The word “lean” along with its more unexpected connotations are invading the vocabulary of entrepreneurs these days – especially in Atlantic Canada.

The hot new entrepreneurship course on offer at Dalhousie University this year is titled “Starting Lean”, and it’s based on the “Lean Launchpad” methodology preached by Steve Blank of University of California, Berkeley. Last week, Austin Texas tech guru Ash Maurya spent two days in Halifax hosting seminars based on his book Running Lean.

So what’s the skinny on all this leanness?

The whole concept as it now exists is only a few years old,

Wooshii, the video crowdsourcing company that set up its North American office in Halifax last year, has been revising its business model with greater emphasis on the creative community as it works on a $1 million fundraising.

Manchester, U.K.-based Wooshii announced in March 2011 that it would set up a North American headquarters in Halifax, housing its development team and marketing executives for the U.S. and Canada. The company operates a crowdsourcing operation, meaning it lets video-makers (or what Wooshii calls creatives) bid on video contracts posted by buyers, usually

Six Atlantic Canadian tech companies -- Verafin of St. John’s, LeadSift, Livelenz, Carboncure, and TitanFile of the Halifax area and VidCruiter of Moncton -- have won awards or recognition in the past week, indicating the potential of the digital companies in this region.

Verafin, which makes fraud-detection and anti-money-laundering software mainly for small and medium-sized banks, was named to the prestigious 2012 Deloitte Tech Fast 50, which measures revenue growth over five years. Verafin, the only Atlantic Canadian company on the list, placed 25th due to its revenue increasing 358

Zaptap has lined up 20 global companies to test its key product in the next six months, prompting the Fredericton-based tech company to more than double the target of its first venture capital round to $5 million.

Headed by founder and CEO Yan Simard, Zaptap’s software allows consumers to “zap” a product label in a store with their smartphones, and immediately receive information on the product such as technical specifications, warranty information, etc. The system allows a retailer or maker of a consumer product – especially a luxury item -- to design and produce a label, control the

Just two months old, the Starting Lean course at Dalhousie University is already having an impact on the creation and mentorship of young companies in the region.

In fact, Starting Lean is radically altering the face of Startup Weekend Halifax, in which entrepreneurs, developers and mentors come together for one intense weekend Nov. 16-18 to form businesses. And it is leading to the creation of the Startup Next competition in Halifax in March, the only Canadian component of this international competition.

There are now nine teams going through the Starting Lean course headed by

Lisa Hrabluk has entered the Launch36 accelerator with a noble purpose: she wants to help freelance journalists find meaningful work with corporations, government and not-for-profit organizations.

Hrabluk has begun a company called Wicked Ideas, which is one of the six or seven companies accepted into the second cohort of Launch36, the accelerator organized by PropelICT of Moncton. Propel Executive Director Trevor MacAusland said his group will not immediately reveal the names of the entrepreneurs in this cohort, but he did say there’s representation from the three Maritime Provinces,

IBM’s decision to establish an analytics centre in Halifax is a huge boost for the digital industry across the Atlantic region, because it will expand capacity, improve technical education and mesh with plans afoot in New Brunswick.

Premier Darrell Dexter announced Thursday the company that pioneered the personal computer would set up its only Canadian Global Delivery Centre in Halifax. The headlines stress around the creation of 500 jobs over eight years in exchange for a payroll rebate of as much as $12.2 million. The addition of 500 tech jobs will in time boost the size of the IT

Hoping to win contracts in 15 U.S. states as well as Greece and launch an Internet product in the next year, Sydney-based gaming machine maker Techlink  Entertainment is on a quest to raise $30 million in venture capital financing by the end of March.

CEO John Xidos said in an interview this week the company is now courting U.S. venture capital firms and expects little difficulty in raising the money, given Techlink’s prospects.

“We’re going to raise more with this new internet project – we’re going to raise about $30 million,” he said.

If the company reaches its target, it will be

Interview Rocket, a Halifax startup that offers interview technology for recruiters and job-seekers, has launched a new free feature for its website to help people seeking jobs arrange interviews with prospective employers.

The company issued a press release today saying it has launched InterviewMe!, which allows the job seeker to ask recruiters for an interview rather than waiting for the company to call.

The company headed by CEO Craig Brown launched in February when its signature website, www.interviewrocket.com went live. Brown had done his homework before that, interviewing more