The Journey- Part II

After much reflection, I noticed some trends throughout the past hundred or so years in business. With the advent of the industrial revolution, corporations were formed to extract as much profit from natural resources and employees as possible. The skill at which the corporations were successfull at this extraction caused a backlash on two fronts from the next generation.

Politically, laws were passed to limit the degree to which these corporations were able to exploit the resources and people. Socially, non profits, charitable organizations were formed to counterbalance the heartlessness of the corporations. These entities were very good at meeting needs, but were always having to rely on the whims of the public to keep them funded.

In light of these two major trends, I began to wonder what the next major trend would be. How would my generation change the way business is done for future generations? I began to see a merging of the previous two paradigms. What if the new corporations allowed the consumer oportunity to make a difference just by buying products? Everytime they shopped the consumer could choose to suppurt various causes just by deciding what they want to buy. How would this flesh out? What form would it take?

In Part III, I will reveal my humble attempt to merge the two worlds.

The Journey- Part I

I am not sure why, but my whole life I have always desired to reach critical mass at a young age so that I would be able to give back with my time and finances for the rest of my life. For those of you not familiar with the term critical mass it means to be at a place financially where your assests pay you and you do not need to work a job. From my late teens on I was telling people I would be 'out' by 40. Most laughed, and some asked what I planned to do the rest of my life, sit around and watch tv? Even after explaining, most could not wrap their heads around a paradigm so different from what they currently knew.

Even though I was consistenlty giving of my finances and my time while walking this path, I always felt like I was hitting a wall. The needs I was seeing were immediate. They were not going to wait another 10 or 20 years to meet, and they were greater than my immediate resources. This was very troubling for me and I began to do a lot of reflection on the options that existed to resolve this. During this time of reflection I read many books on business, history, and biographies to glean any wisdom I could.

In Part II, I will tell you about the conclusions I came to and in Part III, I will let you know what the project ended up being.