Comments on: will barter for skills

By: wildelycreative

wildelycreative — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:45:54 +0000

Thanks Liz – What a great idea!

By: Liz

Liz — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:42:32 +0000

Thanks so much for sharing your perspective, Karen. I love the application of bartering, creating a new economy that doesn’t rely on paper money but on community.

There’s also a network called the Time Bank, maybe you’ve heard of it. In NYC, it’s called TINY or the Time Interchange of New York. A person posts the skills they’d like to share and someone else who is sharing skills can take you up on your offer, earning you points for any other service available in the network. Here’s their site if you’d like to check them out: http://timeinterchange.wordpress.com/

By: wildelycreative

wildelycreative — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:14:25 +0000

I’ve been bartering skills for some time now.
I write an article, a blog post, I set up a website and in return I get a product, service or learning experience that I want. It’s a win-win situation for many small businesses to access this kind of service. And I get to work with people who have shared interests, which is having a knock-on effect of expanding my social circle. I don’t skill share in the way you’ve described. I’ve never come across a skillshare group like this in the North of England.

Skill sharing has changed the way I look at business and my expectations of the need for financial reward. Money will buy me “stuff” but it never made me happy. Sharing and trading skills with small businesses is much more rewarding. And the contracts that do pay are enough to cover everything I need.

I saw a tweet once that said “What’s a blogger?” A one word answer was heartily retweeted with mirth and ignorance – “Unemployed”. It is not unemployment – it is a viable business structure for a new paradigm to which humanity IS awakening.

Money may not be the root of all evil, but sharing and community have been an essential part of human survival and evolution since the dawn of time.