The national pastime is now watching financial indicators reach the lows of the decade. It’s getting boring.

FAR BETTER is to see what IS going to create the next economy – entrepreneurialism. The next economy won’t be stimulated into existence, it will be built by entrepreneurs. Yes, that intrepid spirit of putting your money and time into businesses that do little but eat money and time, in the hopes that one day you will change the world – or at least turn a profit.

My colleague, the intelligence thoughtleader and Enterprise 2.0 guru August Jackson dragged me out to a mixer for group I didn’t know – Tech Cocktail. You might think that an event dedicated to technology startups would be morose in this supposedly capital-scarce, depressed economy. Surprisingly, the mood was gleeful, far more reminiscent of Monica-Lewinsky-era Washington, when cell phones were novel, Napster brought you the world’s music guilt-and-compensation free, and people were just SURE that www.e-spatulas.com was going to set the world on fire.

Wait, haven’t we learned ANYTHING since 1998? Shouldn’t we have figured out to not trust the flowing drinks, the meeting of new people, the launching of strange sounding, internet-based services, since this irrational exuberance brought us Enron and Global Crossing? Isn’t getting excited about tech companies better suited to an era of high profits, financial trickery, cheap illusions?

No, this is still where the future’s at. Sure, nobody was trying to deal with clean water, climate change or healthcare, the likely shapers of our destiny, but it’s the attitude here that is so important. Check out a few of the players:

• The Social Collective, a group the builds online communities to improve the value of conferences
• Localist, a one-stop shop to advertise local cultural events
• DeGeeked, a website dedicated to answering the simplest, most inane questions for tech n00bs
• GeniusRocket, a service to link brand builders and artists

What struck me was that this time around, all of the entrepreneurs were prepared to discuss viable business models. They knew where the money would come from, and were even realistic about their projections. Today, it’s OK to base a business off traffic and revenue from ads, even if it means you won’t be ultimately buying a Gulfstream 5 from your income. The rest generally knew who their target markets would be. These details seem to be all the difference between this round of innovation and 1999, when sites like www.goatclick.com went for $127.50 a share, and the CEO said “We’re still looking for a business model.”

I don’t care whether any of these specific businesses rescues the economy. What strikes me as important is that America is still hosting these types of events, where people come together excited to talk about building new services, manufacturing new goods, solving real problems and hopefully creating jobs. This is the only spirit that EVER builds economies.

We’re spending so much time examining the collapse, it’s time we get excited about the recovery. I know I am.