The Dayton Business Journal reports that social networks are expected to earn $1.3 billion in 2010 in advertising fees. Wow. That’s a lot of money earned from offering a free service. It is interesting that Americans are now enjoying the power and opportunity to social network not because of a government program, but because some entrepreneur was empowered to implement an idea, empowered by the belief that there could be a lot of money to be made.
We need to find a way to harness entrepreneurial zeal into making the world a better place. In my thinking, “We Are The Ones To Make A Better Place,” our opportunity to do so is by working to vitalize our democracy. I imagine that if asked — “True or False: The stronger our democracy, the better our community will be?” — most people would say emphatically, “True.” But, the fact is, our is a very weak democracy. And, the current power structure feels advantaged by a weak democracy and has little interest in strengthening it.
We need to make our system of democracy begin to work. If we really believed that for our communities to improve, our schools to improve, we need to make our democracy stronger, it seems, as a society we would be giving a lot more energy and effort into vitalizing our democracy. One explanation for this lack of effort is that vitalizing democracy, right now, doesn’t offer much opportunity to make money. If the current power structure felt it in their interest to strengthen our democracy, you would be sure that there would be a lot of money poured into the effort.
There is a lot of effort given to advancing organized religion, a lot of effort in advancing public education, because, in part, there’s money to be made in both fields. The fact that social networks are making so much money, in what might be seen as democratic empowerment, raises the hope that the door is opened for the vitalization of democracy to be made profitable. Democracy is all about creating community and social networks offer the opportunity to create and empower community. What is needed is motivation. There must be individuals who are motivated to make a lot of effort. Such motivation may come from the power of pure idealism, but it would also be effective if some motivation could come from increasing opportunities to make money — doing well by doing good. Vitalizing Our Democracy Is Advanced — If We Can Make It An Entrepreneurial Opportunity.
