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What's the first rule of professional speaking? Don't do it in your underpants -- unless you are Superman, in which case undies-on-the-outside is probably to be expected. However, that doesn't mean that you can't learn the skills to become a confident, professional and outrageously awesome public speaker... sans dacks. That's right. We're bringing back Anthill's UndieEmpire Webinar series.

Australians, as a people and a corporate community, are generous. In times of need, we give. We give locally, we give nationally and internationally. Yet one company, The Royals, a Melbourne-based creative agency, wanted to do more than just make a financial contribution to their charities of choice.

The 13-week program is run by PushStart, the tech startup community group, and will conclude in June. Its first intake of entrepreneurs includes everything from enterprise social media support tools, social life planning apps, blogs for new parents and, a site to help surfers swap their boards.

Pebble began its Kickstarter campaign on April 11. The target investment was $100,000. Within 28 hours, more than $1 million had been raised. Four days later, the tally has just clocked over $2.7 million. Could Pebble become the coolest thing since the iPhone?

Sure enough, audiences flocking to see the futuristic teen blockbuster, which has been raking in revenues right and left, were able to verify a cameo appearance by the water container in the sleek, hyper-sanitary control room scenes of the film. 321 Water founder Gretha Oost, who has not yet seen the film, said she was "blown away" when she heard about the sighting.

What’s your “maverick” quotient? We're not talking about Tom Cruise in Top Gun. We mean, whether or not you can “recognise” a maverick — a creative, independent thinker who can be brilliant but troublesome and can keep firms aggressive and competitive. See if you fit the Maverickism Scale.

Australian software start-up company PlayUp offers sports and media personalities the opportunity to monetise their social networks, by linking them to premium “pay-per-play” content that already interweaves sport and social interactivity. The PlayUp app is now in the top five downloaded apps in 80 countries and number one in 30 countries.

Have you stopped to think about how social media has changed your behaviour, and the way you interact with others? This TED presentation, by Sherry Turkle from MIT, asks many questions and, challenges you to be honest with your answers.

Many Australian businesses are on the selling block due to the glut in the pending retirements of baby boomer business owners. Quite simply, they need to sell to retire. Yet, according to the September Quarter 2011 BizExchange Index, the number of businesses for sale rose by over 350%. Meanwhile, their prices halved. More creative ways of selling a business need to be considered.

Way back in the mid-1970s, when dinosaurs still roamed Melbourne’s outer suburbs, Steve Wozniak said to his HP boss something along the lines of ‘I’ve had this great idea: personal computers in every home.’ HP boss, in turn, said words to the effect of ‘Pfff. If that ever catches on I’ll eat my highly-flammable, synthetic safari suit.’

Dr. Jana Matthews, one of the world’s leading experts on entrepreneurship and growth, is the program director for ANZ Innovyz START. Her goal is to pick the most exciting startups, pack the founders into a room for three months and have a team of top-flight mentors provide sage advice. From her perspective, Australia and New Zealand have some unique startup challenges.

Many commentators have been impressed by the new Google Glasses, saying that Facebook and Apple should be worried about the potential of this potential game-changing technology. But aren't we already distracted enough?

Never one to shy away from the changes technology can bring to your life, master magician Marco Tempest steps up, again, to integrate the latest augmented reality into a magic routine. In doing so, he explains the simple tenants of storytelling and how being unexpected brings delightful results.

Consultants will advise you on how to build a good website, but few will dwell on what not to do. Here is the bad stuff you want to avoid at all costs. In the online world, all that matters is usability, usability and usability.

Last week, I caused an online ruckus by questioning whether Cool Company Finalist LeadBolt should be named our 2011 Cool Company Awards Readers’ Choice winner. LeadBolt totally annihilated the competition – because its business model is based on triggering online actions, such as Facebook Likes. Starlettos, the first runner-up, had courted reader praise and social media reactions the old fashioned way – by rallying their mates. So, who should get the award? Short-cutting LeadBolt or hard-working Starlettos? The results were smashing.

Not too long ago, the existentialist question in the time of Facebook was: To join or not to join. Now, after the social networking site — the third largest grouping in the world, behind only the countries of China and India in population — filed for an initial public offering, the question is, well: To buy or not to buy Facebook stock.

Call it a cliche. Call it gratuitously opportunistic. Call it what you will. But we know that whenever we run a post featuring a new, popular or funny commercial, your clicking fingers get awfully itchy. (Don't deny it. We have the stats to prove it.) Hence, here they are, the best and worst of the Super Bowl ads for 2012 (according to Anthill).

Can you remember the winner of TIME magazine's Most Influential Person poll in 2009? Was it Barack Obama? Oprah Winfrey? The Dalai Lama? No, it was Moot, the pseudonym of 21-year-old Christopher Poole, a college student and founder of online community 4chan.org. So, why the long winded introduction to this year's Cool Company Awards Readers' Choice Award? Did we get gamed?

With the economy in its current state and the US dollar near parity, geo-arbitrage opportunities abound. Combine that with the power of cloud based technologies and tools, like DropBox, ScreenSteps, Dictamous and Screenflow, and it has suddenly become far easier than any time in history to employ and manage skilled staff and freelancers from all corners of the globe.

The Cool Company Awards Readers’ Choice Index was created to provide an opportunity for Anthill readers to vote on Cool Company Award finalists, in one of three ways: Commenting, Like-ing and Tweeting. This way, readers not only direct attention to a worthy cool company but also introduce new people to these awards.