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Oregon Business Incubator, Ltd./Omni Business Incubator, 13950 SW Galbreath Drive , Ste. 216, Sherwood, OR (2026)

08/31/2026

How Well Intentioned Grammarians Messed up English for over 350 Years!

In college, I minored in English and was baffled as to why my professors could not--or would not--explain why we can't split an infinitive (the "to" form of the verb as in "to laugh" or "to live") or place a preposition at the end of a sentence. Now that I've researched it, I'm here to explain how grammarians made English much less understandable for over 350 years.

Quick history:

The Celts lived in England from about 1.000 BC until they were conquered by the Roman Empire in 43 AD. Celtic was spoken by the conquered and Latin by the conquerors. In Latin, you couldn't split an infinitive because it was one word.

When Rome was attacked by Goths, Visigoths, and some other Goths in 410 AD, Roman troops withdrew from England and other parts of the Roman Empire to protect the capital. As the Roman legions withdrew, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes from what is now Germany moved to England to fill the power vacuum. In the Germanic languages, you could split an infinitive because an infinitive was two words and a preposition could sit at the end of a sentence on its own.

Old English was spoken in England from 450 A.D. to 1100 A.D. (when the Anglo-Saxons conquered England up to the Norman Conquest). In this West Germanic language, you could split an infinitive and have the last word of a sentence be a preposition. The saga/poem, BEOWULF, is written in Old English.

Middle English was spoken 1100 AD to 1500 AD (Norman Conquest to Early Tudors) and is a combination of Old English, the Germanic languages, Norman French, Latin, and the Old Norse of the Vikings. Chaucer wrote in Middle English.

Early Modern English was spoken 1500-1700 AD. To Middle English-Germanic root language, words in Latin and Greek were added to label the many scientific and technical inventions. Shakespeare wrote in Early Modern English. Since he was a Latin tutor prior to writing plays, he only once split an infinitive (which you can't do in Latin) but frequently ended a sentence with a preposition.

He died before grammarians wrote grammar books in England.

Lucky him!

In the 1600s and 1700s as the British Empire expanded bringing “Pax Britannia” or British peace to far flung locations, grammarians sought to upgrade Germanic-English by forcing its grammar rules to abide by Latin grammatical rules. They wanted English to have the classical feel of classical Latin.

Therefore, with these new rule changes, splitting infinitives and dangling prepositions were no longer allowed.

Grammar teachers scowled at students who violated either rule; grades precipitously plummeted.

And so, it was for over 350 years.

Lucky for us, this has all changed within our lifetimes. English teachers no longer scowl at their students who split an infinitive or dangled a preposition.

The rules have changed and both are allowed!
© 2025-2027. Oregon Business Incubator, Ltd. All rights reserved worldwide.

08/28/2026

How I Became an Editor :-)

By Kathryn Lee, published humorist

I edited college textbooks in environmental safety and health for over 10 years. Here's how I started that career.

True story:

One day, I walked into my class—a college prep English course for sophomores. The black curtains were drawn but there was no one from the A/V Department fiddling with a movie projector. The lights were off that afternoon, leaving the room in a somber darkness. I thought there might actually be more light in the deepest and darkest of dungeons.

After the final student entered, Mr. Murphy rose laboriously from behind his desk, lumbered to the door, and closed it ever so quietly. Turning to us, he announced we could do homework for any other class but we must be quiet because he had a migraine and couldn’t deal with us.

Since I had completed all my homework for my morning classes so that I wouldn’t have to lug the heavy books home, I opened my grammar book, which I brought diligently to class every day even though we never opened it. To my left was Tina, a fellow honor roll student and Camp Fire Girl, who had also cracked open her grammar book. Thinking that what the gladiators said to the Roman emperor before the games began, I reluctantly started reading.

I read Rule 100 which defined prepositions, Rule 101 on how they are used, and a list of them in Rule 102. "With," "to," and "between" were all on this list of 150 prepositions.

At Rule 103, I paused. My lips twitched up in a smile. I put my hands over my mouth to suppress laughter that was welling up inside me like hot lava about to erupt from Vesuvius. I turned to Tina who also was trying to smoother her giggles.

Mr. Murphy was NOT amused. He glared at us. Curling one finger towards him angrily, he beckoned us to approach his desk. Books in hand, heads hung low, we approached. Opening our books, we each pointed at Rule 103.

Irritated, he glared at us.

He looked down at the rule. He looked up at us. He looked back at the rule and then burst out laughing!

Rule 103 stated: “Never use a preposition to end a sentence with.”

“With” is a preposition.

He told us that the book had been in use in our school district for over 10 years and during that time, none of the 3,000 students or 20 teachers had noticed that mistake.

I think I know what happened. At the front of the grammar book was a list of all the esteemed professors from every corner of the U.S. who had reviewed and approved this textbook. Most professors have grad students do the "grunt work" for the professors. I think a professor assigned the writing of this chapter to a grad student who rebelled by putting in this rule. Thinking that the professor or the textbook editor would correct it, the grad student was rather pleased with Rule 103.

As you can see, the professor trusted the grad student and there might not have been an editor.

Either way, Tina and I earned extra credit!

© 2025-2027. Oregon Business Incubator, Ltd. All rights reserved worldwide.

08/25/2026

6 Keys to Getting an SBA Loan

As experienced small business counselors who helped entrepreneurs obtain over $35,000,000 in capital, we’re often asked, “What are the keys to getting an SBA loan?”

Here are the 6 most frequently used keys to unlock the assets of an SBA-guaranteed loan:

1. Business status: Is your business legally registered as a for-profit entity operating in the United States?

a. Have you been approved for a limited liability company or a for-profit corporation in any state of the U.S.?

b. If you operate a non-profit corporation, you can’t apply for an SBA-guaranteed loan.

2. Time in business: Do you have at least two (2) years of tax returns and financial statements?

a. There are lenders who require three years of financial statements and tax returns so please be aware that each lender can set up its own rules.

b. Financial statements requested are often the balance sheets, profit and loss (P&L), and cash flow statements.

3. Can your current cash flow cover your current debts AND the new loan payment? This is often called the Debt-Service Coverage Ratio or DSCR. Lenders often require a minimum of a 1.20:1 to 1.25:1 ratio.

4. Minimum credit score: Usually a minimum personal credit score of 650-690 is required. The lender may require a higher minimum score from key owners and/or for larger loans.

5. No federal defaults: Borrowers are not allowed to have any unpaid debt or defaults on any government-backed loans in the past including federal student loans.

6. Personal guarantee required: Any person owning 20% or more of the business must sign a personal guarantee promising to repay the loan if the business defaults.

Now that you know, how can we help you to get approval for an SBA-guaranteed loan?

© 2025-2027. Oregon Business Incubator, Ltd. All rights reserved worldwide.

08/21/2026

Professor Defeats AI!

When 32 students used AI to answer a midterm question during a summer history course at Alcorn State University in Mississippi, the students were surprised to learn that their professor quickly saw through their artificial intelligence (AI) short cut…and cut their grades down to “F” on that section.

(Three students who did not AI were rewarded for their effort.)

What can we, as small business owners, learn from this?

1. The professor, Dr. Jason Gibson, inserted the word “Madagascar” into a question asking the students to compare the Industrial Revolution to the digital age we are experiencing. Since he placed the word “Madagascar” in a white font, the students didn’t see it. When the 32 students copied the question into an AI chatbot, the chatbot perceived the word and then concocted very odd answers incorporating “Madagascar” into the answer.

What could we expect in the future?

It is very possible that job postings, contract request for proposals, and other communications will have a hidden word in white which the eye can’t see but AI can see to w**d out those taking a short cut.

2. The students didn’t proofread the answers culled from AI. If students had read what AI produced, they would have found non-sensical sentences such as, “Madagascar floats sideways through the afternoon” or “Madagascar purple bicycle whispers to the ceiling” (Source: https://www.today.com/parents/family/professor-catches-ai-cheating-hidden-word-rcna589421).

What can we as small business owners learn?

The students assumed that AI would concoct a truthful answer that made logical sense. If they hadn’t been so trusting (or lazy), they would have spotted and removed any sentences referring to Madagascar.

As business owners, we can’t assume that AI will create the truthful answers we need so we must proofread to get rid of AI hallucinations like this.

3. This surprised Dr. Gibson even more than the prevalence of AI as a short cut to passing the midterm.

As small business owners, we recall our teachers and professors lecturing us on maintaining standards of academic integrity. Plagiarism—copying someone else’s words without giving the author credit—was not allowed. Buying a paper from a paper mill or another student was forbidden. Those shortcuts to obtaining a college degree. Now, there is another shortcut: AI. As long as professors stay vigilant and students abide by the principles of academic integrity, we will graduate an educated, intelligent workforce.

© 2025-2027. Oregon Business Incubator, Ltd. All rights reserved worldwide.

08/17/2026

How to Win at Marketing

Do you know why that libation is called "bourbon" and how it helped a small business owner win at marketing? Let us at Oregon Business Incubator explain.

First, here's a lesson from best practices at business school, since we often help entrepreneurs name a new product. We keep in mind these five guiding principles:

• Understand your buyer’s behaviors.
• Identify your buyer’s core emotional triggers.
• Be clear about what your product or service does.
• Provide distinct value.
• Create a brand strategy which includes these four points.

A very successful example of this is the man who changed the name of a product to appeal to the thirsty French patrons of his drinking establishment in New Orleans, Louisiana.

According the owners of Left Bank Distilled Spirits, a New Orleans bourbon distillery, here is what happened:

Back in the 1780s-1790s, the Scots-Irish settlers of Kentucky, being a thrifty lot, decided to distill any surplus New World corn into whiskey using Old World methods.

Aging the brew in new, charred oak barrels, they shipped their libation down the Mississippi River to the thirsty denizens of New Orleans and it aged along the way.

Sold as “corn whiskey,” sales weren’t exactly brisk in the French Quarter.

In the early 1800’s, a Frenchman owned a bar in New Orleans serving his fellow Frenchmen and those who liked to think of themselves as aristocratic Frenchmen. The saloon owner understood his buyers’ behaviors and identified his buyers core emotional triggers: They preferred to drink alcohol which was created in France and carried the name of a French region.

Analyzing his sales, the saloon owner realized he had a very successful sales record of:

• Armagnac, a grape brandy, bottled in the Armagnac area of Gascony, France.

• Bordeaux red and white wines produced in Bordeaux.

• Cognac, a grape brandy, was produced in the Charente region of France.

• Champagne, a sparkling wine, hailed from the Champagne region of France.

The saloon owner decided to rebrand corn whiskey as though it had originated in France.

To provide distinct value and to be clear about what his product was, he renamed corn whiskey as “bourbon,” the name of a French region and a French royal family.

Around his new alcoholic beverage, he created a brand strategy which elevated mere corn whiskey distilled in the backwoods of Kentucky by financially challenged immigrants to an exotic new libation which might have been imported from France.

While he didn’t claim it was French in origin, he let his buyers assume it was French by the name.

By applying the five marketing points we listed, this entrepreneur successfully named a product by understanding his buyers’ behaviors and identifying their core emotional triggers. He was clear about what his product did and he provided distinct value to his buyers.

Now that you know, you can succeed at naming your products too!

© 2025-2027. Oregon Business Incubator, Ltd. All rights reserved worldwide.

08/14/2026

The Mysterious Missing Musketeers

While we admit that this is not one of the great mysteries of life, we, at Oregon Business Incubator, are happy to have solved it:

Why there is only one piece of candy in the 3 Musketeers package?

Where are the other two musketeers?

To answer this, we have to dust off our history books to almost 100 years ago.

In 1932, everyone in America was excitedly waiting for debut that December of a French movie, The Three Musketeers, based on the swashbuckling adventure novel written by Alexandre Dumas in 1844. To capitalize on the romance and adventure in the movie, the candy manufacturer, Mars Incorporated, debuted a new 3 pc. candy bar, The 3 Musketeers.

In 1932, Mars, Incorporated, the candy manufacturer, debuted a new candy bar, the 3 Musketeers.

Trying to stay true to the concept of three, inside the package were three pieces of candy—vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate. Each piece was filled with a light, fluffy, whipped nougat. Together, the three pieces sold for five cents (5¢).

While the chocolate piece of candy was widely loved, the same can’t be said about the vanilla and strawberry pieces. They were tolerated. Mars wondered how they could delete these 2 pieces without upsetting their customers.

Their answer came 14 years later in 1942.

As World War II raged, Americans were asked to reduce their use of sugar so that sugar could be diverted to American military personnel bravely fighting the war.

In 1942, sugar was rationed on the home front.

Seeking to be perceived as patriotic, Mars saw its opportunity by conforming the constraints of sugar rationing while eliminating the vanilla and strawberry pieces in the candy bar.

Mars was able to use less sugar (and obey government mandates) while becoming more profitable by reducing sugar costs while providing customers with the piece of candy they loved the most. It was a win-win-win for Mars and its candy-loving customers.

And thus, we solved the mystery of the two missing musketeers from the beloved candy bar.

© 2025-2027. Oregon Business Incubator, Ltd. All rights reserved worldwide.

08/11/2026

Google Changed the Rules

Imagine that you are up to bat in a baseball game, eager to run to first base. Suddenly, the umpire halts the game, hands out a new rule book, and announces that everyone will do the opposite: When you get a hit or a walk, you run to 3rd. base. Yes, you are running in the opposite direction.

That's what Google just did: It reversed the rules for Google search.

Up until recently, Google rewarded small business owners for having a large quantity of commodity content--content that was an introduction to your business niche. If you were a florist, you posted content about birth flowers...just like every other florist. If you owned a wedding venue, you posted lists of colors that were "in" for that season...just like every other wedding website. So long as you rewrote the content and didn't copy the content created by another business, you were fine.

Recently, Google changed the rules on what a search page looks like and how your small business can be included in a search answer.

Here’s how the world of search changed:

1. The format of a Google search page: In the past, when you posted a question, you saw on Page 1, a dozen active links to websites which could answer it. This was followed by additional active links on Page 2, etc. As a small business owner, you might get traffic from your content on Page 2.

Now, that is no longer an option.

Instead, the search page posts an artificial intelligence (AI) answer and live links to only a very few sources. Your goal now is to become one of those chosen few sources to generate traffic.

2. Keywords: They are still valuable in Google search.

· At the dawn of the Internet, content creators were rewarded for keyword stuffing—the endless repetition of a keyword to meet the requirements of exact match.

· Keyword stuffing was replaced by keyword diversity—using synonyms such as “canine” to reel in more searchers fishing for dog content.

· Natural language algorithms expanded Google’s ability to identify semantic content (synonyms, variations in meaning, and context), anticipate the audience’s intent, and be responsive to their demands.

What changes do you need to implement to stay current with Google?

· Ditch any keyword stuffing.

· Ditch HTML meta keywords. Google hasn’t ranked those for years.

· Use your keywords to connect with your audience’s terminology, uncover their exact questions, answer their queries, and solve their problems.

· Blend your keywords into your titles, headings, and any URLs so that you are abundantly clear on your topic.

3. Use market research to uncover underserved topics and measure commercial intent.

4. Google Ads sets prices based on identified keyword themes and established search behaviors.

In our next post, we’ll dive into how you can win in this new world of Google search!

© 2025-2027. Oregon Business Incubator, Ltd. All rights reserved worldwide.

07/31/2026

It's Not the "Worst Aquarium Ever"

By Kathy Lee

In the fairy tale, a troll spun straw into gold. That's a great example of taking something worth little and turning it into something worth quite a lot.

Can you do that in social media? Turn a one-star review on social media into marketing gold? You can if you are the New Bedford Whaling Museum in Massachusetts!

Let me explain: The New Bedford Whaling Museum in Massachusetts utilizes art, culture, history, and science to tell the story of the whaling industry in New England.

Yes, there are skeletons of the great whales including a blue whale, a s***m whale, a North Atlantic right whale, and a humpback ranging in size for 66 to 37 feet long.

Yes, there whaling vessels (ships) you can step aboard and explore.

Is there an aquarium? There was not a single aquarium at the New Bedford Whaling Museum at the time this review was posted:
“Worst aquarium ever.”

It’s not an aquarium; it’s a museum. There’s a difference.

The staff of the MUSEUM joked about that review among themselves.

Then, Emily Roznoy, Visitor Experience Manager at the MUSEUM channeled her inner artist to design a tee shirt with the skeleton of a s***m whale skeleton on the front and the one-star review on the back.

Expanding the merchandise line to include crewneck sweaters and tote bags, the Museum has discovered a sales gold mine and have frequently had to reorder.

To increase bonding with customers, the museum staff praises anyone who purchases the merchandise by stating slyly that he or she is one of the “cool kids” now.

Yes, the museum gift store has other merchandise but it is this product line which has turned out to be the most profitable and created another income stream for the non-profit, making it a little more independent of ticket sales, donations, and grants. Brava, Emily!

(P.S. the museum now has a 250-gallon saltwater aquarium featuring local species including a Northern Puffer Fish, a blue crab, and a Forbes’ Sea Star—made possible by “Worst Aquarium Ever” merchandise sales!)

© 2025-2027. Oregon Business Incubator, Ltd. All rights reserved worldwide.

07/30/2026

David Defeats Goliath!

You can apply for copyright protection at the U.S. Copyright Office for:

• Any books, articles, poems, or materials you have written down on paper or electronically
• Any songs you have composed
• Any photos you took
• Any images you created
• Any computer code you created or
• Architectural drawings.

If someone wants to use all or part of the materials you copyrighted, they can license that work for a specific fee and a specific amount of time. Licensing is allowed by law.

Pirating or unauthorized use is not allowed.

In David vs. Goliath lawsuit, three authors filed a copyright infringement case against a Goliath in the artificial intelligence (AI) world, Anthropic. The authors claimed that Anthropic accessed pirated copies of their books through shadow libraries such as Library Genesis to train the chatbot, Claude.

The problem is that the neither the shadow libraries nor the AI company paid the authors to license their works. As time went on, more authors joined the suit turning it into a class action suit representing 482,000 authors.

The authors settled for $1.5 billion in the largest copyright recovery case in U.S. history.

Each claimant (author or publisher) was awarded $3,000.

Are Anthropic’s competitors, Google, OpenAI, and Meta, being sued too?

Yes, cases alleging that these companies trained their AI on copies of books from pirate websites are proceeding through the courts at this time.

What does the future hold?

The leaders of various authors’ guilds anticipate that this is floor—not the ceiling—for all future AI training settlements. The next cases will use this $3,000 per book settlement as a pricing reference for settling all future cases.

Could the same author reach a settlement with each AI company? It is possible!

Stay tuned!

© 2025-2027. Oregon Business Incubator, Ltd. All rights reserved worldwide.

07/29/2026

Musicians & Songwriters 2, AI 0

By Kathy Bazan, Certified Small Business Counselor

In August 2024, three authors filed suit against Anthropic, accusing the company of copyright infringement by using pirated copies of their books to train large language models and artificial intelligence (AI).

As time went on, more authors joined the suit, ballooning the action into a class action lawsuit.

In August 2025, Anthropic reached an agreement with 482,000 authors whose books had been used illegally to train AI.

In July 2026, that agreement was ratified: Each author will be compensated $3,000 because Anthropic did not have permission to use the authors' works.

In the music world, copyright infringement cases are resolving a bit differently:

Warner Music Group settled two high profile cases in November 2025 by forming new companies which would allow users access to musicians and songwriters' copyrighted music to create their own legal covers or remixes. Musicians who signed with Warner can opt in and getting paid by AI music companies.

Currently, Warner represents Coldplay, Blake Shelton, Bruno Mars, Ed Sheeran, and many more singers.

Six days after settling with Udio, Warner Music Group settled with Suno, Udio’s major competitor.

This deal had an even bigger twist:

Not only did Warner Music and Suno create a partnership and licensing agreement which allows Warner artists and songwriters to be paid for allowing Suno to use their music, but also Warner Music sold its concert discovery website, Songkick, to Suno.

Songkick allows fans to follow their favorite musicians, get concert alerts, and be first in line (electronically) to buy concert tickets.

Through Suno, fans can now legally create songs, remixes, and covers of their favorite artists, get alerted to concert dates, and buy tickets all on one platform—giving Suno an advantage in the music marketplace!

The best news is that the musicians are compensated…instead of having their music pirated!

© 2025-2027. Oregon Business Incubator, Ltd. All rights reserved worldwide.

Oregon Business Incubator, Ltd./Omni Business Incubator

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