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Showing posts from August, 2020

Who Do You Think You Are? A Voice from the People in Maine’s Pine Tree Zone Debate

Maine's Pine Tree Zone Tax Exemptions will be up for renewal again, scheduled to end in Dec 2021, A look back at what happened the last time and what can be done better this time. Who Do you Think You ARE! ? photo by Mackenzie Andersen “Who do you think you are?”, he said, as though I needed to be granted permission from an omnipotent authority to speak my mind freely.  He is over reacting, I thought. I had merely asked his friend if he was the person who works as an analyst for the State of Maine. No answer was forthcoming as the the public conversation was deleted and continued as private messaging commencing with this: Bad move to expose my friend like that. Please consider using discretion better if you want to remain friends. I just said OK. His next message began “Thank you”, seemingly interpreting “OK” as agreement that I would behave according to his instructions. I meant- OK, if asking the simple question means he will stop being friends with me, so be it. There was noth

Why Writing Has Become Content Creation

  The Many Voices of Humanity Writing comes to shore in a rush of the tide and then subsides to a restful point before returning  Photo by Mackenzie Andersen Intro This is a short piece I published on Medium about writing, only today it isn't called writing, it is called content creation. The distinction is that content creation is the voice of many people, not just the traditional professional author. Its quite fascinating to absorb all kinds of voices from all over the world and absorb ones self into the meaning of humanity itself.  Since Andersen Design began in 1962, it has always done its own catalogs and marketing. When we are properly funded with a facility and a staff, I look forward to developing a content management team filled with many voices. Andersen Design has a long tradition of recognizing raw talent and on the job training. Please sign up for our mailing list and indicate your level of interest here. photo by Mackenzie Andersen A question was posed in a Facebook C

Yes We Can! The SBIR and STTR Grants for American Small Business

  Does economic development rule the people, or serve the people? Let Freedom Ring! photo by Yves Monrique-unsplash In the 1980’s when Burton A Weisbrod first published  The NonProfit Economy , he wrote that the US economy was composed of three sectors, public, private, and nonprofit, intended to operate independently, each filling a unique function, which the others did not, but in the 1980’s, they were already merging and adapting in ways not ethically clean. In 1997 Weisbrod published a paper titled  The future of the nonprofit sector: Its entwining with private enterprise and government . Today In Maine the entwining is wide, deep and complete, concentrating power in the interests of a small circle of associates wielding wealth redistribution as it’s instrument, branding itself as networking and celebratory public private relationships. The conflation of the public, private, and non-profit sectors is a top down system. over riding local power where in public and private wealth incl