For the first in our new series of portraits of Ouisharers, we are glad to welcome Global and Germany Connector Francesca Pick, who has been the co-editor of Ouishare.net since it started. In this first interview, Francesca speaks to us about her involvement in the collaborative economy and how she sees the future of Ouishare.
Francesca always has a smile on her face and you will notice this on your first encounter, this is what makes her striking. But Francesca is far from being a synthetic person or insincere. Rather, she thinks it is important and motivating to build things together with a smile; one might say it defines her attitude.
Family touch
Francesca discovered Ouishare quite by coincidence in January 2012 when she was doing research for her bachelor thesis on trust in peer-to-peer marketplaces. Meanwhile her mother, a journalist from New York, had met Antonin Léonard (the co-founder of Ouishare) at a sharing conference, and advised her to get in touch with him. The two connected online, after which she ended up interviewing him and three other people from Ouishare for her research. This gave her great insights into the community and made her curious to get more involved.
After the first Ouishare Summit in May, Antonin proposed her to be co-editor of the magazine, for the English part. “I wasn’t sure about what I was going to do after my studies at that point," she explains. "I was looking for a job, but I already felt really enthusiastic about Ouishare.” She started doing more Ouishare work and met Antonin and the Ouishare team in August on a trip in Barcelona with her father and her boyfriend. “Antonin made a video of me and added it to one of our community Facebook groups saying I was going to help spread the Ouishare message in English, "that’s how it all started”.
A turning point
As a student, Francesca was working for TrustCloud, a US start-up that enables you “to leverage the good reputation you have earned online and gauge the trustworthiness of others in your sharing community”. Her role at TrustCloud centered on community management and business development and was compatible with the Ouishare schedule until the preparation of the 2013 Fest started. “It was clear that organizing Ouishare Fest would be a large and challenging project and I was so excited to be part of it I decided to make it a full-time job,” Francesca explains with a great smile. For Ouishare Fest, she was mainly responsible for communication and press, but also enjoyed many other jobs she found herself doing! “ I never regretted it, since then my volunteer activities in Ouishare have been extremely interesting and rewarding. Now I am working on making them financially sustainable!”
But several questions still remained: "What do I do?" “After the Fest, do I get another job?” 'Creative procrastination’ helped her answer these questions: she went on a seven-week trip to Asia with her boyfriend travelling through Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand, where they always had to be creative to find the next place to visit, eat and sleep. When she came back her batteries were fully charged.
Finding her way
In addition to writing for Ouishare.net and the German Blog KoKonsum, Francesca helped growing the German community, particularly in Munich, where she organized two Ouishare Drinks. After that the next big new project arrived: the Ouishare Europe Tour that took place from September to November 2013. This project started as small local initiatives but grew into a Europe-wide tour, attracting bigger sponsorship partners, like Ulule, BlaBlaCar and Carpooling. Francesca really enjoyed the challenge of coordinating this huge tour!
As well as sharing the values of the community, Francesca identifies herself with the “do-tank” mentality. “I find it fascinating to turn ideas into something tangible and meaningful. I like putting words into action. "That is why she has started taking on a bigger role in the coordination and management of Ouishare as keeps developing. “How to design the organization is a very important question for Ouishare’s future”, she says. And one of the biggest challenges is to ensure the financial sustainability of Ouishare while finding the balance between motivating and compensating those contributing to projects. "Having a vision is one thing, implementing it is another."
Francesca is convinced that Ouishare will maintain its leading position in the collaborative economy and continue to instigate disruptive ideas as a non-traditional organization. She expects the global Ouishare community to continue to grow, fueled by local ecosystems of pioneers that understand the economic and societal change that is happening.
Right now her picture is pinned in a good place on the wall with members of Mutinerie coworking in Paris. Her biggest project continues to be Ouishare: in 2014, there will be a new magazine, regular newsletters, the launch of a new community website, and of course a second edition of the Ouishare Fest in May."
Francesca knows that building this project might not look like the most traditional career path in the world. However, she is comforted knowing she has the full support of her friends and family to make this work. This is what connects it all together.