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WEconomy: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption

By CCA LiveE

The following post is part of the course work for “Live Exchange” the foundational course on communication for The MBA Design Strategy Program at California College of the Arts. The rest of the posts are presented here.


By: Maricarmen Sierra

Have you ever shared a car ride, lent someone a book, made a mix tape, or traded clothing?  Then you’re part of the WEconomy, a new economic model where communities of consumers share, swap or rent goods as opposed to owning them.

Invisible woman

When I moved from Mexico City to San Francisco to pursue my MBA in Design Strategy I had to start a new life from scratch. I started searching for the basics: a roof over my head, a car to move around and a job to secure some income. As a student on an F-1 visa, I had neither a social security number, nor credit history, nor work permit. In the eyes of the formal economy, I was invisible. Apartment brokers slammed their doors, phone companies ignored my calls, and job applications left me undefined.

The traditional economy was dead to me.

But then my millennial instincts kicked in. That Sunday, I put out the S.O.S. to Facebook and Craigslist. By Tuesday, a German urban planner and a Pakistani pastry chef sublet me a cozy apartment in the Upper Haight. The next day, a Norwegian architecture student moving back to Europe offloaded a moving van worth of furniture for $100. On Saturday, I got a mint vintage bicycle in exchange for a weekend of my restorative yoga classes. Where the Economy died, the WEconomy thrived.

And it’s truly thriving. The lives of everyday consumers from DC to Delhi are undergoing the most radical transformation since industrialization. New technologies are harnessing the power of the crowd, the power of “we,” to disrupt outdated top-down business models. Now instead of overpaying for a mediocre hotel room, you can swap apartments with strangers anywhere in the world on (Airbnb).

Until now, if you wanted to buy a sofa and save on the shipping by transporting it yourself, you had to own a car. Today you can rent any type of car, on any given day, for the time you want and access it on a nearby parking lot (Zipcar).  Consumers are realizing that they can organize themselves to achieve the same ends with new means that better fit their needs.

This trend is unleashing billions in untapped value from the bottom up. Kickstarter, a crowd-funding site that allows the public to invest in creative projects, now allows musicians, artists, journalists and filmmakers to actualize projects based on the power of their ideas.

Access trumps Ownership

To foster this WEconomy as business leaders, we need to start redefining our understanding of the market from being providers of goods to become purveyors of services and experiences. It also requires a new language: ‘access’ beats ‘ownership,’ ‘social value’ becomes the new currency, ‘exchanges’ replace ‘purchases,’ and people are no longer consumers but instead users, borrowers, lenders and contributors.

So in this global market, where money has stopped being the only valuable currency, what are the innovation opportunities for future businesses? How can web, mobile and real-time technologies continue to foster sharing? What ideas can attend the need for practicality over materialism and experiences over possesions?

This isn’t a conceptual calling. Every aspect of my life has been touched by the WEconomy. It’s great to be visible again.

[Image credit: ALoveLetterForYou.com]

Originally from Mexico City, Maricarmen Sierra now lives in San Francisco pursuing an MBA in Design Strategy at CCA. She's a social entrepreneur, yoga teacher and mindful citizen of the world.  msierralaris@cca.edu

These articles were created as part of the course work for “Live Exchange” the foundational course on communication for <a href="https://www.triplepundit.com/category/cca-livee/">The MBA Design Strategy Program at California College of the Arts</a>. <a href="https://www.triplepundit.com/category/cca-livee/">Read more about the project here</a>.

Read more stories by CCA LiveE