Minus the “Awesome” part, this was the line from the 1989 classic movie “Field of Dreams” that inspired me to become a risk taker and an entrepreneur that eventually drove me to build telezoo.com in 1999 and awesomzie.me in 2011. Certainly people are coming… I’ve included a few of them all the way at the end of this article:

Now we all know that times are tough and the economy is in the dumps with our current unemployment rate of 9.2%.  To date, no one has come up with a solution.  So to paraphrase President John F. Kennedy – “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”.

The way I see it – the only way to fix the economy is jobs, and the burden for creating jobs and getting this economy rolling, is ours, the entrepreneurs. Only we can make this happen!  Forget about taking the big company paycheck, they will lay you off soon enough just to meet Wall Street expectations and pocket the change.

If even 20% of us make it, that’s good enough for the nation and of course the rest of the world! Look at the employment opportunities Apple with their iPhone and iPad, Google with Android, and Facebook with their social network have created all over the world. That’s not even counting the countless firms that have been growing as a result of the emergence of these firms (e.g., Zynga, FourSquare, etc.)  Although, my awesomzie.me has not created thousands of jobs yet, it has done its part in adding four jobs since its launch date earlier this year – a pretty good start.  So if you build it – they will come.  Whatever ideas you have in mind, bring’em on!

As a reminder, historically, when the economic climate is tough, it has been a great time to start a business – no one is hiring so hire yourself!  In fact, 16 of the 30 companies that make up the Dow industrial average were started during a recession or depression. These include Microsoft,  McDonald’s, General Electric and others.  Each time we hit a tough economic patch – a new industry emerged as the engine for all our growth – be it cars after the depression, computers and technology in the 80s or the emergence of Google after kicking ass during the 2001 recession.  But for them to come, you must build it. So, again, you got an idea, bring it!

As for my “field of dream”, awesomzie.me, first let me give you my 2cents on this whole internet -> Search – Social Media evolution that gave me the idea to build it:

- Early 90s:  WWW was born…
- By mid 90′s:  millions of sites popped up on the Web…
- Mid – late 90′s: Yahoo & Google were born to help us to find the right information of the right pages on the Web…
- Early 2000′s:  Social media was born…
- Late 2000:  Millions of pages created by people, companies, and organizations on all these social media channels.
- 2011: Deja vu all over again… we are back to early 90’s…
- 2012 and beyond… the days of just setting up a website or blog to promote yourself, your talents, and even your business, by creating a page for them on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are O-V-E-R!. Your social media pages and sites should be on a place where the vast number of users and communities can easily find you, learn about you – AND – express their opinion/rate you and your goodies. If you are confident you are selling something awesome, you need the power of the crowd to promote you (and your company).  So come on take the first step – Build it and they will come.

Here are several awesome users on our site. Click on each page and check out the links on the left hand side and their ratings on the right. Feel free to awesomize them:

Alin Vlad, Web Content Specialist at BullGuard

Josh Sippola, Social Media Strategy Manager at CenturyLink

Jay O’conner with WCN Transmedia Group

Elaine Fogel, Marketing Agency Owner of SOLUTIONS Marketing & Consulting LLC

Mark Walsh, CEO at Genius Rocket

Lynette Young, CEO at Purple Stripe Productions

All that being said, you’ve heard my story –I look forward to hearing yours. If you have an idea and not sure whose door to knock on for investment or are in need of some mentorship, feel free to create your page on awesomzie.me, leverage the power of your trusted peers to show me how awesome you are, then drop me a note via my profile. Do you see the trick here? You scratch my back and I will scratch yours  I have built it, now will you come?

Feel free to connect with me via awesomize.me