What Microsoft BizSpark community manager reads for fun. Recommended reading on financial capital and innovation industries.

Today's Windows Azure Accelerator Advice: How Teams Work If you have not heard of BagsUp, let me introduce you. We recently spoke to two of the founders, Carl Jackson and Ben Jackson (pictured) about their time at the Microsoft Accelerator for Windows Azure. http://bit.ly/134TlFf We asked, "How does your team work together?" Answer: Intuition. They sit around a table with a whiteboard and a minimalist set up. They work together in the same room. * "We can accomplish more together than we can separately." *"Division of labor or division of tasks is seamless. Everyone innately knows. It makes us more efficient in understanding and allocating tasks and delivering on them." *"All three (founders) will be involved in understanding what the specifics are in that task (when moving from idea to component of the business). Everyone walks away knowing, I know what that is, and who is taking it forward." For more information on the Azure Accelerator Experience, check this link: http://bit.ly/134TlFf

What does the Windows Azure Accelerator experience look like? You can apply to find out: http://bit.ly/134TlFf But before you do... If you are considering doing this, read about their moments of deciding to devote time and energy, even with families at home, to this dream project. Al Bsharah and Bryan Hall, who founded @Embarke, which provides highly personalized analytics for marketers, literally went through gut-wrenching decisions, leaving behind family, and even bitter arguments, but they came out with a product. Word for word from Al, about how he and Bryan worked through arguments born out of intuition: "We had no data to back it up, we were just passionate about it. We just had to buckle down and prove each other right or wrong, and move in a direction. I got really lucky. I always knew finding a co-founder was hard. You hear it’s like a marriage, and this and that and the other thing. You are spending a lot of time with this other person, and in some cases more than with your own spouse. We see the same things through different lenses, and we have the same long term goals. Whenever we get into debates, we were always able to take a step back and say, 'I could be wrong.' For the first six months and the first year, it’s not an issue, and a year and a half later, it’s still not an issue. There is never any animosity. This is part of what it’s like." You can grow, too. It's part of the pain, the glory, and the test of building a solution. http://bit.ly/134TlFf

Welcome to BizSpark another featured startup of the day. This time it's Smart Shopping, and app that runs on Azure. http://aka.ms/tlqmkj

You are an entrepreneur the moment you stop listening to your fears and start swimming in the direction of your dreams.

How to scale from startup early roots to a company that hires people, by Mobilligy co-founder Tyler Griffins, one of the participants in the first Windows Azure Accelerator class. This former JP Morgan invesmtent banker quit his Wall Street job and teamed up with a friend to launch a smartphone app that helps you pay bills, limit expenses and avoid hidden fees without having to visit a bank or bill paying site. How do they plan to scale? Here's how Tyler approaches hiring: 1. Describe the vision. Does that potential hire get excited about that? 2. Be very open and transparent about what you want to accomplish. Fit people according to their individual talents and the group goal. 3. No standard hierarchical lines like a corp. Align along passions and confidence in the role. 4. Have people take individual responsibility for certain things. 5. Know people ahead of time, before you have to hire them. https://www.mobilligy.com/

Testing a photo sharing app. Also, set up the foursquare check in for our Windows Azure Accelerator.

Good point to start your Friday during the end of the world. We hope you are going into the apocalypse with a smile today, and that your holiday season, wherever you are in the world, is joyous, happy, kind and warm. http://www.quora.com/Memes/What-are-the-best-philosoraptor-thinking-dinosaur-jokes

This group does a great job of building community and sharing what it knows with each other. We have taken the best conversations from this week and made a blog post about them. This way, your influence travels. http://bit.ly/ZxeFUE ps. This is not the blog posts I was referring to before. I still plan on making a couple of those out of some of the chats here, by topic. This is just a collection of exciting chats this week.

Our morning interview with Windows Azure solution @Distil, which prevents bots from ripping off your marketing efforts: http://aka.ms/ya1aiz

You love Microsoft BizSpark and you love Startups. Have I got an opportunity for you. Please email dcrets@microsoft with your bios and CVs if you are interested in being a technical evangelist for the world's biggest startup, Microsoft. Must be in the US, and the positions are in Boston and NYC.

Appetas, Inc. is one of the startups going through the Microsoft Windows Azure accelerator in Seattle. Today marks the first day for our trip through the accelerator to find out what these startups have been up to since their acceptance in early Fall. Watch a video with Appetas founder Keller Smith: http://bit.ly/WASKS1