Narrative Ecology – Blog of Ron Donaldson – fACILITATOR, TRAINER AND COACH

I have just spent an amazing 24 hours in London immersing myself in Collaborative Consumption

Yesterday afternoon was spent at the NESTA event ‘Collaborative Consumption in action: Building Trust between Strangers.  I really cannot do the event justice in a single blogpost but here goes:

Rachel Botsman (author of whats mine is yours) our very able host suggested we look for the principles behind these innovative ideas and I was away for the rest of the day. Rachel gave us a couple:

• Rent not own
• Value usage rather than possession
• Value access rather than ownership
• A collaborative lifestyle
• Redistribution markets moving a ‘thing’ from where not needed to where it is

Apologies to the presenters  I leave out but a taste of the new paradigm shifting ideas we were exposed to included:

Task Rabbit –  for all your tasks, errands and neighbourhood jobs

Jenny Winhall – A life we want, social services in Swindon

Stephen Rapoport – (who we spent an enjoyable evening chatting with in the nearby Cartoonist pub). Crashpadder – Looking for somewhere to stay? Theres no place like homes.

Mark Herbert – Good Gym – Brilliantly, quit the gym, run with friends to peoples houses and do some exerting work. No cost, get fit, meet people, social good.

Jonathon Simmons – Horses Mouth – Someone knows what you need. Someone needs what you know. Personal mentoring.

Sue Johnson – Grace and Flavour – Land- share, growing crops together

Meriel Lefensky – Ecomodo – the market place of good returns, lend and borrow each others everyday objects, skills and spaces with confidence.

Sam Hopley – Timebanks – Giving and receiving time based on credits.

Giles Andrews – Zopa – UK loans – everybody wins except the fat cats. I love the idea that borrowers feel they are being invested in rather than simply borrowing from an institution.

Stan Stalnaker – Hub Culture – providing pavilions to work in, network tools to build worth and ven as a global currency

All in all a really inspiring day, full of optimism, young entrepreneurs that give the UK massive hope for the future and all pulling the rug out from under the way traditional businesses start up and operate.

One final ‘principle’ that I noticed in all of these is that they all start small as experiments just as prescribed by the complex domain in the cynefin framework, and if they fail in the early stages they do only limited damage, but if they succeed ….