Monday, April 2, 2012

Social Media, Economic Expansion Opportunities


I have been extremely lucky in my social media experience. I have sought out and found many credible and aspiring people in business as well as above average mindsets who are capable of challenging and educating me with their experience, wit and conversations. I have shunned using it for personal reasons until I better understood how to use it for business.

I have found people from all over the World that have similar interests, can tolerate my eccentricities, language, and humor and still thought I was a worthy colleague in business or a worthwhile mind. I have been lucky in that regard and that people share their life and business knowledge with me regularly.

That said, too often we overlook the basic fact that knowledge and skill is ultimately a worldly commodity. Social media allows us to help isolate people with the skill or knowledge we desire to be in contact with. Connecting to great minds and those able to facilitate change is the real value of the internet. It is the thing that governments and some corporate interests fear about the internet as a tool.

I am particularly amazed when I look at the facebook connections map.  If you look at the map it shows economic expansion and growth has reached all sorts of people and regions that were previously not middle class. In some cases just a generation or two ago most people were working in fields or in a feudal, communist, theocratic or repressive region.

To me the map alone is clear evidence that representative democracies and capitalism work for the majority of the people in the world. To me that means economic expansion and educational opportunity. This means a larger worldwide intellectual or skill base and larger economic opportunities.

So as I see it social media is the next generation of economic growth that the internet brings forth.

Just remember Bill Clinton and Al Gore brought a private military, NSF and educational resource to the consumers shortly after they were elected. That was the mid-nineties. That one act has changed the economy and the world. It has expanded opportunity, education, access to information and ideas.

Before the internet there was the creation of the personal computer which changed the world view. That was in the mid-eighties.
We stand at the beginning of a new world as we watch the old world die. I am very bullish and positive on our future. We have more opportunity for more people than ever before and savvy business people will thrive because of that!

Business opportunity is not dead because of one politician or the economy. Business opportunity is now a merit based opportunity which depends on how one thinks and if one can gather the resources needed to bring an idea to the marketplace. As an individual you have an advantage over larger companies and you have the opportunity presented by this new world technology.

Happy hunting!

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