Rachel Botsman: Sharing instead of owning
When Rachel Botsman, 34, wants to explain the principle that is supposed to change the world, she likes to use the drill. It's a useful device, she says. Stupid only, that it is used in its life calculated only about 13 minutes. Because what you need permanently, is not the drill - but the hole in the wall. Does everyone have to own their own machine? Could not you borrow them if needed? For money or benefits, which in turn can use the drill owner? That roughly sums up the phenomenon that Rachel Botsman missed in her book "What's mine is yours" a catchy term (which needs every good revolution): "Collaborative Consumption" - community consumption. This put the Briton on the list of "Time Magazine" with the "10 ideas that will change the world." It is the face of a movement that, in the face of dwindling resources, demands the "transformation from the ego to the we-society". So back to a sharing and sharing system that mankind has practiced for millennia before convincing itself that just making things blissful.
Community ownership no longer sounds like socialism and empty WG refrigerators. Botsman is a long way from tough consumer criticism with her "Young Sandra Bullock" look (stylish but chubby). The new culture of sharing is more hip than hippie, says the Harvard graduate, also because it has only become possible through the technology of generation with their smartphones and social networks. On the Internet, the world is shrinking back to the village where global neighbors share cars, vegetable patches or small loans.
Because Botsman used to work in brand management for a long time, she knows how important the right presentation is. So she advises Collaborative Consumption startups and otherwise tries to convince as many people as possible of the idea. Wherever she appears, at the Ted conference, at Microsoft, Google or before the British Prime Minister, she talks so witty and captivating that one immediately wants to push a car into the hands of a stranger. Trust in others is essential: they will not deliberately set the car against a pillar and return the drill. That's why Botsman also believes that our digital reputation will soon become more important than our credit balance. She herself lives entirely in the spirit of communal consumption - only her clothes would never be exchanged on a clothes exchange. "Absurd, I know," she says, "but everyone obviously has boundaries."
To person
The author and management consultant Rachel Botsman, 34, has brought the idea of "Collaborative Consumption" (community consumption) into the world for the first time as a catchy buzzword with her book "What's mine is yours". It propagates: sharing and exchanging instead of accumulating and possessing. Born in London, she lives in Sydney with husband and son.
