by GIDEON GINRACHMANJINJa-VITUS, Alternate Reality News Service Economics Writer
The Internet allows dubiously qualified individuals offering a service of questionable quality to negotiate directly with customers, bypassing pesky government oversight committees or professional standards boards. The term for this is "the sharing economy," which apparently means sharing your income without sharing your professional responsibilities. This has already affected the taxi, travel and selling seashells by the seashore industries.
Could the sharing economy be coming to the corner office?
"It's only a matter of time," stated Fillipos de Garnishee, Chief Economist for the Royal Bloodlust Bank of Bahamas. "If I have a corner room in my basement, I can rent it to a corporation for a fraction of the price of an office tower floor - this is the premise behind Airb2b. Of course, the view of the worms on the sidewalk outside the window might not be what you're used to, but I just look at it as motivation to improve your bottom line next quarter!"
Uhh, yes, thank you for that. However, I was using the phrase "corner office" as a metaphor for CEOs, CFOS and other CIPs (corporate important people).
"Ah. Right. Tricky bastards, metaphors," de Garnishee responded. "I once got a firm slap on the cheek after misinterpreting a metaphor - I still have to wear a neck brace Mondays to Wednesdays and twice a year on Christmas Eve. The hardest part of metaphors is knowing when the chestnuts roasting on an open fire actually represent -"
Alrighty, then. We don't need an expert to see that the sharing economy can affect senior management. In fact, it already has. MUFU Inc. bills itself on its Web site as "a provider of fine gourmet corporate management at dented tin cans of tuna prices." MUFU (which stands for "Masters of the Universe For U") offers corporations the services of CEOs who have been "involuntarily retired at a time not of their choosing for reasons not of their making with no legal culpability...ing" at a fraction of the cost of traditional CEOs.
"Oh, sure, MUFU CEOs are economically attractive," de Garnishee gamely shook off his metaphor impairment and continued, "but are they good for your business? They come without references, and there are stories of MUFU contractors pillaging the corporations they are supposed to be working for. All in all, you're taking a big -
That's just fear-mongering. In fact, there have only been three recorded cases of MUFU contractors pillaging the corporations they were put in charge of. And, in two of those cases, the contractor's name was A. T. Hunn. Honestly, who would be so dumb as to put somebody named A. T. Hunn in charge of their corporation? Does due diligence mean nothing any more?
I'm sorry - who are you and why are you interrupting my article?
Oh, hi. My name is Mandy. I work for Words and Stuff, an online company that offers "high quality journalism" at "the Internet is eating our advertising revenue base" prices. Your Editrice-in-Chief Barbara Brundland-Govannni asked me to take over this article.
That's outrageous!
Not really. According to management guru Astrogar Plinth, the sha -
You made that name up!
It's a fair cop. Still, Society is to blame, and, in any case, the metaphorical truth that management guru Astrogar Plinth would have shared with us if he had been an actual flesh and blood being is that the sharing economy has the potential to effect all areas of the pre-existing economy. We can worry about the implications for the buggy whip manufacturers of the new economy (if the whip makers wanted to maintain their market share, they should have debugged their product before trying to sell it), or we can...umm...sorry, I seem to have lost the thread of this paragraph...
What are your -
Tsk tsk - nice try, but this is my article now, not yours. Right. Wrong about so many things, Karl Marx did have one thing right: with capitalism, all that is solid melts into pudding. Tapioca, perhaps. Or, if you're lucky, a nice, rich chocolate. If you want to succeed in the New Economy, you have to be able to adjust your tastes to whatever flavour they're serving at the free market cafeteria.
Or, as Plinth truly stated, "Are you quoting me even though we have established that I don't actually exist? I think that's very exiting! I could be a harbinger of the next phase of the sharing economy!"
I couldn't have said it better myself.