How NeighborGoods Works from sparky rose on Vimeo.

As a country, we own way too much stuff. We’ve been on a shopping bender for the last 50 years and now we’re paying for it. Americans spend over $22 billion a year on self-storage space. According to the Self Storage Association, the amount of self storage space in this country is equivalent to 7.4 square feet for every man, woman and child. Think about all the stuff stored in all that space as well as in our closets, garages, and bookshelves.

Sharing that stuff with our neighbors obviously helps us save money and live more sustainably. By sharing stuff we already own, we are buying less stuff, getting more use out of what we’ve already purchased, and throwing fewer items away. The financial and environmental benefits are very plain. That’s why I created NeighborGoods.net a place to help neighbors share with each other.

Lately, I’ve been most interested in another benefit of sharing – it’s positive impact on local communities. Working to help our members share, we’ve learned a lot about how that activity can bring neighborhoods together. We’ve learned that people do trust each other, that people are friendly, and that they want to help their neighbors. We’ve learned that sharing something you own is the ultimate ice breaker. Once you share a few things with a neighbor, you are friends forever. Sharing your power drill with your neighbor takes a certain amount of trust. When you get that power drill back, that trust is reinforced. Now you’ve helped your neighbor. You both share a feeling of accomplishment and connection. Those feelings go a long way toward recreating small town connectedness even in the most urban settings.

I’ve noticed this change in my own neighborhood. After months of sharing on NeighborGoods, I’ve also noticed a change in myself.

As the founder of NeighborGoods, it’s not surprising that my neighborhood (Atwater Village in Los Angeles) has a very active sharing group on NeighborGoods. I’ve made really great friends using it. On top of lending stuff to each other on NeighborGoods, we now help each other with rides to the airport, moving furniture, and walking dogs. We watch each other’s houses when we go out of town. We’ve got a built in local support group. A few of our members are very active on the neighborhood council. We often get together over a few beers and talk about all the upcoming events and neighborhood improvement projects. For the first time ever, I feel connected to where I live. I feel engaged with my neighborhood and my city. I want to help make Atwater Village a better place to live. Through NeighborGoods, I have become a more active local citizen.

When I created NeighborGoods, I knew sharing would help connect neighbors, but I didn’t understand the deep and profound implications of that connection until I experienced it myself. Sharing our stuff might be just the activity we need more of to create a more engaged, connected and active citizenry, one neighborhood at a time.

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NeighborGoods.net is a safe and fun community for sharing stuff with your friends and neighbors. Save money and resources while strengthening your local community by renting and borrowing instead of buying new. Create a group for your neighborhood!

You may have noticed that I’ve pretty much stopped promoting the Pepsi Refresh Challenge in the past few weeks because it’s crazy annoying. It’s annoying for you, it’s annoying for me. NeighborGoods is a young startup with a very small team and honestly, there are better ways for me to spend my time than sending daily reminders to our friends and supporters to vote. I know our friends and supporters certainly have better things to do with their time.

Still, the allure of $50k to support NeighborGoods is difficult to ignore and somehow the contest keeps crawling back into my mind. $50k would do a lot for our growing company. Instead of just calling it quits and moving on, I’ve spent the majority of this month feeling frustrated and powerless in the face of the dark unknown beast that is the Pepsi Refresh Challenge. Not because we’re doing poorly (we are). But because Pepsi did not provide the tools necessary to even play a fair game.

Much ado has been made lately about the Pepsi Refresh contest and online voting contests in general. Contests like these are thinly-veiled marketing tools for the companies hosting them. Everyone who enters a project in Pepsi Refresh becomes a willing marketing drone to benefit Pepsi at the cost of his/her own social capital. What does Pepsi give in return for that precious social capital?

Zero planning time:

Applying for Pepsi Refresh is a contest in itself. The website accepts submissions at midnight EST the first day of each month. For three months in a row, I sat hovering over my laptop to submit my completed application at the stroke of midnight. For three months in a row, I received unexplained error messages as I tried to upload and/or the contest filled up before I could click “submit.” Finally, on July 1, I got my application in. I received a message that my project was in review and that if approved, it would be entered into the voting contest starting August 1. I waited eagerly for news that NeighborGoods had been accepted into the contest. As Sloane mentions in her piece, Pepsi Refresh for the Gulf is an Epic Fail and Here’s Why, it’s almost impossible to win the Refresh Everything challenge unless you get onto the leaderboard in the very beginning of the contest. So planning the first hours of your campaign is essential.

I didn’t receive word until 11:24pm on July 31 that my project was approved. Voting began at 6am the following morning. Without time to plan, it was impossible for me reach out to my networks to ensure I had support early in the voting process. Could you imagine sending an email to everyone in your address book asking for votes as soon as the polls open only to find that your project is not even included?

First thing in the morning, NeighborGoods debuted low on the list – placed about 170th – and it hasn’t strayed too much from that spot since voting began.

A broken website:

The Refresh Everything website has been plagued with issues all month. I’ve received tons of messages from supporters saying they were unable to vote because Facebook wasn’t connecting properly. Sadly, this error didn’t seem to be consistent so it plagued some projects/voters more than others. Even when it is working, it’s difficult to tell when your vote has been accepted due to a confusing multi-click login process. Again, according to Sloane’s detailed post, the Gulf projects had even bigger technical problems. Techcrunch noted issues with the website back in January including a huge security breach.

Zero transparency:

The lack of transparency in the contest is the cause of biggest concern for me. It’s disheartening to spend so much time and energy begging for votes without any immediate feedback. Voters themselves are burnt out by so many requests. The least Pepsi could do for the folks tirelessly clicking is show them that what they are doing makes a difference by sharing vote counts transparently. With rumors of proxy voting even after the contest rules were updated to expressly forbid the practice, Pepsi’s lack of transparency feels disrespectful at best and shady at worst. The participants have no way of knowing how many votes they need, which get the vote out tactics are working, or if it’s even worth their time to continue with the contest. And I suspect that’s why they don’t share the numbers. Pepsi wants to keep any potentially shady votes hidden from the public so as not to cast a shadow over the whole contest. Pepsi wants all the folks involved to KEEP PROMOTING at all costs. If you can’t see that you need an impossible number of votes to win, maybe you’ll keep spamming all your contacts to send them to Pepsi’s website instead of turning your energies elsewhere. As Beth Kanter argued in her What Lessons Will Pepsi Learn About Crowdsourcing for Social Good from Chase Bank Contest Fail? blog post, the big problem with contests like Pepsi Refresh is that they waste “many nonprofits’ [and small startups'] most valuable resource: their time.”

Of course, there’s no reason to believe a popularity contest is a viable way to make social change but everyone who enters contests like this agrees to suspend judgment on that in return for the chance to win money. We all know we’re entering a popularity contest when we sign up for these things. So barring that conversation for the moment, how could Pepsi have run a similar contest without leaving such a sour taste in the mouths of the participants? Mmmm Pepsi… How could Pepsi have run a voting contest that respects the participation of the projects and the voters?

TRANSPARENCY
Sharing the number of votes for each project helps contest participants judge how much time to spend getting out the vote. It also helps them evaluate which tactics work and which tactics are less effective. It gives participants the tools they need to make decisions about how best to spread the word without burning bridges with their social and professional contacts. Transparency also helps contest participants monitor the fairness of the contest they are spending so much time to promote. While this is a risk for Pepsi, fairness should have been priority number one and the contest should not have launched until Pepsi was confident fairness could be guaranteed. Transparency with vote counts is also better for the voters – the people Pepsi counts on to visit their website every day. It’s community management 101 to provide immediate feedback for your users.

VOTE ONCE (NOT DAILY)
Daily voting is much more vulnerable to unethical voting practices (proxy voting) than a one time voting system would be. Daily voting provides an advantage to folks who have more time and the mental bandwidth to remember to vote every day. Should the votes of CEOs be less valuable than the votes of a Jr. High School student who can more easily vote every day? One time voting provides a better yardstick for measuring the support a particular project has. One time voting allows participants to reach out to their networks without spamming them endlessly. It encourages participants to increase the reach of the projects which is also good for the projects themselves.

BETTER DISCOVERY
There are countless ways the website and voting experience could be improved but a big one is discovery. With so many projects in the running, it’s difficult to browse and locate projects to support. Unless your project is on the leaderboard, it’s not likely that random visitors to the website will find your project. There is a bit of “If you like this project, here are some similar projects,” but again there is little transparency in these recommendations and they are clunky at best. Viewable tags, improved categories and social recommendations based on your friends votes would be helpful here.

There is one week left to vote in this round of the Pepsi Refresh challenge. Then it begins all over again. (Projects carry over from month to month.) I will not be wasting any time next month looking for votes. Instead, I will focus on building my business. If you are so inclined, you can vote for us here. I will not be asking you again.

Thanks to everyone who has voted for us. Pepsi Refresh aside, I appreciate your support more than you know. And for you, we will continue to work to make NeighborGoods awesome.

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As Sloane did in her blog post on the subject, I feel that in the interest of full disclosure I need to say that I too know some folks working on the Pepsi Refresh campaign personally. I’m friendly with multiple folks at GOOD Magazine, Pepsi’s partner in the project, and I respect them all a great deal. I have no choice but to assume that these issues were beyond their control. I point fingers at no person in particular. I can’t even blame PEPSI the brand because the world just doesn’t work that way. In truth, this was likely a rushed project plagued with management issues that trickled down to the projects and ultimately the voters themselves. In the end, I hope open discussion around the Pepsi Refresh Challenge will be useful for those planning similar campaigns in the future.

Video from my Ignite presentation at Foo Camp.

It’s that time again. Time to vote for your favorite SXSW panels! I’m a seasoned panelist at SXSW and I’m really looking forward to this one. Give us a thumbs up so we can share local awesomeness with the SXSW Community!

Local Online Communities: Won’t You Be My Neighbor

Americans are increasingly turning to high tech tools to recreate the small town experience. Join us for a discussion with pioneers of local tech to learn about how location-based technologies are connecting people to create the next generation economy and a more engaged citizenry. We’ll cover tools of the trade, best practices and give you tips on how you can infuse place into your project. Finally, we’ll envision what the ideal connected neighborhood might look like in the future.

Questions Answered:
What are the best tools to make a local community more connected?
How are people using technology to create local economies?
How can I add a local focus to my technology product?
Why should I add a local focus to my technology product?
How can local technology help us build a better world?

Speakers:
Moderator: Lane Becker, Get Satisfaction
Jen Pahlka, Code for America
Micki Krimmel, NeighborGoods
Ann Baldinucci, Nabewise
Joe Stump, Simple Geo

This article, But Will it Make You Happy?, has been making the rounds today. In fact, it’s currently the most popular article on NYTimes.com. We all know that buying more junk doesn’t make us happy. We already know in our hearts what the science proves in this article. Not one among us would argue that our most important, memorable life experiences are born in consumption. In fact, many have been arguing recently that consumption is a distraction to what matters most in life. Could it be that the sluggish economy is just what we needed to refocus our priorities on what makes us really happy?

Amid weak job and housing markets, consumers are saving more and spending less than they have in decades, and industry professionals expect that trend to continue. Consumers saved 6.4 percent of their after-tax income in June, according to a new government report. Before the recession, the rate was 1 to 2 percent for many years. In June, consumer spending and personal incomes were essentially flat compared with May, suggesting that the American economy, as dependent as it is on shoppers opening their wallets and purses, isn’t likely to rebound anytime soon.

On the bright side, the practices that consumers have adopted in response to the economic crisis ultimately could – as a raft of new research suggests – make them happier. New studies of consumption and happiness show, for instance, that people are happier when they spend money on experiences instead of material objects, when they relish what they plan to buy long before they buy it, and when they stop trying to outdo the Joneses.

In the article, Marshal Cohen, from the research firm NPD Group says, “We’re moving from a conspicuous consumption – which is ‘buy without regard’ – to a calculated consumption.” Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers argue that we are shifting to a model of Collaborative Consumption. Whatever the term, the plain truth is that whether by necessity or choice, many of us are setting our sights on a simplified life. We are seeking happiness in relationships and experiences as as opposed to the accumulation of more shiny objects.

NeighborGoods, Zipcar, AirBnB and all the other services that are a part of the new sharing economy are proof of this shift and give us the opportunity to borrow and share material goods instead of purchasing and owning them. The New York Times article closes with a bit of advice: “Give away some of your stuff. See how it feels.” I encourage you to also lend some of your stuff and borrow something you need from a neighbor. See how that feels.

Before I get to begging for votes, I have to say thanks to our amazing members! Thank you so much for making our national launch a huge success! It’s been an amazing month. Thousands of you joined NeighborGoods, invited your friends and added your stuff to the inventory. Our neighbors are now sharing well over $2 million worth of stuff! That makes us the fastest-growing peer-to-peer lending/renting site out there.

We are honored that you have given us the opportunity to help you and your neighbors save money and resources by sharing stuff you already own. We promise to keep improving our service and to keep kicking ass for you!

But we need your help. I’m sure you’ve heard of the Pepsi Refresh Project by now. You’ve probably even had some of your friends bug you for votes to support various ideas. This month, we’re asking for your support to help us win $50k!

I know there are so many contests these days and it can get a little annoying. But this cash will go a long way for us and we’d appreciate it if you can take a minute out of your day to vote for the NeighborGoods community.

HOW TO VOTE:
Just visit this link and click “Vote for this idea:” http://www.refresheverything.com/neighborgoods
If you’ve got a Facebook account, you can vote with just one click.

You can vote once a day through the month of August. It’s an easy and free way to show your support for our mission to build stronger, more sustainable communities.

Thanks in advance for your support!

Photo by Wildbell

I joined hundreds of my fellow Angelenos today to walk 7 miles in honor of the famed “Silverlake Walking Man,” Dr. Marc Abrams, who passed away this week. If you live in the area, you no doubt have seen him on his daily walks, always shirtless, usually carrying a newspaper. The Walking Man was a Los Angeles icon.

Photo by Wildbell

My friend Verdell Wilson organized the memorial walk with a post on a local blog. She planned the route based on a press interview with Dr. Abrams where he described his daily path, “I usually loop around the lake, and then go down West Silverlake to Rowena, and then Hyperion, and then Griffith Park Blvd. down Sunset, back down Silverlake to the reservoir, and then back and loop around the lake again. So it’s about 15 miles altogether.”

Verdell was surprised by the response from the community. She tweeted, “It’s amazing how many people feel personally affected by the passing of a man they didn’t know. Me included.”

Controversy about the doctor aside, I was personally happy to participate in the memorial walk today. People often say that LA is a city without community. The success of today’s walk proves that is not true. The memorial walk was less about honoring Dr. Abrams and more about celebrating LA. about 400 Angelenos came together today to bond over a shared experience – the shared experience of seeing the Walking Man every day. Just by doing his thing, he gave us something to share. I met some really great people today. I ran into many friends. I enjoyed Silverlake for the beautiful neighborhood that it is. And I felt proud to be a part of this community.

Verdell with Eric Garcetti, President of LA City Council
Photo by Wildbell

By the way, Verdell totally borrowed that bullhorn on NeighborGoods!

The next time someone says to you or someone else “Looks like
you have too much time on your hands,” I encourage you to respond with a question: “if you could have more of just one thing, what would it be?”

links:
Time Affluence
Jane McGonigal

On July 15, 1979, President Jimmy Carter spoke to the American people about the “Crisis of Confidence” faced by Americans who were losing faith in the government and who increasingly feared that their children would be worse-off than them. In this famous speech, Carter laments the loss of American values in the face of rising consumerism.

Our people are losing that faith, not only in government itself but in the ability as citizens to serve as the ultimate rulers and shapers of our democracy. As a people we know our past and we are proud of it. Our progress has been part of the living history of America, even the world. We always believed that we were part of a great movement of humanity itself called democracy, involved in the search for freedom, and that belief has always strengthened us in our purpose. But just as we are losing our confidence in the future, we are also beginning to close the door on our past.

In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We’ve learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.

The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us. For the first time in the history of our country a majority of our people believe that the next 5 years will be worse than the past 5 years. Two-thirds of our people do not even vote. The productivity of American workers is actually dropping, and the willingness of Americans to save for the future has fallen below that of all other people in the Western world.

Sound familiar? Setting aside the religion issue for the moment, it’s clear that we face many of the same problems Carter discussed in 1979 today – and more. We are no longer a nation at peace everywhere around the world. The energy crisis has worsened. Consumer debt and national debt is out of control. Millions of Americans have been pushed out of their homes and unemployment is reaching record highs. Still, in the face of clear evidence that rampant consumption is unsustainable, we measure the health of our economy by our spending. Still, we measure the quality of American life by our ability to spend.

It’s like consumerism has practically replaced citizenship. But how did this happen? How did we go from a nation of citizens to a country of consumers? Liberals will argue that rampant de-regulation was the culprit. Conservatives will say that free market capitalism is the purest expression of democracy. Personally, I’m less interested in esoteric discussions about economic theory than I am in conversations about how we, the citizens of America, can impact the future of our own communities. How can we re-build the sense of community and common purpose in our local neighborhoods? How can we restore values of thrift and saving for the future? How can we work together to restore a sense of confidence in the future of America?

We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I’ve warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.

All the traditions of our past, all the lessons of our heritage, all the promises of our future point to another path, the path of common purpose and the restoration of American values. That path leads to true freedom for our Nation and ourselves.

21 years after Jimmy Carter delivered his speech, a movement is growing to take up his mission to “commit ourselves together to a rebirth of the American spirit.” Neighborhoods across the country are taking their communities into their hands. The number of farmers’ markets has more than tripled since the mid-90s. Activists in cities across the country are supporting community projects like urban farming, bicycle lanes, and community art projects. Location-based technologies like Foursquare and Loopt are exploding in popularity as citizens are seeking to be more connected to their local communities.

In their upcoming book, What’s Mine is Yours, Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers argue, “[I]n the 20th century of hyper-consumption we were defined by credit, advertising, and what we owned, and how in the 21st century of Collaborative Consumption we will be defined by reputation, community, and by what we can access.” Collaborative Consumption is an explosive movement of “sharing, bartering, lending, trading, renting, gifting, and swapping… that is transforming business, consumerism and the way we live.” The authors examine the growth of services like ZipCar, Swaptree, Couchsurfing, and NeighborGoods. As the founder of NeighborGoods, a peer-to-peer lending and borrowing service for local neighborhoods, I’m proud to be a part of this consumer citizen-driven effort to rebuild local communities and restore confidence in America’s future.

But how can borrowing and lending household goods help restore confidence in America’s future? At NeighborGoods, we believe that hidden inside all the stuff you own is a whole bunch of latent value. The items you are not using on a regular basis hold latent monetary value as well as social value. Obviously, when you share objects with others, you are helping your neighbors save money. By getting more use out of your power drill, you are extracting more of its monetary value. By sharing that power drill, you are also creating stronger social bonds with your neighbor, thus extracting the hidden social value in that object. We’ve spent most of the 20th century buying objects and building fences to protect them. NeighborGoods and other sharing services help us lower those fences as we transition into the more sustainable, less consumer-driven economy of the 21st century. By lowering your fences and sharing with people around you, you are actively participating in the Collaborative Consumption movement. You, my generous and forward-thinking friends, are true citizens.

Citizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, or national community. Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities. “Active citizenship” is the philosophy that citizens should work towards the betterment of their community through economic participation, public , volunteer work, and other such efforts to improve life for all citizens. In this vein, schools in some countries provide citizenship education. Citizenship was equated by Virginia Leary (1999) as connoting “a bundle of rights — primarily, political participation in the life of the community, the right to vote, and the right to receive certain protection from the community, as well as obligations.” – Wikipedia.org

Video and transcript of “Crisis of Confidence” speech via Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia.