Jeremiah Owyang (@jowyang), Founder of Crowd Companies, published an article this week about large companies and their adoption of the collaborative economy. So, what are corporations doing in the collaborative economy?

“Corporations aren’t standing on the sidelines waiting to be disrupted, the progressive companies are leading the charge by deploying these same strategies and technologies.”- Jeremiah Owyang.

Here are some of his main points:

• They’re deploying “Brand as a Service” models like Whole Foods partnering with Instacart.

• Corporations are launching their own marketplaces like what Cisco is doing with used routers on the Near Me platform, Patagonia’s used apparel store, and Ikea’s used goods marketplace.

• Companies are sponsoring startups with advertising or partnerships such as the Lyft and Mastercard for “Priceless Rides”, KLM partnership with Airbnb, and Capital One sponsored Uber campaigns like the recent #UberIceCream.

In his conclusion, Owyang writes that this market is for brave early adopters and, specifically, companies who value innovation and are comfortable not seeing direct results immediately.

At Near Me, we have many conversations with brands about how they plan to enter the collaborative economy. Our entrepreneurs are also coming to us with exciting new ideas.

So, if Owyang is right, the first question you should ask yourself is, are you innovative? Are you brave enough?

If it were easy, everyone would be doing it.