Week Three : Further Research

To build upon the seed of our idea I spent much time researching notions of collaborative consumption. It is a concept that Time Magazine named as one of Ten Ideas That Will Change the World and is in fact an emerging trend today. It is essentially the reinvention of old market behaviours; renting, lending, swapping, bartering and gifting - through technology, and it is taking place on a scale and in ways never possible before. It is classified as a peer-to-peer revolution and it is a movement that I would suggest underpins the essence of our imagined future. The following clip the Collaborative Consumption Hub explains the concept further.

In-class we asked ourselves how the social media generation will come into adulthood. How do we imagine a future in which this age of people are in a position of the current baby boomers? I would define the transition in one word connectedness. At the moment there is a growing gap between generations and it is underpinned by how people embrace technology and ascribe to the digital lifestyle. The below clip by Social Media Today illustrates my point.

So how then does this digital revolution marry into a future scenario? 

At present we live in a world of hyper-individualism, people are defined by material pursuits and driven by consumerism. Not only does this type of lifestyle have psychological implications; in short we're less happy than we used to be, but it is also profoundly effecting global resilience. We're reaching the tipping point of our planet with climate change, resource depletion and oil dependency the catchphrase of this decade

It is this growing dissatisfaction coupled with widespread recession that we believe will drive a paradigm shift. People will become dissolutioned and with growing scarcity and insecurity they will have to change. They will have to bleed their current ways, grieve their losses and rebuild their communities. That's not to say it will be a bleak outcome. This is where I believe the digital age will underpin the emergence of a new prosperity. The connectedness that online platforms offer I envision will foster true collaboration. The below clip by Lucky Ant is an example of such potential, it illustrates a form of networking already in practise today and I believe it to be indicative of our future scenario.

Processing these ideas for myself and in the spectrum of principles and patterns I came across an interesting diagram for collaborative consumption on the Collaborative Consumption Hub. It illustrates the drivers, principles and systems behind the movement.

I used this as a model to consider the drivers, principles, patterns, outcomes and ideas for our own future scenario and have included my exploration below.