Trust and the Sharing Economy

Charles Green recently published a paper describing the growth of a concept he calls the Trust Economy, describing also new businesses that are operating in this new economy, such as:

• AirBnb, allowing home owners can rent out rooms in their homes to the general public
• TaskRabbit, where people in need of specific services (babysitting, shopping, or decorating) can subcontract people that are reliable and capable people that can deliver those services
• RelayRides, allowing car owners to rent out their cars to people looking for leasing a car at a good price 

The common elements of the business model behind these companies are:

• They help owners of assets to increase asset utilization and improve return over investment
• Transactions usually occur between parties that do not know each other, so a measure of trust of each party is required

How to determine trustworthiness is a major obstacle in the Trust Economy.  Companies such as Ebay and Amazon have tried to minimize risk by providing rating systems to help the parties involved.   Currently, a unified and global system to determine trustworthiness does not exist...is it possible to create one?

TrustCloud is attempting to do just that, by providing a system to measure trustworthiness of individuals.   Just like US residents have a Credit Score that measures their creditworthiness, TrustCloud tries to measure Trustworthiness through a Trust Score, that ranges from 1 to 1000, and is determined by measuring online social behavior patterns.

Although the Trust Score is probably far from perfect, it is an important step to the objective a having a way to measure how trustworthy someone is, in an economy that will increasingly involve the concept of "strangers" doing business.

So, what minimum Trust Score would you require to do business with a stranger?

The Power of Habits

LifeHacker shares some excellent ideas about habits, originally referenced in the book the Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.

With all the habits we have, how do we choose which ones to focus on to improve the quality of our daily lives?  According to Duhigg, the key is to focus on changing keystone habits, or those that can be leveraged upon to cause chain reactions in our lives.   Keystone habits share three characteristics:

• Characteristic One: The Science of Small Wins
• Characteristic Two: Create New Platforms
• Characteristic Three: Establish a Culture Where Excellence Is Contagious

Each of the characteristics is illustrated in the LifeHacker article using Olympic World Champion Michael Phelps as an example, and showing how his keystone habits were the key to his success.   In the world of continous improvement in the corporate world, exemplary companies such as Toyota work continously to reinforce specific Kata, or patterns of behavior that employees should exhibit.

So what Keystone Habits you will focus on to improve your life?

Who's on Your Most Wanted Client List?

Jorge suggests creating a Most Wanted Client List, to focus your marketing and sales efforts.

Just like Interpol has it's most wanted criminal list, why not create a list of the ideal customers you would want to have?

Best Quotes From Godin's Stop Stealing Dreams!

Ivan shares a summary of the 42 best quotes in Seth Godin's recent ebook.

To get the original ebook, click here.

A must read for all of us that are interested in education.

Small Is The New Big

Matt Homann, of the Non Billable Hour, shares a great video about a small bike shop that is building custom bikes.

I frequently think that most sales interactions (think car, home or similar purchases) would benefit significantly if the sales person would ask questions like:

• Who are you?
• What kind of person are you?
• What are you interested in?
• What are you not interested in?

Knowing the answers to some of the above could make the difference in offering exceptional service and  really helping customers to purchase solutions that are adequate for their needs.  Although the lessons from the small bike shop probably are not easy to apply in mass production environments, there are a lot of useful ideas that could be used to improve customer service.

As Seth Godin reminds us, sometimes small is the new big.

Poets or Plumbers?

Bob Sutton, Stanford professor and author, describes how society's current preference of people with visions versus people who actually execute the visions, can be actually counter productive.   Paraphrasing James March, a Stanford organizational theorist:  organizations need both poets and plumbers.

Bob is spot on:  poets may lead the way, but the devil is in the details.   In summary, we need both.

Have A Tough Problem? Try Daydreaming!

If you have a tough problem to solve, maybe what you need is to daydream.   Apparently, the less you focus on the problems and it's details, the easier it is for your mind to find associations between ideas and give you new insights.

Not any kind daydreaming will work, so sitting around looking at the sky is not the best method.    See Matt May's article about daydreaming to see how this works.