Web Wealth: When opportunity knocks...

Finding, or making, opportunities is key to thriving instead of just surviving in the lackluster economy. These sites have advice for recognizing and creating such opportunity.

Recognize opportunity. Steve Olson, an evidently independent thinker - going by his stand-up computer workstation and other ideas he promotes - offers a list of ways to help yourself recognize opportunities. These include making it a point to hang out with creative people, journaling, and being grateful. That last item Olson calls "the antidote to resentment and complacency."

http://go.philly.com/opportunity1

Competitive advantage. Extreme adversity leads to new ideas, innovations, and companies, says this article in the Harvard Business Review. It even cites data that show "the rate of new-business creation was higher during the deepest part of the 2009 recession than it had been in the 14 previous years."

http://go.philly.com/opportunity2

You'd have to pay to see the whole HBR article, but it is summarized here at bNet:

http://go.philly.com/opportunity3

Energy opportunity. The U.S. Department of Energy suggests a financial opportunity in taking advantage of tax credits aimed at getting us to be more energy-efficient. Primarily, the Internal Revenue Service will allow a tax credit amounting to 30 percent of costs, up to $1,500, for insulation as well as qualifying doors, water heaters, and other products. But the stuff has to be installed by Dec. 31. Even bigger credits are available through 2016 on solar, wind, and geothermal systems.

www.energysavers.gov/financial

Train yourself. The Advanced Life Skills website of Jonathan Wells suggests ways of training yourself to recognize opportunity. He insists in this post that creating opportunities means focusing on other people. For example, when you need employment, forget about job listings and go looking for the people with thriving businesses, and get to know them. The people are the opportunities.

http://go.philly.com/opportunity4