In her forthcoming December 1 release We-Commerce: How to Create, Collaborate, and Succeed in the Sharing Economy, author and CEO Billee Howard lays out her plan for a road map to navigate this largely uncharted business landscape, from how to build brand loyalty through social media to how to maintain scale and innovation while realizing growth. Billee Howard is based in New York and is founder and chief engagement officer of Brandthropologie, and president of Mojo Risin Studios.
An excerpt from next weeks podcast:
Joe: Your book is not your traditional strategy book as I read it. You challenge companies right up front to collaborate not only with their customers but within their communities. I take that meaning a few competitors even, okay. Can you tell us what you mean by communities then or is it the company ecosystem that they work in or what is it?
Billee: The term ‘sharing economy’, people often think that it’s just about apps like Uber and companies like Airbnb but really the era that we are entering in right now embodies this idea of moving from the ‘me’ to the ‘we’ and that’s both at the individual level as well as at the level of a big business. So, when I talk about, you know, moving forward with the sense of community and a spirit of collaboration, I mean that in the broadest sense of the word. I mean that by the cultures that companies need to create internally with their employees that ideas and innovations can come from anywhere at any level and, you know, it’s a spirit of entrepreneurialism and shared approaches to innovation that are really going to set apart the winners from the losers. I feel that in the new world, business is taking a much greater role outside of just the private sector and stepping into the public sector to. There’s this idea of branded government where businesses really need to think about profiting with purpose and really serving the communities that they operate within, more than just thinking about the products and services that they offer. It’s really a big picture approach that applies to everyone, be they big or small or an individual or a corporation.