Businesses of Nigerian and African origin operating in tune with the globally acclaim “Sharing economy” and share-preneurship models will be celebrated on Saturday, 26th November as one of the highpoints of the unveiling of MTN’s Olubayo Adekanmbi’s new book, “The Future Is Shared”.
The launch which comes scheduled for the Oriental Hotel, Lekki , Victoria Island, Lagos at 5pm, is succeeding the London ground breaking launch of “The Future is Shared” which held in July.
The book premised on the concept of ‘shared economy’, leverages concept for sustainable value re-creation/value extension, accountable personal carbon footprint tracking, poverty reduction, enhanced living and environmental protection in an emerging market context with focus on Nigeria.
The Author said, ” ‘Future Is Shared’ is African-centric answer to the big question of how AirBnB, Uber, LiftShare and others will shape future marketing, management and analytics practice”.
According to the Author, the shared economy philosophy extends to crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, disintermediation, on-demand services and recycling, with social, economic and, more importantly, environmental sustainability advantages. This infers, “businesses that will win tomorrow must understand how to become shareable experiences that enrich sociality and sustainability”, said Adekanmbi.
An excerpt from the book read “Capitalism and its twin sister, Consumerism have pushed the agenda of selfish and image driven consumption. The concept of extended –self theory , where you are defined by your possession has fueled our competitive acquisition, obsessive –compulsive purchases and belief that pursuing our own self-interest is the path to inner fulfillment. The fundamental philosophy of the sharing economy is that Life is truly better when shared. We enjoy the opportunity to collaboratively consumer with peers which can truly maximize common good. Unlike selfish acquisition, shared consumerism is exciting, inspiring and meaningful and its core essence defines the utilitarianism concept of Bentham society where “the greatest happiness of the greatest number” is our common aspiration…”
Although, the concept may appear distant, the author said that Nigerians are already living the essence of the sharing economy. “They know how to rely on the crowd to pull resources for the collective benefit”. He cites the example of traditional Esusu which banks like Diamond, Access and others are digitalizing. Ride-sharing business models like Jekalo, GoMyWay and RideBliss are other examples just as Max logistics, which works on a crowdsourced delivery model, are just a few.
For instance, the concept is already in operation in the following fields: Journalism / Public Issues – Channels TV I-witness news; Punch My news.com and iWatch Nigeria; CSR/Charity – MTN Foundation’s What can we do together, Donate.ng/GTB 737 and 234give; Business Development /Idea – Hello Tractor, Farmcrowdy and Funda Solva; Job Creation/Freelancing – Afrilancing.com, Work4Naira, JohnRhoda, First Bank Uber Loan, Marketcrunch Nigeria and JobbersMart; Education – Unigram, Yorubanames, Home Lesson,Tutera and TACEF Academy while in Property businesses like SubletNG and RealBoss Limited among others exist. These businesses will be celebrated and showcased to the world during the launch.
The Author who spent enormous time travelling across countries to spend time with leading academia and research/development teams of various world-class organizations during his recently concluded one-year sabbatical across three countries said, “I had the huge privilege of sharing my work around the world and receiving challenging feedback and perspectives. I had to go back to raw coding, build my mathematical model from scratch and spend a lot of time engaging with the established body of work”.
For him, it was an exciting experience because it provided him the rare opportunity to see how every piece of academic research could have instant boardroom relevance. “I saw instances where superstar ideas for commercialization were not the exciting points for my professors. My executive experience really helped me to comb the world of doctoral-level learning with a high sense of expectation and curiosity”, he added
