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An Applied R&D Lab Serving Solo and Family-based Entrepreneurs in Rural and Distressed Urban Communities The Nanocorp Primer #4 Shamrocks and NanocorpsBridging the Digital Divide with 'Small is Good' Business Webs
Is Squirrelfeeders.com real?
Are the EZ/EC Communities real?Absolutely. And no humor can hide the fact that the U.S. rural and urban Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities which participate in the multi-agency EZ/EC federal program are in need of a helping hand. Not charity, these communities need a kick-start to help their Real World neighborhoods participate in the New Economy. If you are a regular visitor to Sohodojo, you know we are change insurgents, private-sector guerrilla capitalists working to address social problems through entrepreneurial action. We recently engaged in a full-frontal assault on the Senate Finance Committee in an effort to affect the 'American Renewal Communities and New Markets Empowerment Act'. It looked like our little 'elastic network' was going to have a direct impact on this important legislation... until Pork barrel politics kicked into high gear! Well, we still have reserved hope that Jim Schneider's EC Inclusion Amendment will make it into the final markup of the bill... but we're not counting on it. Sure, it would be great to have an enlightened, bipartisan political leadership which recognizes that creative tax incentives -- like the zero-capital gains provisions at work in the Washington D.C. Extended Enterprise Community -- are the way to stimulate private investment in business development in our most distressed rural and urban neighborhoods. But, if we don't have it, that won't stop us. We keep our eyes on the prize and keep finding ways to work with the opportunities we have. As it now stands, the nation's Enterprise Communities are being sung a none-too-subtle 'swan song' as their EC business development needs have been left out of the 'Renewal and New Markets' legislation. We'll be doing our part to make up for this political oversight through private, entrepreneurial social action. Like Chumbawumba says, "I get knocked down, but I get up again. They're never gonna keep me down!" Slide textNow... back to the Digital Divide. How do we bridge the Gap with Shamrock-based 'Small is Good' Business Webs? Let's look at an example, using Squirrelfeeders.com as the business web and HUD's.EZ/EC communities as the 'Lands Forgotten'... << Previous slide] [ Back to top ] [Next slide >> |