Ron McFarland

Dec 1, 2024 | idahomagazine.com | Ron McFarland |Steve Bunk

Not Always EasyBy Ron McFarlandIn hopes that my favorite trout stream will not be as low and slow as I fear will be the case, I defy an unusually dry late summer and an early fall day in October. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t bother driving an hour out of Moscow with such slight hope of locating a willing West Slope cutthroat on the Saint Maries River, this northern Idaho stream I’ve fished lovingly for more than fifty years.

Jun 1, 2024 | idahomagazine.com | Ron McFarland |Steve Bunk

The End of an ErrorBy Ron McFarlandSometime in the 1980s, my fellow poet and friend Dennis Held, a Wisconsinite born to ice-fishing, introduced me to the frigid aspects of angling through the ice [see “Ice versus Fly,” IDAHO magazine, May 2015]. I remember thinking how one advantage of freezing your can off was that pests such as mosquitoes, yellowjackets, and deer flies would be no problem.

Apr 21, 2023 | opensource.com | Ron McFarland

Younger generations prioritize experiences over assets and quality over quantity in many areas of life, and technology has evolved to help fulfill their desires. That's the position of Arun Sundararajan in his book The Sharing Economy: The End of Employment and the Rise of Crowd-Based Capitalism. According to Sundararajan, these young people do not want to be burdened with owning unneeded things. Notice these demand changes:Young people don't want to stay at a high-rise hotel.

Apr 20, 2023 | opensource.com | Ron McFarland

Some of the most familiar examples of the online sharing economy started small. Consider Airbnb, which started from three airbeds and became AirBed and Breakfast in 2008. As of 2016, 70 million guests have stayed in a stranger's home via Airbnb. The internet-based platform connects people who have a resource not used to capacity—excess space—with others who can use it and provides a means for them to establish trust. It's a perfect example of the sharing business model.

Apr 19, 2023 | opensource.com | Ron McFarland

The sharing economy is a new industry built around sharing resources  instead of buying things new from a factory. If an asset is not being used to capacity by the owner, there may be others who can use it so the asset is utilized to its full potential. The Sharing Economy: The End of Employment and the Rise of Crowd-Based Capitalism, by Arun Sundararajan, gave me many new insights about this business model and how it relates to many open organization activities.