By Ted Chan

As an avid cyclist, I was excited to have the opportunity to interview Kathy Bechtel, owner of Italiaoutdoors Food and Wine. Kathy’s company is based in the Boston area, but focuses on personalized bike tours of Italy. Kathy had some great insights on the travel industry, and how to run a global business from right here in Boston.

By Gil Zimmermann

While there has been a lot of buzz about Boston’s Innovation District and Cambridge with its Cambridge Innovation Center and major tech and pharma/biotech heavyweights, there is another city in Greater Boston that often falls under the radar for many young professionals – Waltham.

Waltham is a thriving and historic city hungry for talent. Many fast-growth companies are hiring and new grads, soon-to-be-grads and experienced professionals are flocking to the suburbs to further their career.

By Ellen Keiley

According to the Jim Murphy, President/CEO of the Burlington Massachusetts Area Chamber of Commerce, Burlington is a place to live, work, and play, and many high tech companies such as SAP AG and Burlington’s 2nd largest employer, Oracle, have set up locations. Burlington should see more growth in the coming years as Keurig recently leased a large space for administration and R&D, with the potential for adding up to 400 new jobs. The Burlington area, with its diverse mix of businesses, executive parks, and residents that may not want to travel to Boston for an upscale dining experience, is very well positioned for a growing number of restaurants. Tavern in the Square recently opened a Burlington location, Bobby Flay has plans to open a Burger Palace, and more restaurants are on the way to accommodate the area’s recent boom.

Rita’s Career Corner…With Rita B. Allen

As we begin the New Year in 2013, getting back to basics and revisiting our goals is an effective way to clarify our vision and set the stage for success. As with everything in life, the foundation for doing so is having a positive and optimistic outlook to moving forward. I believe this quote says it best: “Success doesn't come to you — you go to it,” Marva Collins. During difficult times, it can be easy to lose focus and be distracted by the obstacles that get in our way. It takes a lot of resilience to stay true to ourselves and face the challenges head on. Each individual can have a plan that empowers themselves to initiate their development and take charge of their careers.

The Global Business Hub editors are recovering from all the partying. Look forward to more great content from our contributors in the New Year!

Please have a safe night of celebrating with those you care about. Look forward to more great content in the coming year!

If you haven't seen it, it's new to you! Earlier this year our friends at REEL Entrepreneurs caught up with Brain Halligan, co-founder of Hubspot. Learn what makes Hubspot such a smashing success here.

If you haven't seen it, it's new to you! Earlier this year our friends at REEL Entrepreneurs caught up with Matt Lauzon of Gemvara. You may have read some things about him recently, so we figured it was a good time to make sure everyone got to hear him in his own words!

If you haven't seen it yet, it's new to you! Earlier this year (while many of you were away on summer vacation we figure) our friends at REEL Entrepreneurs got some great face time with the incomparable Debi Kleiman and Bill Warner!

Merry Christmas to all of our readers who are celebrating the holiday. Enjoy the day with those you care about. More great content to come in the days ahead!

The Global Business Hub editors are taking care of those last minute gifts we neglected to get earlier like we should have done. Look for more great content later in the week!

By Arne Hessenbruch

The recent annual MIT Energy Finance Forum gave a splendid view into the current state of energy affairs in which smart technologies using renewable energies exist in a world full of bewildering politics and hidden subsidies.

An offshore wind farm may exemplify the problem, seen from a financing perspective alone. The capital expenditure is large. But the operational costs are very small, because the fuel is free, unlike gas, coal, or nuclear.

By Joseph Fung

‘Tis the season for decking the halls and finalizing 2013 budgets. As you and your company crunch the figures for the year ahead, there’s something that can dramatically alter your bottom line to get on your radar: Social HR. Over the coming months and years, businesses that don’t embrace social HR will not only struggle to retain employees but companies that don’t understand what this is all about will struggle to survive at all.

Another installment in our ongoing series to help innovative MassChallenge companies get the word out about what they offer and get connected with what they need to thrive.

How did Roammeo get started?
Roammeo is a web and mobile search engine made for the moments when people know that something good must be going on in their area, but they don’t know what that “something” is.

It began with Roammeo’s co-founder and CEO, Jessica Cole falling in love with her college city of New Haven. She read newsletter subscriptions, walked from bulletin board to bulletin board, and created a Field Trip Society list to discover and share everything that was going on. Meanwhile, as an urban studies major and Urban Fellow, Jessica saw the other side of the story: local event hosts were still having to rely on expensive print advertising or ineffective online marketing to let their events be found. She and her teammates knew there had to be a way to save their peers time and organizations money.

By Ravi Ramamurti

For most of the last two centuries innovations have flowed from rich countries to poor countries, but in the coming decades we are likely to see innovations also flow in the opposite direction, from poor to rich countries.

If “reverse innovation” sounds counter-intuitive, it is. One can readily understand why poor countries will embrace innovations from rich countries. It is no surprise, for instance, that demand is booming in emerging economies for smartphones, washing machines, cars, and the like.

By John Henry Silva

I recently had the pleasure to meet the executive team for One Mind for Research at Swissnex, the Swiss Consulate of Boston. In this interview with the CEO General Pete Chiarelli (Ret.) we discuss some of the next steps for this crucial organization.

General Chiarelli recently served as the Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, where he was a tireless advocate for eliminating the stigma associated with Service Members and Veterans getting the help they need for the treatment of the invisible wounds of war.

By Phil Budden

As the British Consul in Boston, I had the privilege to work on strengthening long-standing business connections between Britain and New England, and was always impressed with the hub of innovation in which I was based. From a diplomat's global perspective, the world of innovation is not flat: there are a few spikes of truly world-class innovation that soar above most other places on the planet. Greater Boston is one of those special places.

By Shannon O'Brien

This article is the first in a monthly, five-part series that advocates for living a balanced life in the areas of: Global Citizenship, Local Volunteering, Meaningful Careers, Strong Networks, and an Empowered Self.

As the New Year approaches, it’s fitting to ask oneself... “How can I positively impact the world in 2013?” But with problems in every corner of the globe, it’s easy to feel “compassion fatigue,” believing we’re powerless to affect any real change. However, as the historian Howard Zinn noted: "We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world."

Another installment in our ongoing series to help innovative MassChallenge companies get the word out about what they offer and get connected with what they need to thrive.

How did Calcbench get started?
Calcbench is a unique, next generation financial data provider. We operate in an unusual place, at the intersection of two very disparate fields: one very cutting edge (big data + artificial intelligence), and the other slow moving and old fashioned (accounting).

In short, we provide our customers financial information for about 8,500 companies listed on US based stock exchanges. And we are able to do this with more detail, faster, and at a much better value than other financial data providers because we are the first company to fully harness the power of a new, government mandated data reporting standard called XBRL. Therefore we are not constrained by the often very manual data collection process that has traditionally been used.

By Laurisa Neuwirth

When you’re ranked #1 in the country for entrepreneurship, have the third-largest percentage increase in entrepreneurial activity rate over the past decade and just placed second in the number of patents per capita, it would be easy to rest on those accolades. But the latest splash in the Boston startup scene last Tuesday night confirms that our environment is constantly evolving.

40Berkeley, a hostel in the South End, hosted the dual launch of two game changers: New York Times best seller business book Custom Nation and Greater Boston’s newest co-working space Collaboratory4.0. While Charles Darwin may have never actually have said this, it is nevertheless true and relevant to innovation today: “In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”

By Ellen Keiley

According to The Boston Club’s annual Census of Women Directors and Executive Officers of Massachusetts Public Companies, the number of women represented in the boardroom and executive suites has improved, but there is much progress to be made. 2012 statistics show 12.7% of all directors of the 100 largest public companies in Massachusetts are women - a 1.6% increase from 2011. The Boston Club collaborated with Bentley University and Mercer on the survey, and this year is the survey’s 10th year anniversary.