Share and share alike on Global Sharing Day

 

 

 

Benita: Around 2007, I got absolutely fed up with car-crash telly and the direction of travel of television formats. My brain was dying. I wanted to achieve some good in the world, and I felt that wasn't happening. This really wasn’t the kind of medium where I felt I was making the right contribution.

 

Daniel: So, no more TV. What happened then?

 

Benita: I left and worked for a year in the charity sector. I became 'head of the world' - well, that’s what it sounded like to my friends! In reality, I was Head of Global Entrepreneurship, for Enterprise UK and became very interested in social entrepreneurship. It was an extraordinary experience, I was approached to attend all sorts of events and speaking opportunities and present all kinds of awards. The most amazing of all was that I was asked to share a platform with Desmond Tutu and Bob Geldof at a congress. Easily the most humbling experience in my life! So my mother and friends are watching it all being streamed and it’s Desmond Tutu, Bob Geldof and... Benita Matofska. Hilarious, fantastic, but very humbling. It was around this time that I said to myself: “The next thing I’m going to do is launch a campaign that deals with our most pressing global problems.” That’s the pledge I made, to create something that was game-changing.

 

Daniel: Before we get to what that pledge generated, let me backtrack to your “crisis moment in TV”, as I’m still recovering from mine! Didn't you at any point feel that there was any space in television - the sector you knew best - for you to do something helpful for the world. Is there a way that TV can achieve that.

 

Benita: Well... the answer is yes. There are ways and aspects and places and opportunities where I believe that can happen. But I also believe that it is an uphill struggle. The amount of time, energy and effort that I would have had to spend to do something good in that sphere were just much better placed elsewhere.

 

Daniel: Sounds like you tried...

 

Benita: Yes, and I have a specific example. I made a format called “Make your Child Brilliant” which was absolutely not a car-crash TV format. It was really looking at human and children’s potential. It was just so difficult, everyone that came to it wanted to make it about failing children, and they were simply unable to look at a format that did follow the usual narrative arc. It was all so unbelievably formulaic and not the way life works at all, which is what I wanted it to be about. I’m sure there are ways of doing that - look at all those fantastic documentarists doing amazing things - but it’s just getting harder and harder to push any of that through, and I felt there were so many better ways for me to channel my energy.

 

Daniel: I’m going to completely agree with that and move on, so you’re done being 'head of the world' what happened then?

 

Benita: When I looked at the world I kept going back to the the simple fact that what is wrong with it is that there is a shortage of sharing. This is really exciting, because this is something we can fix. I started looking at the groundswell in interests and activities around sharing, things like collaborative consumption. It was interesting to see this growing shift from ownership to access, even though no one was really talking about a sharing economy, yet. If you look at our core problems - the financial, environmental and social crisis - they can all be solved through sharing.

 

If we were sharing opportunities within our communities then we'd have stronger social bonds. If we were sharing responsibilities and resources then we wouldn't be in this planetary mess. If you look at the financial system - what aspects are wrong with it - it's really simple. One of the things clearly wrong with it is that it is linear not circular; it makes no attempts to close the loop in terms of production and distribution. So that’s the flaw.

 

To me, all of this points to the fact that there is a lack of sharing. Add to that the cultural shift that has happened over the past 30 years - since the 80s we have become incredibly greedy. In some areas of the world we now consume up to seven planets worth of resources, and that’s the kind of trajectory we’re on. Short term fixes don't work, they aren’t sustainable. Our very behavior is not sustainable. For me, everything comes back to sharing, sharing, sharing.

 

Daniel: So you started thinking there was “something there,” an emerging, sustainable sharing economy...

 

Benita: Yes, but what does a sharing economy look like? What does it even mean? I started gathering people interested in the concept of sharing, looking at the different and disparate ideas that were emerging, and trying to connect them. From wikinomics to the Arab Spring, from the Occupy to Freekonmics movements, from freecycling resources to the emergence of peer to peer. I started connecting all these dots with the idea of shared value and realised we need to learn to share again because the more we share - skills, resources, goods - the more we have, and the happier we are.

 

Daniel: Could you share, no pun intended, a practical example?

 

Benita: This past summer we took a family holiday to Italy, in the Marche region. We stayed in beautiful house that would have cost us €3000 a week. It didn’t. We house swapped our family home in Brighton for it. We saved money by eating in the loveliest local, cheapest restaurants that the family recommended to us and had a wonderful time engaging in the activities that they suggested. When we returned home there were flowers and fruit on the table, a bottle of wine in the fridge, and a lovely welcome back home note. Sharing is about smarter living, using the things you have but don’t need to get the ones you want but don’t have, but it's also about having a lot more fun, and there are loads of ways to share. Car and ride sharing for example. Car ownership is an expensive burden to most people. Wouldn’t it be better to access the things - a car for example - you want when you need them without having the burden of ownership? There are just so many positives to that.

 

Daniel: I’ve been re-reading Giles Hutchins “The Nature of Business,” which is about biomimicry, and I’m hearing elements of biomimicry in this conversation.

 

Benita: Definitely, yes.

 

Daniel: So, and do correct me if I’m wrong, in some way, sharing can build resilience into people’s personal finances by stepping out of the conventional market space, so to speak. But how will businesses react to the sharing economy? I realise this is a bit of crystal ball question!

 

Benita: It’s very interesting, and not necessarily as crystal ball as you might imagine. We’ve just spent the last six months doing some research into corporate sharing. We wanted to find out what sharing can look like in a business context. From a business perspective everyone is struggling like mad, everybody is suffering. Because of this, businesses are starting to think about why this is, and where it’s going with finite resources and a growing global population, and they’re starting to realise resources will need to be shared, that the business models of the future are about sharing resources. Those entrepreneurs and business that are starting to think about this, and starting to plan and act on this, are the smartest businesses. That is where we are headed.

 

Daniel: What are some of the things already happening?

 

Benita: What I think is interesting in terms of big businesses is that the sharing economy is already starting to change things. We are seeing some very practical, high-street examples already; M&S’ clothes “Schwopping” is essentially sharing the lifecycle of a product. M&S realizes that a business committed to sustainability can’t just sell new clothing - and isn't there too much of that already - it doesn’t match, so they’re beginning to close the loop. Schwopping is the sharing economy in action.

 

Ultimately, what's most interesting about it is that this signals a change in direction for their business. They know that very much so in the future, they will not be selling new products - and this is quite crystal ball! But businesses do need to realise this now. There is no point in realising this when it’s all gone. This could mean that light years away from today, there will be no new clothes items sold. And they’re not the only ones thinking about this, H&M has recently launched its global clothing recycling platform, and B&Q’s “Streetclubs” community initiative in partnership with Start promotes tool sharing amongst other things. (fun fact: the average life-usage of a drill is only 8 minutes! Do we really all need one? Platypus’ Note). Some brands are already actively encouraging their customers to share. It’s a win-win for everyone, and there are thousands of ways for businesses and consumers to share.

 

Daniel: It does sound like a win-win. And let’s hope it happens sooner rather than later. Before wrapping-up, can you tell me something about your business, Compare and Share? What's the goal here?

 

Benita: Essentially, it's the world's first comparison marketplace for the sharing economy. In the same way that Ebay opened up the second-hand market, we’re opening up the sharing market and making it easy for people to share goods and resources.

 

Daniel: And what inspired you to launch Compare and Share specifically.

 

Benita: Inspiration came from an absolutely painful personal experience. I had spent the whole weekend trying to book a family holiday; we’re not hotel-types, we’re quite adventurous and we like "experiences." We like to travel like locals. To get the kind of experience I wanted, I needed to register on a multitude of sites. It was a nightmare, even as a BBC trained researcher! There just had to be an easier way to do it all, and this is really where the idea came from.

 

Daniel: So, here’s my usual big question, is Compare and Share a social enterprise?

 

Benita: Compare & Share is a social business. It is a for-profit company with a purpose and a social mission. That’s really what it is. But The People Who Share is a social enterprise that promotes a sharing lifestyle, we organise Global Sharing Day amongst other things. The two as you can well imagine are pretty much sister companies. One raises the awareness that needs to be raised, the other delivers the technology to make sharing possible

 

Daniel: Without getting into the potentially confusing “social enterprise or social business” discussion...what do you need to be social “anything” whatever that may be, and what parting words do you have to those who might feel a bit lost, and think they could contribute a bit differently to how most of us are expected to “do business?”

 

Benita: My definition of a social enterprise is "a business that considers people, planet and profit in equal measure.”

 

Daniel: The good ol’ triple bottom line.

 

Benita: Exactly. And that’s very simply what it is. You put people and planet into the business equation and you have a social enterprise. In terms of, “where people should start if they’re feeling a bit lost,” well, start from a place of purpose and passion. What are you really passionate about? What is your purpose in life. If you achieve nothing else in your life, what legacy would you absolutely need to leave. The most successful businesses are those that are purpose-led, that are driven by passion. If every step of the way you are driven by that purpose, you will achieve what you set-out to achieve.

 

Daniel: Hope that inspires a lot of people, thank you for your time!

 

Benita: You’re welcome! Always up for sharing!

 

I hope this chat with Benita moves you to take part in Global Sharing Day. Please take time to share something about #globalsharingday with your friends and neighbours!