Seeking Sharing Stories from the Crowd — will you help us?
Sharing, renting or hiring is a way to get access to assets or expertise that you don’t own or have. There are so many life scenarios in which you might hire or borrow. We’ve got a good sense of the common ones, but we seek the wisdom of the crowd to find the less obvious, or surprising, ones. (Yep, there are more examples than Airbnb, Uber and the local lawn mower store!)
Your mission, should you choose:
‘Scenarios’ is just a fancy word for a story. We invite you to write up a true story of when you, (or someone you know) rented, borrowed or hired an asset or person. This can be the perspective of an individual, or a business — but it’s the borrowing, not the lending perspective.
We want stories rich in detail because that’s where the opportunity lies for us to learn how we might make the ShareRing platform work best for people like you. You could tell us what the experience was like and things that surprised, delighted or frustrated the borrower in the story.
We want written text between 150–500 words. We welcome photos with the text that you think will enrich our understanding of what was going on.
Please be sure to get the permission of any individual you name or photograph in your scenario. Change their name if they don’t wish to be identified.
Below is a sample scenario-story, so you can see what we are looking for. [1]
How it works:
We are going to select the 5 best scenarios and reward the ‘author’ with a special ShareRing swag (t’shirt, cap, and some other surprise stuff), plus you’ll get bragging rights for your community spirit and influence on ShareRing.
Selection of the 5-best will be made by a panel of Rohan Le Page , COO; Helen Palmer, Global Community Director; and Chelsea Rustrum, Sharing Economy Advisor. The panel’s decision will be final, and they’ll be selecting based on a) richness of detail and b) uniqueness of scenario.
When you submit your story — and you can submit as many as you like — we’ll collect extra data to help us classify the stories. Basically we want to know: was this a at-home scenario, a at-work scenario or a travelling-scenario.
You’ll be acknowledged as the author, and you give us permission to use your story in our product development and marketing activities.
The deadline for submissions is Sunday 5 August, 2018, 12:00am AEST. Submit your scenario-stories here.
[1] Sample Story:
This is a story all about how … some sharing activity took place.
It was a busy Saturday morning when Samira made her decision. She had been organising her kids for their regular sports activities and hadn’t been able to find the special tape Stefan, her teenage son needed for his hockey stick. She had waded through the clutter in the spare room, in the garage and the garden shed, when she decided enough was enough: they needed help to get better their storage organised.
Samira looked up the Yellow pages to find a decluttering-organisational expect. She found a couple of possibilities within 20km of her home and decided to go with Penelope Declutters because she offered a fixed price consultation. For $500 for a 3-hour visit, Penelope would visit her place, talk to her and her family about what was important to them, look at the stuff and provide verbal advice and a written plan of action. She can also recommend other experts to help with the get-sorted project.
Samira and Penelope discussed a mutually suitable time and booked it. Penelope required a 50% payment up front, and 50% final payment after submitting her report.
The day of the visit arrived and Samira, her husband Liam and their two kids meet and talked with Penelope, who turned up on time with a can-do attitude.
On the day, Penelope’s advice included hiring her contact Ricky who could assemble the flat pack shelving that Samira had previously bought and Liam hadn’t gotten around to actioning. Penelope could also get a special deal with a local storage unit for temporarily storing stuff when Samira and Liam pulled down and replaced the garden shed.
Penelope submitted her action plan with additional advice, and Samira gave her credit card details over the phone to make the final payment for her services. Samira was so impressed with Penelope, that she went to the website for Penelope Declutters and wrote a glowing review. She also told her friends about this great service when she went out for their Thursday morning coffee and book club.
When sorting all the stuff according to Penelope’s advice, Samira found she had a lot of stuff to give away and dispose. But she and Liam didn’t have a trailer but they do have a vehicle with a towbar. She searched online for a place where they could rent a trailer for a day. She found Simpson’s trailer hire online. She spoke with Mr Simpson the owner who was very helpful about the decision about what size trailer to get to fit their vehicle and her towing experience. She booked it for Friday morning pickup and a return by 5pm Friday night. She paid a deposit using her credit card details over the phone. She would pay the full rental when she picked up the trailer, and would get the deposit refunded when she returned the trailer at the agreed time.
