{"id":14301,"date":"2013-05-20T10:27:25","date_gmt":"2013-05-20T17:27:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.web-strategist.com\/blog\/?p=14301"},"modified":"2013-08-29T17:42:50","modified_gmt":"2013-08-30T00:42:50","slug":"dear-brands-im-unnerved-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/20\/dear-brands-im-unnerved-too\/","title":{"rendered":"Dear Brands, I’m Unnerved Too"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Writing<\/a><\/center><\/center><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dear Brands,<\/p>\n

I just got disrupted.\u00a0 I willingly let a stranger drive off in my car, and I found it\u00a0unnerving<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Last week\u00a0I wrote a heartfelt letter to you that our relationship has changed<\/a>.\u00a0 I shared that I don’t want to breakup, but I want to have an open relationship. \u00a0I don’t want to buy products. \u00a0I want to rent, borrow, share, or swap products. \u00a0The world has changed, and with it, our relationship.<\/p>\n

Brands are being disrupted by sharing.<\/p>\n

I know that it’s discomforting to hear that customers are now buying your products once, and then sharing many times with each other, because it means that your revenues will diminish. \u00a0This movement, called the Collaborative Economy (see all my posts on this topic<\/a>) is on the rise, so I decided to go through the experiment, so I could feel what you’re going through.<\/p>\n

I put my own family assets at risk just to feel disrupted.<\/p>\n

I put our cherished family car up for rental on RelayRide, a site that allows people to share their cars with neighbors. \u00a0As the first person to own this car, I have an attachment to it, and have taken rather good care of it for many years. \u00a0Saturday morning, a young Duke University student picked it up from me for the weekend. \u00a0I didn’t know who he was, nor do we have any shared contacts. \u00a0While RelayRide promised me that they screen renters and provide insurance, I couldn’t but help see a piece of me leaving as he drove off.<\/p>\n

It felt unnerving on many levels.<\/p>\n

First, I allowed a complete stranger to take my asset. \u00a0I asked myself, “What’s he doing with it? \u00a0Will it come back in the same condition? \u00a0What about liabilities, such as accidents, traffic or unaccounted bridge tolls? \u00a0Second, I was unnerved, because my training to be a good capitalist\u00a0in business school did not prepare me for this new business model. \u00a0Third, I worried about what my current insurance company would think. \u00a0Finally, it was unnerving because most of our clients at the company that I own serves brands, i.e., I make money from those brands.<\/p>\n

The good news is that everything was just fine.<\/p>\n

This morning I woke up and there was the car, parked at the curb as agreed. \u00a0My keys were left in my mail slot and now I’m $50 richer. \u00a0So what did I learn? \u00a0This new collaborative economy requires trust. \u00a0Trust to let go and trust that the startups that you partner with, and their customers, are trustworthy. \u00a0This is just the start. \u00a0To take this experience a step further, I’m renting the car out for weeks, and then for two months starting in July.<\/p>\n

Business models, as we know them, are about to change.<\/p>\n

Now back to you brands. \u00a0While I chose to be self-disrupted, for many brands you won’t get a choice. \u00a0This disruption is already among us.\u00a0 There are over 200 startups that empower consumers to buy once and share many times without buying again<\/a>. \u00a0Some of you will adopt this trend and change your business model.\u00a0 Some of you will not and, thereby, risk disruption. In either scenario, you will be unnerved, just as I was.<\/p>\n

The collaborative economy is unnerving, but we will explore it together.<\/p>\n

 
\n\"Untitled\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Jeremiah Owyang
\nSpeaker, Writer, Business Owner, Consumer<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Brands, I just got disrupted.  I willingly let a stranger drive off in my car, and I found it unnerving. Last week I wrote a heartfelt letter to you that our relationship has changed.  I shared that I don’t want to breakup, but I want to … Continue readingDear Brands, I’m Unnerved Too<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[198],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-collaborative-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14301\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}