Event: Fight the Maryland Tech Tax !

Some of my regular readers (all 12 of you … sheesh)  remember the post I wrote recently about the Maryland Tech Tax.  We got some good feedback on the issue.
Well apparently there are some hearings being held i the State legislature next week and the Tech Council MD is organizing a little rally.

As we said before, the tax is really bad for small tech businesses in Maryland

Why: This new tax, which takes effect July 2008, will put many Maryland businesses at a severe disadvantage. Small businesses — the least able to sidestep the tax — will be particularly affected. This tax will hurt the welfare of industries beyond the Tech sector and will also drive some businesses out of state! Imposing a 6% sales tax on computer services like computer facilities management, network maintenance and custom programming is bad policy.

It will truly put many local businesses at a disadvantage and I invite everyone who can make it to head out to Annapolis to join the fight.  Here are the details:

When: March 12, 9:00 AM

Where: Lawyer’s Mall Annapolis, MD (directly in front of the State House and next to the Governor’s Mansion)

There are a couple of event pages set up for it:

Meetup: http://taxreform.meetup.com/27/calendar/7472261
Facebook:  http://taxreform.meetup.com/27/calendar/7472261
And also please follow their Twitter stream as well: TCMMdBio

Please mark your calendar to SPEND THE MORNING IN ANNAPOLIS Wednesday, March 12. The rally will crescendo just before 10 a.m. as legislators walk past the rally to their floor sessions in the State House.

Later that afternoon, Tech Council of Maryland staff and volunteer leaders will testify in hearings on the six percent Computer Services Sales Tax issue in both the House and the Senate. If you care about this issue, please mark March 12 on your calendars. We will need a huge business presence in Annapolis for the hearings.

Fight Tech Tax Coalition members include Tech Council of Md, the Maryland Chamber of Commerce, the Greater Baltimore Tech Council, the Charles County Tech Council, Montgomery County Chamber and Howard County Chamber. Thank-you for your support!

Thanks so much and please let us know if you have any questions, Mitch <mitch@techcouncilmd.com>

All those who have an interest in this as well as our fellow tech workers who want to join forces, please help spread the word.  This is our chance to be heard and make a difference and show the politicians the error of their ways with this possible legislation.

So Didd It, Stumble It, just get it out there for us.

Twitter Tracks Iowa Caucas Results

We are definitely heading into a new era.  A while back I heard that fire fighters battling the wild fires in San Diego were using Twitter for status messages.  Now as we head into the election primary’s and caucus’s we are seeing a new facet of twitter and its job as a social networking tool.  I saw a post, “Iowa Twitter Success” where they described how they used Twitter to track the results, much faster than the mainstream media was getting them.

Patrick Ruffini, the post’s author and Twitter organizer got together a list of Twitter’rs to help him out:

Thanks to @podcastmama, @jakebouma, @chrisken, @kevin_s, @yogagirl, @heatherbrie, TechPresident’s very own @mbassik, @rwclark, @stuartma, @timmytims, @scottatdrake, @LostAirman, @nathantwright, @chanzi, @mrswhitsitt

They used Twitter as a voter reporting system, sending in messages of poll and voter polling results from around the state.  Here is the twitter reporting page called iowacaucus.  According to Patrick:

So I’m calling this experiment an unqualified success. This exercise in citizen journalism foretold the result far more quickly than dispatching two dozen stringers to caucus locations throughout Iowa. Post-macaca, predictions abounded of citizens armed with camera phones bringing us live coverage of everything. It hasn’t happened… yet… but we saw a glimpse of the future tonight in Iowa. Perhaps the era of blogs and YouTube is giving way to the age of Twitter and UStream (sorry, can’t help it… disclosure).

What a great use of new technology to report an event that has been taking place for centuries here in our country.  I think he was right in his last quote, this is just a glimpse into the future.  Lets look forward and wonder how Twitter, or the new tool we haven’t see yet will play a role in reporting the election.  No longer will we depend on the big networks to “project” the winners, we will know before they do.