I Want to Be a Producer!

I have a secret desire
Hiding deep in my soul
It sets my heart afire
To see me in this role
I wanna be a producer
Lunch at Sardi’s every day
I wanna be a producer
Sport a top hat and a cane
I wanna be a producer
And drive those chorus girls insane!
I wanna be a producer
And sleep until half-past two
I wanna be a producer
And say, “You, you, you, not you”
I wanna be a producer
Wear a tux on op’ning nights!
I wanna be a producer
And see my name in lights!

–Mel Brooks

As discussed on last week’s show, the economy is currently undergoing significant change — little things like the elimination of the office, the elimination of employment as we know it, and maybe (eventually) the elimination or replacement of money itself! These transitions may prove incredibly painful, or just kind of painful. A key driver in making them as easy as possible is technology: the technologies that are turning us all into big-time consumers are advancing to enable us all to become big-time producers.

If we can be the ones independently producing goods or services, we can be participants in (rather than casualties of) massive economic change.

But to leverage such a transition we have to

1. Be aware of it
2. Decide to act on it
2. Carve out a niche for ourselves
3. Start producing

These are big steps for consumers to take! But they may be our best shot at avoiding economic meltdown.

Plus the change may need to occur beyond the economic realm. In order to make real progress in life in an era of accelerating technology / accelerating possibility, we can no longer just be “consumers” of outcomes (realized possibilities) produced by others. We have to start producing outcomes themselves.

We have to start making the future happen!

On this week’s show Will Brown joins Phil and Stephen to discuss how we can be all become “producers.” Don’t miss it!

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About Our Guest:

Will Brown is a US Navy veteran who served in the Far East during and after the Vietnam War, followed by employment in the Middle East and Europe.  He has worked in a variety of fields (aviation maintenance and assembly, material management and distribution, EMT, security, commercial welder, manufacturing and others) and has found the principles and intellectual assumptions presented in Sun Tzu’s The Art Of War to be relevant and beneficial over the course of his working and personal life.  Now approaching age 60, Will looks forward to applying those principles to whatever opportunity life may yet present him.  Will blogs at Where There’s A William, where his editorial viewpoint often reflects his interest in classical strategy and an unfortunate taste for low humor and bad puns.

About Phil 523 Articles
Phil Bowermaster is a nationally recognized author and speaker. He has more than 25 years experience writing about emerging technologies and the future. As co-host of the popular Internet radio series, The World Transformed, Phil has talked with leading scientists and technologists, best-selling authors, philosophers, filmmakers, artists, entrepreneurs and others who are shaping our understanding of the amazing era of transformation in which we live. Phil helps leaders and their organizations develop strategies for managing accelerating change. He shows how imagination, optimism, empathy, and humor can make all the difference in both understanding and making the most of the powerful currents of change we face.

1 Comment

  1. We should join forces. I just wrote a synopsis of my g-grandfather, William Louis Bass, for The Intercourse in Brooklyn. Its on their fb page, and most likely they will not discover it for years. I will c&p it here for your edification and education of our audience. Its a lot of William.

    My g-g-grandfather, Alexander Bass, represents the full embodiment of the American Dream, which wasn’t coined until 1931. Son of two to Robert and Anna Bass, immigrants from England, and active Moravians, settled in New Jersey and had two sons, Alexander and Albert. Alexander was a sugar technician to sugar estates in Cuba, and Albert was a worker. Alexander’s type of work was viewed as a way to end slavery, the average output of an average slave powered estate being 150 tons per season compared to 500 tons for a machine driven estate. As a result, his average salary in 1860, adjusted for inflation, consumer buying power, and wage earning power, in today’s dollars amounts to 5.2 million per year in dollars. After 1860, the average salary ranged from 8.34 – 17.4 million dollars per year.

    Thus it is easy to see how Pioneer Ironworks was funded. An office building, for example, cost around 10 million dollars, or 4000 dollars. And of course, it made good business sense, if one could earn a salary like that, then why not be the technician for all the estates? And no better way existed back then than building and installing all the machines. They even built the locomotives. His son, William, managed the Ironworks, Humacao Sugar Company in New York and Puerto Rico, had two personal estates in the Dominican Republic, the Consuelo ingenio and Magdalena, for which the municipality of Consuelo got its name, ran and owned la Romana ingenio in the DR, and wrote nearly twenty books, ranging from politics, economics, sugar, and astronomy. He founded the first sugar labor union in 1920, and later lobbied for the sugar industry. His father, Alexander, founded the first Sugar Guild in Cuba, founded la Duquesa ingenio north of Santo Domingo with Frederick von Krosigh, and La Fe ingenio in Santo Domingo with Joseph Eleuterio Hatton, among others.

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