The case for collaborative consumption
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0:00 - 0:02So today I'm going to talk to you
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0:02 - 0:05about the rise of collaborative consumption.
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0:05 - 0:07I'm going to explain what it is
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0:07 - 0:10and try and convince you -- in just 15 minutes --
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0:10 - 0:12that this isn't a flimsy idea,
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0:12 - 0:14or a short-term trend,
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0:14 - 0:17but a powerful cultural and economic force
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0:17 - 0:19reinventing not just what we consume,
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0:19 - 0:21but how we consume.
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0:21 - 0:24Now I'm going to start with a deceptively simple example.
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0:24 - 0:27Hands up -- how many of you
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0:27 - 0:30have books, CDs, DVDs, or videos
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0:30 - 0:32lying around your house
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0:32 - 0:34that you probably won't use again,
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0:34 - 0:36but you can't quite bring yourself to throw away?
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0:37 - 0:39Can't see all the hands,
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0:39 - 0:41but it looks like all of you, right?
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0:41 - 0:43On our shelves at home,
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0:43 - 0:46we have a box set of the DVD series "24,"
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0:46 - 0:48season six to be precise.
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0:48 - 0:51I think it was bought for us around three years ago for a Christmas present.
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0:51 - 0:53Now my husband, Chris, and I
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0:53 - 0:55love this show.
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0:55 - 0:58But let's face it, when you've watched it once maybe, or twice,
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0:58 - 1:00you don't really want to watch it again,
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1:00 - 1:03because you know how Jack Bauer is going to defeat the terrorists.
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1:03 - 1:05So there it sits on our shelves
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1:05 - 1:07obsolete to us,
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1:07 - 1:10but with immediate latent value to someone else.
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1:10 - 1:13Now before we go on, I have a confession to make.
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1:13 - 1:15I lived in New York for 10 years,
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1:15 - 1:18and I am a big fan of "Sex and the City."
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1:18 - 1:20Now I'd love to watch the first movie again
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1:20 - 1:23as sort of a warm-up to the sequel coming out next week.
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1:23 - 1:25So how easily could I swap
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1:25 - 1:27our unwanted copy of "24"
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1:27 - 1:30for a wanted copy of "Sex and the City?"
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1:30 - 1:32Now you may have noticed
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1:32 - 1:34there's a new sector emerging called swap-trading.
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1:34 - 1:37Now the easiest analogy for swap-trading
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1:37 - 1:39is like an online dating service
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1:39 - 1:41for all your unwanted media.
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1:41 - 1:43What it does is use the Internet
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1:43 - 1:45to create an infinite marketplace
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1:45 - 1:47to match person A's "haves"
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1:47 - 1:49with person C's "wants,"
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1:49 - 1:51whatever they may be.
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1:51 - 1:54The other week, I went on one of these sites,
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1:54 - 1:57appropriately called Swaptree,
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1:57 - 2:00and there were over 59,300 items
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2:00 - 2:02that I could instantly swap
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2:02 - 2:05for my copy of "24."
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2:05 - 2:07Lo and behold,
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2:07 - 2:09there in Reseda, CA was Rondoron
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2:09 - 2:11who wanted swap his or her
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2:11 - 2:13"like new" copy of "Sex and the City"
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2:13 - 2:16for my copy of "24."
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2:16 - 2:18So in other words, what's happening here
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2:18 - 2:20is that Swaptree
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2:20 - 2:22solves my carrying company's sugar rush problem,
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2:22 - 2:25a problem the economists call "the coincidence of wants,"
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2:25 - 2:28in approximately 60 seconds.
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2:28 - 2:31What's even more amazing is it will print out a postage label on the spot,
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2:31 - 2:33because it knows the way of the item.
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2:33 - 2:35Now there are layers of technical wonder
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2:35 - 2:38behind sites such as Swaptree,
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2:38 - 2:40but that's not my interest,
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2:40 - 2:43and nor is swap trading, per se.
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2:43 - 2:45My passion, and what I've spent the last few years
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2:45 - 2:47dedicated to researching,
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2:47 - 2:50is the collaborative behaviors and trust-mechanics
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2:50 - 2:53inherent in these systems.
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2:53 - 2:55When you think about it,
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2:55 - 2:58it would have seemed like a crazy idea, even a few years ago,
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2:58 - 3:01that I would swap my stuff with a total stranger
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3:01 - 3:03whose real name I didn't know
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3:03 - 3:06and without any money changing hands.
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3:06 - 3:08Yet 99 percent of trades on Swaptree
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3:08 - 3:10happen successfully,
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3:10 - 3:12and the one percent that receive a negative rating,
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3:12 - 3:14it's for relatively minor reasons,
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3:14 - 3:17like the item didn't arrive on time.
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3:17 - 3:20So what's happening here?
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3:20 - 3:22An extremely powerful dynamic
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3:22 - 3:25that has huge commercial and cultural implications
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3:25 - 3:27is at play.
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3:27 - 3:29Namely, that technology
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3:29 - 3:31is enabling
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3:31 - 3:33trust between strangers.
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3:33 - 3:35We now live in a global village
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3:35 - 3:37where we can mimic the ties
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3:37 - 3:40that used to happen face to face,
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3:40 - 3:42but on a scale and in ways
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3:42 - 3:44that have never been possible before.
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3:44 - 3:46So what's actually happening
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3:46 - 3:48is that social networks and real-time technologies
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3:48 - 3:50are taking us back.
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3:50 - 3:52We're bartering, trading,
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3:52 - 3:54swapping, sharing,
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3:54 - 3:56but they're being reinvented
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3:56 - 3:58into dynamic and appealing forms.
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3:58 - 4:00What I find fascinating
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4:00 - 4:03is that we've actually wired our world to share,
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4:03 - 4:05whether that's our neighborhood, our school,
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4:05 - 4:08our office, or our Facebook network,
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4:08 - 4:10and that's creating an economy
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4:10 - 4:12of "what's mine is yours."
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4:12 - 4:14From the mighty eBay,
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4:14 - 4:16the grandfather of exchange marketplaces,
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4:16 - 4:19to car-sharing companies such as GoGet,
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4:19 - 4:22where you pay a monthly fee to rent cars by the hour,
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4:22 - 4:25to social lending platforms such as Zopa,
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4:25 - 4:27that will take anyone in this audience
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4:27 - 4:29with 100 dollars to lend,
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4:29 - 4:32and match them with a borrower anywhere in the world,
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4:32 - 4:35we're sharing and collaborating again
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4:35 - 4:37in ways that I believe
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4:37 - 4:40are more hip than hippie.
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4:40 - 4:43I call this "groundswell collaborative consumption."
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4:43 - 4:45Now before I dig into the different systems
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4:45 - 4:47of collaborative consumption,
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4:47 - 4:49I'd like to try and answer the question
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4:49 - 4:52that every author rightfully gets asked,
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4:52 - 4:55which is, where did this idea come from?
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4:55 - 4:57Now I'd like to say I woke up one morning
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4:57 - 5:00and said, "I'm going to write about collaborative consumption,"
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5:00 - 5:02but actually it was a complicated web
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5:02 - 5:05of seemingly disconnected ideas.
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5:05 - 5:07Over the next minute,
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5:07 - 5:09you're going to see a bit like a conceptual fireworks display
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5:09 - 5:12of all the dots that went on in my head.
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5:13 - 5:15The first thing I began to notice:
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5:15 - 5:17how many big concepts were emerging --
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5:17 - 5:20from the wisdom of crowds to smart mobs --
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5:20 - 5:22around how ridiculously easy it is
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5:22 - 5:24to form groups for a purpose.
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5:24 - 5:26And linked to this crowd mania
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5:26 - 5:28were examples all around the world --
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5:28 - 5:30from the election of a president
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5:30 - 5:32to the infamous Wikipedia, and everything in between --
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5:32 - 5:35on what the power of numbers could achieve.
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5:35 - 5:38Now, you know when you learn a new word,
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5:38 - 5:41and then you start to see that word everywhere?
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5:41 - 5:43That's what happened to me
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5:43 - 5:45when I noticed that we are moving
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5:45 - 5:47from passive consumers
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5:47 - 5:49to creators,
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5:49 - 5:52to highly enabled collaborators.
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5:52 - 5:54What's happening
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5:54 - 5:56is the Internet is removing the middleman,
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5:56 - 5:58so that anyone from a T-shirt designer
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5:58 - 6:00to a knitter
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6:00 - 6:02can make a living selling peer-to-peer.
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6:02 - 6:04And the ubiquitous force
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6:04 - 6:06of this peer-to-peer revolution
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6:06 - 6:09means that sharing is happening at phenomenal rates.
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6:09 - 6:11I mean, it's amazing to think
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6:11 - 6:14that, in every single minute of this speech,
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6:14 - 6:1625 hours
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6:16 - 6:19of YouTube video will be loaded.
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6:19 - 6:22Now what I find fascinating about these examples
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6:22 - 6:24is how they're actually tapping into
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6:24 - 6:26our primate instincts.
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6:26 - 6:28I mean, we're monkeys,
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6:28 - 6:30and we're born and bred to share and cooperate.
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6:30 - 6:33And we were doing so for thousands of years,
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6:33 - 6:35whether it's when we hunted in packs,
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6:35 - 6:38or farmed in cooperatives,
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6:38 - 6:41before this big system called hyper-consumption came along
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6:41 - 6:43and we built these fences
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6:43 - 6:45and created out own little fiefdoms.
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6:45 - 6:47But things are changing,
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6:47 - 6:49and one of the reasons why
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6:49 - 6:52is the digital natives, or Gen-Y.
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6:52 - 6:54They're growing up sharing --
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6:54 - 6:56files, video games, knowledge.
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6:56 - 6:58It's second nature to them.
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6:58 - 7:01So we, the millennials -- I am just a millennial --
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7:01 - 7:04are like foot soldiers,
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7:04 - 7:06moving us from a culture of "me" to a culture of "we."
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7:06 - 7:08The reason why it's happening so fast
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7:08 - 7:10is because of mobile collaboration.
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7:10 - 7:13We now live in a connected age
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7:13 - 7:16where we can locate anyone, anytime, in real-time,
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7:16 - 7:19from a small device in our hands.
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7:19 - 7:21All of this was going through my head
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7:21 - 7:23towards the end of 2008,
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7:23 - 7:26when, of course, the great financial crash happened.
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7:26 - 7:29Thomas Friedman is one of my favorite New York Times columnists,
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7:29 - 7:31and he poignantly commented
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7:31 - 7:34that 2008 is when we hit a wall,
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7:34 - 7:37when Mother Nature and the market
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7:37 - 7:39both said, "No more."
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7:39 - 7:41Now we rationally know
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7:41 - 7:44that an economy built on hyper-consumption
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7:44 - 7:47is a Ponzi scheme. It's a house of cards.
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7:47 - 7:50Yet, it's hard for us to individually know what to do.
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7:50 - 7:53So all of this is a lot of twittering, right?
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7:53 - 7:55Well it was a lot of noise and complexity in my head,
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7:55 - 7:57until actually I realized it was happening
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7:57 - 7:59because of four key drivers.
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7:59 - 8:02One, a renewed belief in the importance of community,
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8:02 - 8:05and a very redefinition of what friend and neighbor really means.
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8:05 - 8:08A torrent of peer-to-peer social networks
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8:08 - 8:10and real-time technologies,
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8:10 - 8:13fundamentally changing the way we behave.
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8:13 - 8:16Three, pressing unresolved environmental concerns.
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8:16 - 8:18And four, a global recession
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8:18 - 8:20that has fundamentally shocked
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8:20 - 8:22consumer behaviors.
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8:22 - 8:24These four drivers
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8:24 - 8:26are fusing together
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8:26 - 8:28and creating the big shift --
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8:28 - 8:30away from the 20th century,
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8:30 - 8:32defined by hyper-consumption,
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8:32 - 8:34towards the 21st century,
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8:34 - 8:37defined by collaborative consumption.
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8:37 - 8:40I generally believe we're at an inflection point
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8:40 - 8:42where the sharing behaviors --
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8:42 - 8:44through sites such as Flickr and Twitter
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8:44 - 8:46that are becoming second nature online --
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8:46 - 8:49are being applied to offline areas of our everyday lives.
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8:49 - 8:52From morning commutes to the way fashion is designed
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8:52 - 8:54to the way we grow food,
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8:54 - 8:57we are consuming and collaborating once again.
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8:59 - 9:02So my co-author, Roo Rogers, and I
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9:02 - 9:04have actually gathered thousands of examples
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9:04 - 9:06from all around the world of collaborative consumption.
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9:06 - 9:08And although they vary enormously
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9:08 - 9:10in scale, maturity and purpose,
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9:10 - 9:12when we dived into them,
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9:12 - 9:15we realized that they could actually be organized into three clear systems.
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9:15 - 9:18The first is redistribution markets.
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9:18 - 9:21Redistribution markets, just like Swaptree,
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9:21 - 9:23are when you take a used, or pre-owned, item
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9:23 - 9:25and move it from where it's not needed
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9:25 - 9:28to somewhere, or someone, where it is.
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9:28 - 9:30They're increasingly thought of as the fifth 'R' --
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9:30 - 9:32reduce, reuse, recycle, repair
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9:32 - 9:34and redistribute --
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9:34 - 9:36because they stretch the life cycle of a product
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9:36 - 9:38and thereby reduce waste.
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9:38 - 9:41The second is collaborative lifestyles.
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9:41 - 9:43This is the sharing of resources
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9:43 - 9:46of things like money, skills and time.
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9:46 - 9:48I bet, in a couple of years,
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9:48 - 9:50that phrases like "coworking"
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9:50 - 9:53and "couchsurfing" and "time banks"
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9:53 - 9:56are going to become a part of everyday vernacular.
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9:56 - 9:59One of my favorite examples of collaborative lifestyles
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9:59 - 10:01is called Landshare.
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10:01 - 10:03It's a scheme in the U.K.
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10:03 - 10:05that matches Mr. Jones,
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10:05 - 10:08with some spare space in his back garden,
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10:08 - 10:11with Mrs. Smith, a would-be grower.
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10:11 - 10:13Together they grow their own food.
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10:13 - 10:16It's one of those ideas that's so simple, yet brilliant,
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10:16 - 10:19you wonder why it's never been done before.
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10:19 - 10:21Now, the third system
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10:21 - 10:23is product-service systems.
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10:23 - 10:25This is where you pay for the benefit of the product --
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10:25 - 10:27what it does for you --
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10:27 - 10:29without needing to own the product outright.
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10:29 - 10:32This idea is particularly powerful
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10:32 - 10:34for things that have
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10:34 - 10:36high-idling capacity.
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10:36 - 10:38And that can be anything from baby goods
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10:38 - 10:40to fashions to --
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10:40 - 10:42how many of you have a power drill,
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10:42 - 10:44own a power drill? Right.
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10:44 - 10:47That power drill will be used around 12 to 13 minutes
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10:47 - 10:49in its entire lifetime.
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10:49 - 10:51(Laughter)
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10:51 - 10:53It's kind of ridiculous, right?
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10:53 - 10:55Because what you need is the hole, not the drill.
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10:55 - 10:57(Laughter)
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10:57 - 10:59(Applause)
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10:59 - 11:01So why don't you rent the drill,
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11:01 - 11:03or, even better, rent out your own drill to other people
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11:03 - 11:05and make some money from it?
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11:05 - 11:08These three systems are coming together,
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11:08 - 11:10allowing people to share resources
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11:10 - 11:12without sacrificing their lifestyles,
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11:12 - 11:14or their cherished personal freedoms.
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11:14 - 11:16I'm not asking people
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11:16 - 11:18to share nicely in the sandpit.
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11:20 - 11:22So I want to just give you an example
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11:22 - 11:24of how powerful collaborative consumption can be
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11:24 - 11:26to change behaviors.
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11:26 - 11:28The average car
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11:28 - 11:31costs 8,000 dollars a year to run.
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11:31 - 11:33Yet, that car sits idle
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11:33 - 11:35for 23 hours a day.
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11:35 - 11:37So when you consider these two facts,
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11:37 - 11:39it starts to make a little less sense
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11:39 - 11:42that we have to own one outright.
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11:42 - 11:44So this is where car-sharing companies
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11:44 - 11:46such as Zipcar and GoGet come in.
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11:46 - 11:48In 2009,
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11:48 - 11:50Zipcar took 250 participants
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11:50 - 11:53from across 13 cities --
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11:53 - 11:55and they're all self-confessed car addicts
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11:55 - 11:57and car-sharing rookies --
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11:57 - 12:00and got them to surrender their keys for a month.
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12:00 - 12:02Instead, these people had to walk,
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12:02 - 12:04bike, take the train,
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12:04 - 12:06or other forms of public transport.
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12:06 - 12:08They could only use their Zipcar membership
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12:08 - 12:10when absolutely necessary.
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12:10 - 12:13The results of this challenge after just one month
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12:13 - 12:15was staggering.
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12:15 - 12:17It's amazing that 413 lbs were lost
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12:17 - 12:20just from the extra exercise.
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12:20 - 12:22But my favorite statistic
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12:22 - 12:24is that 100
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12:24 - 12:27out of the 250 participants
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12:27 - 12:30did not want their keys back.
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12:30 - 12:32In other words, the car addicts
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12:32 - 12:34had lost their urge to own.
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12:34 - 12:37Now products-service systems have been around for years.
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12:37 - 12:39Just think of libraries and laundrettes.
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12:39 - 12:41But I think they're entering a new age,
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12:41 - 12:43because technology makes sharing
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12:43 - 12:45frictionless and fun.
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12:45 - 12:48There's a great quote that was written in the New York Times
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12:48 - 12:50that said, "Sharing is to ownership
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12:50 - 12:53what the iPod is to the 8-track,
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12:53 - 12:56what solar power is to the coal mine."
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12:56 - 12:59I believe also, our generation,
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12:59 - 13:02our relationship to satisfying what we want
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13:02 - 13:04is far less tangible
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13:04 - 13:06than any other previous generation.
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13:06 - 13:09I don't want the DVD; I want the movie it carries.
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13:09 - 13:11I don't want a clunky answering machine;
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13:11 - 13:13I want the message it saves.
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13:13 - 13:16I don't want a CD; I want the music it plays.
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13:16 - 13:19In other words, I don't want stuff;
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13:19 - 13:22I want the needs or experiences it fulfills.
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13:22 - 13:25This is fueling a massive shift
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13:25 - 13:27from where usage trumps possessions --
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13:27 - 13:30or as Kevin Kelly, the editor of Wired magazine, puts it,
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13:30 - 13:33"where access is better than ownership."
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13:33 - 13:35Now as our possessions
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13:35 - 13:37dematerialize into the cloud,
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13:37 - 13:39a blurry line is appearing
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13:39 - 13:41between what's mine, what's yours,
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13:41 - 13:43and what's ours.
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13:43 - 13:45I want to give you one example
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13:45 - 13:48that shows how fast this evolution is happening.
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13:48 - 13:51This represents an eight-year time span.
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13:51 - 13:54We've gone from traditional car-ownership
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13:54 - 13:57to car-sharing companies, such as Zipcar and GoGet,
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13:57 - 14:00to ride-sharing platforms that match rides
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14:00 - 14:03to the newest entry, which is peer-to-peer car rental,
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14:03 - 14:06where you can actually make money
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14:06 - 14:09out of renting that car that sits idle for 23 hours a day
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14:09 - 14:11to your neighbor.
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14:11 - 14:13Now all of these systems
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14:13 - 14:15require a degree of trust,
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14:15 - 14:17and the cornerstone to this working
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14:17 - 14:19is reputation.
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14:19 - 14:21Now in the old consumer system,
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14:21 - 14:23our reputation didn't matter so much,
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14:23 - 14:25because our credit history was far more important
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14:25 - 14:28that any kind of peer-to-peer review.
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14:28 - 14:31But now with the Web, we leave a trail.
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14:31 - 14:34With every spammer we flag,
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14:34 - 14:37with every idea we post, comment we share,
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14:37 - 14:39we're actually signaling how well we collaborate,
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14:39 - 14:42and whether we can or can't be trusted.
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14:42 - 14:44Let's go back to my first example,
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14:44 - 14:46Swaptree.
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14:46 - 14:48I can see that Rondoron
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14:48 - 14:51has completed 553 trades
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14:51 - 14:54with a 100 percent success rate.
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14:54 - 14:57In other words, I can trust him or her.
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14:58 - 15:00Now mark my words,
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15:00 - 15:02it's only a matter of time
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15:02 - 15:05before we're going to be able to perform a Google-like search
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15:05 - 15:07and see a cumulative picture
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15:07 - 15:09of our reputation capital.
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15:09 - 15:11And this reputation capital
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15:11 - 15:14will determine our access to collaborative consumption.
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15:14 - 15:16It's a new social currency, so to speak,
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15:16 - 15:19that could become as powerful as our credit rating.
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15:20 - 15:22Now as a closing thought,
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15:22 - 15:25I believe we're actually in a period
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15:25 - 15:27where we're waking up
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15:27 - 15:29from this humongous hangover
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15:29 - 15:31of emptiness and waste,
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15:31 - 15:33and we're taking a leap
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15:33 - 15:35to create a more sustainable system
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15:35 - 15:37built to serve our innate needs
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15:37 - 15:40for community and individual identity.
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15:40 - 15:42I believe it will be referred to
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15:42 - 15:44as a revolution, so to speak --
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15:44 - 15:47when society, faced with great challenges,
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15:47 - 15:49made a seismic shift
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15:49 - 15:51from individual getting and spending
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15:51 - 15:54towards a rediscovery of collective good.
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15:54 - 15:57I'm on a mission to make sharing cool.
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15:57 - 15:59I'm on a mission to make sharing hip.
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15:59 - 16:01Because I really believe
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16:01 - 16:03it can disrupt outdated modes of business,
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16:03 - 16:05help us leapfrog
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16:05 - 16:07over wasteful forms of hyper-consumption
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16:07 - 16:10and teach us when enough really is enough.
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16:10 - 16:12Thank you very much.
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16:12 - 16:14(Applause)
- Title:
- The case for collaborative consumption
- Speaker:
- Rachel Botsman
- Description:
-
At TEDxSydney, Rachel Botsman says we're "wired to share" -- and shows how websites like Zipcar and Swaptree are changing the rules of human behavior.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 16:14
Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for The case for collaborative consumption | ||
TED edited English subtitles for The case for collaborative consumption | ||
TED added a translation |