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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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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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It is widely recognized that small businesses are instrumental to driving the economy on both local and national levels. In order for small businesses to grow and help push the economy forward, they must have proper financial support.

Where can small businesses turn for this much needed resource? The answer lies with community-based financial institutions — both banks and credit unions — typically those with under $10 billion in assets.

Small businesses across the nation represent the powerful belief that hard work and ambition will result in success. The financial crisis saw those dreams washed away. Now, as small businesses owners and entrepreneurs take steps toward recovery, they should seek out their local community-based financial institutions.

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There are a lot of people working their networks, looking for an introduction to the person who might be their ticket to the next big job.

Getty Images LinkedIn connects more businesses

And 150 million of those people are connecting worldwide via LinkedIn,

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[LNKD  Loading...      ()   ] the business-focused social networking site, which announced that it hit that milestone number today. The company also posted strong earnings: nearly $168 million in revenues for the quarter ended December 31, 2011, an increase of 105% compared to the same period in 2010.

Historically popular among jobseekers, the site has been gaining traction among small business owners and startups lately, who use it to find business leads and suppliers, market themselves, and even source funding. The company has been ramping up its strategy in this space by highlighting features such as Q&As and group connections.

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Source: Zydeco Studios Floppets Flip Flops

Kids are collecting machines. Give them something cute, fun and — most importantly — cheap, and they will use every cent of allowance and every begging tactic in the book to own the whole collection.

Reading teacher and mother of three Ilyse Brainin probably knows the formula better than most. She came up with her own twist on the collection craze with Floppets, flexible little animal characters attached to a Velcro strap.

She started with a cast of 36 characters, each with their own story that kids can read via the Floppets Website.

Floppets retail for $2 each on Amazon

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[AMZN  Loading...      ()   ] and some specialty retail stores. They will be unveiled to major retailers [Floppers are also carried in some specialty store] at the 2012 Toy Fair next week in New York City. We spoke with founder Brainin to find out how she, with some help from husband Richard Goodwin, got Floppets off the ground.

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Quality Woven Labels Quality Woven Labels weaves QR codes into clothing labels.

QR Codes — those little squares that look like a chessboard gone wild — are popping up everywhere. In fact, a recent report put out by QRStuff.com, a leading website for free QR code creation, showed a 1,235 percent increase in QR code activity in 2011 alone.

Even though the use of QR codes is growing, can they really be used to grow a small business? Some small business owners seem to think so. Here are some innovative ways that entrepreneurs have been using QR codes to grow their businesses.
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Kreece Fuchs, co-founder of Better World Books.

A recent graduate with an overdrawn checking account, Kreece Fuchs was looking for ways to make money. A stack of text books piled in his college apartment he had planned to turn into pocket money instead became the inspiration for a business.

That ‘aha moment’ became Better World Books, which Fuchs describes as a "global bookstore that harnesses the power of capitalism to bring literacy and opportunity to people around the world." The company solicits books through a network of more than 2,300 college campuses and partnerships with over 3,000 libraries nationwide, and sells the books online, with a portion of the profits donated to literacy programs. Since starting the venture in 2001, Better World Books has donated more than 5 million books to partner programs.

We spoke with 32-year-old Fuchs, one of the two co-founders of Better World Books, on how he and partner Xavier Helgesen started a profitable business by doing good.

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