May 2013
2 posts
5 tags
How to make Mother’s Day rock with Open Shed
Want to do something cool, green and oh so mum friendly this Mother’s Day? Great! Open Shed have the right stuff for you!
Say bye, bye to the DIY list
Are there little things about the house and garden that could really do with some attention? Or are there nice things like a bird feeder or new home-made planters that would get your Mum suitably pleased?
You can avoid the headache (and the...
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February 2013
2 posts
1 tag
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February 2013 Think Act Change: Consuming Less in...
[View the story “February 2013 Think Act Change: Consuming Less in Times of Excess” on Storify]
January 2013
2 posts
Declutter and help others...
One of the best ways to get organised for the year ahead is to do a bit of decluttering and it seems many of you have been busy in January doing just that! I’ve noticed on Facebook and LinkedIn a number of requests for ideas about how to make sure that your no longer needed stuff is going to someone who needs it, or at the very least not to landfill.
So I thought I would share a couple of...
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2012 in review
2012 was a big year for Open Shed. With lots of highs and lows we certainly were on the startup rollercoster
Before 2012 fades away to be replaced by what is going to be an even bigger and busier 2013 for Open Shed, I thought it would useful to do a little recap…
January / February / March
We started to the year house sitting in Hervey Bay. Lovely location to worry about the very...
December 2012
1 post
November 2012
3 posts
2 tags
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Introducing 1 click listings
Got one of the items below? No need to worry about taking photos or writing a description. Simply list in one click!
Work - Lawn mower, Trailer, Pressure cleaner, Chainsaw, Whipper snipper
Play - Tent, Bike, Kayak, Surfboard, Golf clubs
Live - iPad, Sewing machine, Stroller, Roof box, Trestle table
We know that our Open Shedders are busy people, so we wanted to make listing your idle...
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Collaborative consumption and thriving...
Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak at the Thriving Neighbourhood Conference in Melbourne about collaborative consumption, and why I think it has a role to play in our future thriving neighbourhoods and communities. Here is a little of what I had to say…
As a business model, Collaborative Consumption has the potential to change the way we consume. It represents a fundamental challenge...
October 2012
4 posts
3 tags
Our US trip
Duncan and I have just returned from two weeks in the US. The trip was part of the Ignition Labs accelerator program that we have been part of since mid July.
We headed over with the four other Ignition Lab businesses and a couple of the mentors. In the first week we headed down to Silicon Valley for a pitching event and lunch with a couple of investors. Then it was off to Austin, Texas for SxSw...
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Have you heard about the New Joneses?
Open Shed is super proud of our fab friend Tamara DiMattina who has put together “The New Joneses” this week in FedSquare.
On Monday an architecturally designed, sustainably built apartment was craned onto FedSquare and all week The New Joneses have lived there. They arrived in undies and bathrobes, bringing only the essentials and a scavenger list. In the spirit of ‘new...
5 tags
Green Me Up, Scotty!
Wow- super psyched to see so many self challenges on the sustainability front and the connections forming through our recommendations on both the people to go for help and also the items front.
It really is a testament to community action and what we can do.
For those of you who have been keen on up-cycling, community gardening, greening your living and so on, feel free to check out:
Green...
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Renters Can Be Green Too! The Green Renters Story
Green Renters is a not for profit charity that helps renters in Australia gain much needed information, education and assistance with sustainability in rental accommodation. The brain child of Cate Lawrence and Chris Ward, Green Renters works with people in all rental markets including standard rental, social housing and rooming houses through practical solutions and support.
Focusing on...
September 2012
8 posts
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Help to Make Your Green Dream Come True
What an awesome selection of entries we received last week!
But there can be only one… (sorry Highlander!) <drum roll please>
The winner is:
aeyrton on Twitter!
@openshed @GreenLifestyleM I like Open Shed because it leads to reduced consumption, and a greener happier and more sustainable world.
Congratulations! We will be in touch to tell you how to claim your prize.
AND THE GOOD...
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Listing Q and A
As the Open Shed team go out and about, we often find people who are really enthusiastic about the idea of sharing their stuff or collaborative consumption but are really nervous when it comes to listing itself. So we’d like to take some time out to answer some common questions and concerns.
“I don’t know what to list!”
You first listing will be your hardest in a lot of ways because it means...
5 tags
Open Shed for Small Business: The Beetlebox Story
Anyone who has ever scurried around the neighbourhood looking for boxes to help with the move then felt the guilt of shoving all the cardboard into the bin afterwards, listen on. There’s a new friend in town called BeetleBox and they are helping you move your stuff safely, directly and via Open Shed! We got the skinny from Glen at Beetlebox as to why he’s a fan of collaborative consumption and has...
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A (green) lifestyle of love...our first...
Open Shed are so pleased with winning the Small Business category in the recent Green Lifestyle Magazine inaugural Green Awards for 2012 AND how much love you have all poured into Open Shed since we started, that we have a competition for you!
We’re giving away 2 x full year subscriptions to Green Lifestyle Magazine (formerly G Magazine) to lucky Open Shed members each week for the next four...
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Tickled Pink to be a Green Awards Finalist
Super amazing news Open Shedders- we’re finalists in the Green Lifestyle Magazine’s (formerly G Magazine) inaugural Green Awards for 2012!
Nominated by our amazing Open Shed community (thank you!), these awards recognise businesses that are “leading the way by taking admirable measures to provide products and services that are environmentally friendly and aware.” As a result, Open Shed is in...
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Why Buy When You Can Share with Cate
Meet Cate. Cate is a craft working, creative loving person who is all about community living in Melbourne. She runs Green Renters and is all about sustainability too. And this is her Open Shed story.
What inspired you to start using Open Shed?
I have a lot of things I use periodically through craft and creative work. I initially got my badge maker for example because at the time I was doing...
2 tags
You Know You Want Me
This is not an advertisement for a smoke filled room playing jazz and offering whisky neat. Nor is it Jessica Rabbit ambling around singing “It had to be you” like a Looney Tunes version of Marilyn Monroe.
This is a blog about the Open Shed wanted feature and how it can work for you.
The Wanted List has the potential to be a magical place. Here you can dream of things you might need that don’t...
August 2012
4 posts
2 tags
Vinko Explains Why Buy When You Can Share...
Whilst Vinko and his family were living in Brisbane, he was living in one of the big old rambling Queenslander’s with downstairs space. He started making use of his space to create furniture and soon needed a drop saw to get the job done. Rather than buy what he needed Vinko looked for rental alternatives. It was at this time he stumbled across Open Shed.
Little did he know he was about to get...
2 tags
Ignition Labs, Week 4- The week that was....
Monday, 6 July - Sunday, 12 August: Pitches 1 (Open Shed) 12 awesome pitches by the first intake of One Can Grow students; Coffee / Lunch meetings 5; kms walked 14
Monday (ATP)
Presentations by Ignition Lab mentors - Ben Peacock from Rebulic of Everyone and Bruce Jeffreys from GoGet - shared their backgrounds and marketing / communication advice.
Our charity landing page released
Open Shed...
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Ignition Labs, Week 3- The week that was....
Monday, 30 July - Sunday, 5 August: Pitches 1, Coffee / Lunch meetings 5, boxes of tissues used 2, lemons consumed 12
Monday (Home /ATP) AM: working from home PM: Presentations by Ignition Lab mentors - Stuart Fox and Adrian Bunter - shared their backgrounds, current investments and general advice.
Tuesday (CBD)
Meetings in the city most of the day PM (Ninefold Offices) Angel Cube demo event....
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50 Reasons to Use Open Shed
Studio apartments and kayaks don’t mix.
A drill is useful when you first move in to put up paintings and shelves, not so useful if you keep stubbing your toe on it every time you go to the laundry.
Paying for storage sucks.
It’s really nice to help your neighbours out.
Because every married couple has at least 3 wedding presents they didn’t want but can’t get rid of in case they offend a...
July 2012
4 posts
2 tags
New Open Shed tagline...
Wow, talk about a love in! Yet again the Open Shed community proves you are passionate, involved and want to help out in any way you can. We truly love how much of a response we get through social media when we raise a hand for advice. To every one of you who continues to share your thoughts, praise and opinions - thank you!
This time you helped us choose our new tagline. Can I get a drum roll?...
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Open Shed Is Being Incubated...
No folks, we haven’t decided the best way to keep warm this winter is to go all chicken coup on you. We’ve been chosen as part of a brand new start up accelerator called the Ignition Labs Clean Tech Incubator!
What this means is that for the next 3 months, we will be receiving intensive mentoring, $25,000 in seed capital and participating in a roadshow in Australia and the US including...
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Coworking at Fishburners...
Over the last month Open Shed has been working out of the co working space Fishburners thanks to Optus.
How did that come about?
Well, in May I was a speaker at the Sydney We Teach Me event. As part of the event there was a competition sponsored by Optus - tweet why you wanted to win 2 months desk space at FIshburners paid for by Optus - and the best one would win!
So, here is the winning...
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Retooling time at Open Shed
We’ve held a wee bit of a working bee and spruced up some of the Open Shed features recently. Our aim is to make your Open Shed experience a member friendly and community orientated one, so we’ve done a lot of work around making things easier to use and more flexible for your needs.
Here are the major changes in no particular order.
Makeover Time
Whilst Open Shed is still the...
June 2012
3 posts
2 tags
The value of mentors...and hindsight
In June 2011 I headed along to the Nokia launch of In Hindsight, an online book featuring the stories of 7 Australian entrepreneurs. The evening was part networking, part panel discussion with 5 of the featured entrepreneurs. Each shared a little of their stories, took some questions and certainly were candid about how they got to where they are today. All 5 entrepreneurs were also there...
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Watertight Quip Wanted!
We’re adding something to the Open Shed marketing mix - a brand spanking new tagline. In the afterglow of hearing just how much sharing, community and environmental concern counts to you, we think our current tagline of “Rent it, Use it, Return it” doesn’t quite cut it.
But we want to know what you think?
Can we do better?
Are you the one with the watertight quip that could sum up...
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Guest post - Powering into the Future
This year 1 Million Women want to assist you to SAVE $1000 or more through cutting pollution, reducing waste and saving energy. Each month focuses on a different lifestyle area – FOOD, DRIVE, POWER, WEAR, SHOP & INVEST. We think its an awesome practical campaign and we want to help too! So we have asked some of our friends to also give their tips each month. This month’s focus is POWER and we...
May 2012
4 posts
2 tags
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EcoXpo this weekend
Sydneysiders, EcoXpo is back at Moore Park for its third year, and it is promising to be bigger and better than ever. It’s a fantastic opportunity to check out everything eco friendly Australian businesses have to offer - from hybrid cars, green technology and travel to home, conservation, health and fashion. And for the first time there will be a pavilion dedicated to Fair Trade products and...
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Hitting the Garage Sale trail
Are you joining the thousands of Aussies hitting the Garage Sale Trail on Saturday? With almost 7000 sales registered and over 2 million dollars worth of stuff up for sale, it is sure to be an awesome community day.
If you’ve had a good clean out in preparation for a sale, I’m sure you have rediscovered some idle assets. So now that you can actually see them in the shed why...
April 2012
3 posts
3 tags
Opening Up Open Shed
We recently conducted a survey to find out what you loved, liked and weren’t so warm and fuzzy during your Open Shed experience. We were surprised and very grateful for the responses! The passion you showed for collaborative consumption and also how genuinely interested in Open Shed people are was very heart warming- so thank you very much!
We have taken some time to distil all your awesome...
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On the way to Melbourne...
A couple of weeks ago we road tripped it down from Hervey Bay to Melbourne to start a new house sit. Now a 24 hour drive really doesn’t sound that fun, but Duncan and I have pretty much got this travelling between house sits business down pat!
To make the trip as enjoyable as possible we always have an audio book ready to go - on the way up to Hervey Bay it was the Steve Job’s...
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Say hello to Open Shed member Nicole...
Duncan and I really enjoy getting to know all you Open Shed members, and as more and more rentals occur it is great to hear about the connections that are being made. Regularly we will be doing a bit of a Q & A with members here. A big thank you to Nicole from South Australia for being the first!
We are really hoping to help Nicole with “her wanted ad for an electric cement...
March 2012
4 posts
4 tags
Guest post - Driving Miss Daisy’s stuff...
This year 1 Million Women want to assist you to SAVE $1000 or more through cutting pollution, reducing waste and saving energy. Each month focuses on a different lifestyle area – FOOD, DRIVE, POWER, WEAR, SHOP & INVEST. We think its an awesome practical campaign and we want to help too! So we have asked some of our friends to also give their tips each month. This month’s focus is DRIVE and we...
3 tags
Connecting and sharing this neighbour day
The community that you want starts at your front door
This Sunday is Australia’s 10th Neighbour Day - its a day to connect or reconnect with our neighbours and remember that our communities can only be as strong as the people who live in them. The catalyst for the first ever Neighbour Day was the sad and lonely death of an elderly Melbourne woman, who passed away in her home in 2001 but...
4 tags
Guest post - Go for a Jayride...
This year 1 Million Women want to assist you to SAVE $1000 or more through cutting pollution, reducing waste and saving energy. Each month focuses on a different lifestyle area – FOOD, DRIVE, POWER, WEAR, SHOP & INVEST. We think its an awesome practical campaign and we want to help too! So we have asked some of our friends to also give their tips each month. This month’s focus is DRIVE and we...
1 tag
February 2012
5 posts
3 tags
Cooking with...Open Shed
Taking a quick look at Australian TV screens and book stores and you can see Australians have a bit of an obsession with cooking, or at least reading about and watching other people cook.
I almost fell off my chair when I read that we apparently spent about $90m on cookbooks in 2010. If that’s just the expenditure on the books I can’t even imagine what we forked out on cooking ...
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Guest post - Swap, Shuffle and Share your home...
In December last year I went along to the fabulous 1 Million Women SAVE Summit in Sydney, which launched their 2012 SAVE campaign. Over the next 6 months 1MW want to assist you to SAVE $1000 or more through cutting pollution, reducing waste and saving energy. Each month focuses on a different lifestyle area - FOOD, DRIVE, POWER, WEAR, SHOP & INVEST.
We think its an awesome practical...
2 tags
What happens at an Open Shed pick up?
Last month Open Shed members Sonja and Bern met to do their first rental. Bern had posted a wanted ad looking for a water gurney to help her clean her windows, so Sonja added to her ever growing Open Shed inventory a Karcher Jet Washer.
We just love the description of the “exchange” that they left on our facebook page!
Sonja: Met Bern in a side street in Seaforth, popped the boot,...
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Guest post - Tips to create your own edible garden
In December last year I went along to the fabulous 1 Million Women SAVE Summit in Sydney, which launched their 2012 SAVE campaign. Over the next 6 months 1MW want to assist you to SAVE $1000 or more through cutting pollution, reducing waste and saving energy. Each month focuses on a different lifestyle area - FOOD, DRIVE, POWER, WEAR, SHOP & INVEST.
We think its an awesome practical...
2 tags
5 awesome ways to explore Sydney
Looking for new ways to explore Sydney? At Open Shed our members can help you out with that! Here’s my top 5 activities:
Get out on Sydney’s waterways and go Kayaking! View the Harbour Bridge and Opera House from a completely different perspective and visit all little bays around the harbour. Or perhaps head down South to the stunning Royal National Park and paddle out of...
January 2012
4 posts
3 tags
Guest post - Money from space...
Our friends at SpaceOut chat about collaborative consumption and how you can make money from thin air! Check them out before the end of January and you can try them for free for 2 months.
Despite all the gloomy news in the world, one shining star of the modern era is the worldwide Collaborative Consumption movement, and if you are reading this you may already be an active participant, or at...
