Date: March 12, 2012

Listen: 3/12/12 Sharing and Growing – Collaborative Consumption Movement

The explosive growth of online communities for sharing, swapping, trading and lending is reinventing the way that we consume and build relationships.  This new shift is changing how we do business and is called the collaborative consumption movement. Companies like ZipCar grew by 30% last year, and Airbnb has seen its bookings increase four-fold during 2011 by capitalizing on collaborative consumption.

Join me on Business Reinvention for an insightful conversation about the emerging collaborative economy on Monday March 12 at 4 pm Pacific Time.  In this episode, Jeffrey Manheimer, VP of Business Development at Tripping.com, a global community for cultural exchange and local home rentals, will provide information about game-changing business models and the new travel experience.  Paolo Parigi, Assistant Sociology Professor at Stanford, will also join the discussion to talk about his studies of social networks, based on the data from CouchSurfing.com.  We will explore how changing consumption and social behaviors could pose new business challenges and opportunities for companies.

Date: March 12, 2012

Listen: 3/5/12 Reinvention Walmart – One Employee at a Time

Nancy Lin interviewed Cynthia Scott, the former VP of Organization Strategy at Saatchi and Saatchi, and the current chairman for the Presidio Graduate School’s Executive Certification Program. While at Saatchi and Saatchi, Scott helped Walmart launch the ambitious Zero-Waste program to eliminate landfill waste generated by its U.S. operations by 2025. Since the pilot program, Walmart has surprised many of its skeptics with impressive results. In 2010, Walmart reduced the plastic bag waste across its global operations by 47.95 million pounds, or approximately 3.5 billion bags. This represented a 21 percent reduction from the company’s 2007 baseline.

In this episode of Business Reinvention, we gain insight into how Cynthia Scott’s pilot program capitalized on Walmart’s corporate culture and helped the giant retailer empower its employees to drive change.

Date: February 27, 2012

Listen: 2/27/12 Savers Wanted

We are going through one of the worst recessions in U.S. History. Our consumer debt has reached $2.5 trillion and our personal savings rate is at a meager 3.5%. Switzerland’s personal savings rate is 15% and most Asian countries are between 25-50%. Will we rebound by spending our way out of the recession again, or will the huge deficit force us to look for a new way out of our problems?

Most companies grow by driving consumer spending. In this segment, we talk with Priya Haji, CEO of Saveup.com whose success is based on increasing consumer savings. We explore their new business model and partnerships that are creating win-win situations for businesses and consumers.

Listen to the show: Breaking All the Rules: Delancey Street

Delancey Street is the leading residential self-help organization for substance abusers, ex-convicts, homeless and others who have hit bottom. For 40 years, the ground-breaking social enterprise provides an environment where the “untouchable” learn to develop their strengths, hold each other accountable, and run successful restaurants, moving companies, landscaping businesses and bookstores without any professional help. In this episode, we will speak with the founder and CEO of Delancey Street, Mimi Halper Silbert, to learn about the keys to influence behavior and inspire reinvention. Companies can learn from Delancey Street about how to create an organization that inspires and enables change.