Sharing economy; the future plausibles.
+ Sharing economy in India. July/Aug 2013
THE FUTURE PLAUSIBLES A publication of Dig Design Studio Bangalore, India
Sharing economy; the future plausibles 5
Ownership Legacy The Royal Urban Nomad Sharing Aversion
11
Sharing economy in India
13
Finance
15
Social Investors & MicroďŹ nance: Range De Crowd-sourced funding: Wishberry
Experience Offbeat Experiences: Tushky Travelling with Strangers: WOW
7 9
21
Urban Transport
27
Further: Reading, Sources, Credits
33
Self driven cars for hire: Zoom Urban bicycle club: Namma Cycle
Sharing economy; the future plausibles.
A look at the how the alternative economy of people-to-people can grow and influence behaviours and expectations. A guide to envisioning products, services and ecosystems of the future. 1.
Ownership Legacy
2.
The Royal Urban Nomad
3.
Sharing Aversion
Š Artist: Lisa Congdon | http://lisacongdon.com | http://collectionaday2010.blogspot.in/
The Future Plausibles
Ownership Legacy Objects remember their owners. Empathetic narratives of prior owners are shared with their inheritors creating a new sense of pride for being the caretaker-owner, and a stream of continuity. Shared owners create trusted networks, take group decisions about shared resources similar to a family. Niche trusted networks pervade into each other. Within the network, the errants are taught gently but ďŹ rmly to behave while the exemplary are rewarded socially and in kind. Airbnb rooms start to maintain a wall of occupants, Namma Cycles get replicated in all universities and technology will enable a Bangalore member to step into Mumbai and carry forward their identity, trust, fees or points. Corporates in SEZs start lending libraries for big-ticket-rarely-used items for employees with each carrying personal narrative of use.
Influencers: Corporates, Government, Groups and Associations
Š Zach Rotholz, Chairigami | http://www.chairigami.com
The Future Plausibles
2.
Royal Urban Nomad
People experience richness & possess bare minimum. Individuals choose few-high-value-quality-experiences to owning many-mediocre-objects. This modern day royalty consider possessions as unnecessary burdens. They chase the life's exciting, meaningful and authentic. No old projections to anchor this nomad to any old-outgrown identity. Digital homes and anchors to retain memories become prevelant. Work from anywhere, exotic travel. Trips to space. Tushky offers daily-royal-life -experience. Sailboats are owned and returned on any port. People take trips through each others lives. Multiple governments compete to claim these nomads as their citizens. On the extreme: Digital walls lean towards narcissistic manipulated portrayals. Influencers: Corporates, Government, Groups and Associations, Internet Homes, Space Travel.
© Photographer: Cerise Doucède | http://cerisedoucede.fr/
The Future Plausibles
3.
Sharing Aversion
SelďŹ sh behaviors could dominate and make many individuals choose their short term personal interest, over long term communal good. Initial distrust compounded by bad experiences quickly snowball into an apathy for sharing. People go back to ownership with fresh gusto, consuming and discarding products without much restraint. Personal status & statements take precedence over communal good. They resist any treatises to reduce & share with each other. The emerging markets enamourment with new, shiny and cheap products will continue. Zoom cars run down quickly and over time don’t get any takers. Airbnb rooms are vandalized, Range De loans do not get repaid; fresh loans get scarce. Influencers: Corporates, Government, Groups and Associations
Sharing economy in India. 2013.
Earlier, tightknit families in India readily shared their food & possessions. Now ‘hand-me-downs’ are unappealing. Preference for cheap or use-&-throw products resulted in market being pumped with yesteryear products which get outdated in a couple of months. In parallel, a new micro trend can be noticed. People open to sharing, outside of their family & friends network. Advances in technology, communication and social networks has made sharing among strangers easier. Share an extra room, a car, not so-often-used high-end camera & even a bit of cash. These loose bonds mimic familial ties. The world here is trustable. Businesses in India, monetising this economy, are using smart, sustainable, tech-driven and creative solutions that reinforce social connectedness & reward sharing.
Sharing Economy: Finance We now raise funds directly from individuals, most of whom we don’t even know.
Technology is actually enabling tighter, more personalized human connection. Person-to-person connection, not company-to-person JOHN DONAHOE. PRESIDENT & CEO OF EBAY
.
Š JD Lasica | http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdlasica/6256554361/
Š Rang De | http://www.rangde.org/success-stories/april-2011/index.html
Sharing Economy: Finance
Social Investors & Micro-ďŹ nance Rang De (since 2006) works with people in need, those who
have a passion to turn their lives for the better. A network of volunteers & NGOs write narratives of these people, making it easier to empathize with the borrower. Motivated people take a simple action of lending a small affordable amount of money. By linking lenders & borrowers - RangDe lends a human and social touch to money transactions between complete strangers. Follow up narratives tell people how their money impacted lives. With Rang De, these individual social investors have together brought about a large change. Over 21,000 borrowers have bought cows, set up small shops, woven clothes, pushed their daily businesses and thereby elevated the conditions of their lives. About 50% of these have repaid their loans with interest.
Data: Rangde.org in last week of May2013
Š Wishberry | http://www.facebook.com/wishberry.in
Sharing Economy: Finance
Crowd-sourced Urban Funds Wishberry offers a crowdfunding platform for creative or social projects. Think ďŹ lms, community radio projects, music albums, social or private causes, people raise funds from their peer group. Strangers participate in these activities or causes by funding without any ROI expectations. In return they receive a thank you gesture. Wishberry since its inception in April 2012 has raised Rs.2.5 crores for 550 campaigns from 5500 contributors across the world. With an average contribution of 2000 and an average project funding of 5-10 lakhs, monitisation is back in the hands of prosumers. Any campaign variety is only limited by imagination; a church restoration - targeted at 3L, funding for a startup - raised 2.5L, comics to demystify menstruation - targeted at 4L, movies or marathon runs.
Data: Wishberry.in in the last week of May 2013 & from email conversations with Giselle Mendes, Wishberry team in the ďŹ rst week of June 2013.
Sharing Economy: Experiences We ďŹ nd & share our niche experiences; lives, language perspectives & craft.
As society changes from a top-down factory model of organization to a peer-to-peer network model, how we produce, consume, and interact will be radically transformed. At its simplest, the sharing economy is the decentralization of economic power brought on by new technology, new and revived business models, and massive social change. NEAL GORENFLO. COFOUNDER / EDITOR OF SHAREABLE MAGAZINE Š Earthworm | http://www.flickr.com/photos/earthworm/5865190275/
© Tushkey | http://www.tushky.com/
Sharing Economy: Experiences
Offbeat experiences Tushky is an experience marketplace. People share their unique interests and passions with others. A wide range of life experiences are on offer on Tushky - learning criminal investigation & forensic sciences, learn to use all kinds of spoons & forks, make liquor chocolates, or learn to paint conceptual paintings. Tushky provides a space for experts to turn their knowledge, keen interests & hobbies, into which they have spent yars and turn it into a life experience offering for the like minded. Here an experience consumer in one niche becomes a provider in another.
Information sourced from Tushky.com
Š WOW - Women On Wanderlust | https://www.facebook.com/wowclub
Sharing Economy: Experiences
Travelling with strangers Typically, women travel with family, friends or trusted network. For the last eight years Women on Wanderlust, WOW, an exclusive women only internet based club, facilitates hundreds of women travelers to visit exotic locations across the world with complete strangers. These teams are lead by a WOW buddy - one of them with more experience in travelling and is willing to take up the group's travel responsibilities. They make time for each other and become long term buddies. Women travel without having to wait for families and friends to join them or simple enjoy a break from them. As they travel together, these women form deeper and newer friendships while they experience new places. 25 to 65 yr women travel with WOW in about close to 75 trips each year.
Data: https://www.facebook.com/wowclub/info
Sharing Economy: Urban Transport Today, we arrive just in time without owning a vehicle.
“People really are looking at this for economic, environmental and lifestyle reasons. By making this access as convenient as ownership, companies are seeing a major shift.” JOE KRAUS. A GENERAL PARTNER AT GOOGLE VENTURES © Joi Ito | http://www.flickr.com/photos/35034362831@N01/8323845099
Š Zoom Car Bangalore | http://www.facebook.com/zoomcar.in
Sharing Economy: Urban Transport
Self driven cars for hire People rent Zoom’s self driven cars. Typically individuals who use Zoom’s vehicles as an alternative transport prefer to usually walk, cycle, bike or bus to work. A hired SUV comes in handy as a second car for outstation trips with family & friends. Self driven experiences bring in a sense of ownership of the car even though it is hired. The company, on behalf of the collective, lays down expectations for usage, cleanliness, road etiquette, etc. Zoom in the last three months, have about 300 car sharing reservations. Zoom expects to add more cars shortly as their fleet is 80% booked.
Data: From Greg Morgan, CEO/ co-founder of Zoom Cars over email in the last week of May 2013.
Š Namma cycles | http://www.nammacycle.in/
Sharing Economy: Urban Transport
Urban bicycle clubs Cycle sharing is typically among urban professionals and bicycle enthusiasts. Within a community such as a campus or apartment complex which already have trust networks, cycles are gaining popularity. In 2012, Nammacycle, clocked 3000 trips covering 4500 km in IISC Bangalore campus. In six months, the number of trips have doubled. Members do not pay for the ďŹ rst half hour, hence Namma cycle's 40% trips are free. Technology makes such sharing scalabe and managable. Station managers clock the start and end of the trips on a smart phone. They employ mechanics to service and keep the cyles in good conditions. With many stations within the campus, people can pick their cycles from departments to hostels, gates to community centres - and this sharing has been met with success among students & visitors.
Data: From Murali HR, Namma Cycles over email in the ďŹ rst week of June 2013.
Further: Reading, Sources, Credits What's Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption by Rachel Botsman 'Today's Smart Choice: Don't Own. Share' - Idea 8 in 10 Ideas That Will Change the World by Bryan Walsh, March 17, 2011 The Next Phase of Social Business is the Collaborative Economy by Jeremiah Owyang, May 7, 2013 Why The Sharing Economy Is Growing by Anya Kamenetz, May 20, 2013 14 of the best collaborative consumption sites In Green Villages Socialstructing the Future by Willie Osterweil, April 15, 2013 Bio-hackers, crime journalism, and socialstructing the future by Marina Gorbis, April 9, 2013 The Nature of the Future: Dispatches from the Socialstructed World by Marina Gorbis Haves and have nots in the sharing economy by Francisco Dao, May 7, 2013 The Twlight of the Sharing Economy—or the Dawn? A tale of two Web 3.0 ideas: car-sharing and daily deals by Derek Thompson, May 7, 2013
How To Design For The Sharing Economy By Lada Gorlenko, May 6, 2013 All eyes on the sharing economy In The Economist, March 9, 2013 Peer-to-peer rental. The rise of the sharing economy. On the internet, everything is for hire In The Economist, March 9, 2013 How Sharing and Renting is Creating a New Economy in the West By Tomio Geron, February 16, 2013 The Rise of the Sharing Economy In Triple Pundit
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