Trust, the Gig Economy and the Future of Work

Perhaps robots are coming to take our jobs, perhaps not, writes Fairfax's Caitlin Fitzsimmons (Find her on Facebook )

Either way, it's worth remembering that some technology is about connecting humans with humans.

And the key to doing that is to build trust with each other!

 
A study of 18,289 members of Blah Blah Car, a ride sharing platform,  across 11 countries , co-authored by assistant professor Mareike Möhlmann at Warwick University, professor Arun Sundararajan at New York University, 
has found that 88 per cent of humans  highly trusted a member with a full digital profile vs a neighbour or a colleague! 

This was nearly the same level of trust in family members (94 per cent) or friends (92 per cent).
Yet only 58 per cent of respondents said they would highly trust a colleague and 42 per cent, a neighbour.
It turns out that we are far more likely to trust a stranger than their own colleagues or neighbours. 

Why?????

What has created this trust on sharing platforms and the gig economy - and what can business learn from it? 

It seems that there are two main reasons - 

1. the strangers build a digital profile to let people know who they are, and this can be linked to other digital profiles.
2. Second, a lot of it is driven by trust in the platform itself. (Creating a rating system and form if insurance)

Which brings us to what the next evolution of Airbnb - 

"sharing your passion with the world".

Another step replacing the old economy with the gig economy - and creating the "future of work" -  making workers "entrepreneurs" - which may be giving us an idea of what the future of work will look like. ( see Thomas Friedman from The New York  about Airbnb's next step)

Airbnb started by enabling people to rent their home or a room in their home to strangers. Now the site is branching out to let members host "experiences".

For $75 you can make brown soda bread and Irish stew at Eimhear's house in Dublin, or for $150 go kayaking on Sydney Harbour with Matt from Glebe. Both "hosts" have five stars.

Airbnb chief executive Brian Chesky told Friedman he believed the experiences business had grown tenfold this year and could become even bigger than home sharing. 
He's 35, and his goal is to create 100 million new entrepreneurs by the time he retires.

"The biggest asset in people's lives is not their home, but their time and potential — and we can unlock that," Chesky says.