How we all employ eachother

Leading on from the previous article about how great employers are, I was also reminded recently how we are all the employers of others. We are all creating stable jobs for eachother.

Someone twittered recently about the guilt they felt in purchasing the Sunday Newspaper as it had probably meant the sacrifice of some poor unsuspecting tree in a distant region of the world. I twittered back that he shouldn't feel guilty because by purchasing that reworked tree, he had contributed to the employment of journalists, graphic designers, PR companies, paper manufacturers, tree cutters, reforestation experts, newsagents... the list goes on. And he wondered in turn if all those people knew he was partially employing them... probably not.

In meetforeal creating an event, I realised that we are contributing towards creating employment - both directly - e.g. paying a cameraman for a few hours work, and indirectly - e.g. renting a venue. If you think about how far the web travels, the side effects are quite impressive:

For just one event, as well as a cameraman, and a venue, we are creating news for a journalist to include in their section of the paper, we may be paying hotels (expert speakers and ourselves) to have more beds full, so they can pay their receptionist, and airlines to have one more bum in their seats (expert speaker), so they can pay their pilot; we are paying a graphic designer to design flyers, and they have paid for the software they are using (in a perfect world), which contributes to paying the programmers; we are paying a printer to make flyers, which contributes towards the cost of producing ink, and printing equipment.

Then if you are coming to the event, you may use public transport to come into town, so bus drivers are paid, and perhaps while you are in the area, you grab a sandwich in the nearby coffee shop, from the friendly waitress - that you wouldn't otherwise have done...

Ok, that's stretching the web a little far, but as you can see, the strands of the connections in all directions are endless.

I love to feel that I am contributing towards employing others, as well as employing myself, and that I am helping out in some way to reduce the negativity and spiralling events. Unfortunately for my ego, it is not only me personally, or meetforeal who are contributing, but it is all the people who participate in the event, who enable this web of employment to occur.

By us inventing the idea for an event, and by experts volunteering to come to share their experiences and ideas; by you all choosing to purchase tickets, telling your friends, coming along on the day, and participating; and by companies helping out by sponsoring the event, we are filtering the money through and all helping to keep the economy moving.

What's also great is that we have a voice, and we can all vote with our declining funds for the things we want to see survive - our favourite bistro, the cute little clothes shop on the corner, the comedian on a Wednesday night, or the meetforeal event :) and now when our money really counts, we are directly, or indirectly contributing towards supporting each other in activities that are positive.