Big Picture: As I get older, I find that the “rules” that I once were taught are not hard and fast anymore. In fact, some of the ideas about demographics have changed significantly even since the beginning of this century. The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars has an engaging study of world demographics that puts some of those old rules to the test.

Big Picture: Sometimes it is hard to comprehend the meanings of million, billion and trillion.  Terence Tao has taken the US Federal Budget and rescaled it to the approximate scale of the average family in the US.  This helps to understand how much money is being spent on which items.

Entrepreneurship: Jim Stoynoff has written a good blog post on the ways that small businesses can work better with bankers.  A lot of it is common sense, but communication ranks high on this list.

Chicago: Woo Hoo! Fast Company has named Chicago its U.S. City of the Year.