The city of Paris launched its Vélib' bicycle sharing program in 2007 with 10,000 bikes and 750 rental stations. Smart phone apps help users find the bikes when and where they need them, calculate lost calories and CO2 saved and compete for mileage with their friends on Facebook.
Vélib' has since grown to more than 17,000 bikes in 1,200 locations, but the transition hasn't always been easy. The public program has been plagued by vandalism, poor synchronization and mismatched demand. But the city hasn't secreted its challenges, instead giving rather candid testimony (for a government) of its trials and solutions—and far from giving up on the model, plans to launch Autolib' with electric cars later this year.
Vélib' is just one of a swelling number of projects and businesses based on one core concept: the ancient art of sharing. But what separates these ventures from, say, 20th century rental car agencies and video stores, is the use of social communication tools—which permit customers to customize and pre-define their experiences and share them with others.
From bicycles and automobiles to homes, offices and music studios, there is no foreseeable limit to the number of physical possessions you can share with other people—or the amount of profit you can earn from simply sharing your stuff.
Lisa Gansky, the cofounder of Ofoto and an early Internet trendsetter, says these companies exist within "The Mesh" (you can buy the book at Amazon.com), where businesses use social technology and data crunched from any and every available resource to provide people with goods and services at the exact moment they need them, without the burden and expense of owning them outright.
"Mesh businesses help people increase the utility of what they own," she says. "People own their cars, but use them only about 8 percent of the time. Most of the time, these vehicles are just sitting in garages, which is why online car-sharing programs are so successful."
Gansky books shared office space at The Hub near her home in San Francisco and in Amsterdam and Milan when she travels on business. The Hub allows Gansky to save the money she would spend to maintain a full-time office and gives her the opportunity to experience business in ways she couldn't alone—through the writers, entrepreneurs and business leaders she meets at shared offices across the globe.
"The Mesh network can connect us to the things that we want exactly when we want them," she says. "We can increasingly gain convenient access to those goods, greatly reducing the need to own them. Why buy, maintain and store a table saw or a lawn mower or a car when they are easily, less expensively available to use when we want them?"
Gansky is convinced that the future of business is sharing and that Generation Z will be much less likely to own "things," especially those items that keep them encumbered to one place. People will share and exchange homes, cars, clothes and food.
Even today, people are much less likely than in the recent past to purchase physical items such as CDs that they can just download on iTunes or listen to for free on Pandora.com. Consumers share videos via mail-order services such as Netflix—an early Mesh innovator, founded because Blockbuster just wasn't listening to its customers.
For years, consumers complained about Blockbuster late fees, and the company routinely failed to listen or respond. In the late 1990s, Reed Hastings, incensed because he had forgotten to return Apollo 13 on time, founded a mail-order service that allowed customers convenient access to the films and shows they wanted to see when they wanted to see them and without the late fees. Learning from Blockbuster's mistakes, Netflix has not only maintained an open dialogue with its customers via social media, it has also continued to embrace new technologies—most recently adding on-demand streaming video.
In The Mesh just about anything can be shared. Bummed out by the faltering economy, landscaper Scott Martin found inspiration on the curbs of Los Angeles and founded a Christmas tree sharing business. People go online and select their trees. Martin grows the firs, delivers them live in pots before the holiday and retrieves them afterwards. The trucks run on bio-diesel. Drivers pick up items for Goodwill and paper for recycling. The trees are cared for by people with disabilities.
From an experiential standpoint, Crushpad helps people share winemaking tools and facilities from its locations in Bordeaux and Napa. Online tools enable customers to spend as much or as little time as they want on their vintages. Crushpad helps people define the style of wine they want and monitors the vineyard. Customers can help harvest, sort, de-stem, crush, ferment and press if they want, but no pressure. As the wine ages, they can taste it and make blending decisions; Crushpad will even send samples. Then, the company's creative team helps customers design labels, select bottle types and choose packaging specs.
Not that Mesh businesses don't face challenges, they do—especially when it comes to trust. Recall the bicycle vandalism in Paris. It's difficult for us to give up control of our personal items. With traditional businesses, financial credit allows people to buy and rent while conveying a sense of responsibility to sellers and lenders. In the U.K., Thrifty loans cars to travelers, knowing that if an accident occurs or damage is incurred, it won't take a major financial hit. Mesh businesses have little such assurances.
In the online marketplace, credit isn't nearly as important as reputation, and once you've been labeled a bad sharer it will take years to regain your good status. Car-sharing programs, for example, help people borrow cars from their neighbors, but owners can charge however much they want. A stellar rep can save you a lot of money, as owners evaluate their risks in loaning you a vehicle.
Meanwhile, Mesh businesses form alliances with each other to provide consumers with more savings. Shop at an all-natural food store; get discounts on a half-day bicycle rental and food at the community garden. And for Mesh companies, all these "touches" lead to greater profits and more customers, which lead to more sales opportunities and stronger brand recognition.
Ultimately, what makes The Mesh so impressive is its fundamental sustainability. The Mesh challenges today's build-buy-trash economic mentality, which demands so much of the Earth's resources to feed a never-satiated consumer market, with a build-share-share paradigm. Your neighbor wants that red-stripe jumpsuit in the back of your boudoir…you just need a platform to share it. One+
In The Mesh
These Mesh businesses help people share what they have or want with their peers via social communication tools. Browse or add your business to The Mesh.
Bidandborrow: brings people with "stuff" (prams, sofas or skis) and services (decorating, painting or dog-walking) to people who want to rent them.
Bigwardrobe: allows its 30,000 worldwide members to swap clothes they don't wear for clothes they will, with an ultimate aim to offer the world's biggest online wardrobe.
Flexpetz: provides local access to a variety of dogs, all of whom are rescued or re-homed. Members can spend from just a few hours to several days with their choice canines.
Kisskissbankbank: connects creators, artists, humanists, inventors, explorers, filmmakers, journalists, designers, athletes and environmentalists to multiple financial benefactors, who choose and finance ideas and projects of their choice.
Liverightsize: promotes your home to people who are interested in short-term, long-term or permanent home exchanges.
Meineernte: offers vegetable gardens for rent.
Whipcar: provides a platform for people to rent out their autos for a fee they set. Drivers search a directory of cars and place booking requests for specific times.
Yours2share: matches people who want to share valuable assets. Find someone who wants to buy the same boat/house/horse/painting you do and buy it together. If you don't want (or can't afford) to buy something, find someone who wants to lease it to you.
Mesh Means Business
1. Mesh businesses offer products, services or raw materials that can be shared within a community, market or value chain.
2. Mesh businesses use advanced Web and mobile data networks to track goods and aggregate usage, customer and product information.
3. Mesh businesses focus on shareable physical goods, which make local delivery of services and products—and their recovery—valuable and relevant.
4. Mesh businesses transmit offers, news and recommendations through word of mouth, augmented by social networks.
