Thoughts On What's Possible

Sharing: What Happens When Consumers Rethink The Economy

Sat, 11 Aug 2012 14:13:00 +0200

Back in April, Nick Clegg restated government resolve to pursue ambitious environmental goals. The Deputy Prime Minister rebuffed rumours that the credit crunch had killed environmentalism. On the contrary, “going green has never made so much sense” and sustainability, in fact, coincides with economic recovery; “lean times can be green times”, he repeated. Clegg called his idea “environmental thrift”, which is basically just good housekeeping. Indeed, it seems quite possible that Mr Clegg’s speech was inspired by our grandmothers war-time abilities to make a little go a long very way. And good on him for that. The global economy has a thing or two to learn from sound home economics.

Mr Clegg’s position makes a lot of sense, but he’s missing one important factor in the equation. His speech draws our attention to two areas of government action: cutting consumer energy consumption to reduce emissions and alleviate financial pressure on households and building up low carbon sectors to create a competitive green industry for Britain’s economic future. That’s all well and good, but it misses the crux of the matter. Clegg’s proposals are top-down initiatives. Real “environmental thrift”, honest, hand-on, efficient and effective housekeeping, is not happening top-down, through policy. It’s happening bottom-up, through consumers.

You may already have heard of collaborative consumption: a more efficient economic model that reduces our carbon footprint and level of spending by sharing resources within our communities. Spearheaded by Rachel Botsman of TED Talk fame, co-author of What’s Mine Is Yours, How collaborative consumption is changing the way we live, it was named one of Time Magazines 10 ideas that will change the world in 2010.

Collcons, the insiders’ affectionate name for collaborative consumption, is a grassroots phenomenon that affects our consumer behaviour everyday, at every level of our lives. Another name for it is the sharing economy. You can see it at work in all the major industries: apparel (rent budget-busting dresses for £15 on wishwantwear.com), money (lend to an individual on Zopa.com and get better rates than at the bank), workspaces (don’t work, co-work in a shared space like The Hub), accommodation (for your next holiday, save yourself the hotel bills and swap your home on LoveHomeSwap.com), etc. In the travel market, my own company connects drivers with empty seats to passengers looking for a ride on BlaBlaCar.com.

Another good example is Landshare.net, a network of people who have banded together to cultivate unused land. Not all land-owners have the time or energy to garden—and not all the people who would like to home grow their veggies have land available. By connecting them, Landshare is very literally increasing our lands productivity—at zero cost. What government policy can beat that as a result?

Enthusiasts speak of ‘the sharing revolution’. However you refer to it, collaborative consumption is a people’s groundswell that promotes more efficient and sustainable outcomes. Collaborative lifestyles, spontaneously emerging in groups of savvy consumers around the world and across the UK, are the real driving force behind environmental thrift, not Mister Clegg’s policy statements.

As the country grits its teeth to face the impact of austerity, economic constraints are being seized by disillusioned consumers as an opportunity for reinvention; the sharing economy is a bona fide silver lining.

Today is National Sharing Day. Major players in this emerging sector and forward-thinking citizens across the UK are getting together to spread the word about the economic transformation we are part of. It’s the official launch day of a new non-profit organisation called The People Who Share, supporting the growth of the sharing economy in Britain. At BlaBlaCar we’ve released an infographic announcing that our car sharing platform now has over one million seats available. Together, we’re celebrating a new vision of society where, in the words of the Deputy Prime Minister, “for first time ever our economic and environmental mantras are exactly the same: Waste not, want not”.

Originally published on The Huffington Post UK

Art/Eden I see Art as a materialised thought process, a public...

Sat, 11 Aug 2012 14:03:00 +0200

Art/Eden

I see Art as a materialised thought process, a public conversation the artist has with his or her existence, his or her world. This work of Kim Holleman does just that, opening a conversation about a subject that is very important to me: our (broken) relationship with nature, especially as city dwellers.

Coming Out for Introverts Back when I was in school, I read a...

Sun, 03 Jun 2012 18:08:00 +0200

Coming Out for Introverts

Back when I was in school, I read a lot. I used to read during break time. I was teased about it but there was nothing doing. Spending half an hour sitting on a bench “alone” in my world of fiction made me happy; standing around chatting in a group did not. This is still the case today. I love to read, I hate to small talk. I leave parties early to sit in bed with a book. I just don’t have anything to say during conversations that meander all over the general subject of absolutely nothing in particular. I get bored. I feel useless and excluded. It’s not that I’m anti-social, I love talking to people, only I prefer to do so with only a few people at a time, on identified subjects, in a setting in which I can concentrate. This social orientation has a name: I’m an introvert, meaning that I prefer to focus on my inner world, and avoid excessive stimulation from without.

In this video Susan Cain, author of the new book, “Quiet”, explains her research and theory on the place of introverts in todays society, especially in business. She suggests there is a cultural bias towards extroversion, as this personality type is (wrongly) preferred for leadership, social charisma being confused with talent. She also points out that because of this bias, a generation of introverts like myself experience a secret sense of shame about their social preferences and how they like to spend their time (like sitting at home blogging on a Sunday). Introverts force themselves, at great personal expense to behave gregariously, because they know it’s necessary to succeed in their environment. I know I do everyday. Her message is that we’d do better to bet on our power as introverts, than waste our energy trying to be someone we’re not. I agree.

Lettuce In The CityIf you watched the video in my last post on...

Tue, 01 May 2012 17:35:00 +0200

Lettuce In The City
If you watched the video in my last post on Biosphere 2: this is the sequel. It presents The Plant, a retired meatpacking facility, being repurposed into a net-zero energy vertical farm in Chicago. Their aquaponic farming concept is a mix of hydroponics and fish-farming, with some beer making going on too, each part of the system helping to close the resource loop. What’s amazing about this project is that’ it’s radically innovative while being totally down to earth. For example, The Plant aims to create 125 Carbon neutral jobs in its’ difficult neighborhood.

One’s Place In The WorldScientist Jane Poynter recounts...

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:02:00 +0200

One’s Place In The World
Scientist Jane Poynter recounts her almost unique experience (only 7 other people in the world have done it), living in Biosphere 2 for 2 years & 20 minutes. The purpose of this larger than life experiment was to find out if it is possible to (re)create the conditions of sustainable life. Turns out, and that’s what I love about this talk, she also found some more esoteric answers along the way.

Who Owns Downloadable?The elephant-in-the-room question that 3D...

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 16:23:00 +0200

Who Owns Downloadable?
The elephant-in-the-room question that 3D printing brings up is who owns stuff, if anyone can just print it from a downloaded blueprint cf P2P file-sharing. In his illuminating white paper Michael Weinberg highlights the opportunity this technology presents, and warns that there will be naysayers, especially those that have a vested interest in protecting proprietary manufacturing. In his own words:

No one suggests that these concerns are unwarranted. After all, the ability to copy and replicate is the ability to infringe on copyright, patent, and trademark. But the ability to copy and replicate is also the ability to create, expand upon, and innovate. Just as with the printing press, the copy machine, and the personal computer before it, some people will see 3D printing as a disruptive threat. Similarly, just as with the printing press, the copy machine, and the personal computer, some people will see 3D printing as a groundbreaking tool to spread creativity and knowledge. It is critical that those who fear not stop those who are inspired.

Public Libraries: From Learning To MakingThis presentation of 3D...

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 00:17:00 +0200

Public Libraries: From Learning To Making
This presentation of 3D printing explains how the technology can democratize manufacturing. It also joins in the conversation around a recent article, calling for 3D printers in public libraries, since these spaces are historically the seat of public commons and democratic empowerment. I love libraries, always have, but this is just so cool, it actually makes me want to drop everything and become a librarian.

One Lean CarThis guy has done some very radical things: First,...

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 20:10:00 +0200

One Lean Car
This guy has done some very radical things: First, he collaboratively built a 100 gallon/mile car, called Wikispeed, in a couple of weeks. How? He applied test-driven development methods from the software world (agile, lean, scrum) to revolutionize the manufacturing processes. It’s very possible that this new distributed approach to design & manufacturing will do to our world, what the assembly line did almost a century ago… Watch to learn how.

Ideas That Shape UsI’d like to showcase this series of...

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 18:43:00 +0200

Ideas That Shape Us
I’d like to showcase this series of beautiful posters by designer Genis Carreras, illustrating complex philosophies with simple shapes. He calls them philographics. Off subject I hear you think? Nay, for our future comes from the way we see the world. Chosen here are a couple of my favourites.

The Third Kitchen

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:37:00 +0200

As every good cook knows, one’s method of production affects the nature of the outcome. In short, how you make your food, matters. In much the same way, the production methods we base our society on affect our quality of life. Recently, with the bitter after-taste of the financial crisis still in their mouths, an increasing number of citizens of the industrialized world have begun to take a closer look at just what is going on in the kitchen.

Our means of production of wealth, our kitchen, if you will, is capitalism, which, according to Wikipedia, is an economic system “generally considered to favor private ownership of the means of production”: this is my kitchen not yours, pay me if you want to use it, or come work in my kitchen. The thing with capitalism is that it demands economies of scale and concentration of capital: really big kitchens make more food and buy more kitchens to make more food and buy more kitchens… You get the idea. This necessarily leaves some people with no kitchen and no food (i.e. no means of production of wealth and no wealth). The opposite of capitalism is communism: the state kitchen. A bit like the school canteen, but worse, that’s an alternative I’d rather avoid.

Three Acres and A Cow
In a powerful paradigm shift from the capitalist v communist duality, there emerges a third way. It’s nothing new, two papal encyclicals first came up with the idea in the early 20th century, it later became know as Distributism, I call it the third kitchen. It’s the idea is that every person can earn a living through access to the means of production (capital, tools, land or knowledge for example). One english catholic, G. K. Chesterton came up with a slogan “Three acres and a cow”, which pretty much sums it up. The philosophical idea behind it is elegantly expressed by a Chinese maxim: “Give someone a fish and you feed him for a day; teach the person to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”.

The idea that having economic activity distributed, or decentralized, among many different actors is desirable, also turns up in US & European anti-trust legislation, which is designed to prevent monopolies and excessive concentration of capital (or ownership) in a market. Note to policy makers: you did a bad job there.

Distributism is the New Black
Today, along with skinny jeans and Ray-Bans, the third kitchen is in. What’s more, this time around, it’s is packing some power, namely a widely adopted technical standard, enabling limitless realtime information exchange AKA The Internet. The Internet is enabling the rapid development of third kitchens all over the world: cooperative kitchens, peer-to-peer kitchens, collaborative kitchens, shared kitchens, crowd-funded kitchens, even distributed kitchens. The Internet is creating new ways to mutualize production resources, effectively distributing wealth in a way that capitalism and communism failed to do. For example, you no longer need to buy a car to get to work everyday, you can book a ride in someone else’s thanks to a ride-sharing site. If your cooking (ie. wealth production activity) needs you to drive a vehicle, you can rent someone else’s on a car-sharing site or buy one yourself and rent it out to others to cover the cost. Result: car budget goes into kids eduction, wife’s small business venture, buying 3 acres and a cow, fishing tackle… Again, you get the picture.

Trend-spotting: Factories So Last Season
Looking further into the future, it’s possible that behemouth factories, churning out massive quantities of consumer goods through heavy, capital based supply chains, will be a thing of the past. Equipped locally, or even individually with a 3D printer, we will produce necessary consumer goods on demand, simply by downloading common property designs & printing. Et voila, industry @home! The Economist special report on what is being called The Third Industrial Revolution highlights the social impact of this technology: “Ford needed heaps of capital to build his colossal River Rouge factory; his modern equivalent can start with little besides a laptop and a hunger to invent.“

Two Big Bad Assumptions
Michel Bauwens, founder of the Peer-to- Peer Foundation believes that this type of production, which is in essence horizontal, challenges the most basic tenants of our current system, in essence vertical. He also notes that the vertical system, whereby capital accumulates at the top is based on two big bad assumptions, making it unsustainable, and destined to be replaced by the horizontal model. In his own words, in a recent piece for Al Jazeera: ”Our current system is based on the belief of infinite growth and the endless availability of resources, despite the fact that we live on a finite planet. Let’s call this pseudo-abundance. The system also holds that innovations should be privatised and only available by permission or for a hefty price, making sharing of knowledge and culture a crime, Let’s call this enforced artificial scarcity.

Last night, at a conference hosted by the WWF in Paris, I heard @MBauwens argue for the mutualising of knowledge and tangible resources as a viable alternative to top-down capitalism. Indeed, it seems clear that if we want to change the world we live in, we should have a look at how our kitchens work, because how you make stuff, matters.

The Downside To Curing SmallpoxProfessor Ian Goldin explains the...

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 12:42:00 +0200

The Downside To Curing Smallpox
Professor Ian Goldin explains the emergence of systemic fragility in our new globalized economic structure. He argues that the connectivity and interdependance of our globalized economy have fabulous benefits, like increased literacy and health break thoughts, but we have failed to create a body capable of managing and controlling these new commons, or able to protect us from the risks they present:

We need to understand that the governance structure in the world is fossilized. It cannot begin to cope with the challenges that this [globalization] will bring. We have to develop a new way of managing the planet, collectively, through collective wisdom.

If you’ve got a bit more time to spare (like an hour), watch another interesting talk of his, given at the Oxford Martin School, of which he is director.
I got the info for this post from Ted.Ed, which, if you haven’t heard, is a revolutionary new horizontal learning platform, and a good example of connectivity making massive positive impact on the world :)

G+ is huge and you probably have no idea why

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 16:35:00 +0200

Chances are, if you’re reading this, you pimp your Linked In profile at least once a month, adding new contacts to your professional network, checking who’s moved where and what new degree of pretension job titles have reached. Important stuff. Pretty sure you’re on Facebook everyday too: who’s getting married, keep in touch, Peter went sky diving, it’s Beth’s birthday! If you’re one of those early-adopter types, a cultural creative exploring the frontiers of social mutation and such, then you’re on Twitter as well. On the other hand, if you don’t have much to say but you really like wedding bouquets and exotic salads, you’re on Pinterest (if you don’t have a job, you’re on both). Chances are, however, you’re not on Google+. Because you don’t see the point of Google+, which is normal, because you’re already on Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, Pinterest, 4sq, Quora, Tumblr, Scoop.It, and for a person with only one life, nine social networks is plenty, thanks very much. Plus, none of your friends are on Google+.

G+: Another Dead-pool Dunk?
So what is Google doing? Have they caught their feet in their super-secret all-knowing ever-changing algorithm and tripped straight back into the dead-pool, having only just shaken off the sludge from their Buzz dunking. Not this time. They’re onto something, it’s going to be huge and it’s not in the least surprising that you can’t see why.

We Forget About the Emerging Economies, Most Days
That’s because the problem with people like us, is that we’re a tad econocentric. In other words (ones that you can find in the dictionary), we believe in the eternal and absolute supremacy of our highly developed, service-based, leisure-loving economy. And like all forms of bigotry, an econocentric point of view can severely limit ones grasp on reality. Case in point: being econocentric has probably led you to believe that because you and your friends don’t need Google+, it’s not useful.

Reality Check
The majority of the world are not on Facebook. In fact, the majority of the world would find Facebook pretty irrelevant if they were on it, which they’re not. Farming families in India, weaver cooperatives in Bali, those men who get the rubber from the trees in Brazil and the women that study english while they stitch leather, the fishing villages of Indonesia, and that couple that make 345 clay pots a month somewhere in Africa are not on Facebook. Or Linked In. Or Pinterest. They work more hours than they sleep, they don’t have broadband or babysitters and they are the majority of the world. A strategist would call them the Base of the Pyramid (BoP), which is one way of saying that there are lots of them and that they probably don’t shop at The Gap. An ideologist would ask if it’s not a bit odd that we be sitting on their heads, but far be it from me to pose such a controversial conundrum in my very first post.

If Not Exotic Salad Compendiums, Then What?
A more interesting a question right now, is: what kind of social network would attract such a population? Well, it would not be addictive or gamified, because, unlike some, this population is not looking for a new way to waste more time. Nor would it be based on alma mater and current job title, or on high resolution photo uploads. No, not even vintage polaroid filtered high resolution uploads.

A social network for the majority of the world would be flexible enough to accommodate every kind of use, personal or professional. Better still, it’d be both at the same time, and save a bit of daylight. It’d basically be a toolbox for users to do whatever they need with it. It would fit easily into average Internet use (which is not all day BTW, most people in the world do IRL stuff for a living) and it would include a couple of other essential communication tools, like email, sharing and comments.

Above all, a social network for the majority of the world would fulfill one crucial need: having a basic online presence, with zero expenditure, no prerequisite marketing skills, and a minimum time commitment. It would turn up in search results, effectively bringing a gigantic un-networked population online and creating conditions for radical world-wide social change, especially in emerging economies. It would, in fact, be a lot like Google+, and it would be destined for massive user adoption, although the likes of us, and our Facebook friends probably won’t notice that anytime soon.

Peak Humanity Confirmed In the 1970’s MIT published an...

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 23:33:00 +0200

Peak Humanity Confirmed

In the 1970’s MIT published an infamous report, The Limits to Growth, using computer modelling to trace scenarii for the worlds future. It’s dire conclusions basically sparked the environmental movement.
The Smithsonian magazine has announced that new research from an Australian physicist, Graham Turner, compared the business-as-usual scenario from back then with real world data, and found predictions to be alarmingly close to what has actually happened over the last 30 years. Turners conclusion is that: “We are not on a sustainable trajectory.” Indeed, as this visual clearly illustrates, on our current trajectory, we would hit “peak population” in 2030. Solar panel, anyone?