The Mesh - Lisa Gansky [62]
If you want software that allows you to track home exchanges, there are Web sites that allow you to use the infrastructure they’ve created. Amazon and other companies offer hosting, Web development, and fulfillment services. They give you access to their hardware, which is run by the same teams of people that set up the infrastructure for the company. Amazon offers not only a hosting service to run your Web site, but also a back end for collecting payments. (As noted, Kickstarter, Etsy, and many other brands, both large and start-up, use the Amazon back end.) You can also use the pick-and-pack facilities of FedEx, UPS, or Amazon, instead of setting up a whole warehouse to receive inventory. These in fact are business-to-business examples of Mesh businesses.
finally, give serendipity a big squeeze.
An important part of any Mesh model is serendipity. Simply put, the frequency of serendipity can increase dramatically in the Mesh. In the past, I might have arrived in Frankfurt, learned that my connecting flight is canceled, and spent four hours in the Frankfurt airport. With a lot of good fortune, I might have run into a colleague who was also “visiting” the airport. But these gemlike moments were rare. In twenty-five years of world travel, I can count them on one hand. Now that we are all carting around mobile devices, and tweeting and checking in on various services, I can easily inform others of my location. Instead of a purely chance encounter, I can use the technology to find any friends or associates who might be nearby in Frankfurt. What was once an unlikely, chance event can now more often be engineered to happen. These tools enhance the quality of my life and work by creating occasions to share time with people who inspire me, engage me, and bring me joy.
In the Mesh, people find incredible surprises that make unexpected things (and people) just stand out. Serendipity can pop in for a visit through partnerships, or the data collected, or new markets reached. Other events to look for and cherish are outspoken and thrilled or disappointed customers, competitors missing the bull’s-eye, and new ideas about how to design, value, or price products. These lessons and openings may come from the most surprising of places. The forces that drive the Mesh are on the rise. There is the compelling need to find new efficiencies. There is the expanding capacity of social and Web-based mobile networks. There are the new mapping services and open government and transportation platforms. There is distrust of old brands—and the growing power of consumers to say, and get, what they want. These trends and the technology create more and more delightful new serendipities. As they expand, so will the opportunities for success. Go find ’em. Buena suerte.
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