2010-07-28
We're Hiring!
We're looking for a web developer in Los Angeles! It's a part time position with lots of potential to grow. See details on our jobs page.
0 comments | posted by Mickipedia
2010-07-27
Welcome NPR Listeners!
We love public radio! Because it's broadcast locally, it goes a long way to fostering a sense of local community. So we were very excited when Alex Cohen from LA's NPR station KPCC said she was interested in doing a segment on NeighborGoods for Morning Edition. The segment aired this morning and we'd like to take this moment to welcome all the new members who discovered us through Alex's news segment! If you missed it, listen online here.
5 comments | posted by Neighbor Micki
2010-07-23
Try something new this weekend with NeighborGoods
Got big plans this weekend? Maybe a beach picnic or a hike in the woods? Whatever your plans, you can borrow what you need to have an awesome summer weekend on NeighborGoods. Consider borrowing something you've never tried before.
Ever want to take up surfing? We have 6 surfboards currently listed on NeighborGoods including this sweet long board. If you can't find one near you, add it to your wishlist so your neighbors can hook you up.
You can borrow tennis rackets and even tennis partners! How about rock climbing? You can borrow gear for that too!
Maybe you're feeling a little less adventurous and you'd like to get crafty this weekend. We've got 40 sewing machines in the inventory to choose from! There's probably one near you!
Not sure what you want to do? Browse the inventory near you. I'm sure you'll find something fun to try. Have a great weekend!
0 comments | posted by Mickipedia
2010-07-22
NeighborGoods on KPIX TV in San Francisco!
Check out this awesome news piece about us on KPIX in San Francisco! Many thanks to super neighbor mjmontagne for doing such a great job as an interview subject!
0 comments | posted by Neighbor Micki
2010-07-19
NeighborGoods on Digital Village
In case you missed it, I did my first LIVE radio interview on Saturday on KPFK! It was really great talking with Ric and Doran. They host a great show and they really dug deeply into the meaning and impact of NeighborGoods which was super fun. Plus I got to wear those cool headphones! If you missed it and you'd like to hear, you can listen online at DigitalVillage.org.
0 comments | posted by Mickipedia
2010-07-15
Consumer or Citizen?
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
1 comment | posted by Neighbor Micki
2010-07-12
A heartfelt thanks for our neighbors!
It's been a week and a half since our national launch and I'm writing to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for making it such a huge success. I'm sure you've noticed your neighborhood growing around you! In fact, we've welcomed thousands of new neighbors and inventory items this week!
The support from the press has been amazing too! We've been featured on some of our favorite sites including BoingBoing, Lifehacker, TechCrunch and Shareable. We're humbled and amazed by the response from communities across the country.
So we thank you, our growing network of neighbors. We thank you for taking a step toward improving your neighborhood by sharing your stuff on NeighborGoods. Speaking of your neighborhood, the more folks sign up around you, the better your sharing experience will be. So if you haven't already, be sure to invite your friends to share with you. That way when you need to borrow a back yard cinema kit or some egg-laying chickens, you'll be able to find them near you.
Again, thanks so much for being the awesome neighbors that you are!
0 comments | posted by Mickipedia
2010-07-01
Why NeighborGoods matters
The idea of NeighborGoods is so simple. Sharing stuff is good for you. It saves you money, it's more sustainable than buying a bunch of crap you don't need, and it creates a reason to meet a friend or a neighbor face to face where you might not have otherwise. Still, this very simple idea has the potential for monumental impact, especially when taken in context of a larger cultural movement.
My good friend Sean Bonner wrote a post about our launch yesterday and he summed up our mission so well it brought a tear to my eye. He gushes about NeighborGoods in a way that I couldn't possibly do myself so I want to share it here for you.
I'm not just being exaggeratory here, I firmly believe that Neighborgoods will change the world. This is a world changing service. The best products/services/ideas are the ones that make your life easier - they shave you time, they save you money, they save you hassle. Neighborgoods does those all of those things while at the same time reducing the amount of waste we will generate that will end up in landfills. It saves you from buying things you don't need, and lets the things you already have be put to better use.
But it also allows us to be social within our neighborhoods again. There was a time when people actually walked next door to borrow a cup of sugar from their neighbors. Nowadays most people don't even know what their neighbors names are. Neighborgoods allows you to share your stuff with only your friends, and/or also with people who live near you. Our society is increasingly told not to talk to strangers - but everyone is a stranger until you have a reason to meet them. Neighborgoods makes it OK to be friends with the people who live near you again. It's not just good for your wallet, for your storage problems, for the environment, it's actually good for society as a whole. I whole heartedly believe this, and I'm so excited for and proud of what they are doing and I can't wait to see where it goes from here. People launch sites and products every day, but few of them have the ability to impact your life for the better as much as Neighborgoods does. If you live in SoCal you probably already know this. If you live somewhere else in the US, this just changed your life and you don't even know it yet - go sign up now.
Read the full post and check out how awesome Sean is on his blog here. <3
1 comment | posted by Neighbor Micki
2010-06-30
Holy sh*t! We launched!
Holy shit today was intense! I'm sorry but there's just no other way to say it! We've put so much work into NeighborGoods and I've been so honored to work with such amazingly talented people over the past year and finally we all get to celebrate a huge national launch for our tiny startup. And boy did we launch! We launched with a giant bang!
- Over 1000 new members in the last 24 hours
- We're bringing in revenue for the first time
Here are just a few highlights from all of today's amazing press!
Neighborgoods: borrowing, lending, or renting from your neighbors instead of buying new, Boing Boing
NeighborGoods is a Location-Based Lending and Borrowing Network,Lifehacker
NeighborGoods Comes to Your Neighborhood,Shareable.net
NeighborGoods Extends The Sharing Of Actual Things To The National Level, TechCrunch
Share Stuff with Friends and Neighbors, Laughing Squid
Save Money This Summer with NeighborGoods, Mother Nature News
NeighborGoods Launches Across the USA, Wired Blog
And wow, I couldn't have expected more love from Twitter. We spent the whole day in a wash of supportive tweets from folks who want to live more sustainably and help strengthen their communities. This is a movement, people! Each and every one of us can play HAS TO PLAY a part in creating the world we want to live in. And we have to start in our own neighborhoods.
Thank you sooo much to everyone who's helped in the early days. We are just beginning! Your participation and feedback has been invaluable. This means you, beta testers!
Big fat special thanks to my lovely ladies:
@crisdobbins, Designer Extraordinaire
@jessicasumthing, The Best Intern Ever
@spenceke, The better half of @XOXCO
And of course our brilliant and talented developer who I am so freaking lucky to work with, Ben Brown at XOXCO. No, he will not build you a copy of NeighborGoods.
0 comments | posted by Neighbor Micki
2010-06-30
NeighborGoods launches nationally today!
Big news today, neighbors! We learned a lot during our test run in SoCal. With the help of our members' thoughtful feedback and support, we re-designed the entire service and opened the doors to everyone in the US!
Here's what you can expect:
- Simpler design with personalized dashboard
- Easier process to add items (like one click!)
- Improved discovery of people and items near you
Here's what you can do:
The most common bit of feedback we get is, "I wish there were more people near me to share with." Now that NeighborGoods is open nationally, we're counting on you to invite your friends. We've made that easier with the re-design including automatically connecting to your Facebook, Twitter and email accounts if you like. So log in today and invite your friends!
We'd like to send a heartfelt thanks to our earliest supporters. You have set the course for this community which we are very proud to launch today. Thank you for supporting our mission to help neighbors live more sustainable and connected lives.
Check out the official press release:
NeighborGoods Ushers in the Post-Consumer Economy Helping Americans Save Money and Resources by Borrowing, Lending and Renting Instead of Buying New
And spread the word!
0 comments | posted by Mickipedia
NeighborGoods News
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