Last week, while commencement ceremonies were taking place across the country, small businesses and startups in Boston were celebrating National Small Business Week and all things entrepreneurial.

From May 12 to 16, events were scheduled across the city to celebrate and discuss the state of innovation and launching a business. At one marquee event, a day-long conference at the Microsoft NERD Center in Cambridge, a pre-lunch panel discussion packed with notable local executives took an unpredicted turn. Instead of talking about high-tech innovation, all five panelists wanted to talk about something else, something more important: how to succeed in business by recruiting mentors.

In Bentley University’s recent PreparedU study, researchers found that eight in 10 business decision makers and higher education influentials of both genders are personally invested in seeing more women succeed in business. But, as moderator Allison Saltzer — a senior business development manager at Microsoft — reinforced on the Small Business Week panel, “You’ve got to be OK with asking for help.”

Read the full story, including advice from the panelists on how to find and recruit the right mentors or advisers, at Examiner.com.

Melissa Masello is a freelance writer.