I’m already seeing it - and it’s just day one of the New Year of 2009 - and I noticed that two of my readers had proposed ideas for me - one a Social Media Map (and it’s use) and another on and Engagement Metric using Comscore for Social Networks and taking in account Geolocation.

I plan to post on both - plus two other readers (virtual friends) on Facebook, read my feed there (a copy of some of it is at the bottom of this blog - but much less detail than the original feed) told me about the Brooklyn Museum’s Social Networking group that meets on the First Saturday of each month in Brooklyn; I mused why MOMA and The Metropolitan Museum don’t have Social Networks - do not use Social Media effectively - don’t understand it, even - and came up with the fact the more traditional an organization is - the longer it’s likely to take them to get into Social Media.

Traditional organizations also include Corporations and Non-Profits that often, despite the opportunity to use Social Media - are unable to understand or live with the transparency and lack of control (need to be curated, instead) and can’t enable themselves to effectively participate in the conversation - I’ve seen this a lot in 2008 but there’s signs of life in 2009 as Corporations become more and more desperate - they’re at a point when they realize they must reinvent themselves - and some of them will move onto Social Media - while others won’t, and will slowly die out, I suspect.

That musing will also lead into another post on Artnewyorkcity.com about why Museums don’t use Social Networking more - again - a collaboration that could not happen if I tried to come up with these ideas by myself.

And it also got me to think about Government and Change.org - the Obama Presidency and Administration will be one market by Collaboration on every level - just the opposite of the failures we’ve had in the last 8 years.

I do want to say one more thing - NAFTA and the goals of the 1990’s to spread the wealth to other nations did, to some extent work - and Clinton’s goals - while they weren’t always working for the benefit of everyone in this country - did effect International Trade in a overall, good way.

What really took this country down, United States, that is, wasn’t NAFTA - it was all the mostly, Chinese money that came into this country for investment, fueled by Real Estate and Low Interest Rates - at that time, had America had leadership that built up infrastructure, improved education, improved energy independence - we’d have been able to compete more effectively in the Global Marketplace we created by NAFTA and efforts like it (including the World Financial Organization, etc)- but instead - this country, with poor, criminal or just non-existent leadership,  wasted all it’s resources on two wars, and a bunch of failed initiatives - and there was no collaboration - no exchange - just scandal after scandal.

I think we have an opportunity to change a lot of that starting with this year, 2009, a year where Real Collaboration started - because the tools for it are in place, and the Network Effects coming out of that will hopefully create a prosperity to balance off the trade deficits and debt we accumulated.

And now, I need to go paint something, even if for a little bit of time.