Sketchnoting
The Share Economy
Over the weekend, I read an article on Wired titled How AirBnB and Lyft Finally Got Americans to Trust Each Other. It was a fascinating look into the Share Economy and the critical role of trust in driving its success. The article highlighted personal narratives within the movement and provided context for the many peer-to-peer services that are taking hold across the country.
As a big proponent of the share economy and user of peer-to-peer services like Lyft, AirBnB, CouchSurfing, and yerdle, I was excited about the article and began to take notes with paper and pen. Starting first in bullet points and pros, I found myself progressively moving towards sketches, visually communicating the ideas in the story. Sketching gave new life to my notes and provided a dynamic way to express what I was reading.
Inspired by Mike Rhode’s Sketchnote Handbook, I decided to scrap my my written notes and instead, sketchnote the article.
Here’s the final piece:
Notes
We are:
- Hopping into strangers’ cars (Lyft, Uber, Sidecar)
- Welcoming them into our homes (AirBnB, CouchSurfing)
- Dropping our dogs at their homes (DogVacay)
- Eating in their dining rooms (Feastly)
A Brief history of Trust:
The share economy as a function of trust over the last 200+ years.
Beginning pre-1800s, the share economy was able to succeed based on a sense of intimate trust. With advances of technology during the 1900s and mass migration to urban areas, trust was lost and proxies for trust emerged. Now with the help of the internet, modern devices, and peer-to-peer businesses, intimate trust is being restored and is helping to bring people together again.
Additional notes
- In the Sharing Economy, we’re not anonymous.
- Psychology tells us we don’t mess with people we know.
- “[The Share Economy] is not just building a business but fundamentally re-wiring our relationship with one another.
- Money feels secondary; an afterthought to the human connection that upholds the whole experience.
- My inspiration: Wired
