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September 2, 2008
New Area of interest for me
I have been thinking over the last couple of months about what problem to focus my brain cycles on now. I still worry about renewable energy and biodiesel quite a bit and will continue to post on that, but am looking for something a bit more actionable. My thoughts have drifted back toward technology a bit and to that intersection of technology and energy. I am also much more interested in flanking maneuvers versus full frontal attacks. Imperium Renewables was a full frontal attack on diesel. Frontal attacks are very costly and the defender has the advantage of being dug in with heavy fortifications. While I love the thrill of the frontal attack, I don't have the stomach for another one of those just yet.
While casting around for a flanking move against big oil, I got to thinking about the overall consumerism culture which has been enabled by cheap oil and how that may change with sustainably higher price oil. When labor and transportation from China are both cheap, outsourcing makes sense. But what about when transportaion (fueled by oil) becomes expensive? And the labor starts to want the modern conviences requiring oil? I watched the video over at the Story of Stuff and wondered how that cycle will be affected by long term expensive distribution cycles and higher commodity prices across the board. Then I hear that EBay listings from individuals are up significantly as the economic downturn causes people to try to monitize their extra stuff. After tripping over an old work out bench of mine in the garage one to many times, I decided to get rid of it. It was basically new three years ago and hardly used. Not land fill material yet. It cost $399 new. I listed it on Craig's list for $50. Taking the picture and posting was kind painful for such a small priced item. No takers. Two weeks later I listed for $25. Two takers, five phone calls and three missed pick-ups later both buyers flaked. My time spent was now more than the revenue I would garner. So I decided to give it away for free. I posted on both Craigslist and Freecycle.org. Got about 10 calls/emails. Another 30 emails later and multiple phone calls, all five people I offered it to flaked. It still sits in my garage. I am now have about 20 hours invested in giving something away for free and have multiple failed transactions.
Yesterday a friend sent me an e-mail with a recommendation of a book to read. One cut and paste and two clicks on Amazon and the book is wizzing my way. Less than 30 seconds of work. Wow, something is really wrong in the low end of transactions. Especially person to person transactions.
So my new area of interst I am calling "Recommerce". Recycling, reuse, sharing, bartering, loaning of stuff. Keep it out of the landfill. Prevent purchasing. Share with your neighbors. Extend the life of goods beyond 6 months. I have created a "Recommerce" category on the blog and will be posting to that category.
Some of my favorite/inspirational sites in this area include:
Craigslist free listings
Freecycle.org
Freesharing.org
Paperbackswap.com
Sharething.com
RecycleBank
this is going to be fun
Posted by Martin at September 2, 2008 1:57 PM
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