John Battelle of Federated Media, a company I respect a lot for their unique approach to conversational media, posted on the financial crisis.

This part caught my eye:

It’s a well worn saw that as goes small business, so goes the economy. If all of us start laying off employees and cutting back expenses by a third, our economy will go into a deep funk. If, on the other hand, we all declare faith in the future and start acting accordingly, our businesses will become the engine of economic recovery.

Yet it’s not just about faith in the recovery of our current economy, but also making the new economy something real and recognizable.

Here’s a comment I left to the post:

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Thanks for posting on this topic, John.

It’s very disconcerting, what’s happening, no question about it. And it’s going to be uncomfortable for 18 months and maybe a few years.

But there is a very exciting aspect to it, beyond a single bubble bursting, one that I can’t shake, and that is it’s exposing the many ways in which we don’t create value.

You just look at what most companies produce for products and services, and how they produce it – what they stand for – and clearly we’re all guilty of the crisis we’re in, including consumers and citizens.

At the same time, there is so much that needs to be done, so much that people need to live good, prosperous, healthy lives.

James Speth in “The Bridge At the Edge of the World” (http://snipurl.com/3zzk7) gives his list . . . we can take our pick and more.

And it’s not just about challenges, obviously, it’s also about the huge burst of intelligence in culture and technology that’s happening. The Great Depression, whatever one can say is similar about it to what is happening today, didn’t have an “intelligent cloud.”

The point is that as we get pulled up short on this current path, there is a new one to start down and every reason to do so.

Many, of course, like Federated Media, already have. But if a new economy, one that marries the Internet and the physical world, and creates real value and sustainability, can emerge in the next decade, wow, think of how excited we’ll all be – and grateful for the current breakdown.

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