The Mesh - Lisa Gansky [26]
When older companies feel that Mesh businesses are threatening their core business, they will likely make a competing offering. Hertz and Avis could go into the bike-sharing business, offering the service at all the train stations in major cities. They have the infrastructure, capacity, and brand to do it. That doesn’t mean that they’ll take over the business overnight. As always, innovative companies will crack new markets. Other large companies may reason that if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Some local banks, responding to the credit crisis, have partnered with peer-to-peer lending companies to offer customers loans or additional investment opportunities.
first things first.
The recession that started late in 2008 has pummeled individuals, towns, and businesses. Lost jobs and repossessed homes have forced families to move to new cities, move in with other family members, and change school districts. Over half of people in the United States and U.K. report that they personally know someone who lost his or her job. Innocent people who patiently built their careers had promotions blocked or were downsized (aka “made redundant”). Many were employed by apparently stable and well-trusted companies, such as Cadbury, Activision, Lufthansa, and Xerox. Although active, engaged, and productive all their lives, some people have been out of work over a year and are still looking. Others have watched their portfolio fall in value, forcing drastic reductions in their lifestyle or delaying their retirement indefinitely.
The trauma of the recession has forced many people to focus on what is really of value to them. The writer Po Bronson notes that a “crisis can actually take people from thinking about what’s next to thinking about what is first.” Many of us grew up with the aspiration to own our homes. We hoped that when we retired we would have a place to live without having to pay housing costs. In recent years, home equity was also a lucrative place to invest. As home prices increased, so too did the equity. But the continued recession, or “reset,” as author Richard Florida calls it, has forced us to revisit childhood assumptions. Why is home ownership desirable? Does it ensure a less stressful, happier old age? Does the increased stress and high cost of buying, insuring, and maintaining a home for decades justify the anticipated stress reduction later in life? Perhaps we are moving into an era when feeling secure and happy will be uncoupled from what we individually own.
As the reality of the recession sank in, people began to question a lifestyle based on an unsatisfying job that required fancy clothes and a long commute. I know people who dissolved their businesses and reevaluated their careers. They thought about what made them happy, engaged, and excited. They imagined what work would be compelling, as well as economically viable. One friend, who had been in the tech business for a long time, couldn’t get funding for her projects, despite a solid reputation. She eventually gave up her home and network of friends, changed professions, and courageously moved to the other side of the country to pursue a new opportunity.
Many people responded to the downturn by reevaluating their possessions—homes, cars, gear, and so on. Things they had worked so hard to acquire seemed to lose value. A survey by Kelton Research, under the heading “People’s Mindsets Are Changing,” reports that over half of Americans (56 percent) see the recession as an opportunity to live a less materialistic life. I know one woman who moved her family from San Francisco to Walla Walla, Washington. Before they left, she stored many of their possessions in nine of the “pods” that the storage companies use. A few months later,