Big Thinking, New Economy, society & culture
To make it really work, we might need a new indie economics (of creativity and innovation), plus a new indie set of political policies.
— Bruce Nussbaum, Fast Company Design
I’m nailing my theses to the NYSE door. This is economic Reformation.
What is the New Economy?
What Nussbaum terms “indie economics,” I call “you-centered economics.”
You are not used to being at the center of the economy. You have not been the linchpin of economic growth. You have been a mere cog in the machine. You were a commodity to be traded.
You are becoming the heart & soul of a new engine of economic growth. You are influencing giant corporations through your words & actions. You are forming microbusinesses and taking earning into your own hands. You are less dependent on “the system” and more dependent on your community.
But “you” doesn’t just mean you. You is also “the other.”
When you make business decisions, you not only think of “me,” you consider the “we.” It’s not enough to make a business decision for your own singular benefit, you make business decisions that serve others as well.
You understand that a business is nothing if it doesn’t serve a greater good. All business is social entrepreneurship, to you. All business has an obligation to create a legacy of sustainability, creativity, innovation, and service.
Businesses serve people. People do not serve businesses.
Global is the new local.
Indie economy is local. They are small scale. They are built on relationships, trust, and mutual appreciation. They find power in the individual and growth in the community.
Indie economy is global. Communities are no longer limited to location. Convenience is no longer defined by how quickly you can get there in your car. Accessibility is no longer constricted by long-distance phone calls and postage stamps.
Businesses operating in the You-centered Economy realize that community is connected through values, purpose, and affinity. What we have in common is more important than where we live. The internet is a tool for intimacy and connection not a weapon of anonymity.
Local economies have gone global. Global economies are local.
Are you a member of the Entrepreneurial Generation?
Today’s ideal social form is not the commune or the movement or even the individual creator as such; it’s the small business. Every artistic or moral aspiration — music, food, good works, what have you — is expressed in those terms.
— William Deresiewicz, New York Times
This generation – defined again by affinity and not by year of birth – is attracted to small business as our chief medium of expression. Entrepreneurship is a manifestation of the commerce culture we grew up in, heightened by an ever-increasing accessibility to the engines of that commerce.
Entrepreneurs are not just salesmen. We see entrepreneurs as innovators (bringing us one step closer to the realm of science fiction), beacons of hope (business brings change – for good or bad), and a key check in a system that is increasingly without checks.
By becoming entrepreneurs, we’re inserting ourselves in a system that we don’t fully understand – because we crave the connection. We crave the understanding. We crave a different way.
It’s not that we hate consumption – it’s that we hate what consumption looks like now. It’s not that we hate big business – it’s that we hate what big business looks like now.
The Entrepreneurial Generation is one that still has hope – despite college loan debt and a poor economy. We have hope that we are a part of the change.
Entrepreneurs are artists, reformers, saints, and scientists. We are innovators, communicators, leaders, and visionaries. We are attracted to business not because it is business but because of what business allows us to accomplish, how it allows us to express ourselves. Click to tweet it!
It’s the fierce ideals & vision of this kind of entrepreneur – paired with infinite accessibility to communication – that are propelling her & her generation towards affluence.
The bellwethers of a New Economy entrepreneur…
New Economy entrepreneurs are always looking for the triple bottom line: profit, people, planet. They believe individualism can coexist with collectivism. That sustainability can coexist with growth.
New Economy entrepreneurs value themselves and the work that they do. They are so over the romantic notion of the starving artist. They set prices and work in business models that reflect a desire for quality over quantity. They understand just how special their product or service is in the lives of those they serve.
New Economy entrepreneurs seek purpose & meaning in everything they do. Instead of asking themselves “What?” they ask “Why?” Instead of seeking to fill a need, they seek to create an experience.
New Economy entrepreneurs pursue mistakes. Why play it safe when you can challenge yourself? Why default to status quo when you can invent a new standard?
New Economy entrepreneurs are more interested in what they don’t know than what they do. Business is a learning opportunity. Customer service is an education. Sales is scholarship.
New Economy entrepreneurs embrace the quirks of a niche. They’re not in the people-pleasing business. They’re in the right-people-pleasing business. They don’t walk on the eggshells of the mass market. They look for ways to crack all the right eggs. They invite others to crack eggs with them. Mostly from free-range chickens.
New Economy entrepreneurs understand that there are infinite choices. There is no such thing as competition in the New Economy, only opportunities for differentiation.
Towards a Connected Economy
Why now? The sense of disconnection has reached a boiling point.
The average consumer is tired of being thought of as a wallet to be put to use by government policy, big business, and corporate fat cats. It’s a system based on disconnecting us from our humanity.
We crave the connection – with ourselves and with each other. We crave control. But, ultimately, we crave our divine creative power.
As we reconnect with our creative power – as artists, makers, developers, writers, philosophers, designers… – we have discovered the need for critical selling. Critical selling is the process by which we examine our output in the marketplace. It connects our humanity with others. And it does so in the universal language of our times: money.
This is the You-Centered Economy. This is the commerce of connection, meaning, and experience. This is how you & I do business. Click to tweet it!
New Economy
I went to college for all the wrong reasons. You know, the reasons that lead some people to become basket weaving majors.
Or metalsmithing majors.
Or religion majors.
I went to college for a challenge, for the love of learning, for the exploration of mature relationships, for personal connection on a new level.
Doesn’t sound so bad, does it?
I didn’t go to find a job. Or even prepare for one.
As I student, I never went to the networking or career prep events that my college dutifully hosted. I never learned about proper interviewing etiquette or how to hold a glass and a plate in one hand whilst leaving your right hand open for handshaking.
If it wasn’t late night discussions and dog-earred philosophy texts, I wasn’t interested.
Oops.
Last week, I went back to school to attend my first how-to networking & professionalism event as a volunteer alumna.
I was expecting the culture shock: bunch of less-than-twentysomething college students, alumni from all different fields and industries… and then me.
But what I wasn’t expecting was the context of the event: GET A JOB.
Feel free to laugh at my out-of-touchness and naivete.
I’ve been to quite a few events this year. I’ve made a point of meeting and greeting. Flesh to flesh, palm to palm. Supporting my digital work with in-person smiles.
Each event had a different context and a different group of people.
But never was the focus of the event: GET A JOB.
It’s easy for me to forget, in fact, that there are people still looking for jobs.
Saying “still” really outs my “real world” seclusion.
Of the students I talked to, none had really considered creating their own job or starting their own business. They were at that event because they wanted to learn what the system expected of them, what it demanded of them, to be successful.
Even as I polished off my rusty interviewing skills, talking to three girls in three different fields of study, I was amazed at how they felt lost translating their experience & talents into ways to benefit society (or corporations, or organizations).
Square peg, meet round hole.
I wasn’t there to convince college students that entrepreneurship was the ticket to a bright & beautiful future. I was there to find out what I had to offer this new generation. The generation that will ultimately be shaping the world I mature & “retire” in.
What I discovered is that those students need the same thing that so many others do, the driving desire behind all of my work: we all need to know how our personal value translates into collective value.
Click to tweet that little nugget.
How our strengths create a strong whole.
How our great work makes this a greater place.
So I asked them questions:
- Not, “What’s your major?” but “What are you passionate about?”
- Not, “What do you want to do when you graduate?” but “What really turns you on?”
- Not, “What’s is your experience?” but “How are you going to serve me, your friends here, and the world?”
Oh, sure. Those questions got a lot of blank stares. But they also got light bulbs, productive ramblings, and flashes of brilliance.
These students weren’t going to go out and start a company (although, who knows?!) but, at least for a brief bit of time, they were going to look at themselves just a little bit differently.
And that’s the heart of this work. That’s what pushes me. That’s what drives me.
I want you to look at yourself, your value, and what you have to offer differently – if just for a moment – because that’s the only way you can look at the system differently.
You can’t change the system until you’ve changed yourself. Click to tweet that little nugget.
The New Economy isn’t taking shape because of outside forces but because of internal awakenings.
Click to tweet that little nugget.
People – YOU – are waking up to the fact that they’re not automatons on the get-a-job superhighway. They’re not computers waiting to be programmed with operating systems for certain careers or job positions.
They – YOU – are unique, valuable, and irreplaceable. But not until they wake up and realize it.
Quick! Grab a pen & paper…
Got it? Good.
Give yourself a job interview.
- Describe the last time you made a difficult decision. What was the outcome?
- Describe a time you didn’t know the answer to a question your boss or a client posed to you. How did you handle the response?
- What gets you excited about the task at hand?
- What type of work environment helps you to thrive?
- What is unique about & what you have to offer to this position?
What do you notice as you’re giving the answers?
Do the answers come fast & furious? Do you really need to pause and consider the stories influencing each answer? What do your answers tell you about your unique position in the New Economy?
Just like those college students I spoke with, you as a passion-driven business owner or aspiring business owner, have an obligation to truly understand what value you’re bringing to this New Economy. It’s your job to understand how your own internal awakenings are, even ever so slightly, shifting the system.
PS I’m going to be sharing some exclusive ideas, inspiration, and training with a special group of people. Want in? Want to know how your business can take better care of you? Register here.
Business Brainstorm, New Economy, society & culture
One thing that separates our businesses from traditional “start-ups” is funding. We “fund” our businesses through savings accounts, liquidated 401Ks, credit cards, day jobs, and sweat equity. Mine was mostly the latter.
But what if you had access to investors beyond friends, family, and your Priceline Visa with William Shatner on it?
This exists to an extent in crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo. However, in these platforms, the people giving the money are just “givers” not investors. Money is given like gifts with neither a tax deduction nor a stake in the business.
According to Annie Lowry at Slate.com, micro-investing is currently disallowed by SEC regulations. So while Kickstarter’s model is completely legal, creating a crowdinvesting platform would be illegal:
True crowd funding is different, because it would enable investors to become partial owners of the business, not just lenders. Under current law, that is often illegal. A longtime Securities and Exchange Commission rule, designed to protect unsophisticated investors, limits the number of stakeholders certain private companies can have.
If you hit 500, you often have to go public. That means opening your books to additional scrutiny and your business to the whims of the market. And being public is just not a feasible option for a tiny business looking for start-up funding. Thus, an artist can receive thousands of $5 donations on a site like Kickstarter, but an incorporated farmer cannot accept investments from thousands of interested small-timers.
What if this were different?
The now-dead American Jobs Act proposes making a change to this regulation so that businesses could responsibly gather small investments totally up to $1 million.
How would your business be different if you had $1 million available to you?
As a business owner…
- Would you dream bigger if you had access to capital?
- Would you operate your business differently if others were literally invested in your business?
As an investor…
- Would you be more or less inclined to give money if your dollars were an investment and not a donation?
- What kind of risk would you be willing to take on?
Considering changes to regulations like this is New Economy thinking at its best. But we need to thoughtfully consider how we would approach an emerging opportunity like this.
I want to know how this would change the game for you either as an investor or a business owner (or both!). Leave your response below!
