The Return of Cottage Industry

In the Great Recession, resources like Craigslist, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, flyers on telephone poles and under windshield wipers, blogging platforms, slapped-together DIY business cards, and concepts like guerrilla marketing are fulfilling the same purpose as did the storied fruit stands of The Great Depression.

An article originally published in the Hartford Courant reports figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicating that self-employment nationwide jumped nearly 2.5 percent in just one month this year (February to March 2009).

Annualized, that would be a 30 percent increase. And with about 3 percent of the entire U.S. population self-employed, we’re clearly looking at a small but significant portion of all working adults and an important factor in the entire economy.

Of course, many of these so-called microbusinesses don’t offer the excitement of a high-tech startup and may involve work that some might consider mundane, such as cleaning houses or mowing lawns. But the trend highlights a distinction that is especially important given the dismal unemployment figures just reported for June: while jobs may be scarce, there is always plenty of work.

Behind this distinction is the fact that the current recession was created by a crisis of big banking, big finance, big business and, arguably, by a failure on the part of big government to regulate them in the right ways. And while the resulting contractions of credit, home prices, consumer spending, and employment have affected businesses large and small, it’s important to take a look at the real, physical world around you. It hasn’t changed in much, has it?

The crisis made some jobs go away, but it didn’t really make work go away. There is still plenty of work to be done: plenty of houses that need to be cleaned, painted, or repaired; lawns that need to be mowed, watered, and fertilized this summer; leaves that will need to be raked and gutters that will need to be cleaned this fall; snow that will need to be shoveled this winter; restaurant menus that need to be designed; documents ranging from resumes to press releases that need to be skillfully written; hardwood floors that need to be skillfully installed; cracked windshields that need to be repaired; carpets that need to be cleaned; errands that need to be run; new entrepreneurs who need to be coached; passengers who need rides to the airport; senior citizens who need transportation to medical appointments or grocery runs made; students who need to be tutored; driveways that need to be resurfaced; music lessons that need to be taught; babies that need to be sat; content that needs to be search-engine optimized; dogs that need to be walked; poop that needs to be scooped; weddings that need to be sung at and photographed; digital videos that need to be edited; hair that needs to be braided; Web sites that need redesigns and fresh, well-written content; computers that need to be troubleshot; and so on.*

The list could go on and on, but you get the point, don’t you? There’s a difference between jobs and work, and there’s no real shortage of the latter. A suddenly unemployed or underemployed desk jockey might feel loathe to take on some of the categories of work listed above. But it’s worth considering that business savvy acquired in corporatedom, combined with the low-cost, technology-driven marketing resources available today, some persistently applied guerrilla marketing principles, and an abundance of willing workers on the labor market, could grow a one-person operation based on some forgotten skill into a lucrative small-to-midsize business, especially once the recovery begins.

Will this be a good thing for the economy in the long run? It’s hard to imagine why it wouldn’t, especially if it also facilitates a transition back to an increasingly localized business, economic, and financial base, with fewer “too big to fail” entities -- which, in turn, could leave the population as a whole less vulnerable to the booms and busts of global business and finance.

And, driven by necessity, it will probably happen independent of, in spite of, and under the radar of the noisy debate over the appropriate role of the federal government in setting the economy back on track.

*The services listed above are for example only and, of course, may involve varying startup costs and, in some cases, regulatory or licensing requirements. Check with your relevant local government agency, such as a state department of labor and industry, before taking the plunge. Sphere: Related Content

Blogger Presence at G20 Reflects Changing Journalistic Landscape

The G20Voice, a coalition of NGOs (non-government organizations), reports that news coverage of this year’s G20 summit has broken with convention, with live and direct reporting from the event by bloggers allowed for the first time.

According to the announcement, 50 bloggers covered the summit, giving them, and their audiences, the chance to engage with and influence world leaders on issues including development, climate change and women’s rights. In a process backed by the British Government, the bloggers were nominated by the public, with more than 700 nominations received in 12 days.

The organizations behind G20Voice are OxfamGB, Comic Relief, Save the Children, ONE and Blue State Digital. G20Voice is a collaborative effort demonstrating the breadth of commitment to ending world poverty and inequality.

The 50 include a broad range of bloggers from the G20 countries and the developing world, including:

• Sokari Ekine, from Nigeria
• Jotman – a blogger focused on human rights issues in Thailand and Burma
• Daudi Were – an organizer of African bloggers
• Dr. Kumi Naidoo – head of GCAP and contributor to the Huffington Post
• Cheryl Conte from Jack and Jill Politics
• Enda Surya Nasution – a noted leader in the Indonesian blogging community
• Rui Chenggang – an economics broadcaster from China with an audience, according to G20Voice, of 13 million viewers every evening on CCTV
• Richard Murphy – a blogger specialized in Tax Havens

Karina Brisby, G20Voice project founder and Digital Campaigns Manager, Oxfam GB said: "The G20Voice project was inspired by the articulate, engaging and often outraged posts, tweets, podcasts and videocasts from bloggers all over the world about the current economic crisis and how that affects the issues they are passionate about such as poverty and climate change.

"We are seeing a huge increase in the number of people around the world using digital tools to inform themselves and then contribute to debates about the issues that affect their lives. G20Voice recognizes the importance of bloggers and gives them a unique opportunity to report back to their audiences direct from the G20 Summit itself."

Sphere: Related Content

Call for Author Contributions

Are you an expert on economics or other topics and issues covered in Undismalization? Would you be interested in contributing content ranging from brief comments to full-length articles? We want to hear from you. We’re not currently able to pay guest contributors, but you’ll benefit from increased publicity and exposure as a subject-matter expert. Please e-mail your queries, pitches, manuscripts, etc. to the editor at haywardwc@gmail.com. Sphere: Related Content