The History of FanBox

Understanding FanBox's Purpose, part 2:
The Knowledge Economy

The Knowledge Revolution has started, and now we’re living in the Knowledge Economy.

   (WHAT'S THE KNOWLEDGE REVOLUTION?)

The Knowledge Economy has two main participants:

1) The Knowledge Worker: The producer of the knowledge; the person that is selling his or her knowledge, and

2) The Knowledge Consumer: the person that is receiving (benefitting from) the knowledge.

Examples:

          (To learn about the different types of knowledge work -- that YOU can do on FanBox to earn money TODAY -- go here)

While 90% of us are now Knowledge Workers, virtually all of us are Knowledge Consumers -- consuming many different types of knowledge on a regular basis.

As Knowledge Consumers, we have many choices -- so we're picky and generally only want to consume the very best knowledge.

Therefore, in order to compete for Knowledge Consumers, Knowledge Workers must focus on one type of knowledge work… usually the work:

      1) That’s in the most demand

      2) Or, that we’re the best at

      3) Or, that we enjoy the most

With the way the economy is these days, many people don’t have a job at all.

Therefore, many of us are lucky to simply have a job – any job.

Some of us are even luckier, and get paid to do a job that fits into one of the above categories.

And then some of us are even luckier; we fall into two of the above categories.

Then there’s the lucky few – a tiny percentage of us – that can say that we get paid to do work that fits into all three categories.

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As human beings, we spend more of our life focused on our work – more than any other thing we do -- including sleeping.

Therefore, it is a tragedy that most of us don’t get to do the work that we love most.

At FanBox, we are convinced that technology will enable virtually all of us to do the work that we love to do, and be compensated fairly for that work.

In other words, just like new technology enabled most of us to stop working in the soil in order to eat, new technology will also enable us to do the knowledge work that we love to do.

FanBox’s mission is to bring you the building blocks that you need to profit from your passions.

We believe that if we are successful at doing our part in helping make that opportunity a reality for most people, the world will be a much better place.

Our reasoning is that happy, focused people -- that are fairly compensated for what they love to do – are operating at a higher level of existence.

At that level of consciousness, love, compassion and understanding are most easily accessed.

We believe that when the planet hits a certain inflection point -- or percentage of the population that operates at that level – we will have our best chance for survival and continued evolution as a species.

On the flipside, the continued advent of weapons of mass destruction, combined with poverty and religious fanaticism on a global scale, are taking mankind to a place of almost certain destruction.

Thus, the race is on – the clock is ticking and time is of the essence.
 

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Before we can fully understand the solutions that FanBox is working to bring you, let's drill down to identify the specific obstacles that are limiting Knowledge Workers.

We'll do that in the next chapter. 

In the meantime, please enjoy some quotes that remind us how getting lost in work we enjoy, can uplift us to a place of higher consciousness.

Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.

James M. Barrie (1860 - 1937)

Real success is finding your lifework in the work that you love.

David McCullough (1933 - )

Get happiness out of your work or you may never know what happiness is.

Elbert Hubbard (1856 - 1915)

You can't rest on your laurels. Your own body of work is yet to come.

Barack Obama (1961 - ), Arizona State Commencement Speech, 2009

My work is a game, a very serious game.

M. C. Escher (1898 - 1972)

When you choose the paradigm of service, it turns everything you do from a job into a gift.

   Oprah Winfrey (1954 - ), Stanford Commencement Address, 2008

When you're doing the work you're meant to do, it feels right and every day is a bonus, regardless of what you're getting paid.

Oprah Winfrey (1954 - ), Stanford Commencement Address, 2008

You don't become great by trying to be great. You become great by wanting to do something, and then doing it so hard that you become great in the process.

Randall Munroe, xkcd, Marie Curie, 2011

The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.

Richard Bach

Live neither in the past nor in the future, but let each day's work absorb your entire energies, and satisfy your widest ambition.

Sir William Osler (1849 - 1919), to his students

Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

         Theodore Roosevelt (1858 - 1919), Speech in New York, September 7, 1903

Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.

Thomas Carlyle (1795 - 1881), Past and Present, 1843

I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)

Work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice and need.

Voltaire (1694 - 1778), Candide, 1759

The secret of greatness is simple: do better work than any other man in your field - and keep on doing it.

Wilfred A. Peterson

Whenever it is in any way possible, every boy and girl should choose as his life work some occupation, which he should like to do anyhow, even if he did not need the money.

William Lyon Phelps

You've got to find what you love and that is as true for work as it is for lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you've found it.

Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Inc. (1955 - ), Stanford Commencement Address, 2005

In the next chapter, let's take a look the specific obstacle that is most limiting Knowledge Workers.

  >> Next Chapter >>