Last week marked the first ever Global Sharing Day. Organized by UK-based organization the People Who Share with partners OuiShare and Shareable, the day inspired people all over the world to host local sharing events. The day was a great success, bringing together tens of millions of people in 21 countries to share a variety of things and causing the hashtag #GlobalSharingDay to trend on Twitter.
Bernie Mitchell, Community Sharer at the People Who Share, was kind enough to give Shareable a recap of the day, providing us with an insider’s glimpse of the event and the plans for next year.
Shareable celebrated Global Sharing Day by launching its Australian channel with an event about the sharing economy in Melbourne. Who else participated and what were some of the most interesting projects?
We gained over 160 partners in 21 countries so it was huge! If you added up all the organisation members, Facebook fans, and employees of these partners, the reach gets to about 60 million people. In London we ran Financing the Sharing Economy with Ogunte and FreeAgent at Mozilla; this was important work. Silko in France ran a skill swap, Adam in New York City ran a Collaborative Consumption Meetup, and in Beunos Aires the SUMA agency shared breakfast.
What kind of response did Global Sharing Day receive from participants, the press and curious on-lookers?
This certainly caught the eye of people outside our sharing network. In the UK the coverage in the Metro and Guardian Newspaper led to a rampage online of people talking about the concepts around sharing. It is amazing how many people start to talk about the car sharing and home sharing they have done when the topic comes up. Another highlight was the podcast we did with Lisa Gansky, getting over 2000 downloads in a few days just before Global Sharing Day.
How was the action online?
The best bit was Twitter. After the article in the London Metro, many of the partners started to retweet it and this is how people started to come together on online. Also, the amount of blog posts people wrote really added to the energy of the day.
Are there plans in the works for Global Sharing Day 2013 yet? What can the sharing community do to make next year's event bigger and better?
We are planning it now. So many great things came up at the end of this year’s event. We know that with a longer lead time, the Greatest Share on Earth will be even bigger. We are going to be working more with our friends at Meetup to help evolve the Sharing Economy Meetup Everywhere page. I'd love to have smaller Meetup sessions before the big day next year.
Get Involved
Did you participate in Global Sharing Day? The People Who Share are creating a Global Sharing Day Film. Use Socialcam to email your video clips to us at GSDvideo@peoplewhoshare.com.
Send links to your photos, articles and blog posts to GSDvideo@peoplewhoshare.com or post them on the People Who Share's Facebook page.
Tell them where your sharing took place, how many people were involved, and what you shared at GSDvideo@peoplewhoshare.com.
Share Global Sharing Day content on the People Who Share’s Publicate profile.
Join or start a Global Sharing Day Meetup.
Start making plans for a Global Sharing Day 2013 sharing event in your community.
