Office rents in the City of London have increased by almost 12 per cent over the last three months. This statistic reflects the increased demand from corporate occupiers on the one hand, and a lack of good quality office alternatives on the other. The increase ended almost two and a half years of rental falls across the market, and reflects the shortage of new offices following the credit crisis. The credit crisis halted most new developments, leaving prospective tenants with limited choices. Therefore as the economy starts to pick up there will be a limited availability of satisfactory office space, creating the perfect conditions for a spike in rent. As James Gillett, director of City offices at NB Real Estate, puts it :

“Often the harder a market falls, the stronger it bounces back. Rents fell off a cliff post Lehman Brothers. We are now seeing them rebound strongly as demand from occupiers recovers and the supply of prime office space dries up.”

Therefore it seems clear that many small businesses and entrepreneurs will have to seek creative alternatives to meet their office space requirements. One innovative solution may be the virtual office – a relatively new way of doing commerce that has the potential of saving cash for both business owners and their clients. Essentially a virtual office is a combination of off-site live communication and address services that allow users to reduce traditional office costs while maintaining business professionalism. This seems the ideal solution for those who are struggling to find suitable office space at a reasonable price, and yet require a presence to drive their business forward.

For Startups looking Venture Capital Financing or simply want to learn to present to investors, David Hornik of August Capital and the creator of VentureBlog gives some quick tips on how to get started.

See more videos and how-to business information at http://allbusiness.com

The former CEO of Microsoft talks about his charitable work reducing poverty and expanding health care access around the world – a refreshing chat with Gates in a more relaxed setting – interesting – and some typical John Stewart humour to back it all up.

Venture Capitalist and blogger Fred Wilson gave a talk a few days ago at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View. The key point of his talk was about disruption — what companies are doing out there to change the technology space. Nothing earth-shatteringly new, but interesting insights from a smart guy.

This hour long talk includes his six words to live by on the Internet: Global, Social, Open, Mobile, Playful, Intelligent — and a bonus seventh one: Instantaneous. As an investor in Twitter, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Wilson included this last one.

Bob Metcalfe led invention, standardization, and commercialization of the Ethernet local-area networking system for personal computers. In this discussion, Metcalfe is joined by Cisco Senior Vice President Kathy Hill to discuss his experiences in the technology industry, life lessons and current passions. A fascinating insight into one of the greater Entrepreneurs of our time.

Jerry Kaplan talks about what he believes are the Five Biggest mistakes commonly made by Entrepreneurs.

Advice from Britain’s entrepreneurial hub – including Peter Jones from BBC’s Dragon’s Den

In this Podcast Angus McIntosh uses his ‘three concepts of energy use’ to explain and calculate the true sustainability of buildings and the King Sturge Sustainability Assessment Tool.

A fantastic documentary on the application of Smart or Advanced Working at two leading UK companies, Nationwide Building Society and Ernst & Young. Featuring Simon Palmer, Tax Partner at Ernst & Young – and Tim Plummer, Head of Business services at Nationwide Building Society.

The Next Web conference in Amsterdam just announced the winner of their startup competition. The judges were unanimous in naming My Name is E, and the startup got the audience vote as well. “E” enables you to collect all your social and contact accounts – on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and any other network – in one spot, and share them in real life by using any mobile phone or Connector, the USB product they also sell.

It’s not dissimilar to Poken in that latter respect, but as well as the wireless USB device it also lets you exchange cards between iPhones, Blackberries, Android phones, Windows Mobile phones, Nokias, Motorolas, Palm phones, and so on via the mobile web. So it’s a better interface all round – but it will face stiff competition from Poken which is already up and running and selling in big numbers in Europe and Japan and is poised to launch a marketing operation in the US.

E on iPhone from My Name is E on Vimeo.

E Mobile works a mobile web browser. You log in, select a card, and add your contact. To exchange a card with someone, you enter each other’s usernames on E. E will share the selected cards and automatically ‘friend’ you with the person you’re meeting on the social networks of your choice. It also supports industry standards like vCard exporting. It’s not done by Bluetooth or Infrared connection but locates you via the your IP location. You show the person you want to exchange cards with a unique pass code, they enter that into their phone and you’re then connected.

source: TechCrunch