by It’s kind of fun to reflect on the meme hype cycle — like Gartner’s Hype Hycle but for ideas rather than technologies. Concepts are introduced, linger on the fringes, often for decades morphing and re-morphing, then catch fire and become popular, then become pooh-poohed, and if they survive that, live a prosperous life. Even seemingly obvious ideas like E-commerce — does anyone remember the very serious debates decades ago about whether commercial activity should be allowed on the Internet? Then, e-commerce takes off as a cool concept, and lots of good and silly ideas proliferate, and then e-commerce gets pooh-poohed when the bubble bursts, but it survives and is now more than 10% of all commerce. I’m doing a second edition of Thinking about the Future and just came across this relevant guideline: Modularize Outcomes: Keep the Good and Deal with the Bad… or in more folksy terms, don’t throw out the baby with the bath water!
Back to sharing. I think my colleagues and I first started talking about this idea with clients around the mid 2000’s. It was a fringe idea then with some support or examples. We weren’t sure what to make of it at the time. It seemed like an interesting idea that might have some legs. So, we kept our eyes on it to see how it evolved. Gradually, the support got stronger and eventually it’s in every report and talk, and then everyone is on the bandwagon.
One thing I try to avoid is getting locked into a sense of what a concept is or should be “too early.” That approach would be defining sharing in 2004 and then fighting bitter battles from then on defending this initial conceptualization. And when the masses arrive to the concept, this approach digs in against any new interpretation. Rather, hold it loosely and softly and allow it to evolve. I learned this lesson in watching sports. If I can avoid picking a team to win (except when Boston is playing, of course), then I can relax and really see the game — as opposed to getting all worked up in rooting for one side or another (and ironically not really caring anyway). If we don’t have to defend a conceptualization, then we can watch the contest as it unfolds without a rooting interest.
That led me to the title of the post: what I take as the interesting part is the sharing concept is really about sharing resources, not the money. How do emerging value shifts that favor “sharing” and new technological means to do so come together to enable greater and more efficient sharing of resources? It’s not about sharing the value-add or profit. But just because it’s not the latter, let’s not forget the former. To follow our guideline, let’s modularize it: keep the useful part on sharing resources and toss out the hype on sharing the money. Andy Hines
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