What's your Digital Disruptor?

Hello and welcome,

"We all know trust is fundamental" (Botsman, R. June 2016).

When I first heard the term 'digital disruptor' all I could picture was Wreck It Ralph...

However, this phrase is described as, "Major market place changes or sector transformation following the application of technology." (Hanlon, A. 2019)

Therefore, because of this new digital era there are new technologies that are enabling us to take a 'trust leap' from what we know into these new services, products and lifestyles that have digitally disrupted different industries. To take that leap you need a force to make you actually do it - trust. Rachel Botsman defines trust as "a confident relationship to the unknown" and her job is researching how different people use trust through the concept of a "Trust Stack" (Pictured Below), whether that is trusting more or less because of gender, up bringing or digital understanding. For example a digital native, someone who has known technology their whole life is more likely to trust and embrace new technologies, compared to a digital immigrant - someone who has been put in a society of technology and have had to learn about it.

Trust has evolved from local to, institutional to distributional. In another way, from our own small villages in the 1800's to 'corrupt' institutional trust of companies, to this new concept of distributional trust.

We have reached a time where we have realised institutional trust was not built for a digital age, and through this can see how company scandals and lawsuits such as the EMI vs 30 Seconds to Mars (2009) were just the warning signs of a new digital disruptor that cuts out the institution and goes straight to the consumer or freelance members of the creative industries. Which then shows how our online trust will change our physical concept of trust because the trust is now available for all to see, for example on Air BnB each guest gets rated as well as the host, this will show who can be trusted or who you should be aware of. If you have seen the Netflix show Black Mirror, this is shown in episode "Nosedive" (Season 3 Episode 1). The idea of a digital social media score becomes the foundation of trust and how the main character Lacie, although in dire need of help, at first, refuses help from a kind stranger because of how low her social standing score is. This is also in another Ted Talk by Rachel Botsman - The Currency of the new Economy is Trust. In this talk Botsman. R, puts forward suggestions of software and companies that are being trialed and processed to digitally disrupt modern industries, one of these ideas is a networking site that shows all of your rating across sites such as Amazon, Ebay, Depop, but also your personality, and how trustworthy you are. All of these will be available on one site and therefore as a consumer can search for someone to do a specific task or sells a specific high quality product with good customer service.

Take a site like Task Rabbit, this site is a collection of people who you can pay to do random tasks around the house, you can choose who you get to do the task based on reviews and ratings.

Many industries have already been disrupted by this new concept of digital trust, for example, Uber Vs Transportation, Air BnB Vs Hotels and Block Chain Vs Currencies. One thing that I believe is missing from the creative industries, and specifically the music industry is a 'Task Rabbit' for freelancers, unsigned artists, designers, musicians. A hub of talent that is desired, acquired through the site and consumed in society. This opens up opportunities for creatives to showcase themselves as; musicians, artists, photographers, music teachers. Therefore can develop a profile based on reviews and portfolio work to gain paid work in the creative industries.

So my question to you is, how can we incorporate this concept into the music and creative industries, to re define and become the stepping stone in re evaluating the way these industries are run. As an artist is there a way that you can change the institutional into a distributional trust, is there a process or concept such as Uber or Air BnB that could be developed to digitally disrupt these industries?

References

Botsman, R. We've stopped trusting companies and started trusting strangers. TEDSummit, June 2016

Botsman, R. The currency of the new economy is trust. TEDGlobal, June 2012

Hanlon, A. (2019). Digital marketing. London: Sage.