The Canadian economy is changing and in order to stay ahead of the curve many business owners may have to change the way they operate.

The new phrase is “shared economy” which is best described as a communal way of operating to help keep costs down but also provide a large pool of experts to help achieve your goals.

Calgary based Communo is leading the charge.

Ryan Gill is the company’s CEO and says he noticed this trend about four years ago and worked to set up an outlet for the advertising and marketing industry.

“It’s no clients allowed. It’s for professionals only in the industry. It acts as a bit of a co-op program where we share jobs, projects and people,” says Gill.

Communo boasts 43 different skill sets including public relations, web development and art director and the list of disciplines is growing all the time.

“Eighty to 90 per cent of people we talk to are saying no we got it in house; we got to keep it in house and it’s just wrong. The sharing economy is here,” says Gill.  

Aryn Kalson-Sperandio is a content creator who has rented space in Communo for three years.

“I meet so many people and I just learn what other people are doing. It keeps my business fresh learning from everyone around me,” she says.

Communo’s fresh approach to doing business has attracted the attention of the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas.

This year it’s expected to attract about 150,000 people from around the world.

This event is a place where people from the marketing and technology industries come to talk about new trends.

Gill was invited to speak at the conference about what the shared economy is and how Communo has succeeded in putting it into practice.

“As far as we know there is nobody on the planet doing anything like we are so it should be a fairly innovative idea for people to be exposed to,” says Patrick Orr Communo’s Managing Director.

“You’ve got to come to give. Inherently if you give you’ll get way more. It’s why it’s called the sharing economy not the getting economy,” says Gill.

Gill says there is a lot of interest in this business model and hopes to set up what he calls compounds in Vancouver and Toronto later this year.