11.1 Million Jobless, That's a Lot of Potential New Businesses

(cross-post from La Marguerite blog)

I have this vision of millions of jobless folks sitting at home, waiting for their next job to materialize. 11.1 millions, according to the New York Times. That's a lot of talents, and skills being wasted, while our soon to be next President and his economic team figure out a plan.

Here is my idea. Imagine for a second a place on the Web, where the newly unemployed could go to connect. Not to find a job. There are enough job sites as it is, which by the way appear to be rather worthless in this new economy of scarcity. No, instead this new place would be for the jobless to list all their skills, and talents, and dreams, and passions, and ideas, and the kind of people they would like to work with. Notice I say 'with', not 'for'. The site would enable local meetups between members with complementary interests. Where I am going with this is an organizing community that would take full advantage of the tremendous resources from all its members, to facilitate the creation of new businesses.

After all, a business is nothing more than a collection of people coming together to create a product of a service. In the absence of money and banks willing to extend loans, the next best thing may just be people stepping in, and lending each other their skills and time.

Just an idea . . .