After reading this article on the phenomenon of Farmville I revised my notions of wealth. I previously categorized wealth in the following two ways:
- Owning Money – how much money do you have in the bank account, or can be converted to cash quickly. Most people regard money wealth as the only wealth
- Owning Time – How much time do you have in the average week/month/year that is under your control? Do you spend 90 hours a week working in a job you hate? Do you spend 30 hours a week doing housework, maintaining electronic gear, smiling at people you don’t care about, or commuting? If so, you possess little time, no matter how much money you can spend. Tim Ferriss is the best explainer of this notion. Read his blog (and book). (I include his book, The Four Hour Workweek on my all time top ten list of books. I intend to write a time-wealth calculator at some point.)
Up until reading the Farmville article I limited my definitions of wealth to the above two categories. Reading the article crystallized my notion of clan wealth.
Please note, I’m using the Southern American definition of Clan, which I define as a group of people related by blood, marriage, friendship, or history of friendship which has an intricate network of mutual obligations and debts and acts as one unit on divisive issues. (Please also note, nothing in this post relates to the KKK). In American pop history the Hatfield and the McCoy groups serve as the best example of clans.
This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog
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photo credit: Patrick Hoesly
