Photo by: Tracy O.

Small business owners are looking to spend in 2012.

That’s according to the just-released Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index, which surveyed 600 small business owners in January 2012. It found that that 28 percent of U.S. small business owners plan to increase their company’s capital spending in the next 12 months.

That's in line with our own — smaller — survey conducted earlier this month with members of CNBC.com's Small Business Council. When asked if they were planning on spending in 2012, we heard a resounding yes.

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If you don’t devote a small percentage of your time to working for free, you’re making a mistake.

Whoa, wait, hold on a second. Sheathe your sword of value. Don’t go all cold-blooded capitalist on me. Hear me out.

Most entrepreneurs don’t do pro bono work. (By pro bono I don’t mean for charity, I mean for another entrepreneur.)

A friend swears “pro bono” is Latin for “no way.” He says, “I’m against the idea of anyone working for free. As a more colorful person said, there are two kinds of articles on Huffington Post: Those that shouldn’t be written at all, and those that are too good to give away. I don’t think anyone should give away their profession.”

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Photo: Infrogmation Revelers on Mardi Gras Day, New Orleans

New Orleans – As Carnival builds toward the out-of-control crescendo of Fat Tuesday, Barry Kern and his team of float-builders and artists are already preparing for next year.

One of the biggest free parties in the world fuels a multimillion-dollar industry for the city of New Orleans and is the lifeblood of businesses like Kern's studio, which has been operating for more than 50 years and makes or repurposes some 400 floats a year, or roughly a float a day, Kern said.

Mardi Gras season, which includes weeks of parades, fancy balls and parties leading up to Fat Tuesday, draws hundreds of thousands of visitors to New Orleans each year, says Kelly Schulz, spokeswoman for the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau. Schulz said a recent study conducted by Tulane University estimated the direct economic impact of Mardi Gras at roughly $144 million.

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Howard Kingsnorth | Photodisc | Getty Images

London — Just weeks before the birth of her first child, Gem Misa could be found handing out samples of her home-developed salad dressing range in a high-end London department store, an apron around her heavily pregnant waist.

After her daughter was born in 2010, meetings were scheduled around nap times at her kitchen table-cum-desk. Her efforts paid off: Righteous dressings are now stocked in big supermarkets such as Tesco , and turnover grew to around 120,000 pounds ($190,100) in 2011, from 10,000 pounds the year before.

Yet of all the hurdles the 33-year-old has faced since quitting her job mid-recession to set up her own company, the most challenging — and arguably most crucial — is the one she faces now: funding the future.

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If you have a company, or an idea for a company, that can make an impact on people using social media, Reid Hoffman wants to talk to you.

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Hoffman, a partner at venture capital firm Greylock Partners and the executive chairman of LinkedIn,

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[LNKD  Loading...      ()   ] told CNBC Friday he sees a lot of opportunity for "great businesses" that create social networks that "can change people's lives."

"We always look for great entrepreneurs that bring us interesting ideas," said Hoffman, author of "The Start-up of You" and a founding board member of PayPal. "The things that I tend to look for are networks, platforms and marketplaces."

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Erik Von Weber | Getty Images Some economists question whether all those young entrepreneurs and small businesses are really the engines of our economy.

New York — Mitt Romney says they're "job creators" and vows to come to their aid as president. Newt Gingrich visited them on his "jobs and growth" bus tour. President Barack Obama calls them "the engine of our economy."

If there's one thing Republicans and Democrats agree on, it's that small business is the answer to what ails the economy. On these tiny bundles of entrepreneurial energy, they say, rides the nation's hope for lower unemployment and faster economic growth.

But the work of several economists suggests that most small businesses are not particularly adept at creating jobs, at least not the best jobs. The work also suggests their role in generating national wealth has been exaggerated.

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Most U.S. community banks "are actually doing quite well" although they still face some challenges in this economy, the acting head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation told CNBC Thursday.

"Trends for the banking system as a whole have been positive over the past year," Martin Gruenberg said from a community banking conference. "Bank failures are down. [The FDIC's list] of problem banks has started to come down.

"As we’ve had some economic recovery we have seen some steady improvement in the banking system, and that applies to community banks."

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Tom Grill | Getty Images

It’s shaping up to be the year of the health tech start-up.

When I came up with the list of entrepreneurs for my recent Women to Watch in Tech list, a full one-third of the chosen ladies came from the health sector. One of them, Halle Tecco, is playing a big role in helping to spawn more digital health-related start-ups — that's the exclusive focus of her seed accelerator Rock Health. Last year 13 new companies went through its program. Nearly half of them have received VC funding and one—Skimble, which makes fitness apps — is already profitable.

What’s with the focus on health? Given that the system in the U.S. is more or less a train wreck, there are simply a lot of problems that technology can fix — or at least that's what a new crop of entrepreneurs are hoping.

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