Every month or so, I sit down with a small group of CEOs of other small technology-based businesses here in the Twin Cities.  It's an informal place to talk through our problems, share experiences, etc., in a confidential and safe environment.

This month we started the meeting by going around the room sharing our views of the economy; naturally I shared my determination to seek out optimistic indicators no matter how foolish it makes me seem.  Pretty much everyone was gloom-and-doom.

But at the end of the meeting, one of the other CEOs made an interesting observation: "Remember how we started the meeting talking about how bad the economy is?  Isn't it interesting that nearly every one of us said that our business right now is picking up, and some of us are doing better than ever."