An assignment on Collaborative Consumption and the changes taking place in the World of Work. An innovative undertake on the new work context, complemented by the progressive profoundness of communication and international work division to complete information related jobs.

1. Escola Secundária de Clara de Resende
Collaborative Consumption
and the Changing Paradigm
of the World of Work
An innovative undertake on the new work context, complemented by the progressive profoundness
of communication and international work division to complete information related jobs.
Tomás Pinto, 11ºE, nº19
20-03-2017

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Tomás Pinto– CollaborativeConsumptionandthe ChangingParadigm of the Worldof Work
Index
 Introduction
 Collaborative Consumption
 Rachel Botsman
 The Evolution
 So, how will jobs change? Hyperspecialization
 Coffice – A funny example
 Currency of Trust
 Conclusion
 Bibliography/Webography

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Introduction
Nowadays,we live inaneweraof information,withanever-growingaccesstonew ideasandwaysof
thinking.Consequently,thishasdramaticallychangedusandthe worldaroundus, burstingintoourlivesin
differentforms.There are numerousexamplesbearingwitnesstothistransformativephenomenon.A range
of companieswithdifferentbackgrounds,butwithone commonfactor:the digitalisationof business. Uber,
a companybasedin SanFrancisco,has garneredthe criticismof taxi-driversacrossthe world,revolutionising
thistraditional sectorwiththe developmentof anapp that connectspassengerswiththe driversregistered
on itsplatform.Airbnb,the holygrail of the touristsector. Appraised atmore than 10 billion USD,the biggest
hotel chainin the worlddoesnot owna single hotel.Airbnbbasesitsbusinessonnew technologiesandthe
emergence of the latestsocial trendssuchasthe sharing economy.Once again,an app is whatlinkstourists
withthe landlordsthatare rentingor sharingtheirproperties. The collaborative economyandthe digital
transformationof servicesare becomingincreasinglyresponsible forlandingthe entire bankingsectorinhot
waters.Digitalisationhasarrivedanditishere to stay.A radical change whichisbrewinginthe officesof the
CEOs of all organisations,giventhatitaffectsall businessesacrossthe whole valuechain.
At the same time this technological impact carries a heavy switch in the way consumption is made, an
enormousemphasisisputon trust, anditsdislocationfrommajorcorporationstodecentralizedwebservices
such as Uber and Airbnb, already mentioned above. Most importantly, the future of work is based on
collaborative consumption,and the fact that it causes a rise in the importance of values and education, and
completelychanging the incentive game from working in a big corporation, and having strong regulations
imposed on workers, to letting them working based on their willingness and, much often, sense of
competitivity.The internetisturningus frompassive consumersto creators to highlyenabledcollaborators.
The internet is eliminatingthe middle man, truly pushing us towards peer-to-peer social networksand real-
time technologies.
Collaborative Consumption – A definition
The theory of ‘collaborative consumption’ is defined as ‘the reinvention of traditional market behaviours—
renting,lending,swapping,sharing,bartering,gifting—throughtechnology,takingplace inwaysandonascale
not possible before the internet. It includes three systems: product service systems, collaborative lifestyles
and redistributionmarkets that enable people topayto accessand share goods and servicesversusneeding

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to ownthemoutright. A keyunderpinningprincipleis‘idlingcapacity’: the powerof technologytounlock the
social, economic and environmental value of underutilized assets.
Rachel Botsman
Rachel Botsmanisa global authorityonanew era of trust. She studiesand
teaches how technology is transforming human relationships and what it
meansfor life,workand howwe do business. Inherfirst highlyacclaimed
book, What’s Mine is Yours (HarperCollins, 2010), she defined the theory
of collaborative consumption. The concept was subsequently named by
TIME as one of the “Ten Ideas That Will Change the World” and by
Thinkers50 as the 2015 Breakthrough Idea. She teaches the world’s first
MBA course onthe subject,whichshe designed,atOxfordUniversity’sSaïd
School of Business. Her forthcoming book, Who Can You Trust? (Penguin,
October2017) focuseson whytrust is collapsinginall kindsof institutions
andyetat the same time,the rise of newtechnologiesisenablingwhatshe
calls “distributed trust” across networks of people, organisations and
intelligentmachines.Anengagingstorytellerandvisionarythinker,Rachel’s
skill lies in discovering and explaining paradigm shifts happening in the
worldand makingthemmeaningful toawide range of audiences.She isaregularwriterand commentatorin
leading international publications including Harvard Business Review, Economist, The New York Times, Wall
StreetJournal,Wiredandmore.She writesamonthlycolumnforthe AustralianFinancial Review. Rachel was
recognisedasone of the “MostCreative People inBusiness”byFastCompany,a“YoungGlobal Leader”bythe
WorldEconomicForumand ispart of Thinkers502016 Radar listof up-and-comingmanagementthinkers. (…)
She uses stories and visuals, grounded in deep research, to paint a vivid picture of how technologyimpacts
trust and innovation.
The Evolution
During a recent stay at the Disney Swan
hotel inFlorida,IconfessI didsomethingin
the bathroom I have done many times
before. I used too many towels and
carelessly left them on the floor. It’s not
somethingI’ve thoughtmuch aboutbefore:
I leave the hotel and who’s to know? But
something struck me as I walked out the
door. I would never do this as a guest
staying in a place on Airbnb. I behave
differently because of the reputation
system in place that means not only do I
rate hosts,but theyrate me. Trust liesintimatelybetweenthe perceptionsof the twousers. We can pointto
this example and extract a sign of how online trust facilitated by digital tools can change our “real world”
behavior. It’s easy to see how one careless towel toss could impact my ability to transact on Airbnb in the
future.Butwhat itillustratesisaparadigmshift.A new worldof trustis emerging:one where trustliesinthe
hands of individuals,not in the big bellies of institutions. Since the industrial revolution, institutional trust –
the confidenceinthe relationshipbetweenindividualsandcorporationsororganizations –hasbeenthenorm.
We have trusted that financial institutions, universities, media companies and other big corporations, will
create the rules and enforce compliance that will keep us safe and make goods and services reliable. This

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framework of trust has failed many of us through wrongdoing, scandal, or sheer ineffectiveness, and is
consequentlycrumbling.Galluphasasked thefollowingquestionannuallysince1973:“Now Iamgoingtoread
you a listof institutionsinAmericansociety.Please tell me how muchconfidence you,yourself,have ineach
one: a great deal, quite a lot, some, or very little?” In June 2015 survey, the question revealed that public
confidence hadslumpedacrossall majorinstitutions,exceptthe militaryandsmall business,toahistoriclow.
Butthe erosionof institutional trustisnotonlybecausewe’re askingchallengingquestionsaboutthe structure
and size of institutional systems,andthe reputationsof those who leadthem.It’sbecause institutional trust
isn’t designed for the digital age. Think of the characteristics of “institutional trust” – big, hierarchal,
centralized,gated,andstandardized.Itworksif youare GoldmanSachs,AT&T,orPfizerbutitmakesnosense
if you are network or market-based company like Airbnb, Lyft, or Etsy. The DNA of “peer trust” is built on
opposite characteristics –micro,bottom-up,decentralized,flowingandpersonal.The resultof thisshiftisnot
onlythe emergenceof disruptivenewbusinessmodels.Conventioninhow trustisbuilt,lostandrepaired –in
brands, leaders and entire systems – is being turned upside down. We are inventing a type of trust that can
grease the wheelsof businessandfacilitateperson-to-personrelationshipsinthe age of distributednetworks
and collaborative marketplaces.A type of trust that transforms the social glue for ideas whether it be for
renting your house to someone you don’t know, making a loan to unknown borrowers on a social lending
platform,andgettingina car witha stranger frombeingconsideredpersonallyrisky,tothe buildingblocksof
multi-billiondollarbusinesses. Andthe powerof thisemergingtrustdynamicisbeingharnessedbybothstart-
ups and establishedbrands. On September 30, 2015, Amazon launched Flex in Seattle, a new crowdsourced
delivery service that relies not on traditional couriers, but ordinary people to bring packages to you. The
deliverers are not employed by the e-commerce giant, and do not wear their uniforms or drive Amazon
brandedvehicles.Some maysayitismerelyAmazontappingintoacheaplaborpool –“gig-economyworkers”
as they have been contentiouslydubbed – to drive down the costs of Prime Now, their popular one-hour
deliveryservice.ButwhatI findmore interestingisthe dynamicsof trust Amazonis tappingintoto get their
packages into the hands of customers. In the crowd-shipping model, trust is no longer linear and tightly
controlledbetweenAmazonanditscustomers.Instead,trustsitsinawebbetweencustomeranddriver,driver
and Amazon, customer and Amazon. Without a doubt this shiftin trust will be messy. New complexities will
emerge around risk, discrimination and accountability that will require not just new regulatory and legal
frameworksbutadifferentorganizationalmindsettofindawaythrough.Andwe’llhave tofindawaythrough
because to be human,to have relationshipswithotherpeople,isto trust. Perhapsthe disruptionhappening
now is not about technology; it is how it enables a shift in trust, from institutions to individuals.
The ChangingRulesof Trust inthe Digital Age,Rachel Botsman,HarvardBusinessReview,October20, 2015.
So, how will jobs change? Hyperspecialization
Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, famously described what would be one of the central
driversof economicprogressforcenturies to come:the divisionof labour. Much of the prosperityour world
nowenjoyscomesfromthe productivitygainsof dividingworkintoeversmallertasksperformedbyevermore
specialized workers. Today, thanks to the rise of knowledge work and communications technology, this
subdivisionof labourhasadvancedtoa pointwhere the nextdifference indegree will constitute adifference
inkind.We are enteringaneraof hyperspecialization—averydifferent,andnotyetwidelyunderstood,world
of work. (…) Just as people in the early days of industrialization saw single jobs (such as a pin maker’s)
transformed into many jobs (Adam Smith observed 18 separate steps in a pin factory), we will now see
knowledge-workerjobs—salesperson,secretary,engineer—atomizeintocomplexnetworksof people allover
the world performing highly specialized tasks. Even job titles of recent vintage will soon strike us as quaint.
“Software developer,” for example, already obscures the reality that often in a software project, different
specialistsare responsible fordesign,coding,andtesting.Andthatis the simplestscenario.WhenTopCoder,
a start-upsoftware firmbasedinConnecticut,getsinvolved,the same software maybe touchedbydozensof

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contributors. TopCoderchopsitsclients’ITprojectsintobite-sizechunksandoffersthemuptoits worldwide
community of freelance developers as competitive challenges (opening the possibility of becoming a “top
coder”).Forinstance,aprojectmightbeginwithacontesttogenerate the bestnew software-productidea.A
secondcontestmightprovideahigh-level descriptionof the project’sgoalsandchallenge developerstocreate
the documentthatbesttranslatesthemintodetailedsystemrequirements.(TopCoderhostsawebforumthat
allowsdeveloperstoquerythe clientformore details,andall those questionsandanswersbecome visibleto
all competitors.) The winningspecificationsdocumentmightbecome the basisforthe nextcontest,in which
otherdeveloperscompete todesignthe system’sarchitecture,specifyingthe requiredpiecesof software and
the connections among them. Further contests are launched to develop each of the pieces separately and
thentointegrate themintoaworkingwhole.Finally,still otherprogrammerscompete tofindandcorrectbugs
in the sundry parts of the system.(…) In the great traditionof the divisionof labour,thishyperspecialization
pays off.TopCodercanoftenprovide itsclientswithdevelopmentworkthatiscomparable inqualitytowhat
theywouldget by more traditional meansbutat as little as 25% of the cost. And it managesto do this while
maintainingasatisfied,well-paidcommunityof coders.Aswe’lldiscuss,the potential quality,speed,andcost
advantages virtually guarantee that this model will become more widespread. But will its benefits be
unalloyed?Toensure thathyperspecializationisaswelcome asit is likely,we mustkeepoureyesopentoits
possible dangers.
Fast, Cheap, and Under Control
The term “hyperspecialization”isnot synonymouswithoutsourcingworktoother companiesor distributing
it to other places (as in offshoring), although it is facilitated by the same technologies. Rather, it means
breakingworkpreviouslydone byone personintomore-specializedpiecesdone byseveral people. Whether
those pieces are outsourced or distributed, their separation often leads to improvements in quality, speed,
and cost. To understandthe magnitudeof the qualitygainsthathyperspecializationmakespossible,consider
how much time youpersonallyspendontasksthat don’tdraw on your expertise andthatyou may not even
be particularlyadeptat performing.Justlike craft workersof the past, knowledge workersengage inmyriad
peripheral activitiesthat could be done better or more cheaplyby others (particularly others who specialize
in them).Projectmanagers,forexample,spenduntoldhourspreparingslide deckseventhoughfew of them
have the software facilityanddesignsensibilitiestodo that well.Some can delegate the task,whichat least
allows it to be accomplished less expensively. But imagine a service like TopCoder that could offer instant
accessto a networkof PowerPointjockeys.Imagine furtherthatsome of those remote workerswere brilliant
chart producers, others were eagle-eyed proof-readers, and still others were content experts for different
typesof presentations.(Some,forinstance,mightspecializeinsalespresentationsforofficesupplyproducts,
and others in internal project review meetings for the pharmaceutical industry.) Add an inspired graphic
designer, and there’s little doubt that the presentation would be enhanced.
Managing in a World of Hyperspecialization
In any given company, hyperspecialization might reshape the organization in many ways,from the macro to
the micro level of task assignment. Some of the tasks of a certain role might be hived off, or entire job
categoriesandprocessesmightbe upended.Managersmightfocusonlower-value-addedtasks,asthe clients
of Samasource do when they hand over data entry. Or they might see greater value in tapping world-class
expertise forhigh-endtasks.Forinstance,BusinessTalentGroupandYourEncore have networksof freelance
expertswhoprovide clientswithshort-term, high-priced,butideallyhigher-value consultation.Regardlessof
task level,capitalizing onhyperspecializationwill call fornew managerial skillsandfocus.First,managerswill
needtolearnhow bestto divide knowledge workintodiscrete,assignable tasks.Second,specializedworkers
shouldbe recruitedandthe termsof theircontributionsettled.Third,the qualityof the workmustbe ensured.
And finally, the pieces must be integrated.

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Breaking down the work.
Understandinghowaknowledge-basedjobcouldbe transformedbyhyperspecializationbeginswithmapping
the tasks currentlydone bypeople holdingthatjob.Sucha map may immediatelysuggesttasksandsubtasks
that could be performed with higher quality, at greater speed, or at lower cost by a specialized resource. In
2008 the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer undertook to do just this in an initiative it called pfizerWorks. Its task-
mappingrevealedthatPfizer’smosthighlyskilledknowledgeworkerswerespending20% to40% of theirtime
on things like data entry, web research, basic spreadsheet analysis, and PowerPoint slides. The company
established a process that allowed these tasks to be off-loaded,first to a pair of Indian offshoring firms and
then also to an Ohio-based company. Critical to subdividing knowledge work is understanding the
dependenciesamongtasksanddeterminingwhethertheycanbe managedsatisfactorilyif the tasksare done
by differentpeople.A simple example:A multinational companyrecentlyreorganizeditsadministrativestaff
and considered assigning the task of making executives’ travel arrangements to a select group of
administrative assistants who couldthen become its travel specialists. In the end the companydecided that
because travel itinerariesimpinge directly on the scheduling of other meetings (andon family birthdays and
anniversaries),itwasmore efficienttoleave thistask withthe administrative assistantswhoworkeddirectly
with the executives.
Recruiting workers and assigning tasks.
To complete hyperspecializedtasks,companiescanuse internal employees,developdedicatedrelationships
withexternalsuppliers,orrelyonintermediaryfirmsthatlinkclientswithcommunitiesof specializedworkers.
One large U.S.technologycompanyuseditsownstaffwhenitexperimentedwithhyperspecializingitsinternal
software-development process. PfizerWorks relied on a small number of dedicated outsourcing companies.
The T-shirt maker Threadless created its own community of workers to design and critique its products.
Hyperspecialization will require most managers to learn to work with the kinds of dedicated intermediaries
that have sprung up in recent years to provide access to pools of skilled labour. (See the exhibit “The New
Brokers of Work.”) Much as “cloud computing” services offer on-demand access to computer capacity and
storage space, these firms offer “crowd computing”—on-demand access to large groups of appropriately
specialized workers.
Quality control.
One way to ensure the quality of hyperspecialized work is to do what most companies do before they hire
employees:checkcredentials.Some project-basedintermediaries,includingoDeskandGuru.com, stillrelyon
this approach. But over the past decade several new approaches have emerged.
Payingbasedon an outcome is one.For instance,whena contestis heldon InnoCentive,the clientdoesnot
pay until a solutiontothe problemhasbeendeveloped.Usersof Mechanical Turk don’tpay unlessthe work
meets an acceptable level of quality. Another approach is to have multiple workers complete the same task
and use only results that are replicated. A related method is to mix real tasks with test tasks for which the
correct answer is already known.The intermediary CrowdFlower rejects contributions from people who get
its test tasks wrong. Still another approach is to have one group of workers do the tasks and another group
rate the outputs.
Good News, Bad News
Hyperspecialization offers significant advantages for companies, workers, and society. But it has a potential
dark side, which must be addressed. Although many of these advantages and disadvantages also occur with
the outsourcing and distribution of work, they arise in specific ways with hyperspecialization.

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The promise.
Hyperspecialization offers both workers and companies much more flexibility than traditional employment
arrangementsdo.Individualscanoftenworkwhereandwhentheychoose.AgentsforLiveOps,whichprovides
call centre outsourcing,findthisflexibilityveryattractive,because itallowsthemtooperate fromhome and
makesiteasiertobalance workwithpersonal responsibilities.Andthe autonomyworkersfeel whentheycan
choose theirown assignmentshasa strong appeal.Forcompanies,hyperspecializationallowscapacityto be
rampedup and downveryrapidly.Inthe wake of Hurricane Katrina,the Red Crosshotline wasoverwhelmed
with calls from people offering to contribute or volunteer.
Hyperspecialization can also ameliorate the skills mismatch that plagues many national labor markets. Even
with today’s high rates of unemployment, companies around the world find it increasingly difficult to hire
certainkey employees,suchas salesrepresentatives,engineers,andaccountants.These shortagesmightbe
alleviatedbyredefiningjobssothat,forexample,skilledaccountantscoordinatedthe workof hyperspecialists
doing the lower-skilled aspects of the job.
People who face barriers in traditional job markets might benefit from hyperspecialization as well. At web-
enabled intermediaries, workers are typically judged by what they produce—not by résumés, prior
experience,orreferences.Thiscanbe liberatingforyoungpeople lookingfora firstbreak,seniorsseekingto
stay connected to the work world, or those who risk discrimination in face-to-face workplaces. Pearl
Interactive Network, an Ohio-based company that performs outsourced tasks for pfizerWorks, primarily
employs people with disabilities.
At web-enabled intermediaries, workers are typically judged by what they produce—not by résumés, prior
experience, or references.
Hyperspecialization alsoprovides virtual labour mobility for people who live in developing countries. Wages
inadvancedeconomiescanexceedthoseinsome emergingnationsbyasmuchasa factorof eight.Beingable
to undertake small tasks on sites like Samasource and txteagle can thus significantly improve the economic
standing of workers in, say, Africa and South Asia.
ThomasW. Malone,RobertLaubacher andTammy Johns,The BigIdea:The Age of Specialization,Harvard
BusinessReview,July-August2011
“Coffice” – A funny example
Name: The coffice.
Age: As old as free Wi-Fi.
Appearance: Half coffee shop, half office. Hence the name.
Just a few words in and you've already lost me. It's where all the
cool kidswork.Ratherthancommutingtoa boringoldoffice,they
take theirlaptopstotheirlocal StarbucksorCosta,where theycan
yap into their mobiles,hog the tables and wreck the atmosphere
for anyone who justwants an espressoand a read of the papers?
Well, yeah. But they can also surf the net, check their emails and
access their Google Drives. Is this another puff piece for the
Guardian's "achingly trendy" Shoreditch-based coffee shop? No.
This is a piece about the changing face of work, as described by
NicolaMillard.She's afuturologistforBT. A whatologist?She ispaidtoadvise BTanditsbigcustomersonhow
working life will change over the next few years. She prefers to call herself a "soonologist". She's joking, of

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course?One canonlyhope so,thoughone of herpeersdoescall himselfa"trendDJ".Millard'sfavourite place
to work, she says, is somewhere with a bit of a life but no colleagues to distract her. "My four criteria for
working,"she says,"are thatI needgoodcoffee,Ineedgoodcake,Ineedgreatconnectivity –the Wi-Fi wings
to flyme intothe cloud –andI needcompany." That'sall veryinteresting…Butwhatdoesitmeanforthe rest
of us?Precisely.Notmuchif you're stackingshelvesorchangingoldpeople'sincontinence pads.Butif you're
a "knowledge-based"worker,Millardpointsout,all youneedformostof the time is aphone,acomputerand
an internetconnection.Thiscouldbe inyourlocal cafe – or itcouldbe inyourhome."There isnoreasonwhy
knowledge workers shouldn't all be working flexibly in five years' time," per Millard. How much does a
futurologist earn? I too have a gift for stating the obvious. It's not obvious to everyone. Just last year the
internet giant Yahoo! banned its executives from working at home. Being "one Yahoo!", apparently, "starts
with being physically together". I think I'm going to be physically sick. I've got a better idea. Let's go to the
pubfice.
Don't say: "I'm working late."
Do say: "I'll be working on latte."
Currency of Trust
Conventions of how trust is built,managed, lost and repaired – in brands, leaders,and entire systems are
beingturned upside down.Technology iscreating new mechanisms that are enablingus to trust unknown
people, companies and ideas. Think Airbnb, Tinder and Bitcoin. At the same time, trust in institutions is
fading. A shift is underway from the 20th century defined by ‘institutional trust’ towards the 21st century
that will be defined by ‘distributed trust’ across huge networks of people, organizations and intelligent
machines. According to the concept of collaborative consumption, it guides us also towards a shift from
a consumerist and capitalist 20th century into a new way of consuming, where people consume “to get to
know the Joneses”.Using webservices, the fact that consumers evaluate workers based on their product,
on a direct basis, creates (or either, recreates) a long-lost sense of humanity. This way, reputation is our
most important asset, it is the socioeconomic lubricant that makes collaborative consumption work and
scale.
I believe thatwe are at the startof a collaborative revolution that will be as significant as
the Industrial Revolution. In the 20th century, the invention of traditional credit
transformed ourconsumersystem,and in many wayscontrolled who had accessto what.
In the 21st century, new trust networks, and the reputation capital they generate, will
reinvent the way we think about wealth, markets, power and personal identity, in ways
we can't yet even imagine.
- Rachel Botsman
Conclusion
As a whole,“the worldof work”isan astoundingandcomplex topic,andpredictingitsfuture andthe change
in flows we will see, it is safe to say collaborative consumption and hyperspecialization are just two of the
trendsthe future separates usfrom.Manyothers,likerobotics andprogressivemechanization,will alsosurely
be as or even more important. Still, unquestionably, this is a topic that deservesour attention,being a very
interesting matter of study, exploring an underlying consequence of our further digitalization of the
workplace.
Looking in retrospect to this assignment, I can only see it as the perfect way to elevate the way work is put
intoperspective,disruptinganypreviousideasonthe conceptof future work,andbringingamore humanized
societyintothe forefrontof priorities.Thisissurelyanalmostutopicconcept,believingthegoodnessinpeople

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and their capacity to, moved by their own interests, create a decentralized economy that puts sharing and
common interest above all. Reaching this conclusion, it is now safe to say that, most of all, the way future
work will developcanonlybe due to students,andthe values,qualitiesandskillsetstheydevelop.Andso,it
promotes the importance of quality education and teachers that push their students further and further,
making them always better.

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Bibliography/Webography
 www.rachelbotsman.com
 www.hbr.org
 www.investopedia.com
 blog.ferrovial.com
 www.collaborativeeconomy.com
 www.ted.com
 www.vox.com
 www.slideshare.net
 www.taylormali.com
 www.zenpencils.com