Be prepared for the Collaborative Revolution
If you want to understand the current state of the collaborative consumption movement; you should watch Rachel Botsman’s talk at Wired 2011.
The video will also likely get you very excited about the possibilities that the movement offers.
Rachel Botsman, who is leading the movement, makes a bold prediction:
“We are at the beginning of a collaborative revolution that will be as big as the industrial revolution”.
Wow! Is that true? Nobody knows for sure. But we strongly believe it and looking at the current economic situation, this is one of the safest bet we can make.
The most exciting part of the movement is not the amount of VC funding that #collcons startups are receiving. (even if this is great news because it will help the movement go mainstream). No, the most exciting part is that it bring us back to old values and old ways of living: collaboration, sharing, trust, efficiency, trading, lending, swapping,… These are all keywords of the collaborative consumption movement.
As Rachel says in her talk: “In the world of collaborative consumption, people are investing in meaning, they are investing in industries becoming human again”.
Indeed, just look at the occupy movement. People are literally living in streets to protest against a industry that has become disconnected from real world’s problems. New ways of collaboration are emerging from this movement.
With technology and innovation thriving, collaboration is reaching unprecedented scale.
So get prepared to host a traveller in your spare bedroom; get ready to share your car*, lend real money to real people, rent your unused items and learn a new skill from a neighbour.
Really, get prepared for the Collaborative Revolution. And if you don’t, your kids will.
Watch the video here
*On average a car remains unused 22hours per day. This is called “idling capacity”. We will detail this in a later post.
