What has the Governance Evaluator team been up to?
Governance Evaluator was at the Better Boards conference in Adelaide (1-3 August) and listened to the most brilliant keynote speaker, Rachel Botsman.
Rachel Botsman is a global thought leader on the power of collaboration and sharing through digital technologies to transform the way we live, work and consume. She has inspired a new consumer economy with her influential book What’s Mine is Yours: How Collaborative Consumption Is Changing The Way We Live. TIME Magazine named Collaborative Consumption one of the “10 Ideas that will change the world”.
Rachel asked the question have you had a ‘kodak moment’ – when you are left behind in business due to disruptive innovation. She described how this has been achieved through using technology to connect ‘one person’s haves with another person’s wants’.
She gave the example of Task Rabbit, a company who connects people’s tasks with people who are free to bid online to do the task. Interestingly the most requested task is to assemble an Ikea desk! Air B&B is another example of connecting peoples need for accommodation with people who have a spare room or are out for the weekend (who would have thought we’d ever have strangers into our house in this way!!!) She also talked about Team Connect a NFP in the UK who, like Task Rabbit connects cancer clients with needs to volunteers in the community and another start up in UK who connects live alone aged people with people who visit them as they part of their exercise routine. (instead of going to the gym)
She identified the 4 main experiences that have led people to look for new ways:
- Complex Experiences
- Broken Trust
- Redundant Intermediaries
- Limited Access
She describes this new way as a complete shift from siloed power of businesses to the now distributed power over a connected community – communities of suppliers and receivers. She went on to discuss the key reactions to disruption:
- Ostriches who hope it will go away
- Fighters who try to bring new ideas down
- Pioneers who get out, get going and embrace the opportunity
She described the three key attributes of pioneers is that they are brave, connect and are doers. She quoted some inspirational sayings for encouraging pioneers to be brave, have a go and be a leader. These were “if you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product you are probably already too late!” and “done is better than perfect”. Her favourite quote was “If your actions inspire others to do more, dream more, learn more, become more; you are a leader.”
Finally she talked about the ways we can get more pioneers into the NFP sector to create new solutions to old problems. She said a great place to start is to get them onto our boards. When asked how to manage regulators who thwart innovation and disruption she bravely said “do it and ask them to change later.”
This was an inspirational talk – if you want to hear more check out her Ted Talks