Great book I read last Fall about the new dynamics of sharing and the societal forces behind it. What follows is an outline that covers the main ideas as I’ve gleaned them, along with topical cross references. It may not always flow nicely since this is a personal reference guide. And as usual, this summary can’t give you the stories and context behind the notes provided below, so I do recommend reading the book if you’d like to learn more. Similarly, you may want to check out my summary of Lisa Gansky’s book, “The Mesh”.

I. Backstory to Present Day

The authors discuss the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and how it represents a concrete effect of world’s systemic lifestyle, going on to explain the emergence of “throwaway living”. Disposable products came about for valid health reasons, like the Dixie cup, and Kotex sanitary napkins (adapted from military badges). Everyday goods that could be thrown away, as opposed to cleaned and dried, were marketed and considered by folks as more “convenient, time-saving, and hygenic.”

During World War II, much production and consumption shifted to industrial sectors. Yet following 1945, the consumer products goods and food industries jumped into full gear as people could spend money again, have lots of babies, and make their lives easier with the houses and major appliances that jobs and higher disposable incomes enabled.

With increasing scale, this new way of life carried many unintended consequences and unforeseen after effects, including high volumes of manufacturing material waste, and increased embodied energy in products. If economic costs were so low, municipal waste systems made trash go “away”, and buying new items eventually became easier and cheaper than to clean & repair existing items, then it’s simply no wonder how we came to where we are today.

I’m keen to believe that people have always never liked to part ways with personal possessions; simple loss-aversion is at play. If we can store it away somewhere, we can derive value from it again sometime in the future. But with increased disposable income, and the ability to buy things on credit, material affluence has never been easier. To save civilization from running out of physical space and the pain of selling, giving, or throwing away belongings, the self-storage industry came to the rescue. The authors give some startling statistics about how much storage space there is for rent in the U.S., and how after 6 months, the cost of space rental has often exceeded the fair-market-value of the stored items. With the option for people to automatically pay the rent through a bank or credit account, it’s insane how much money people are spending without rationally considering the true costs involved. Thanks Rachel and Roo for dramatically bringing this subject to light!
Attachment, Loss Aversion, Comfort, Opaque Cost

A couple years ago, I watched a 6 part documentary series called The Century of the Self, which chronicled the development of advertising through the influence of Edward Bernays, and the rise of hyper consumerism. In essence, satisfying desire could be an endless game that people don’t necessarily choose to engage in. Advertisers, social trends, and norms helped put people on a metaphoric hedonistic treadmill. One could get off temporarily, but we’d have to get back on knowing that a “new & improved” version is out there as part of our vision (is it really ours?) of an aspired lifestyle.

The authors describe 4 big forces shaping it:

1) Persuasion

Ed Bernays got people “to buy not what they needed but what they desired, connecting not just to who the consumer is but what he or she wanted to be…unmet desires have no fixed limit”.

Additionally influential was Earnest Elmo Calkins. From Wikipedia,

One of his theories featured in the book of the same name was that of “consumer engineering,”^[24] or the artificial creation of demand for a product using design and advertising. He described the situation in 1929 that the speed of production had “outstripped consumption”. His answer to this problem is not to slow production, for “that would be backward.” He instead suggested manufacturing demand for product through planned obsolescence.^[25] He wrote,

“Goods fall into two classes: those that we use, such as motor cars and safety razors, and those that we use up, such as toothpaste or soda biscuits. Consumer engineering must see to it that we use up the kind of goods we now merely use.^[25]

In other words, he said, “Why would you want last year’s hand bag when this year’s hand bag is so much more attractive?” He asked, “Does there seem to be a sad waste in this process? Not at all. Wearing things out does not produce prosperity. Buying things does.” He pioneered the concept of the “soft sell,”^[1] or impressionistic advertising, which stresses less immediate results, and focuses on building goodwill and creating a brand, relying more on the “creative process” to produce an advertising message.^[2]

Lastly, peer pressure and culture are significant persuasive factors driving new purchases and consumption. Social regard, group belonging, acceptance, and self-esteem can sometimes be reasonable. Oftentimes not. Related to this is the Diderot Effect by social anthropologist Grant McCracken, which discusses how clusters of artifacts are related to group identity, how their symbolic meaning outweighs their functional utility, and how we relate to these artifacts on and off in life, as we ponder their reflection of self-identity. (I think I got that right!). Here’s a quote the authors provide, “We’ve been persuaded ever since the 1920s that we need complementary groups of possessions (color, style, or the up-to-dateness of an item).”

2) Credit

Ah yes, the convenience of borrowing money. Important for many purposes, particularly business and international trade. But personal credit? It’s enabled me to do some fun and fantastic things in my life, but oftentimes I ended up buying things (instead of experiences) that I really don’t need and can’t afford. We all know the story Availability and willingness to pay later with non liquid assets we can’t touch and don’t own. And lenders don’t want us to see nor understand the consequences of increasing debt from variable interest rates and only needing to pay a minimum balance. This desensitizes us to the cost of additional purchases or living a particular lifestyle.

3) Law of Life Cycles

Desire for new products & editions, Planned Obsolesence, and product quality degradation are the influencing factors to update/renew to same or new models. Can we be irrational or is there intended behavioral design in motion?

4) Just One More Factor?

An excellent point the authors bring up. “Just in case”. “You can never have enough”. “Could be useful in case…”. This is satisfaction from having more of the things that are similar to what we already have. With more usage choice in a personal asset library, there’s more freedom and dynamic happiness we can generate. Like extra capacity to enjoy in the future, without the trouble of buying/getting it. Another motivational factor: “It was on sale.”

From “Gen Me” to “Gen We“

Michael Wesch best describes this phenomena in this video presentation and my accompanying summary. I won’t summarize it for you Go check the link if you haven’t already.

The authors describe 2 phenomena and various examples of each:

• A values shift to “simplicity, transparency, participants”. As I see it…meaning, community, and experiences.
• Materialism’s lost opportunity cost in social relationships

II. Groundswell

The Rise of Collaborative Consumption (CC)
I’m prone to believe there’s a certain happiness in sharing some things with strangers. I think the larger movement is about economizing and exploring how IT and communication tech can both facilitate marketplaces and provide better user experiences. As the authors say, “we are relearning how to create value out of shared and open resources in ways that balance personal self interest with the good of the larger community. People can participate without losing their autonomy or individual identity.”

2 Participation forms: Peer “Provider” or “User”

CC Systems: sharing networks for products/services

1.  Product/Service system: pay for use, not ownership.
2.  Redistribution markets: pre-owned goods, give away, swap, or sell.
3. Collaborative lifestyles: service exchange (free/premium). Requires trust systems.

4 CC principles:
Critical mass is necessary for momentum, better logistics and response time, greater choice, relevancy, and enough supply to meet random demand in a system. One needs:

1. Social proof
2. Idling capacity
3. Belief in commons
4. Trust between strangers

PSS

Access & experience is really what people want, not necessarily ownership which entails financial cost, financing, insurance, disposal, maintenance, repair…

2 models:

1. Usage – Ex: high idling capacity, limited use because of changing tastes, temporary need, depreciating appeal after usage, high fixed or setup costs.
2. Extended life – where service like maintenance, repair, upgrades are covered. Ex: highly technical, expensive, frequent updates needed.

In P2P renting, idling capacity is available and personal transactions are feasible. There are some hurdles though:

• Sharing has to be convenient, secure, and more cost-effective than ownership
• Security and trust

Items or the service can’t necessarily be sterile or merely utilitarian. Personalization and feeling temporary ownership, and connection are important.

Redistribution Markets

Enabled by networked participation and falling transaction costs
newly meeting supply and demand
increased utilization rate through the item’s valuable life
point systems; quid pro quo not necessary
Craigslist story – radical simplicity + interaction time efficiency

Collaborative Lifestyles

for “knowledge, time, workspaces, creativity, money, homes, gardens, social spaces.”
service bartering
marketplaces as brokers/facilitators with fee or earned points
time banks, local exchange trading schemes (currencies)
social money lending; Zopa, Prosper
collaborative workspaces; Bay Area Hub, New Work City, Green Spaces
communities; neighborgoods, SkillShare
On/Offline Community; couchsurfing, hospitalityclub.org, globalfreeloaders.com, place2stay.net

http://www.ted.com/talks/rachel_botsman_the_case_for_collaborative_consumption.html
http://www.collaborativeconsumption.com/

III. Implications

Collaborative Design
design research, empathy, systems thinking
Ezio Manzini – I’ve downloaded numerous papers of his. See this video presentation of his I covered earlier for greater insight.
collaborative systems vary by necessary effort to participation
Lots versus low willpower scale
Manzini on designers’ role: “Reduce the threshold of effort so that regardless of willpower a user may have, the system can achieve its purpose.”
fluidity of use
diversified access/receipt options yielding same user benefits
enhanced communications support

Design Principles: longevity, disassembly, modularity, upgradeability, platforms

Community as Brand
Ex: Nike Plus, Skype, Meetup
brand community power + membership
letting go, and allowing people to personalize and make the experience and community their own (passion brand principles?)
Solicit feedback

CC Evolution
changing consumer mindset
reputation and social capital
new value. GDP is old as are value chains. Value cycles are the future.

Wrapup

This book is important for its contribution to the backstory of consumerism, how we ended up where we are, and the future that’s possible for those willing to participate. Personally, I feel anyone under the age of 35 probably feels either frustrated/cautious with debt (various sources), and doesn’t want to maintain personal physical inventory. Remember how Tyler Durden from Fight Club said, “The things you own end up owning you”? I totally believe it. If we can make our lives easier through alternative consumption patterns that offer the same experience with additional social/other benefits, less hassle, and for less money, we will adapt appropriately.

DonorsChoose is a neat organization I found out about last month. Check out their story below. With things like this happening, it makes me wonder about the future of democracy at large in terms of advocacy, funding, and voting.

[Video Link for Email/Other Subscribers - 2min]

Platforms that easily connect people around sharing low-utilized assets are one important aspect of Collaborative Consumption and the Mesh’s access economy.

“Mitch Baranowski chats with SnapGoods co-founder and CEO Ron J. Williams, who discusses the company’s contribution to the growing ‘access economy,’ in which consumers participate in both the supply and demand sides of commerce.”

[Video Link for Email/Other Subscribers - 14min]

Another cool video I found…

“Riley Crane, a postdoctoral fellow at the MIT Media Lab, found out about the DARPA Red Balloon Challenge four days before it started (find ten balloons placed in ten different locations around the country). Four days, eight hours, and 52 minutes later his team had won the competition. Watch him talk about how they did it and the challenges they encountered in the process.”

[Video Link for Email/Other Subscribers - 17.5min]

Particularly funny was how the team encountered intentionally fake balloon sightings to throw them off, and how they simply screened out locations not matching senders’ originating IP addresses.

So earlier this month, I attended my first NY Tech Meetup event and was impressed by the various presenters’ work. Sometimes they were just really cool concepts. Others were startups. Getting a ticket isn’t hard, but they sell out really fast so you have to act fast on 3 window slots they offer with a set number of tickets. Here’s my notes from the noteworthy examples:

Etsy Shopping Network

The concept was a browsing application for Etsy.com that would work on your net-enabled TV, in this case, GoogleTV. Without a visual, the easiest way to describe it would be a vertical product category menu bar on the left, and a huge image on the right. Clicking a category would bring up various items for sale, with the option for item-level views too. It took about 20 hours to build and is a viewing app only, as the Etsy API (and very few others) allow for transactions.

ComeAtMeBro

Instead of trying to use Twitter for finding & engaging with people you like, BroComeAt.me is an engine that tries to match people with dissimilar interests in an effort to provoke verbal online fights. Included are suggested insults

Uber

Startup for a black car taxi service in NYC, which connects signed up drivers with registered users who have their credit card info stored online. Accessed through a mobile app from iPhone and Android, or via SMS, users can see available drivers, set a destination, and request a pickup. This then sends a message to the nearest available driver with a status as “on duty”, who then has 15 seconds to accept or decline. An accepted pickup then sends the user a picture of the driver, their ETA, and an option to call the driver if necessary for additional details. One neat thing is that both passengers and drivers can rate each other through the service for feedback.

Clique

A dating website for friends-of-friends. Facebook profile info is pulled in (opt-in), with additional social feed integration opportunities. When viewing someone’s profile, one can see how you’re connected to them, similar to how LinkedIn shows degrees of separation. Lastly, there’s a Wingman profile feature for those non-daters who’d like to play matchmaker, for which there’s an actual game with yes and no answers.

RezScore

Personal resume grading service based on brevity, impact, and depth. After an analysis, it provides you with a summary, tips for improvement, and strongest keywords. Kind of like Grader.com for websites.

MatchBook

This is a useful app that I downloaded and liked for its utility. Have you ever jotted down a place you’d like to visit someday in your city or area? This takes care of it all for you with a beautiful user interface, categorize your bookmarks (mostly food, dining, and nightlife in NYC), map integration, tagging, and the ability to alert you if you happen to be nearby. Also syncs with your computer if you’d like to user the web interface, for which there’s a bookmarklet. Very useful, since I don’t have to put this info in my Notes application anymore.

ShoutEm

Ever wanted to make a mobile app which you can easily update, without all the pain of hiring a developer and distributing updates? This service does just that. In some regards, I’d almost liken them as the Worpress for mobile apps. As of now, it seems best targeted for three types of end users: fans, artists, and news readers. Select the modules you want, background photo and 5-6 others for graphics, and a preferred layout. It provides realtime updates to the app without new downloads from the App Store. Subsequent application change approvals with Apple is handled by them.

Bridg.me

A conference call service that automatically calls and connects you in. No manual dial in and codes needed. As their slogan goes, “Never be late for another conference call.” Just set up the date and time in advance; data stored through Google Calendar. The concept was built in 48 hours on the Twilio platform, including the API, PBX, etc. If you miss the call, it’ll keep trying to call you back!

Shelby.tv

Easily discover and share web videos. Sign-in with Twitter or Facebook. Pulls from various online providers, includes a great user-interface without the usual page clutter, and videos can be commented on through your social networks. As of now, they’re in alpha testing and will be optimizing their service for the web first, then Boxee and GoogleTV.

Urtak

A better way to find out what people think. As a CMS plugin (or 3rd party service?) it lets everyone (publisher or audience) contribute a question on a webpage, with the option to answer as yes, no, or “don’t care”. The premise and claims are that 10x as many people will participate in comparison to leaving a comment, since user participation is dead simple. Allows publishers to create, collect, organize the info, use the service as a widget or on individual posts, and the ability to moderate user-contributed questions before going live. Service already in use by Newsweek among others including a big Colombian media co. too.

An interesting subject emerging over the last couple years in therapy and behavior change is Games. Whether we’re talking any range of them based on skills, intellect, or chance, good ones keep people engaged and interested. And these last two user states is what we marketers love! So, there are definitely elements of game play that can be deployed throughout the user experience design of products and services.

Can you imagine perhaps how banks could reward you with points for certain behaviors you’ve taken, that may also be in their interest? I think in subtle ways, games can be all around us. But just like in product development, most will fail. A few will succeed. And since brands’ business isn’t in selling games, their incentive to trial, measure, and improve will be low.

So I found this neat presentation about this subject by a gent I follow on Twitter, shown below. Next week I’ll be at a meetup regarding this topic as well, and hope to bring back some neat insights.

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In his book “What Technology Wants“, Kevin Kelly takes us on a philosophical and historical journey of innovation. Its origins, its inherent nature, its relationship with us. By personifying the word technology and asking us to look at the bigger picture of writing, tools, science, methods of thought and action, we can understand it as a persistent entity.

Both matter and sentient life want to diversify and improve their own operational effectiveness. Through evolution and directed guidance from humans, nature, and the laws of physics.

If that feels a bit heady, you’ll understand why I’ll stop short here. Kevin’s contribution to appreciating technology and innovation is remarkable, and I highly recommend those with a passion for these subjects and for sociology to read it. For everyone else, I suggest going to your bookstore and reading just one chapter: “Lessons of Amish Hackers”.

How does technology affect our relationships with others? What impact is its use having within our families and community? The Amish really care about these topics, and technology is therefore judged within this lens. Can the same benefit be realized through other means? If not, can we modify its form or usage patterns so as not to negatively affect our existing way of life?

I think this is something we all need to periodically ask, while adopting a mindset of what I call: Selective Engagement for Enrichment.

Very cool business concept that addresses the Kenyan energy market, while addressing deforestation. For me, this is a concrete example of how we’ll need to be creative with nature, sometimes introducing foreign species and solutions that will allow the ecosystem and biome to positively adapt. Here’s the video description:

“Tevis Howard founded KOMAZA to help end extreme poverty for rural Kenyan families living in arid landscapes. The organization partners with poor families to plant high-profit commercial tree farms that generate life-changing income and help preserve indigenous biodiversity.”

[Video Link for Email/Other Subscribers - 7min]

I always love hearing about Method Products. Their mission, their marketing, their product design. In this presentation at the Better by Design CEO Summit 2010 conference in New Zealand, co-founder Adam Lowry speaks about these topics and how design principles are integrated throughout their organizational culture and operations.

[Video Link for Email/Other Subscribers - 11min]

Marty Neumeier is a recognized thought leader in brand strategy, innovation, and design whose insight helps transform businesses from the inside out. His mission is to “incite business revolution by unleashing the power of design thinking.”

Some great points he brings up is the importance of having a vision. Going beyond mere analysis of reality and what has been. Secondly, he describes how design/innovation thinking has an expanded continuum of applications, as I’ve illustrated below:

Lastly, I liked how Marty described the brand advantage of being “good and different” in comparison to other 3 potential brand position quadrants. Standing out from the crowd while providing an excellent functional experience may take some time for people to get used to. Adoption and sales will be slow at first, but theoretically should pick up momentum as marketplace differentiation and a unique brand personality begin to be liked.

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