"...a cry for us to consume "smarter" by moving away from the outdated concept of outright ownership -- and the lust to own -- towards one where we share, barter, rent and swap assets that include not just consumables, but also our "time and space". The notion of "collaborative consumption" is not, she notes, new -- it has been around for centuries. But the arrival of internet-enabled social networking, coupled with "geo-located" smart phones, has super-charged a concept that was already rapidly gaining primacy owing to the twin pressures of our environmental and economic crises. Echoing the Japanese concept of muda -- the relentless hunt for, and eradication of, inefficiencies in any system -- collaborative consumption aims to exploit previously ignored or unnoticed value in all our assets by both eliminating waste and generating demand for goods and services that are otherwise "idling."
Hickman is a bit skeptical, but spotlights a number of example new ventures helping urban dwellers live asset-light lifestyles. In any case, hear it from Botsman herself at TEDxSydney...
Hey, I'm really enjoying your blog and the breadth of topics you are writing about. I took some videos at a conference in Mountain View, CA about collaborative consumption (sharing). There are posted here:
http://svii.net/2011/06/sharing/
If you are ever in Silicon Valley we would love to have you at one of our events at SVII sometime.
MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition, Enterprise Forum Global, Enterprise Forum of Cambridge, Muddy Charles Pub, African Business Club, Sloan Entrepreneurs for International Development, Global Startup Workshop, Sustainability@MIT, TechLink, Making Progress, HighTechFever.tv, MIT Innovation Tours
The notion of "collaborative consumption" is not, she notes, new -- it has been around for centuries. But the arrival of internet-enabled social networking, coupled with "geo-located" smart phones, has super-charged a concept that was already rapidly gaining primacy owing to the twin pressures of our environmental and economic crises. Echoing the Japanese concept of muda -- the relentless hunt for, and eradication of, inefficiencies in any system -- collaborative consumption aims to exploit previously ignored or unnoticed value in all our assets by both eliminating waste and generating demand for goods and services that are otherwise "idling."
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Hey, I'm really enjoying your blog and the breadth of topics you are writing about. I took some videos at a conference in Mountain View, CA about collaborative consumption (sharing). There are posted here:
http://svii.net/2011/06/sharing/
If you are ever in Silicon Valley we would love to have you at one of our events at SVII sometime.
~Michael Ruescher
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