My head was melting before I went on holiday and now I am ready to rumble again. It is quite amazing how much fun it is to (nearly) unplug for a week and instead stare at the sea and sky.
I am still pinching myself about where I am going. Not so much the amazing line up of people, the game changing conversations, the cutting edge agenda that would make the eyes of a TEDx organiser bleed with envy.
No I am amazed to be going to an event that is not a washed out social media “business referral” event where I scream halfway through “please can someone stab me in the eye and cut off my hands so I can stop tweeting”.
Of course I’ll be tweeting, and yes I am the worst offender. HOWEVER, what is going on here is much smarter and more important than Facebook likes and all the other shit miserable Internet marketers “sales landing page” and “key person of influence” sucker punch us with.
The way the sharing economy is unfolding on the web is not selling dreams, probably not even selling experiences. In my opinion it is unleashing a series of 1+ 1 = 3 type opportunities.
I use the word opportunities very sceptically – as even in this context it sounds sleazy. A large chunk of my network from big nasty corporates to happy clappy micro coworkers have stopped sweating the ROI, measuring the er, heaven knows what they were measuring but it makes you change your mind every week.
One business I spoke to confirmed that all their most profitable and consistent business came from cups of coffee not advertisements and beating up staff.
The accuracy and service that the social web, Internet or what ever you want to call it this week is amazing.
As is how you do your work, I am zooming to San Francisco with too many clothes.c a phone, tablet and chromebook. The only thing I am worried about is my passport as ALL my work is online and backed up.
It has taken me a while to work out how I work like this and has been inspired by people much smarter than me who were working just from their mobile device five years ago.
Which leads me to FreeAgent.com and Nimble.com two of my longest standing apps that I have used early in their development and have seen grow. Both these companies have enabled this trip for Emily and I and FreeAgent are main TT sponsors of our Sharing Economy radio podcast that will fill you in more over the next few weeks before Mesh 2013 and LeWeb London.
