Hall Of Fame Acceptance Speech
By David Wallach
It is a great pleasure for me to be here with you tonight.
As many of you know, because of some very serious health issues I
was unable to attend last year�s convention. In July of 2005 my
doctors gave me between four and seven months to live. They were
mistaken.
I want to give my thanks for the overwhelming and prayerful
support I have received from my friends in the industry, my family
and loved ones. I am absolutely sure that this wonderful outpouring
is the reason I am here tonight.
I was deeply moved, and totally blown away, when I was informed
by Krista and the IRTA Global Board of Directors that I was to be
inducted in to the Barter Hall of Fame.
It will be a great honor to have my name listed and along side
barter industry greats, legends, leaders and visionaries. Hall of
famers that are present please stand up as I call your names...Bob
Meyer, Paul Suplizio, and Steve Webster.
These remarkable people represent an industry that has
collectively conceived, designed, shaped, defined, and brought to
the market place a system of currency that expresses the ultimate in
business efficiency and ecology.
This is my 30th year in this fantastic industry: and what a wild
and wonderful ride it has been and continues to be. Because of
opportune timing, I have had the privilege to witness and
participate in some of the most historic events that have formed our
business.
IRTA was our first governing body, and from its inception has
provided the organization, the wisdom, and a dedicated cadre of
leaders that seem to have always been there at exactly the right
time.
The people of IRTA have negotiated industry legal status with the
federal governments, provided a code of ethics, put into place
financial standards, organized corporate operators, and has members
and affiliates world wide.
From Paul Suplizio to Krista Vardabash, we have been and still
are, in great hands. As we bring our burgeoning industry into the
twenty-first century, we can be confident that a strong foundation
and framework for future growth, has been put into place.
At this point, the Alternative Business Currency Industry has an
estimated global business client base of 400,000. This number,
though impressive, represents a relatively small share...less than
one-half of one-percent of the estimated total of 65 to 100 million
businesses worldwide.
By achieving a 20% market penetration, we would welcome 13 to 20
million new business users into our currency systems. Obviously we
need to apply some serious resources to the task of impacting this
huge market with our positive message. Before organizing this huge
undertaking, we need to be assured that the information and message
imparted truly represents what we do.
During early development, our product concept was defined as
administrating the process of �bartering, trading and exchanging.�
At some point in our learning curve we have discovered that we do
not engage in any of those activities. Much of the confusion about
our product can be directly traced to our use of the words trade,
barter and exchange...these words wrongly describe what we do.
We do not trade, barter or exchange. Each of those processes
implies a direct exchange of a product or service between two or
more parties usually at the time of the transaction. Besides these
descriptions and terms conjure up images of an ancient market place,
where merchants hawk their wares...bargaining, bickering and taking
advantage of one other.
We operate an ultra-modern currency system that allows businesses
to mutually access and utilize their excess capacities of products,
services, labor, space or time to their profit. And the whole
world�s economies benefit.
Our business currency systems use the latest computers, software,
web related communication, and credit card technologies in a
cooperative climate that facilitates millions of client buy and sell
transactions.
We need to clarify and re-brand our product conception in order
to more correctly describe and identify what our industry is about.
In short we do not need to change what we do but how we define what
we do.
By clarifying our definition we will be even more successful in
demonstrating to the business and financial community how to use our
currency to access and profit from what is unsold and wasted.
Our currency of the unsold, transforms inventories that are
neglected and wasted into useful resources that capitalize
businesses, create employment, and stimulate the world�s economy.
For the most part, those resources that go unsold for cash are
forever lost and totally wasted. Worldwide, this totals in the
trillions of euros in lost business and tax revenues. Lost and
forgotten revenues that could provide for fuller employment,
education, healthcare and nutrition, for millions of struggling
people worldwide.
As business ecologists it is our mission to provide a viable and
dynamic system of currency that facilitates the profitable use of
what goes unsold, unused and forgotten. Now is the time for our
industry to unite, and then go forward to fulfill its destiny.
We need to tell our story in a clear and understandable way, to a
world that is ready and waiting for solutions to problems our
product can and will answer.
Please be assured that I am with you until the very end.
(For further coverage
of the 2006 IRTA Awards Banquet Presentation
click here.)