The Personal International Co-op

This is not one particular institution, but a concept I’ve come up with that anyone can implement.

Here are the conditions that I believe make international co-operatives a possibility for many of us:
The Internet and better telecommunications have resulted in many of us having friends from everywhere, and being able to communicate with them easily and cheaply. Many of us also travel for business or pleasure as a matter of course.
Although globalisation has been around for some time, many things easily available abroad – in places where we know people - are still not available where we are, or available at much higher prices. Actually, a lot of things are pretty expensive, even local stuff.
Most of us operate with excess capacity.

Now, the personal international co-op means leveraging on your network to get things you want more easily and cheaply. And you getting things for your friends, too, of course. But instead of squeezing each other, we rely on each other’s “excess capacity”.

For example, I was visiting a community garden where I know some of the gardeners. They were digging up old plants that they didn’t want any more and offered them to me. I’m always happy to accept free plants. One of the gardeners mentioned that the flowers and the leaves of this plant could be eaten, and demonstrated by stuffing a bloom into her mouth.

Great – that reminded me of a Japanese friend in Singapore, who told me he’s always looking out for edible flowers to use as garnishes. (I’d given him some bunga telang before). So I texted him, and he came over to get some. Over tea, he mentioned that he was thinking of taking up photography more seriously, and buying a dSLR. From Japan, on the second-hand market, so he wouldn’t waste too much money if he didn’t like the trouble of using an SLR - changing lenses and so on.

I saw an opportunity. While he was looking, could he also keep an eye out for a particular lens that I wanted? Sure. He was going to Tokyo soon, no problem!

So the plants were the gardeners’ excess capacity, and since I had several, I could give some away. My Japanese friend was already going to shop for camera equipment, and one more lens wouldn’t be too much to carry back. So we both benefit, without anyone being really inconvenienced.

Another friend once told she had a great recipe for home-made hair conditioner, but it required castor oil, which she didn’t know where to get. I mentioned this to my sister-in-law, who immediately said she had some bottles of the magic ingredient, which she didn’t want anymore.

Another time, I was looking for a book which costs just US$0.01 on Amazon resellers, but was chagrined to learn they don’t sell to Singapore (globalisation letting me down again!). Then I remembered my sis-in-law has a sister in New York. Would she oblige? “Just send me everything in an email, so I can forward it her.”

A couple of weeks later, sis-in-law forwarded me an email from New York saying the book was bought, and would be couriered down by a visiting friend, who was travelling light. Ta-dah!

Everyone has the potential to contribute, since everyone comes from somewhere and knows someone. Recently, Lena, who works as our maid, went back to the Philippines for a break. I wasn’t about to ask her to carry anything into the Philippines, since she needed every kilo of her baggage allowance. But coming back was a different story. I asked her to get a bottle of Tanduay rum for me – good brown stuff, aged five years, only costs a few bucks there.

She hardly carried any baggage home – in fact, she didn’t bring back any check-in luggage. But I think she was gratified to see how pleased I was with the rum – which is useful for sangria and parties. And if you don’t care for that sort of thing, pass some of this “excess capacity” on to someone who likes baking fruit cakes.

The network is already there, because it is your normal network of friends and relatives. The only thing necessary to turn it into an international co-op (or even a local one) is to let people know what you want, and to find out what they want.

If you’re going somewhere, and have excess capacity, say you have shopping time and can carry things back, just let people know a little sooner, to give them time to think about what they might want.

Or, if you want to get rid of something which is still usable, get the word out early.

And encourage your friends to do the same.