Scared of recession?

World economics are falling into recession. There is no need to discuss if this is what is happening. Everything is “falling”: The stock exchange, The Dollar, Banking, Real estate, and so forth. The cost of a oil barrel isn’t though..

What does this tell us in the digital communication business? Normally that revenue will drop. Both private enterprise and the public sector tends to stop investments and sit put, till someone shout out; the danger is over – go spend money again! Is this a wise strategy?

What is important when economics slows down? In my opinion it’s important to look at new opportunities, to look at means to become more efficient, to get more value out of the same or less input; in short to be clever. Good times seem to, at all times, favor laziness! “Harder times” seems to split organizations and businesses into two major groups. The scared ones –  and the creative ones. The digital business and internet companies has a lot to offer to the market in this situation. Producing new business models that are cost saving, increase efficiency , build stabile and secure solutions that avoid high cost rescue actions, and provide the public with internet services that are easy to use, that gives them correct information and empower people to take the best actions in the society and in their personal lives. 

It’s kind of obvious, in times of recession all things tend to get cheaper. That’s when it’s clever to buy stuff, to invest – simply because one get more value for the  money! That’s when people tends to get more creative, in order to find solutions they can afford, this gives the market effect that providers of goods and services have to adapt and have to become attractive by getting better, more creative and keep being competitive.

There is no need for a genius mind to figure this out, still, why do so many get scared and run down in their caves and hide, hoping for everything to vanish, to not be this way anymore? And why is the media so in love with crisis? Just look at the media, in Norway; Dagens næringsliv, Dagbladet, VG, and Aftenposten, and also in the internet media like Digi.no, to name some examples. They are all shouting out headlines like bankrupcy, crisis, regression, in any business segment you can imagine. Worldwide media is no better. There is nothing that sell better than fear! Media knows this and do their best to make use of it.

The interesting part to watch in the coming months and year will not be the ones that sit put and wait; it will be the one that start acting now. That’s the winners of tomorrow. For private enterprises, my hope is that environmental solutions for energy, transport, fair trade, ecological production of food, seafood and so forth is the ones investors now will put their eyes on and give finanical support  to grow and be even more inventive and strong in the marketplace for the best of us all, including the return of investments and branding value for the investors. I hope for the best for us all that we will have a lot of clever, creative, innovative leaders especially in the public sector, because that will give the effect that the living standard will not suffer for the poorest, instead we will have the opportunity to make far better solutions and services for the general public that will save a lot on budgets to spend on the ones in our societies that doesn’t have the economic strength to live thru the “harder times” ahead.