The Mesh - Lisa Gansky [41]
A friend of mine got an instructive demonstration of community behavior when he was hired by the Brazilian electrical utility to help deal with a chronic problem. Residents in the urban favelas routinely divert electricity to their homes, costing the utility millions of dollars. The company had launched various crackdowns to no avail. My friend found that the residents didn’t regard taking the electricity as stealing: it’s only stealing if you take from a friend. To them, the utility was a distant power that they didn’t know or trust. My friend suggested that the company become more involved in the communities to build trust. He cited the Brazilian subway system, which has little theft or gate jumping. The transit authority does catch violators, but they don’t send them to the police. Instead, they work with neighborhood organizations called juntas de vecinos, which enforce the rules. If there’s a fine, the junta de vecinos pays it. The difference between the utility and the transit authority is that the subway officials have invested trust in communities, and get it back in return. For the Brazilian transit authority, and for Mesh companies, maintaining trust and a good reputation with customers reduces bad behavior and creates a buffer if it happens.
Beyond the social pressures that come into play in the Mesh, financial pressures can also be brought to bear. If someone borrows a book from the library and returns it in crummy condition, the librarian might roll her eyes and make a note-to-self. But in a car- or bike- or tool-sharing system, where the same physical good is reused by a relatively small community of people, the business can ascribe a value or cost to the condition in which things are returned. Over time, Mesh businesses can reward good behavior and/or levy taxes. They can lower rates when something comes back in pristine condition, and raise rates for members who are harder on the goods than other people and therefore increase maintenance costs. Mesh businesses may create segments of customers according to the way that they behave with the goods. The price point will be relative to that. The cost-effectiveness will gradually come to a rightful balance, on a member-by-member basis, because Mesh businesses will have access to the information on a user’s “performance.”
Of course, Mesh businesses should do everything to encourage the sense of community that rewards direct feedback and discourages bad behavior from customers. If a business is successful in building that feeling among their members, it will be richly rewarded in myriad ways. Trust me on that.
6
The Mesh as Ecosystem
WHAT’S HERE: meet you in the cloud; find a niche and go stand there; your customers are your customers’ customers; the rediscovery of how; don’t nap, adapt.
In 2006, a documentary film called Who Killed the Electric Car? managed to draw popular attention. The film featured Holly-wood celebrities such as Tom Hanks, Alexandra Paul, and Ed Begley Jr. celebrating and then mourning their EV1 electric cars. GM had used the celebrities to road-test the cars, and then abruptly taken them away. The film indicts the auto and oil industries, as well as officials in California and the Bush administration, for crushing a promising low-emission technology. Toward