5 Business Myths; Best Place To Work; Tim Cook Apple

  "…keeping you great"

HEADLINES: 

European Growth Summits — mark your calendar 17th May Barcelona; 18th May Amsterdam. The program is complete, featuring Alexander Osterwalder, whose book Business Model Generation, has been a huge hit around the world.

5 Business Myths — my latest Fortune magazine column is on the newsstands and online. Insight readers featured include Jennifer Olson Welding, Steven Krane, Dave McLurg, John Warrillow, and Bettina Hein — thank you for contributing your stories.

So What Are They — here are 5 Business Myths I highlight:

1.        Gross Margins Will Increase as You Get Bigger

2.        Competitors are Always Unfriendly

3.        You Know Your Market

4.        As CEO, You're the First to Know

5.        One-Size Doesn't Fit All

Best Companies to Work For 2011 — congrats to Rackspace for making the list once again in 2011. Graham Weston, CEO, will be keynoting the Fortune Leadership Summit May 10 – 11, Houston. The top five Best Places to Work: SAS, Boston Consulting Group, Wegmans, Google, and NetApp. Here's a link to the full list.

Tim Cook, Apple COO — with Steve Jobs medical leave headlining the business news this week, I thought I would take a look at Tim Cook's Auburn commencement address this past spring and compare it to Steve Jobs famous Stanford address. Interestingly, they both reference the power of intuition. And I didn't realize Cook, who will take over as the top leader at Apple, is an Industrial Engineer. He at least gets design. Hope Steve comes back. Start video at 4:38 to save some time.

10 Questions for Internet Businesses — OK, I'm really behind the curve on this, but maybe some of you missed this as well. Mary Meeker, the highly acclaimed tech analyst for Morgan Stanley, outlined 10 questions internet execs should ask and answer last November. The 49 slides are full of useful data. I particularly like slides 16, 17, and 21.

6 New Tax Breaks — take three minutes to scan this latest CNN/Money article on six tax breaks you might utilize in filing your 2010 taxes — and take advantage of in 2011. Some are for companies under 25 employees, others are available to mid-market firms as well. Here are 5 of the 6 I think apply to you:

1.        Healthcare Tax Credit — as the title implies, but for companies under 25 employees

2.        Section 179 Provision — write-off full amount of certain equipment and software purchases – up to $500,000

3.        Accelerated Depreciation — applies to a broader range of items than the Section 179 provision

4.        Depreciation on Business Car or Truck — just for 2010, but a nice additional amount

5.        General Business Credit — certain business deductions apply to the AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax)