The Economics of
Generosity
By Nilofer Merchant on Mar 02, 2013 05:55 pm
One of the most powerful talks this last week at TED
centers on adapting to a new era, the Social Era.
Amanda Palmer
has been a disruption in the music
industry for some time. (By sheer coincidence, I was sitting at the
conference next to some senior executives in the music industry and got to
observe them as they gasped at each truth she said. I only checked out their
badges after hearing the gasp-after-gasp to confirm my suspicion.)
The message of the talk is that it’s not only important for
musicians or artists to be OK and asking for help, but audiences – especially
given what’s happening on the Internet –
be OK with being asked. Actually, what I think she was talking about to
creators of products is this: trust
that things will be okay. And what I think she was saying to
all consumers of those creative acts is: Don’t
abuse the creators of things you value because that’s what
makes the world go round. This is a new set of economics.
An undervalued set of economics. One that lets people give and take, and to
honor one another.
(Please don’t take this as pollyanna. This is a hugely complex
issue. But the issue is not going to go away and we need to move on from the
question of “is this happening?” to “how do we make it work”… look to how Andrew Sullivan and Brainpicker as two creative creators who have
built viable systems.)
This new set of economics is going to require new measures. This
one isn’t adequately measured by GDP.
And it is also isn’t measured by the number of people on the payroll. As work
is freed from jobs, we’ll need to find a new way to measure the economics of
the day. It is the economics of generosity.
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