100% of the economy

The latest economic data has been released, and the media is reporting that consumer spending increased slightly in January despite the fact that consumer income hasn’t increased. Apparently this is a good sign because it shows that consumer confidence is increasing if people are willing to spend from savings.

Invariably, reporters will say things like: consumers account for almost three quarters of the economy in this country.

I’ve always found such a statement to be mildly absurd. It implies that there are two different economies, a business-to-business economy and a business-to-consumer economy. The reality is that the economy is an incredibly complex and intertwined web of interactions between people and businesses in a multi-hued cacophony.

If consumer demand for housing rises, it will create more jobs for construction companies, which in turn creates more jobs for the companies that sell products to construction companies, which in turn creates more jobs for the companies that sell products to companies that sell products to construction companies. But at the end of the day, none of this would be possible if people didn’t buy houses.

Business-to-business spending only occurs because somewhere down the line there is a business-to-consumer transaction.

News flash to economists and business people: 100% of the economy is driven by….. wait for it….. people.

Unless dogs start spending their own money for the treats they really want, all money is transacted by human beings. (Perhaps Boston Thumb Cats could whip out cash for catnip purchases?)

So while we’re at it, let’s also strike the word “consumer” from our vocabulary. Consumer is just a fancy jargon-y word, designed to distance our thinking from the concept it replaces, which is “a person who buys things.” Since we’re all people who buy things, let us simply replace the word “consumer” wherever it occurs with the word “person.” Kinda puts things in a more human perspective, which is A Good And Useful Thing.

That’s just twitterrific.

When twitter first came on my radar screen last summer, I thought it was interesting, but not much more than a glorified Instant Messaging site. And I didn’t think there would be much business use for it. Something for people who are ADD-challenged. Gosh, was I wrong. (except for that last part. If you aren’t ADD-challenged, and use a twitter helper app like twitterrific… you will soon suffer from ADD.)

I discovered that many colleagues are on twitter, as well as many innovators in the arena of social media in general. So after dipping my toe into twitter at the end of July, I became interested in (hooked on?) twitter at the beginning of October.

The latest intriguing phenomenon I’m seeing, through twitter conversation, is that colleagues are connected to each other better than reporters are. A New Zealand-native reporter, living in Panama, who interviewed me for a report on web 2.0 and financial institutions asked me who else he should contact. I recommended Shari Storm of Verity CU, William Azaroff of Vancity CU, Peter Glyman of Geezeo, and Ron Shevlin of Epsilon. It turns out that he had already set up an interview with Ron for the next day. Shari was also already on his list, but he didn’t have direct contact information for her, only her agent. The next day I saw Ron twitter to William that he had referred the reporter to William, but that William was already on his interview list. Over the next couple of weeks, I saw more tweets among others in this social media/finance circle about being interviewed for the report. The reporter didn’t know that most of his interviewees were already connected with each other through friendships and/or twitter already.

Earlier today, Shari posed a question to her twitter friends about how she should respond to a particular question from a different reporter. It’s fascinating that information is shared on twitter before conventional media (even electronic media) can report it. I bet this trend will become more and more common as more people discover the crazy, connected, fast-paced world that is twitter. Reporters would be smart to get on twitter and cultivate as many twitter friendships as possible.