The Mesh - Lisa Gansky [7]
one part net. two parts data. more than a pinch social.
Vancouver is home to a wealth of Mesh-style businesses and organizations. I visited food co-ops, beautiful boutique stores organized and run by a segment of their customers. Through a friend, I got an inside look at innovative urban design features enabling people to walk, bike, or find convenient public transportation around the city. I got a tour of the much-remarked-upon green buildings and transport systems constructed for the winter Olympics. But Vancouver is not unique. Thousands of Mesh businesses are springing up around the globe, in the United States, Europe, and Asia.
Mesh businesses are thriving on the growth of social media, the Internet, wireless networks, and mobile phones. They use data crunched from every available source to deliver high-quality goods and services to people only when they need and want them. Mesh businesses share four characteristics: sharing, advanced use of Web and mobile information networks, a focus on physical goods and materials, and engagement with customers through social networks. Of course, not every business or organization discussed in this book contains every element. Like any large, rapidly growing advance, the Mesh expresses itself in a variety of ways along a continuum. Some businesses start in Full Mesh mode. Many, many others are moving in the right direction.
What characterizes a Mesh business?
1. The core offering is something that can be shared, within a community, market, or value chain, including products, services, and raw materials.
2. Advanced Web and mobile data networks are used to track goods and aggregate usage, customer, and product information.
3. The focus is on shareable physical goods, including the materials used, which makes local delivery of services and products—and their recovery—valuable and relevant.
4. Offers, news, and recommendations are transmitted largely through word of mouth, augmented by social network services.
Why call this new wave of businesses “The Mesh”? A Mesh describes a type of network that allows any node to link in any direction with any other nodes in the system. Every part is connected to every other part, and they move in tandem. To me, “The Mesh” is an apt and rich metaphor to describe a whole new phase of information-based services. Mesh businesses are knotted to each other, and to the world, in myriad ways. Some connections are formed directly, such as an agreement among companies to identify a market and make coordinated offers. These companies share information to facilitate access to new customers, customer preferences, and goods. Other connections are formed indirectly through third parties, such as aggregated consumer data or via customers’ social networks.
The Mesh is made possible by the way in which we are all increasingly connected to everything else—to other people, businesses, organizations, and things. This is the first time in human history when this kind of far-reaching, always-on, and relatively inexpensive connectivity has existed. Just as our minds are more than a collection of neurons, these Mesh connections have given rise to something more complex and challenging. In the brain, all the parts—DNA, nerve cells, and lobes—are constituent of each other and in constant communication. We can likewise describe the Mesh in terms of its multiple parts, such as electrons, mobile devices, servers, services, partners, and customers. But like our minds, the Mesh is much greater than the sum of its parts. Now that everyone and everything is becoming connected to everyone and everything else—Twitter reached 50 million tweets a day in February 2010—something new has been born that is constantly growing and adapting. The Mesh has a clear pulse. And it’s a fast learner.
Even before the rise of the Mesh, the Web had ingested, dissolved, and reshaped hundreds of industries and tens of thousands of businesses,