28 Jul Finding my Tribe – Collaborative Consumption and Sharing Economy folks

My thanks go to Christian Lane, (co-founder of the upcoming sustainable, package-free, zero waste, micro grocery concept store in.gredients (http://in.gredients.com/) and co-panelist at last week's Zero Waste Panel hosted by Texas Green Network) for helping me FIND MY TRIBE!!

During our very interactive and fun panel, Lane mentioned Collaborative Consumption and Rachel Botsman, the sharing economy, and What's Mine is Yours. I took notes, went to my computer and looked it up. I'm now following collcons and rachelbotsman on Twitter, I "like" CC on facebook, have signed up for the CC email updates and I'm ordering the book What's Mine is Yours.

These are my people… Rachel, the sharing economy folks, and the people of the Collaborative Consumption movement. "Collaborative Consumption describes the rapid explosion in swapping, sharing, bartering, trading and renting being reinvented through the latest technologies and peer-to-peer marketplaces in ways and on a scale never possible before."

Yes! Yes! Yes! That's me! That's what I believe! That's what I do! I helped start Austin CarShare, I'm a loyal clothing swapper and promoter of swaps (and hand-me-downs), I'm a fan of cohousing largely because of all the shared amenities, I work hard to make sure leftover food from events and bakeries go to people, I've always stayed with friends when traveling, I've long had a fantasy to start a space sharing network to matched underutilized space (especially at off hours – like bars empty during the day and schools and offices empty at night), I had the Austin EcoNetwork website built on an open source platform (Drupal), I use GoogleDocs and social media for all sorts of collaboration, I donate money through KIVA, and my new mission is matching food surplus and scraps with the appropriate end users, partly through using online technology (see below.) Can you tell I'm excited?! (Long, run-on, out-of-breath sentences are always a good clue)

Check it out. It's hot stuff!