Matthew Morreale, 24, could help answer a question that vexes advocates, politicians and parents of autistic children: Can we help these adults be more than a tax burden? Matthew is thought to be the first local example of a statewide trend. He runs a microenterprise, a small niche business that can be launched with minimal funding yet make a steady profit.

There are adults with developmental disabilities running mall kiosks and selling hand-made bags. They own floral businesses and they stage puppet shows for children’s parties.

Matthew runs the Matthew James Co., a shredding business that began this year with a single client but is already looking to hire additional employees. His brochure promises that he’ll “shred the competition.”

Matthew is one of a growing number of disabled entrepreneurs who are successfully running their own business. By focusing on his abilities and interests, his job coach, Cassandra Novak at Goodwill of Orange County helped him craft a self-employment plan that could help Matthew live independently.

While I’m annoyed by the default assumption that people with disabilities = tax burden, I’m delighted to read about another case of successful self-employment. This is the type of outcome we designed Active Gray Matter to support, because everyone deserves the opportunity for self reliance and independence.

Well done, Matthew!

For those of you scratching your head going huh, AGM is:

Active Gray Matter (AGM) is a socially based learning community that uses the wisdom of the crowds to build, maintain and run a business incubator for people with chronic or disabling conditions. While there are several online communities for people with chronic or disabling conditions, they are based on a medical model of disability and largely focused on health issues. AGM offers an environment that presumes that people with chronic or disabling conditions are independent and critical thinkers capable of fulfilling the functional roles of traditional business incubation experts.

During the remainder of November I’ll be blogging both here and at AGM with more information about the startup process, finding backers, creating a sustainable business model, the joys and perils of bootstrapping, self-employment of launching a crowdsharing projects.

*For the record, I’ve already missed two days. I’ll improve as we go along.

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When Jen finally got around to showing me her newest blog, Sex, Mortality, Age, and Illness: I’m in my 30′s, I was captivated. It takes a lot of courage to share the intimate details of a chronic illness with the world at large, especially without coming across as pity poor me journalism.

I immediately volunteered to build her a new blog, and watched proudly as people discovered the stories waiting for them at the freshly launched and retitled A Life Less Convenient site. Right from the beginning, this was different than Jen’s other sites; her extensive use of photography from Flickr to illustrate each story made it both visually appealing and edgier.

The tremendous support from the community and readers growing up around A Life Less Convenient helped Jen make a major leap of faith – she agreed to release a limited edition book, complete with new, unpublished letters.

In the same spirit, the print edition of A Life Less Convenient, Letters to My Ex will also feature the original full color artwork and photography of seven amazing photographers (all Flickr regulars) whose work has previously graced the blog. The artists featured include:

Chris Koelbleitner (Bekon)
Camil Tulcan
Machine
Duncan Gold (Autowitch)
Hans Proppe (Shadowplay)
Sara Lando (Rent-a-Moose)
Fernando Montiel Klint (Ferklint)

A Life Less Convenient, Letters to My Ex goes on sale August 15, 2006 via all the usual places. Congratulations to everyone involved in making this project a reality – it’s always exciting to see dreams take form.