Faster Future: Possibilities now and beyond

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Us Now: Democratizing democracy

I had the good fortune to be invited to the online launch of the Us Now documentary this week. Here's a clip:

It's a film about what the web reveals about ourselves - that co-operate is what we do - and what that means for government.

You can watch the whole thing (it's an hour) below. Or by clicking this link.

A particular highlight for me is one very high profile member of the uk government cabinet lost for words at the idea that the democratisation of publishing, distributing, creating, marketing (and critically, organising) could be deployed to democratize er... Democracy.

I won't spoil that treat for you because I'd love for you to see it yourself. Ideally I'd love for you to share it with someone who NEEDS to see it rather than someone who wants to. But do a bit of both. That way we'll get to more of the 'needy' through the 'wants!'

The film features lots of Clay Shirky (my personal favourite communicator on group forming network theory and the co-operative web) and Don 'wikinomics' Tapscott. (If you like your Clay Shirky talking heads bits, here's an interview I did with Clay last Autumn).

Us Now offers many examples of successful co-created businesses, such as zopa and ebbsfleet, challenges many traditional ideas but, for me, stops short of going beyond extending the empowered-shareholder model of co-created businesses.

But that's ok. This film is for those who need it. Slowly slowly catchy monkey.
But there was another jungle creature in the room. And the elephant on the impact of the globalising social web on politics is a mammoth:

Each nation's party system is a construct of the mass production age and the broadcast of one-size fits all ideology (who needs a lowest common denominator party in a world of self-organising adhoc communities of purpose?)

But of even greater challenge to our legislators is how self-organising cuts across state, national and religious boundaries.

The network disrupts where-ever it touches. And its reach is global.

Us Now was shown simultaneously in Harvard and at The Curzon in London. I was in London at the event staged courtesy of The British Council and thanks to an invite from Dominic Campbell. Chris Thorpe has been responsible for getting the entire hour-long film online.

Us Now from Banyak Films on Vimeo.

Monday, May 11, 2009

Social media strategy guns for hire

Image of Adriana Lukas

Good friend of mine Adriana Lukas is experimenting with auctioning off her social media strategy talents on eBay. Now there's a thought.
Perhaps a brave way to discover your market value - assuming of course the market finds you?
If you're in the market for two hours of Adriana (teamed up with Chris Heuer)... bid here.

And while I'm pointing places, if you're in the Cambridgeshire area (which is where I make my home) a couple of upcoming events: Vero Pepperell is planning a Cambridge geek night on June 3. More here. Hoping I'll make it!

And Amplified East is on this afternoon (2pm-6pm) courtesy of Rebecca Caroe.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

The world is mostly light, with specks of dark

My wife and I were out cycling today. And somewhere between town and home her handbag went missing.

Her handbag contained her purse, all those cards, her mobile, cherished photographs - all those things of value and sentiment contained in any woman's handbag.

We realised it was missing the moment we got home. And straightaway we retraced our journey hoping against hope that we'd spot the missing bag where it had tumbled to a rest.

No such luck.

On returning home once more there was only one thing for it. Forlornly my wife was calling the police, to report her bag missing and initiate the process of card cancellation, mobile phone stopping and all the rest, when... a knock on the door.

A wonderful couple on bicycles. With my wife's handbag.

Had we checked our home phone's messages we'd have noticed they'd been trying to call us to tell us they'd found the bag, even as we were out scouring grass verges in the hope of spotting it.

They would take no reward. We didn't even get their names. All I could do was leave them my card and tell them that if they ever needed a favour they should call me. I hope they will.

The world is a place of light. We live in a society of people who do good to each other as a default state. Humans help each other. Always have, always will. It is what has made us so successful as a species.

I tell this story because it reminds me of a simple lesson: The world is mostly light with specks of dark, not vice versa.

Not the world you see through the lens of mass media is it?

But it is the world you see through the lens of the social web - where people come together to solve shared problems to mutual benefit.

Often people drop everything to help each other in the 'web of flow' that Stowe Boyd describes. And just as often those who experience life through the filter of mass media choose to belittle that notion as some kind of free lunch.

But it is more than that. It is our somewhat self-serving natural state. We help strangers because we are driven by ideas enshrined in Buddhist karma or the Christian creed - do unto others...

We do good because we want to live in a world that would do good to us. Doing good has an upside for all.

Don't believe me? Ask yourself what you would do if you found a handbag in the street. Pocket your haul? Or hand it in/trace the owner? For 99% of us the answer is that we would do the right thing. You do it out of goodness. You do it because you'd like to think the same would happen for you.

News just in: It does.

The mass media scare story would tell you NOT to have your address in your handbag (look at the excitability over what private data your daughter may be sharing in her facebook profile). The from-the-centre scare story would tell you not to leave your phone unlocked because a thief could access your contacts book. And yet without either of these the very kind person who found my wife's handbag could not have traced us to return it.

And the reality is that 99% (ok, I'm guessing) of people who would find your stuff would go out of their way to get it back to you.

Does the real risk of the bad guy really demand our defensive walls are built so high?

Why do you think police forces are so small relative to the size of total population?

Most people are good and do good.

The relentless reporting of the bad (that we have voted for with our purchasing of mass media, and which performs the role of warning us against 'evil') colours our view of the world - makes us think it's darker than it really is.

But living in social media reveals the light, the generosity, the goodness of the human state. The web - where it makes sense to any business or organisation to make like a human - is also the place that reveals us as human almost as much as our real experiences of real life.

It is one of the reasons I am starting to ponder if the web is media at all.

At its simplest it always has been just a place where people get together to do what people do.

And that, for the vast, vast majority, is co-operate.

Thursday, May 07, 2009

Something to talk about vs something to do together

This is brilliant. No, really. A fantastic bit of creative from the ad industry. I do urge you to watch it. You'll be entertained.

And if you watch it in the context of the Vimeo takeover I first saw it in, you may even rave that this is the 'future of internet advertising' or 'pure innovation' - judging from the 367 comments in the last 12 days.

It works on so many levels.

Trouble is, it doesn't work on the one that counts.

Honda Insight - Let It Shine from Honda on Vimeo.

ok. If you saw the sheep thing from Samsung (at least I think it was Samsung... and we'll come back to that) you might not think the content is that much of a breakthrough.

The point is it is really well executed and a neat idea and people are talking about it. But almost every one of the comments is about the wonder, impact and technical achievement of the advert (and a broadcast advert it most assuredly is, no matter how 'interactive' some may describe it. There ain't no two-way flow going on here).

Anyone mention Honda in all this? Honda Insight? Hybrid Prius rival? er... all quiet there.

Well... all quiet apart from a smattering of relatively negative stuff. For example:

‘honda, how about coming up with some real solutions for the obvious problems, instead of this feel good, lifestyle eco shit?’ … totally not impressed by the car.

‘it's baby steps in the right direction - research Honda's FCX for a real life-changing car’

'If your selling point is being environmentally-friendly, I don't think it's a good idea to have a commercial that drives a hundred cars out into the desert just to make a light show.

Honda's ad agency has given people something to talk about. The ad is also used for TV (at least, it has been in the UK). So make your guess about the response to the TV ad too.

A big spend on a neat piece of entertainment. And?

And for many that's job done. But the connection between something memorable and the behaviour changing thing they'd like you to remember has not been made.

I wonder if they may have had more success in this regard by creating not something for people to talk about, but something for people to do together - something truly interactive.

For example: Perhaps a way of creating your own versions of the movie, spelling out your name, drawing pictures that matter to you, so that you might be willing to share your personalised versions with people you care about and who care about you. The result becomes yours to share - not theirs.

It would have been a start.

But greater impact comes when the creative is led by the purpose. And the purpose here is a greener world.

Instead of the broadcast entertainment experience, think of ways of bringing people together to make a greener world which the Honda Insight could make a valuable contribution to. Build from there.

Less shock and awe - more shared and sustained relationships.

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Build on what the network can't touch

Often I argue that pretty much any process, any value chain you can think of, is awaiting disruption.
The moment the network touches it, that value chain shifts from being a chain to a web. New ways of doing business are demanded.

It shifts from being a series of links with mediation between them into something the nodes within the web can reconfigure to go around.

It's big, scarey and amorphous. But I'm wondering if it might also prove a useful tool for businesses to use to uncover the real contribution they bring to the process of creation of value in an increasingly networked world.

Ask yourself which element of your business can NOT be disrupted as the network touches it.

Which element cannot be made more efficient, done more cheaply - done better when integrated with and disrupted by the network?

If you can find part - a kernel - a piece that is truly yours and which you truly believe in, congratulations, that is something of great valuable, which others will find value in and join you in building on. (image courtesy cayusa)

That is your contribution to the new creation webs which will emerge as communities of purpose become the business units of the 21st century.

Frankly, it is this which gives you a right to stay in the game at all.