peers

I read about “peer-to-peer lending” today in The Economist, pg. 6 of the May, 2015 edition. Fascinating. Instead of the bank  mediating between savers and borrowers, they deal directly with each other. In essence, they cut out the middleman- who historically has made all the money in most ventures. The salesman mediates the owner and buyer, so this is cutting out the markup. The grocery wholesaler is the middleman between the farmer and the store/market/customer. I have heard from both the farmer and the consumer. The person in the middle gets the biggest cut for the smallest effort.

Have you noticed how everything is moving to shared responsibility, shared investments, shared ideas, and shared success? It’s part of the “Shared Economy”.

In school, we did peer reviews for coursework, peer group projects, peer discussion boards and were graded by our peers on our participation. Sometimes, I chafed at this peer arrangement. It seemed to separate me from the professor. After a while, I embraced it. It protected me. It was herd immunity. How could I be graded harshly by peers struggling with the same set of circumstances? Besides, my profession is full of overachievers. Everyone was working so hard to be the “best” that the group exchanges pulled us all forward.

Who are your peers? I love to look up definitions of words- let’s see.