Something profound is changing our concept of trust. Evident in the U.S. election outcome as well as U.K.’s Brexit vote, our confidence in institutions – political, commercial and otherwise – is on the decline.
Rachel Botsman, Oxford lecturer and expert on the collaborative economy, has been tracing the transformation in trust for years. “This framework of trust has failed many of us through wrongdoing, scandal, or sheer ineffectiveness, and is consequently crumbling… because institutional trust isn’t designed for the digital age” she says in Harvard Business Review.
And yet simultaneously, people hop into strangers’ cars via Uber and let strangers into their homes via AirBnB, neither of which would have happened as recently as 8 years ago. What does that mean for the world? What does it mean for your business? What does this shift in trust from institutions to individuals mean for our children?
According to Rachel’s recent TED talk, three key words: “transparent”, “accountable” and “inclusive” are the building blocks of what she calls “distributed trust,” which will be the basis for more and more transactions across the globe. She looks at the upsides and downsides of this shift including what we should embrace and what we should fear.
To learn more about Rachel’s work, read her HBR article, watch her TED talk, and be on the look out for her forthcoming book on a new era of trust (Portfolio Penguin, 2017). To book her to speak at your event, contact us.
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