Happy Easter Monday 😀

Where I live, Easter Monday is a public holiday, so there is almost no opportunity to be busy being a consumer — and so that leaves me a little more time to ponder.

Well, I have been pondering a lot lately — and in particular about expectations (see “Exploring Expectations” [ https://socio.business.blog/2022/04/17/exploring-expectations ] ). My line of thinking about expectations is strongly influenced by a book I read a while back (see “The problem is that the pervasiveness of technology and mass marketing is screwing up a lot of people’s expectations for themselves: the inundation of the exceptional makes people feel worse about themselves, makes them feel that they need to be more extreme, more radical, and more self assured to get noticed or even matter” [ https://fuckwith.news.blog/2021/09/10/the-problem-is-that-the-pervasiveness-of-technology-and-mass-marketing-is-screwing-up-a-lot-of-peoples-expectations-for-themselves-the-inundation-of-the-exceptional-makes-people-feel-worse-a ] ) … and here is a quote from the very first chapter (aka the introduction):

We have so much fucking stuff and so many opportunities that we don’t even know what to give a fuck about anymore.

Mark Manson, “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck”

In my critique of Mark Manson’s book, I point out that Mark is not very adamant about discussing wants in relationships between people. His primary focus is on individual wants as individual consumers. I, on the other hand, view pretty much all business activity as relationships among participants (see also “I look at everything through the lens of relationships — the technology, the strategies, the actual implementation, development of culture” [ https://relationships.code.blog/2022/01/06/i-look-at-everything-through-the-lens-of-relationships-the-technology-the-strategies-the-actual-implementation-development-of-culture ] ). Here I see an opportuntiy for anyone who seeks to satisfy wants — whether their own wants or others’ wants.

Over the past several years of covering others’ expressions of wants, I have seen many perspectives. In many cases, I have seen opportunities for people to help each other out. Yet nearly no one who is connected via the wants community has actually stepped up to the plate and taken a shot at making that kind of connection to other members of our community — at least not in a manner which is obvious to me.

I think the time is now ripe for taking that next step. Over the next weeks and months, I will be reaching out to members who are open to increasing their participation and engagement in order to provide more help and support — sort of greasing the wheels a little to make wants a more well-oiled machine for establishing, expanding and promoting more and more connections to happen.

Wants could grow as more and more people become more and more engaged, simply if and when we pay more attention to each other. Here we need to be very careful about what we wish for, because growth for its own sake is not always a fruitful endeavor. We need to balance investments of time and effort with the rewards we reap from our engagements. Perhaps no money needs to be invested at all. Perhaps the results cannot even be measured in monetary terms. One thing I am quite sure of, though: simplicity and ease of use will be key — so the technology requirements are along the lines of quick and … simple and easy!

At this moment, this is still in a rather preliminary planning stage — but some time soon, don’t be too surprised if you get a friendly tap on the shoulder from me! 😀