Talking Trust in the Sharing Economy with Francesca Pick

We recently caught up with Francesca Pick, co-editor of OuiShare Magazine and a B.A. graduate in Communication & Cultural Management from Zeppelin University. She wrote her Bachelor thesis about collaborative consumption and building trust in peer-to-peer marketplaces, for which she won an award from Microsoft about the potential of IT in Europe.

While the coworking and shared office space movement has gone from strength to strength over the past several years[SG1]  amassing a global membership of over 100,000 people, it has largely been the domain of creatives and early adopters.

Trust, from the perspective of protecting one’s physical and intellectual property, has been a sticking point for many, not just in the coworking space but in the broader collaborative consumption space.

We explored what factors impact adoption and how coworking spaces and shared office space platforms can, to borrow a line from Seth Godin, cross the chasm into the mainstream.

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Talking Coworking with Collaborative Lab’s Lauren Anderson

I recently caught up with Lauren Anderson, Chief Knowledge Officer at Collaborative Lab, speaker and thought leader in the collaborative consumption space. The Collaborative Lab helps businesses and governments worldwide understand and harness the power and potential of the sharing economy through strategic advisory services.

1 – Many shared office space platforms often choose between conservative or funky branding which can alienate the other half of the equation. What do you see as a way around this?

I actually believe it might be a positive thing!

While it’s good to push some people’s boundaries, it’s also true that we have very individual ways of working and we should feel comfortable to gravitate to the community that suits us best, which is usually aligned to the platform we find it on. I do think there is a grey area in between where most coworking space platforms currently sit, and the more ‘serviced office’ platforms are positioned so there is certainly an opportunity in the middle ground, but the diversity is good.

2 – Do you see this as impacting the growth rate of such platforms or is it simply a matter of picking the right battles?

I think the growth rates of these platforms will be more affected if we expect conformity in people’s approaches to working and finding work space. The different offerings appeal to different groups of people who may not otherwise try coworking, which is ultimately a good thing. Having said that, I do understand that it’s about cultivating an ethos as well, which requires people to look at the bigger picture of what they’re doing, which potentially some platforms aren’t doing as well as they could. 

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