Collaborative consumption is a method of trading and bartering that we should all adopt soon. The world is overrun with large corporations who rely on custom and new products for their growth. Collaborative consumerism is the term used to describe companies that rely on people and social networks to function. These companies are usually non profit and focus more on the consumers than the business itself so all money goes back into making the business work better. These kind of organisations are on course to work well because they function well in today's economic climate because people still want to buy new things without really having to spend allot of money or any money at all. We cannot all have cars on the roads, we can't all have massive amounts of land in the cities and we can't keep cutting down trees or using fossil fuel reserves to produce the materials the western world desires. We can however make do with the things we own by sharing them or trading them for other things. Rachel Botsman, who wrote the book: The Rise Of Collaborative Consumerism, talked about her friend having a couch she wanted to get rid of in her flat. She couldn't budge it and one day she bumped into the neighbour from the flat downstairs who had purchased a new couch that was more expensive and of lower quality than the one the Girl up the stairs was trying to sell. If these people had known each other they may have been more aware of the situation. This happens all over the world and it needs to change. More small businesses should be shaped and people should start spending their money again on things they can trust We all have facebook these days and other forms of social interaction; we all connect but are we actually all connected?
I propose to contribute to the rise of collaborative consumption. It is important to me because I am young and I do not want to be hindered by the recession for the rest of my life. Young people are amongst the largest group of consumers in todays society. Young people are also the best connected people. They are the people who use social networks the most. 17,000,000 people between the ages of 18-25 use facebook, a group almost twice the size of its runner up. I think this audience would benefit from collaboration because they are so well connected. I would use my skills that I have learned in semester two as an entography primer. My idea is very broad and requires allot of refining. The idea for this proposal came from my original investigation six months ago where I looked at a book written by Rachel Botsman a woman who speaks about her ideas for the progression of collaborative consumption. If I was investigating this too I would consider speaking to people about collaborative consumption in there community and ask them how it would affect them in their day to day lives. I have already begun visiting places where I think collaborative consumption could work. I live in a rural environment that relies on sense of community to keep businesses going. I have spoken to farmers who collaborate when they move there livestock from farm to farm during seasons; a way of providing an honest service to another farmer who may struggle for land space to graze his livestock. Collaboration works here. Could it make a diffrence in other places? Is it practical? At the other end of the spectrum I recently visited Barcelona where I was very impressed by how well the city functioned compared to other cities. I could see that population where quite well educated on the importance of working together for better. Cars hardly exist here; people travel on rented mopeds or by cycle schemes. The city is a much cleaner and more productive place to live. Visiting and taking note of these places is a skill I learned in semester two when we were asked to visit places to record social situations.
Initially I would speak to an audience about the main topics of the introduction. The audience will be exactly the kind of people who use the internet and social networking sites but feel that they could do more to connect as a community. These people must be minded the same as me; there is no point in introducing this idea to people who aren't going to put anything back into the process. Obviously this method would require allot of understanding by the audience.
I would like to make a difference to our University. Universities are organisations that rely on communities for their growth and progression. Universitys are more than just educational institutes but a main source of contribution and innovation in all of today's industries and professions. I would host and tell the audience they have been targeted because they are key innovators in this field and I feel that talk then ask the audience to brainstorm their ideas I would have given them examples of the types of collaborative services available around them and how they could help them. At the end of the talk the findings would be recorded from the groups to see what their ideas were on the subject. I would then take the subject that the audience would find most useful for example a ride to work scheme where you could jump on a bike, cycle it to uni, then leave it at a designated place on campus, then progress it into making a questionnaire to ask members of the public more questions on the refined subject. I would have to ask a cross-section of students of differing ages respectively to address an outcome. Visiting the kinds of places the students had discussed would be important too. Location is of great importance for this proposal. In the end I would have designed a service that worked for students I had targeted. I would have to make sure everybody's views were heard because this is about a proposal that requires collaboration thus I don't think the method of interviewing would be suitable for this proposal because interviews happen in small parties and don't allow for collaboration.
Overall, this idea is quite important for it is design with a real function. I'd like to step out from graphic design and into design things that make a difference. Design has to work and this is a challenging idea to construct successfully but would make a huge difference to a small community if it was executed correctly.
