July 24, 2003

Using Available Resources
by Marcel Chartier

I had a conversation with someone who was talking about how people don't use resources that are available to them and lose opportunities, or on top of it all, spend a lot of money where they could have recieved services for free. The conversation started with someone asking what book they should buy to figure out a computer problem and I suggested, "the library?" That had people saying "yeah, good idea", and we all laughed because it seemed so obvious after it was mentioned. But, how many times do we buy the book instead of going to the library? Ok, its nice to have the book, but buy the book after you know you are going to use it!

I think about the internet, and just like that word processing program, we probably use 5% of the available functions. Look at government sources of information. I have seen some free for the asking that rival course materials available at the college level, especially in regards to small business development.

How many times do you see a self help infomercial selling a process that you probably could get information on for free from the library, it may take a book or two, but you could probably get the same if not similar information without the hard sell. There are friends we can talk to for information, we can borrow needed items (bringing things back in good order) instead of buying them. We can rent tools, or other short term use items instead of buying. Sometimes, we may have to lose some convenience to gain free usage or lower cost usage, but it may be worth it.

I guess the conversation I had reminded me to think about alternatives to just going out and getting something when I wanted it. There may be reasonable alternatives out there that make sense to access.