Best of the Smarta blogs 2010

It's been a rather good year here on the Smarta blog, if we do say so ourselves. We hope you've found our blogs as useful and topical, and often fun too, as we have found them interesting and enjoyable to write. So we thought we'd round up some of our favourites, and those that give the best flavour of small business and start-up news and views in 2010.

The big political events

• Election 2010 - catch up on our complete coverage of the really quite dramatic election.
• Gordon Brown: an emotional lesson in PR - what the country felt when the former PM left Number 10.
• Meet your new small business minister - we surmised all Mark Prisk's proposals when he was elected into the new Coalition government in June. Has he stuck to his word?
• The Comprehensive Spending Review - October's cuts will continue to affect small business for years to come.

Interesting bits and mini trends we've spotted

• Top 10 dyslexic entrepreneurs - when our investor Theo Paphitis told us he was speaking at a Dyslexia Action event, being dyslexic himself, we wanted to highlight just how many entrepreneurs also suffer.
• If only more entrepreneurs could fail as gracefully as Alex Tew - when the founder of the Million Dollar Homepage faultered second-time round, we felt it only fair to point out that failure, handled correctly, is nothing to be ashamed of. Actually, we think celebrating it would make the UK altogether more entrepreneurial.
• Business lessons from Angry Birds - the social game of 2010. End of.
• Anti-entrepreneurs - the six types of people who put off turning their idea into a business reality.
• How the Royal Wedding will affect small business - get ready for next April.
• Top iPhone apps for entrepreneurs

Great guest blogs by Shaa and friends of Smarta

• Shaa Wasmund: Five ways to get people to say yes
• Mark Artus: The basics of building a brand
• Guy Levine: How to create outstanding email marketing campaigns
• Brad Burton: Kill all negativity
• Doug Richard: Why do people hate lifestyle businesses?

Some super business TV

• Dragons' Den - for a flavour of this particularly good series, check out episode four, and Theo Paphitis' round-up of the series
• Theo Paphitis' Adventure Capitalists - a great show introducing the complexities and wonderful opportunities afforded by setting up overseas. The Brazil episode was our fave.
• The Apprentice - who do you remember the original line-up of candidates? Fast forward 12 weeks, and then read former winner Lee McQueen's insider info on what Stella can expect now she's won.

And some fun stuff

• Business lessons from Lady Gaga
• What you can learn from Harry Potter
• A great pizza PR for the X Factor
• And one PPC campaign that really stole our hearts - Ann Summers' 'well-hung' parliament. Just read the blog to see what we mean!

What would you like to see more or less of on the Smarta blog in 2011? What have been your favourites from the past year? We'd love to hear any feedback in the comments section below. Thanks!