It’s the new formula for workers in the new sharing economy and I couldn’t have picked a more appropriate place to write this piece than Shanghai, gateway to 1.35 billion people in a country that’s on beta-steroids.

At the WIT Conference, Philip Wolf, founder of PhoCusWright picked out the sharing economy as the one trend he’s most watching.

A couple of days later, Thomas Friedman, New York Times’ columnist and author (pictured below right), chairing the International New York Times Forum in Singapore, said that the sharing economy was blurring the lines between people and businesses. In the past, you had businesses and people, now the lines have blurred and we, as people, can now be monetized.

“The world has moved from centralised to decentralised production and now people can be businesses,” he said.

Just as everyone can be a journalist today, everyone now can rent their apartment, rent their car or bicycle or share their homes or be a hotelier, a tour guide, a limousine driver or anything we choose to supplement our income.

And guess what, ordinary people can deliver better, personal service than big brands.

This, Friedman said, is how the new middle class wealth will be built.

Opening the WIT Conference, author and global strategist Parag Khanna (pictured below with Yeoh Siew Hoon) also talked about a day when we, the new workers of today’s empires like Google, Facebook and Twitter, would be paid for our currently free data input services.

Technology will make it possible for everyone who contribute content in one way or another to monetise that work. I am sure we’re all delighted to hear that because after all, no one should work for anyone, let alone companies worth billions, for free.

At WIT, we heard from Sam Gellman, in charge of international expansion for Uber, which is taking its disruptive sharing model to the world of transportation, and what scale it has achieved in Asia in such a short time. There are now more Ubers than taxis in San Francisco, I learnt and in Singapore, there are 700,000 taxi trips a day.

At the Friedman forum, we heard from Brian Chesky, co-founder of Airbnb (pictured below right), which is taking its disruptive sharing model to the world of hospitality and accommodation – and it seems he has no intention to stop there.

“We knew we wouldn’t stop in housing, and we are creating trips and experiences, we want to handle the end-to-end experience,” he said.

He said Airbnb proved that “the idea of home can be transcended”. “We didn’t invent the idea of staying at home. When I came up with the idea, my grandfather said that’s how I used to travel.

“Sixty percent of people say they pay rent with income they make from Airbnb – there is a bigger movement out there than us,” he said.

Currently valued at US$23 billion, Chesky said we’re just seeing the beginning of the sharing economy. “It will create tens of millions of jobs if we rethink the definition of jobs.”

Bringing in 500,000 guests and US$632 million to New York City meant Airbnb could no longer be under the radar, hence it got into trouble with city officials. “They said businesses should be regulated, we said there aren’t businesses, they are micro entrepreneurs but there are no laws for this space. But we find that the more authorities get to know this space, the more they like it.”

And so what does this new third space between businesses and people mean for us workers?

Friedman said we have to think like an immigrant (be hungry), create like an artisan (add value to whatever it is we do) and live in beta (take risks like an entrepreneur).

Average isn’t good enough for individuals or businesses anymore. “The world only cares about what you can do with what you know,” said Friedman.

Writing this at Shanghai airport, I can’t help but think that the world should also care about what 1.35 billion Chinese people can do with what they know – and remember, this is the country that gave the world the biggest number of immigrants, has had artisans over 2,000 years and not only lives in beta but beta-steroids.