The opportunity in the Economic Crisis

[Peace Portal]

Transcript, Lynne Twist:

"We're living in a time of economic crisis. We're living in a time when the economic system, the money system itself, the markets are unraveling.

And this is a very frightening time for people.

At the same time, if we can recognize that what is unraveling is that which has no viability. What is unraveling is that which is not sustainable. Practices, ways of being with money, markets that are not based in true value any longer are starting to fall apart.

If we can see that what's happening is a truing, is a recalibration, it helps us see how to deal with it on a personal basis.

It doesn't mean it's not going to be painful; it doesn't mean that there's not suffering; it doesn't mean that we shouldn't be paying close attention to how we use money.

But if we look on a larger scale, if we step back from the personal trauma, the fear, that we're all caught in and that the media's caught in, and see that we're living at a time of enormous excess that has created financial structures and systems that are inappropriate and completely unsustainable. And now they're falling apart. We'll know that, at the end of this, we're all going to be better for it, because we're going to be in a truthful, more accurate, more integrous (appropriate) relationship with our self, with money and with the resources on this planet.

The opportunity in todays crisis lies in the Digital Worlds, in particular information publishing. The world is now visibly changing under the economic, technological, and environmental pressures of the industrial age socio-economic structure; this will change the relationship between individuals and corporations. Profits for corporate publishers lie in their ability to access the emerging markets as suppliers and consumers of published content, for individuals profits lie in marketing and creation of content.

The greatest value in this knowledge (digital) marketplace will come from peoples individually published products (music, literature, advice, software, videos, consulting, etc...), therefore the publishing corporation that is to be profitable will need to tap this market, earning as a partner of individual publishers. Like eBay that is a platform for effecting peer sales and getting a cut of each sale, the corporate publisher will need to be a facilitator for the publishing, purchasing, and delivery of content.

One of the Peace Portal Trust supporters, "Global Digital Publishing," who's was designed to allow anyone in the world to publish their content for profit; their ShareMyBiz Division was created as a way for individuals who publish or wish to distribute Global Digital Publishing material to have a virtual cyber-mall from which to market those products. Then end result being that the corporation becomes a peoples publishing platform, sharing in a piece of every unit sold, and using the whole world as the sales force (with almost no cost to the company) with a never-ending source of new digital product offerings to offer.

We can't bailout the industrial age with more of the same, it's like trying to swim upstream, the answer lies in embracing the Information Age and going with the flow - which looks something like this.

Disposable information (magazines, papers, etc...) businesses will move on-line, profits come from either advertising revenue or subscriptions to access the sites valued content. Environmental and economic pressures will accelerate this movement from paper to digital, along with global access to digital content in emerging markets because the digital process is much less expensive given the lack of physical manufacturing and delivery considerations.

While magazines and papers were the only way certain content was offered just 15 years ago (requiring purchasing the mag or paper,) today that information published (like timely industry news) is readily available (usually for free) at any moment of the day, in most cases available via a cell phone. This is part of the transition from a industrial consumer and manufacturing age to a knowledge or Information Age.

Individual writers/contributors from around the globe will replace the majority of staff writers, those staff writers who do stay on will work more from home instead of an expensive office, cutting down the cost to the employer as well as the individual (drive time) and the environment.

The largest profit center in publishing will become the corporate sponsor of individually published material. As jobs are lost, as they will continue to be due to mechanization (automated phone calls ring a bell) and outsourcing, individuals will increasingly have to offer their knowledge as products (published) to the peer marketplace, or become independent contractors for corporations now outsourcing individuals to replace the cost and liability of a large employee force.

This is where opportunities in the crisis lie, prepare yourself.