I have this vision of millions of jobless folks sitting at home, waiting for their next job to materialize. 11.1 millions, according to the New York Times. That’s a lot of talents, and skills being wasted, while our soon to be next President and his economic team figure out a plan.
Here is my idea. Imagine for a second a place on the Web, where the newly unemployed could go to connect. Not to find a job. There are enough job sites as it is, which by the way appear to be rather worthless in this new economy of scarcity. No, instead this new place would be for the jobless to list all their skills, and talents, and dreams, and passions, and ideas, and the kind of people they would like to work with. Notice I say ‘with’, not ‘for’. The site would enable local meetups between members with complementary interests. Where I am going with this is an organizing community that would take full advantage of the tremendous resources from all its members, to facilitate the creation of new businesses.
After all, a business is nothing more than a collection of people coming together to create a product of a service. In the absence of money and banks willing to extend loans, the next best thing may just be people stepping in, and lending each other their skills and time.
Just an idea . . .
Looks like LETS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Exchange_Trading_Systems). Isn’t there already such systems available on-line? I thought of building such a system with Google AppEngine and geo-localization (easily finding people less than 10km around you for example) last year, but talking about it around me with friends was not raising excitement. Maybe the times are changing.
Love this idea Marguerite !
Indeed, creating your own job can be an excellent idea… 😛
oops, double post:
A green New Deal, as advocated by the UNEP and other organisations would also be a fantastic idea.
South Korea and Japan are already implementing such solutions. http://is.gd/eTcF
There are millions more jobs to be created in the US and in Europe…
[…] the case of Lacy’s subjects – led to untold riches and rewards, not to mention the resurgence 11.1 Million Jobless . . . That’s a Lot of Potential New Businesses – lamarguerite.wordpress.com 01/12/2009 I have this vision of millions of jobless folks sitting at […]
Thanks R. I do think times have changed, as in Web 2.0, open source, and community organizing a la Obama sauce, and also imploding economy . . . And of course, as with any such idea, execution is key to success, as well as a good pilot in ripe community. I will be happy to continue this conversation offline with you. Where are you based?
Edouard, yes, I thought you would appreciate that one . . . 🙂
Living in Lille north of France close to the Belgium border. 🙂
[…] what my friend marguerite manteau rao wrote today on her excellent blog, LaMarguerite: Here is my idea. Imagine for a second a place on the Web, where the newly unemployed could go to […]
I hope there is a net positive effect. Certainly remote communications becomes easier and some new markets develop. There are some large structural problems in the US that make creating new businesses difficult. Access to cash is the main problem. Historic failure rates are high and banks are reluctant to give loans to anyone without a track record. SBIR grants are another mechanism, but they are slow and low probability. Everyone has stories of friends and family helping and people selling a car and maxing out their credit cards, but that simply isn’t possible for the majority of Americans who have very little in the way of a safety net. The lack of health insurance is another barrier – many low income, and increasingly middle income, families are losing access.
Most people, unless they are wealthy, need to be prepared for for lean years and failure. Difficult if you are already having problems.
If a person wants to go this route, I think they either need to be wealthy or come to a realization that “less is more” in their personal life … The last point is fundamental. We are at an unsustainable point with our hunger for stuff (I’m not talking about the environmental issues – there clearly are many – but economic issues). A downsizing is underway as the recession progresses. People who go out on their own probably have to get used to doing with less and, more important, be tuned to the fact that the nation is doing the same. Markets are shrinking and shifting.
There are some areas where the net can be a big help – I’ve done some of them and I’m sure you have. For a year I was on the board of a volunteer group that looked at ideas for energy businesses. People would submit their ideas for what amounted to a mini-SBIR grant. Each idea was independently reviewed by 3 experts and required positive feedback by 2 in order to progress to a stage where the business model was examined. We have enough money to give 20 grants the year I was involved and had over 400 applications. We gave 13 grants because most were terrible ideas and/or proposed executions. There is a lot of free guidance and counseling that can (and does) happen on the net and that is very positive.
The net is probably a good way to share ideas, but doing a startup with remote partners is extremely difficult (I’ve seen some studies that suggest the failure rate is much higher) … there is a certain amount of trust and bonding – good old fashioned social glue – that, for most people, only works in face to face interactions. But is also possible to find talent that you need for awhile. A friend has a small company and was looking at about $40,000 for some server application development. With some shopping around he found a place in Eastern Europe that did the job for about 1/3 that amount and the quality was excellent. Not good for the US, but that is another feature of the net for certain types of work.
Both of us live in areas where there is artificially a lot of money. It pretty much disappeared here in the last few months and NY and NJ is littered with thousands of small/dead companies with dried up funding. I don’t know how it is in your area.
Oh – there is the issue of people who are psychologically suited for this sort of work. Some of us love it, but most don’t. A lot of new skills need to be developed and most people just don’t want to do it. You can outsource them, but that costs money that may not exist. And there is the social issue of being able to find and vet people in almost all aspects of the new business. Not a common skill. A VC friend told me studies show less than 10 percent of the workforce enjoys self employment.
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But there will be many great ideas out there and some people will run with them. The net will give some of them a better way to connect with people who can vet and improve their ideas and others who might be customers.
things are possible …
I’ve had some experience with very small business incubation – <$25k and woman owned (state and foundation grant money). A very positive experience, but a huge amount of work and mentoring needs to take place. Face to face was critical in the incarnation I saw. Sadly it went away due to an end to its funding, but there are probably many models that work.
An update … On Christmas Day I posted a contest for an adjustable height cutting board. Between then and New Years I posted a link on industrial design bulletin boards and sent letters to professors at two dozen design schools. The reaction from the professors was interesting – basically that they train their students in commercial industrial design and it is a waste of time to consider people outside of normal size ranges. There have been responses from students and about 10 designs. So far none of the designs are great .. they would be hard to manufacture or are just not well thought-out.. But perhaps a good design will emerge. I’m sure someone could put together a little business that would make at least several hundred $k a year with this based on the size of the population. And it would probably be a netbased business as the density of customers is small. The other feature of addressing a niche (which the net does spectacularly well) is that feedback from your customers (I shouldn’t use that word – I hate it) will undoubtedly lead to new ideas as this group is underrepresented with things that work.
A article:
http://www.fastcompany.com/articles/2009/01/what-should-i-do-with-my-life-now.html
Interesting post! Thanks for the information.