Inventions for 2011 (not a business blog, but all you inventive entrepreneurs can find value in this one)
• A Year’s Worth of Occasionally Disturbing Research on How to Get Ahead from Harvard Business Review.
• In January, Mashable posted a list of 10 Websites to Watch in 2011. Take a look – what do you think of the predictions, almost one year later?

Do you have any business-related year in review list you’d like to share?

According to a report released by the Taskforce for Women’s Business Growth, women owned 47% of Canada’s 1.6 million small and medium-sized enterprises in 2007. This translates to over $117 billion per year of activity in our country’s economy.

The Taskforce for Women’s Business Growth – a “non-partisan consortium of prominent women business owners, SME service agencies, academics, and industry associations” – has created a strategy to help support the growth of women-owned businesses. Their recommendations include:

1. Create a national women-focused economic development strategy. This includes creating small business education targeted to women and holding an economic summit where female entrepreneurs can network and share economic best practices.
2. Create programs to develop and increase involvement in foreign trade.
3. Implement programs for female business owners to leverage supplier diversity.
4. Support women entrepreneurs’ financial literacy and increase access to capital.
5. Increase the adoption of technology in women-led firms through training and other incentives.

To learn more about the Taskforce for Women’s Business Growth and download the roundtable report, visit their website.

Businessweek has released their list of the top five best young entrepreneurs of 2011, chosen by readers. It’s a yearly roundup of the most promising small businesses run by young entrepreneurs under the age of 25.

Yes, this list is focused on American entrepreneurs, but who says we can’t show a bit of neighbourly interest and support? At GoForth, we love the passion, adaptability and fresh ideas young entrepreneurs bring to the world. The top five has a great mix of online businesses and those run offline, and cover such offerings as energy-efficient lighting to music brokering to tutoring. Congratulations to all the nominees! Check out the reader’s picks at Businessweek’s website.

We’ve all heard the small business failure statistics – that one half of all start-ups disappear before the end of year two. Knowing the odds are stacked against us as entrepreneurs doesn’t make it any easier to accept the loss of a great business. On August 2, Sprouter, a community-based networking and mentorship site for start-ups around the world, will be shut down due to “capital constraints.”

Sprouter founders Sarah Prevette and Erin Bury had a great idea and launched a company. For two years they’ve been satisfying a tremendous need in the marketplace for free advice, networking and information for entrepreneurs in the early stages of their business. The problem was Sprouter was hard to monetize. When you give everything away for free, where does your revenue come from? For many online companies, revenue is generated by selling ad space, referral commission (affiliates), or posting paid links. The importance of developing a sound monetization strategy from the get-go can’t be underestimated. After all, if you can’t monetize your business, you don’t have a business.

This issue came up on Wednesday’s episode of BNN’s The Pitch, where I was a panelist. One pitcher had monetized his company and the other had not. Guess which pitch won over me and my other panelists, John Sleeman and Brad Nathan? Your monetization strategy – or how you’re going to generate revenue – needs to be well-planned and researched well before launch. Of course, expect those plans to change as you go through start-up, but it’s important to at least have a plan that works on paper first.

To our friends at Sprouter, we will miss you but we know you’re serial entrepreneurs and you’ll make a triumphant return.

We’re proud to announce our new national partnership with Canadian Innovation Centre (CIC) to make entrepreneurial education more accessible nationwide.

CIC has been helping innovators and entrepreneurs transform their ideas into successes in the market for over 30 years. With this new partnership, these visitors to CIC will have the option of taking GoForth’s small business training program before receiving the more advanced technical training that CIC offers.

For more information, check out our press release.

According to a Globe & Mail article this week, 2011 is the Year of the Entrepreneur. What does this mean, exactly?

Rob Moore, Minister of State for Small Business and Tourism, made the designation as a way to bring awareness to the importance of small business, though initiatives to support this have yet to be announced.

At GoForth Institute, we’re tireless supporters of small business owners and hope that the Year of the Entrepreneur does see more government-supported programs and initiatives. However, perhaps the lack of these programs is intentional, motivating entrepreneurs to create their own pathways to innovation. We know it’s difficult, but it’s also not impossible.

Don’t believe us? Check out the skills we teach in our online small business training. We don’t just tell you how to balance your books or how to buy a franchise. We also help entrepreneurs understand where small business creativity comes from. We believe innovation comes from anywhere and everywhere. Our goal is to connect entrepreneurs with resources and tips to help them pull those amazing idea out of their brains and turn them into something great.

What do you think about the Year of the Entrepreneur designation? Do you want official initiatives and programs, or do you think entrepreneurs can innovate all on their own?

Entrepreneurs in the States have been celebrating their great business ideas this week, and especially today – US President Barack Obama declared today, November 19th, National Entrepreneurs’ Day. What does that mean? Well, it means that today, American entrepreneurs are upgrading their skills, mentoring others and giving back to the communities in which they do business. It’s a great way to show just how vital entrepreneurship is to the health of that nation!

Read more details here (link via the Babson news blog), including ways you can get involved. Yes, that’s right, even if you’re Canadian like we are, we encourage all entrepreneurs to celebrate their own version of National Entrepreneurs’ Day!

Let us know how you did – and have fun!

At GoForth Institute, we love innovation in small business. That’s why we were excited to learn about the Government of Canada’s new program – the Canadian Innovation Commercialization Program (CICP). This $40 million program helps Canadian entrepreneurs test their innovative product or service within the government before going to market. As one of the largest buyers in Canada, the government is a great proving ground for an innovative product or service.

The CICP helps entrepreneurs operating in four key areas: environment; safety and security; health; and enabling technologies.

Here are the services the CICP offers to Canadian entrepreneurs:

• Helping showcase their innovation to potential government buyers at events across Canada;
• Enabling a procurement process for awarding government contracts;
• Testing and providing feedback on their products or services before going to market; and
• Providing education on how to do business with the federal government.

Are you a Canadian entrepreneur with an innovative new product or service? Visit the CICP’s website to find out how they can help!

At GoForth Institute, we’re strong proponents of entrepreneurship education in developing countries. It’s a great way to help people create sustainable growth in their communities.

For this reason, we were excited to come across a blog post on Babson College’s site, talking about The US-Saudi Women’s Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, their partnership with The Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College, Dar Al Hekma College, and ICF International. In this one-year program, young women from Saudi Arabia were taught all the skills they need to become social entrepreneurs. They learned about social entrepreneurship, developing leadership skills and how to create business plans. They then launched their business ideas with the support of the program.

Watch the video on Babson College’s blog for more info on this great initiative to support women entrepreneurs in Saudi Arabia.