Five good reads: collaborative economy value chain; Google Mine; finding meaning in stories and numbers; a platform for whistleblowers; and freedom from fear

1. Keynote: The Collaborative Economy with Jeremiah Owyang
http://www.slideshare.net/jeremiah_owyang/collaborative-economy-keynote-jeremiah-owyang

The collaborative economy: an economic model where ownership and access are shared between people, startups, and corporations. What this means: the ownership of core business functions are shared with customers.

How does the value chain of the collaborative economy look like? And more importantly, where would your business fit? Which business functions in your company could collaborate with the crowd?

1. Company as a service – E.g. Peugeot sells ‘mobility solutions’, not just cars. The Dollar Shave Club doesn’t just sell razors — they sell razors as a service.
2. Motivate a marketplace – E.g. Patagonia teams up with e-Bay to reduce their environmental footprint. They motivate the second-hand market + enable altruism in process.
3. Provide a platform – E.g. co-funding new products like Kickstarter; co-designing products like Nike; co-developing like Quirkly; co-customising like Etsy; co-production with 3D-printers. Think also of co-storage of products; co-delivering; co-marketing.

[Side note:  The sharing of core business functions with customers brings to mind what Stowe Boyd wrote about  the retreat of business and rise of intermediation. “…the enterprise is retreating form many areas it once considered central, and its is handing over a great deal to employees and to placeforms. This will make businesses leaner, faster, smarter, and looser.”.]

[slideshare id=23245004&doc=collaborativeeconomylong2-130620091728-phpapp01]

2. Google Is Reportedly Working On A Service To Help You Share Your Gadgets, Clothes And Other Stuff With Friends
http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/21/google-is-reportedly-working-on-a-service-to-help-you-share-your-gadgets-clothes-and-other-stuff-with-friends/

An example of providing a platform, the 3rd use case in the collaborative economy value chain:  “Google is apparently working on an app called Google Mine that is meant to help you share real-world items, such as CDs, cars, bikes, gadgets or clothes, with your friends. The service, which is apparently closely integrated with Google+, is said to be in private beta testing within Google right now.”

3. Stories and Numbers: How we’re understanding what really matters to you
http://www.openideo.com/fieldnotes/openideo-team-notes/numbers-and-stories-how-we-2019-re-understanding-what-really-matters-to-the-openideo-community/?at=1371749519

Insights = “finding meaning in stories and numbers.”  A god example why in analysing research, we must always look at the stories and numbers in relation to the people who gave the answers.

4. Researchers are developing a system to let whistleblowers securely leak data via Web browsers
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/06/23/researchers-are-developing-a-system-to-securely-leak-information-by-surfing-the-web/

A more secure and easier to use platform for whistleblowers – interesting exploration of new routes that provide greater transparency to the public.

5. Aung San Suu Kyi on Freedom from Fear
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/06/19/aung-san-suu-kyi-freedom-from-fear/

The Lady speaks. I listen.

“Yet even under the most crushing state machinery courage rises up again and again, for fear is not the natural state of civilized man.”

“The true measure of the justice of a system is the amount of protection it guarantees to the weakest.”