Feb

22

Idle rich or richly not-idle

February 22, 2008 |

Sometimes, in my spare time, I read shojo manga. (I’ve heard that people my age aren’t supposed to do that but, if I didn’t, I wouldn’t understand half the things my daughters say.)

In faithfully-translated manga, there are a couple of phrases I keep reading again and again that appeal to me. One character will say encouragingly to another (even when said characters are competitors):

Work hard. Do your best.

I suppose that’s a function of culture. Have you ever heard one American teenager say that to another?

And yet …

In what looks to me like two different socio-cultural phenomena heading in opposite directions, it seems that we don’t want to have to work, preferring to loll on exotic beaches sipping unpronounceable exotic drinks while raking in passive income (I’d cue up When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich here, but I don’t have it on my hard drive), at the same time that we launch new microbusinesses that eschew growth for the life of the artisan because of how much we value the work.

Go figure.

Liz Fuller has served up a nicely thoughtful (as in full of thought) blog post about the newly popular book The 4-Hour Work Week, in which she expresses her dismay upon discovering that there really were people out there who were working toward the goal of having nothing to do most of the time.

Gak. (< == something else they say a lot in manga)

Stop and think about that for a few minutes. Nothing to doooo-oo-oo-oo-oo! [insert echo effects]

I don't know about you, but that would drive me nuts.

And Liz is right: if I started a business doing something I love to do, why on earth would I want to work toward spending less of my time doing it?

Which segues very nicely into another post, this time from Steve King of Small Business Labs about the latest Future of Small Business release.

In it, the researchers predict that a bunch of things will happen that I think already are happening/have happened and that, coincidentally, I have been saying/writing about for quite some time. In fact, you may possibly recall that what I had to say about microbusiness owners wanting to be artisans rather than bureaucrats made a big splash in the Basque country of Spain a little over a year ago.

The folks at Emergent are seeing the same thing to the extent that they named this new research release “The New Artisan Economy.” Steve writes: One message that we consistently hear in our research is that people want to work in a manner that reflects their life values.

The values mentioned the most are work/life balance, sustainable business practices, social responsibility and giving back to the broader community. We also hear people talking about “meaningful work”, “working independently”, and the pride of using their knowledge and skills to accomplish something.

Pre-industrial artisans were skilled craftsmen who took great pride in their work - and they felt their work contributed in a meaningful way to their community and society.

Work hard. Do your best.

All this sounds very much like microbusinesses to me. It’s always nice to know that somebody else is seeing the same stuff as I am … largely so that I know that I’m not projecting or making stuff up.

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Comments

2 Comments so far

  1. Liz Fuller on February 22, 2008 9:27 pm

    Hi Dawn

    I’m glad my article resonated with you - this “trend” is really starting to worry me!

    I also appreciate you broadening my horizons - I’d never heard of shojo manga (which shows my age!) but I can certainly relate to:

    “work hard. do your best”!

  2. The Journal Blogger on February 25, 2008 2:13 pm

    Hiya, Liz.

    You’re right to be worried - it strikes me as being kind of similar to all the “get rich quick” scams. You know, the folks who want to show people how to make a bucket of money without having to work for it …

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