Jeff Bennett's Blog

Growing up I often heard lessons learned from The Great Depression.  It had a very big impact on the psyche and lives of all that lived through that troubled time.

We are now living through what has been called The Great Recession.  We are still in it.  We are all relieved for some stability that has occurred as the result of the money that has been infused into the economy.   This has primed the pump of our economy but the economic engine is not yet running on it’s own.  I think a better term for the work to date is ’stabilization’ not ’stimulus.’

I can not predict where we go from here.  Some say deflation.  Some say inflation.  Some say perfect set up for Japanese-like ten year hiatus.  Not sure exactly.  Depends on so many factors.

I do think we can say with confidence that the impact on all of us is that we must ‘reset’ ourselves for the realities of today.  We were on a binge of consumption at all levels of our society.  Easy credit was enabling this.  Now we are in the hangover from this binge and the result is “The Great Reset” where we all have to make the most of what we have.

There are enormous opportunities available to help people make the most of what they have…through collaborative consumption.  There are many enablers of this movement.  This was a driver for me in deciding to join Swaptree (soon to be Swap.com).  At Swaptree we help nearly 1 million members swap books, music, movies and games.  There are are so many others paraticpating as well, like Boston-based Gazelle for recycling gadgets.  Boston-based ZipCar for car sharing.  MassChallenge Finalist RentCycle for renting just about anything.  Zopa for peer-to-peer lending.  And many more.

The New York Times had a timely post on this topic yesterday with a particular focus on the impact on the family.  Check it out here.

Collaborative consumption will bring us together in communities to help all  of us make the most of what we have in ‘The Great Reset.’  We have to change our ways.  There are many options to enable this.