How sharing became trendy - Telegraph I realised that sharing had been catapulted into the stratosphere last June when I shared a cup of coffee (not the same cup, I hasten to add) with Lisa Gansky in San Francisco. Lisa is one of the most respected experts in commercialising sharing and has set out her thinking in her book The Mesh. Lisa explains that the rise of sharing is largely due to new technology that makes it easy and simple to share - "homes and cars and bikes and tools can be put on a network that makes them accessible to others when you aren't going to use them for periods of time." And in the next three to five years, Lisa predicts that "whenever you buy something, it will automatically be logged into a shareable virtual inventory. It's social media, the next wave, connecting not just us, but our stuff. Thinking about how much money you could save by, for example, sharing car ownership is striking. Like many car owners, I live in denial about how much it costs to buy and run my car, compared to how little I use it. The average car sits idle for 92 per cent of its life. Cars are rarely seen as a great investment at the best of times, but when you throw in usage rates, it makes throwing money down the drain seem like a cheap pastime. That's why car share schemes have really taken off and in various forms; from GoGet and Zip Car to Ali Cabborn's inspiring liftshare.com scheme in the UK. And some schemes now enable you to make money from your car, like RelayRides in the US where it claims that the average car owner makes $200 to $300 a month by renting the car out to neighbours and strangers alike. Whether it's learned behaviour or a basic human impulse, owning seems to have been the accepted way to consume. Many people will consciously or subconsciously define themselves by their ownership of a particular car or other accessory. Some may feel embarrassed rocking up to the golf course in a car emblazoned with the car share scheme logo. But in many ways sharing is becoming the new cool and as people experience it, I have no doubt that it will become the new norm as well. Of course sharing as a consuming and business concept is not entirely new - take hotels where rooms are shared or DVD rental companies like Blockbusters. But sharing has been catapulted into the stratosphere by new technology available to all, and the ingenuity of many people who have developed mainstream alternatives to conventional ownership models. Before the internet and the iPhone, it would have been difficult to have known that the guy three blocks down is willing to rent out his BMW for $10 an hour. So in an era when capitalism is being redefined every hour by commentators, business leaders and politicians, it is the turn of consumers and innovators to not talk but do. In many ways it is a return to the basics; people coming together, pooling resources, meeting their own needs, and in so doing creating jobs and generating wealth. This new form of mutualism has radical implications for how conventional businesses respond, but it also puts power into the hands of consumers - which as the leader of CHOICE, Australia's largest independent consumer group, I am playing my part to encourage.