What’s your 571?

Okay – so you’re probably wondering what the heck a “571″ is – well at least I’m hoping you are. A 571 is something completely unfair that has happened to you and you need support from others to help right this wrong. You want people to be aware that something like this is happening out in our “free country,” and you feel justice must prevail.

Let me start by giving a little history on where this idea of a “571″came from.  My business partner and I recently met with our bookkeeper to discuss taxes. She was sharing what we owe to the government and why we owe these taxes. We found out that my business partner owed $571 more than I did because her marriage is not recognized by the state of Oregon (she’s married to a woman). Even though Oregon recently passed a domestic partnership law, there are groups opposing it – and attempting to collect signatures to put the issue up for a vote on the January 2008 ballot.

I however, received more tax benefits because I am married to a person of the opposite sex – lucky me!

So this is where I came up with the idea of 571 – since this was the amount my business partner must pay for marrying a woman almost 13 years ago!

It got me thinking about all the other injustices happening everyday in this world – and I wanted to provided people with a place to vent them. And who knows – maybe others will read them, get equally pissed off, and decide to ORGANIZE and TAKE ACTION! Especially now – in the age of SOCIAL MEDIA and CROWDSOURCING - where people DO have the power to make their 571 ubiquitous!

So please share your 571 here – and let’s work together to right these wrongs!

istock photos

Supporting Start-ups in Oregon

I co-founded a new not-for-profit group in Eugene, Oregon called Smart-ups. Being an entrepreneur myself it’s a pain in the you know what to trek my butt up to Portland, Seattle or down to San Francisco to find support for my start-up OsoEco.

So a friend of mine – Nathan Lillegard, who is the CEO and founder of Floragenex (a start-up in Eugene) – and I decided to start a group in little ole Eugene to help connect entrepreneurs to investors, service providers, mentors, and business and community leaders. Hence, Smart-ups was founded!

We had our 3rd Pub-Talk event this past week (Oct 14) and it was very successful – 101 people showed up to show their support. Three companies from within the Willamette Valley pitched their business plan in less than 12 minutes. The winner was Take Shape (Springfield). They have a patent-pending body scanning technology that sets a news standard for the way human fitness is evaluated.

We also had a 1-minute pitch contest where four entrepreneurs from the Eugene-area pitched their businesses in less than one minute. The winner was Score 4 Reading (Eugene). Score 4 Reading is a research-based innovative program for creating successful readers from struggling readers, grades 3rd – 9th.

Congrats to all companies for being selected to present.

We got some good press as a result. Visit www.smartups.org to read more.