After meditating on some of the comments on Venessa’s original entry where she introduces the Future of Money project on her blog Emergent by Design, we felt it might be a good idea to clear up any misunderstanding about what our project is all about. If you watch the trailer for Money & Life above, you’ll quickly find all the imagery you’d expect to see and all the soundbites you’d expect to hear from a feature length documentary on the subject, as told from the perspective of likely experts in the field. We think it’s a great trailer; it’s emotional, it’s exciting, and you feel the sincerity of each of the interview subjects resonate with every word. We wish the filmmakers our very best with their efforts!
We’re not making this film. We’re trying something different. One pattern you might detect if you take a second look at the Money & Life trailer is that none of the interview subjects featured are young people. This is where we come in. As children of the 1980s we grew up watching the disruptive digital media grow and ripen. We’ve witnessed the birth of the personal computer, the CD ROM, the DVD, the Internet, and a host of Web developments from simple geocities web pages to ecommerce dotcom epic fails to the rise of Google to the current social media frenzy of Facebook and Twitter. And these developments have paralleled our lives as we’ve grown up. Raise your hand if you helped pay your rent in the last ten years doing some freelance web design! (we certainly have).
What does this have to do with the future of money, you ask? Well, the way we see it, our digital literacy is the biggest “disruptive technology” at stake. It’s our generation that’s going to be building the next 10-20 years of disruptive infrastructure, with our up-commence in the world defined by our savvy and creative use of digital tools. The Future of Money project is a humble and at the same time daring attempt to collect together some of our stories – in the context of the older, wiser generation – and call it like we see it. Will we get everything right? No. Will we hit some things on the head? We hope so. Will we have fun in the process? We already are 
3 Comments
Keep in mind that there is nothing wrong with money. There is something wrong with what money represents.
Generation Debt might provide an interesting point of view on the topic.
http://www.google.com/search?q=generation+debt
For a while now, the older generations have counted on the young to provide the money for their own retirement; this time it’s uncertain that it’s going to happen.
Really looking forward to the research results !