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Once again this is a blog post sparked off by some of the great discussion over in the Business7 and Insider group on Linkedin.

Mary-Jo Devlin's topic on 'Would you do business with individual who has no photo on their LinkedIn profile?' has sparked more than 30 responses.

And it is something of a mixed bag from outright no and yes to musings on the power of looking attractive.

One reply suggested being on a social network without a photo was like leaving your date of birth out of a cv as the omission immediately makes people suspicious.

They say what happens in the United States eventually filters through to the UK.

So the evidence given by the United States Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke to the Committee on Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C on February 10 makes for interesting reading.

In his written submission to the committee on the Federal Reserve's exit strategy from what he describes as the "extraordinary lending and monetary policies that it implemented to combat the financial crisis and support economic activity" he adds an interesting footnote.

He states: "The Federal Reserve believes it is possible that, ultimately, its operating framework will allow the elimination of minimum reserve requirements, which impose costs and distortions on the banking system."

The full text of Mr Bernanke's evidence to the committee can be read here

THE news Scottish banks have been "unfair and aggressive" towards their most vulnerable retail customers will come as little surprise to their business customers.

The Scottish affairs select committee, made up of a panel of MPs, has found the taxpayer supported banks have been using what it described as "unsavoury practices" against its most vulnerable customers.

Examples provided by the Citizens Advice Bureau made for grim reading, with some customers complaining they were forced into taking loans to avoid defaulting on non-related financial products, excessive charges for overdraft extensions and rate hikes on credit cards - to name but a few.

Colin Borland, public affairs manager for the Federation of Small Businesses in Scotland said he welcomed the views expressed by committee.

He said the FSB in Scotland has for the last 18-months been highlighting similar "unfair and aggressive" practices levelled at small business customers by their lenders.

The announcement the UK has now left recession after reporting 0.1 per cent growth brought some cheer to businesses hoping the longest period of gloom since the Great Depression is finally behind us.

The problem the government faced was the fact entering into a seventh consecutive quarters of negative growth would give the appearance we were headed down the road to depression.

The ONS figures also have an error range built-in, which are generally not published, but the figures range from between -0.2 per cent and +0.4 per cent.

Of course the 0.1 per cent growth figure will be adjusted to provide a more accurate account in the coming months, but for now we will have to settle for the less accurate range figure.

So, are we really out of recession just shy of 550 days of negative growth?

Some positive news for businesses in Inverness and the surrounding area.

Highland Council has agreed to approve the construction of the ambitious Inverness Airport Business Park.

Infrastructure work for the first phase of this major development could get underway later this year with around 10 hectares being made available for office and other business use.

In the fullness of time the whole 250 hectares at the site will be developed with up to 350,000 square metres of business accommodation built including supporting facilities such as hotels, conferencing, shops, creches and other amenities.

What with holidays, snow, podcasts and magazine deadlines for Insider I didn't quite manage to round up 2009.

Rather than go through the big stories and events I want to do it a bit more personally and look back at the large profile interviews I did during the year.

Each chunk below has a link to the interview if you want to read a bit more.

The first one I did in 2009 was appropriately enough, given the current weather, in a snow covered Falkirk industrial estate with Jamie Rae of Redeem. He was extremely honest and open which for an interviewer is great.

Then I was off up to the Raploch to speak with Campbell Christie about the regeneration in Stirling, football and politics.

A slightly shorter journey saw me going downstairs from my office to spend an hour with Margaret Laidlaw from Tenon to discuss accountancy, entrepreneurs and the recession.

Revealing details have now been published by HM Treasury on exactly what sort of assets Royal Bank of Scotland will put into the government's Asset Protection Scheme.

The due diligence of the assets RBS proposed to add to the APS, conducted by Ernst & Young and KPMG for a collective £16.4m fee, identified £43bn of assets they either rejected from the scheme or deemed to "no longer require protection."

So this reduced the £325bn in toxic assets RBS hoped to dump into the APS to £282bn.

However, the Treasury report documenting which of the Scottish bank's assets are entering into the scheme is rather scant on the details of those assets which the auditors refused to add to the APS.

Some rather important and positive news for the Scottish gaming industry.

Almost £1m in funding from the European Regional Development Fund has been allocated to help 20-start up companies and support 30 existing businesses.

The prototype fund will help developers to create demo games to showcase to potential investors.

There will also be coaching in entrepreneurial skills such as deal-making and practical advice on areas including improving business processes.

In the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, banks in the United States were banned from mixing commercial and investment banking for more than 60 years.

The first of two Bills which made up the Glass-Steagall Act was brought into law in February 1932 in an effort to curb deflation and increase the US government's ability to provide financing to the banking sector.

This was followed by the second Act, passed in June 1933 separating banking types according to their business.

The argument being the new law would protect shareholders from undue risks made by the investment side of the business which investors had no voting control over.

But the separation of investment and commercial banking enshrined in the Glass-Steagall Acts of 1932 and 1933 were repealed in 1999.

The Treasury appears to have won its battle with the Board of Royal Bank of Scotland over a speculated £1.5bn bonus pot for its investment banking arm.

RBS, having bowed to intense political pressure, has now agreed to pay bonuses at the "low, low end of the scale" - even if this means it will lose staff to better paying rivals.

Lloyds have also announced a bonus package for its top 200 executives of up to 80 per cent of their salaries, in a shares only package spread over three years.

And this on the same day the National Audit Office revealed the actual cost to the taxpayer so far for the banking crisis currently stands at ￡850bn.