Citizen journalism, open government, status updates, community building, information sharing, crowdsourcing, and the election of a President.
Editor’s note: This is first guest post from Max Gladwell.
Our children will inherit a world profoundly changed by the combination of technology and humanity that is social media. They’ll take for granted that their voices can be heard and that a social movement can be launched from their laptop. They’ll take for granted that they are connected and interconnected with hundreds of millions of people at any given moment. And they’ll take for granted that a black man is or was President of the United States.
What’s most profound is that these represent parts of a greater whole. They represent a shift in power from centralized institutions and organizations to the People they represent. It is the evolution of democracy by way of technology, and we are all better for it.
For most of us, social media has changed our lives in some meaningful way. Collectively it is changing the world for good. Given the pace of innovation and adoption, change has become a constant. Every so often we find the need to stop and reflect on its most recent and noteworthy developments, hence the following list.
This post is, in Rob’s words, part of a grand social media experiment to publish the first collective, simultaneous guest blog post from Max Gladwell. Our goal is for it be published simultaneously on 100 blogs, thus inspiring 100 simultaneous conversations from various points of view. We have more than 70 confirmed with some of the biggest and coolest in the blogosphere.
Having spent considerable time discussing how ecopreneurs can get a piece of the stimulus money, I was eager to read the new Green Stimulus Guide published by The Green Research Council. A 83-page document, it summarizes all the various opportunities presented by the stimulus package.
The Guide is filled with lots of information and hundreds of links to sites where more info and funding applications can be found.
The Guide starts by explaining the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) and how it breaks down. Contained within the Guide is info about Green Energy Initiatives (DOE), Tax Credits, Green Environmental Projects (EPA) Green Transportation Initiatives (DOT), Green Building Initiatives and Green Jobs/Job Training. It provides a modest number of “tips” and information as to how to actually land stimulus money which will be helpful to many people outside the Beltway. One that stuck out to me was contained within the “How To Apply” section:
If you have been asking yourself this question, you are not alone.
I’ve been fielding calls for two weeks from clients, friends, you name it. In my quest to come up with answers I cam upon the blog of Chad Moutray, the Chief Economist and Director of Economic Research for the Office of Advocacy at the Small Business Administration. He posted about small business and the stimulus and provided a run-down of what’s in the stimulus package for small businesses:
* $720 million to help support a number of programs at the U.S. Small Business Administration (primarily reducing fees on 7(a) guaranteed loan guarantees);
* $400 million in other support to support economic development and entrepreneurship, particularly in distressed rural, urban, and low-income communities; and
* tax incentives for small businesses, including a continuation of section 179 expensing up to $250,000 on new capital investments, loss carry back for up to five years, a delay in the three percent withholding tax for businesses doing government procurement, and a reduced capital gains tax for small business investors holding stock for five years or more.
Moutray also pointed out that there will be “major investments in infrastructure, broadband, green technologies, home winterization incentives, etc., which will hopefully benefit large and small businesses alike.”
Being interested in small, green businesses, I checked out the two primary agencies that might have have some thing to say: The Environmental Protection Agency and The Department of Energy. It turns out, that according to Enesta Jones in the Press Office at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, one reason its difficult to sort all this out is because agencies that are slated to receive money haven’t decided exactly how they will dispense it. In other words, the programs that will dispense money have yet to be created. It appears that some chunk of the money will ultimately be dispersed as grants, some through loans and some through procurement (government spending). Additionally, some money will go to states to disperse through their sibling agencies and some with go through through the federal recovery efforts. It looks like we’ll all have to wait and see on the specifics of how exactly a business can obtain funds. But, every government agency that received funds to disperse has been required to issue a press release discussing how their stimulus funds will be spent. So, we have been told a few things:
Transcript of President Obama’s address from Saturday, February 21, 2009:
THE PRESIDENT: “Earlier this week, I signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — the most sweeping economic recovery plan in history. Because of this plan, 3.5 million Americans will now go to work doing the work that America needs done.
I’m grateful to Congress, governors and mayors across the country, and to all of you whose support
Highlighting the renewable energy components of the stimulus package, President Obama said in Denver on Tuesday that the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was not the end of the economic downturn, but rather the beginning of the end.
Today, President Obama delivered his first weekly address to the nation. I love these kinds of things. As archaic as the Bush administration was, I have to give them props for putting the President’s weekly address on iTunes. I expect Obama will follow suit.
Our children will inherit a world profoundly changed by the combination of technology and humanity that is social media. They’ll take for granted that their voices can be heard and that a social movement can be launched from their laptop. They’ll take for granted that they are connected and interconnected with hundreds of millions of people at any given moment. And they’ll take for granted that a black man is or was President of the United States.
