Good Riddance to 2009 and the last Decade. Welcome 2010?
As my father was in the Air Force we were stationed overseas, when I was a young lad. We spent 3 years in England. I have so many wonderful memories of my time there, and maybe it was because I was young, but what I remember most were various sayings, slang and colloquislisms.
One of my favorite sayings was “Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish”. Since I was there in the early sixties, you still heard things like “Chip Chip Cheerio” (a way to say goodbye in british slang) and all that sort of rot. So that is the genisis of the title.
Anyway that is a whole minute of drivel you will never get back… Sorry.
OK so it looks like I hate the last 10 years…. Hate is a harsh word, but I would say it has been a roller coaster for many. Do you realize the changes that have occured in the last decade? The digital age is flourishing and this is just the beginning. Twitter, Facebook, the iPhone, digital cameras to name a few.
September 11th, which was the catalyst for starting one of the longest periods of war we have ever had. The tech bubble, the real estate boom and now bust. Our first African American President.
There have been highs and lows and personally my life was pretty blessed. We are now coming into what I believe is a long recovery. This recovery will not be a straight line back, but more of a roller coaster at times.
So how about the next 10?
Do I welcome them or cringe as I think about the hardships and pain many will have to endure? To be honest, even though I have been writing about gloom and doom lately, I am very optimistic. We can not continue to do the things we have done in this industry over the next ten years and survive. We have to come up with new and better paradigms as these are new times. We have to embrace technology as it is not going away. Many I have talked to lately tell me that most of the people that count in this industry will not utilize social networking and technology tools. Let me tell you that as I have been in the technology field for over 30 years, on thing is absolute; change or die.
Remember the fax machine, the cell phone, the microwave, ATM cards, email? What do they have in common? They were all new technologies at one time that people avoided like the plague, until a tipping point occured when you either had to succomb to the inevitability that you had to change or be left dangling in the cold.
Don’t wait to learn how to use social media and the Internet for more that checking your spam ridden email accounts.
We have started the Commercial Real Estate Distressed Assets Association (CREDAA) and we know we will not cure the world of poverty and hunger or come up with a new cancer cure, but we will be working to educate and find solutions to our current commercial real estate dilemmas.
I look forward to working with industry professionals, bankers and investors to find the best solutions to end the madness that is our current situation. We at CREDAA really believe that the holding of assets by banks, the FDIC and other authorities, is a recipe for disaster and at least it will cause our recovery to last so much longer than need be.
We do not believe CREDAA will save the world, but we will be active at trying to help turn around a small portion of it. Margaret Mead wrote “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, commited citizens can change the world. Indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.”
We invite you to join us in our quest to go from Reactive Survival Mode to Educated Self Empowerment Mode which will lead us to the land of Sustained Abundance and Prosperity. www.CREDAA.com
Happy Holidays to you and yours
JW Najarian
