Old power models ask of us only that we comply (pay your taxes, do your homework) or consume. New power models demand and allow for more: that we share ideas, create new content (as on YouTube) or assets (as on Etsy), even shape a community (think of the sprawling digital movements resisting the Trump presidency).
People, leaders, and organizations who flourish will be those best able to channel the participatory energy of those around them
Open innovation is the concept of enlisting the crowd to help solve your problem.
Not only did the crowd produce quicker solutions, at much lower cost, the quality of its work was significantly higher than expected.
The twentieth century was built from the top down. Society was imagined as a great machine, intricately powered by big bureaucracies and great corporations.
Young people have a new expectation: an inalienable right to participate.
New power is about rewarding those who share their own assets or ideas, spread those of others, or build on existing ideas to make them better
Old power considers success a zero-sum equation.
New power thinkers demand openness from institutions as a default
Edelman Trust Barometer has measured significantly increasing trust in “people like me,” which has reached higher levels than public trust in academic experts or doctors
The job now is not simply to create sound bites, but what we call “meme drops”—whether images or phrases, across every type of media—that are designed to spread “sideways,” coming most alive when remixed, shared, and customized by peer communities
Six qualities for an idea to "stick":
- Simple—simplicity is the key
- Unexpected—surprises you and makes you want to know more
- Concrete—creates a clear mental picture for people
- Credible—uses statistics, expert endorsements, etc.
- Emotional—appeals to deep human instincts
- Stories—takes you on a journey that helps you see how an existing problem might change
The three key principles to make an idea spread are:
- Actionable—The idea is designed to make you do something—something more than just admire, remember, and consume. It has a call to action at its heart, beginning with sharing, but often going much further.
- Connected—The idea promotes a peer connection with people you care about or share values with. Connected ideas bring you closer to other people and make you (feel) part of a like-minded community. This sets off a network effect that spreads the idea further.
- Extensible—The idea can be easily customized, remixed, and shaped by the participant. It is structured with a common stem that encourages its communities to alter and extend it.
In 2013, the single most popular piece of content produced by the New York Times was not a groundbreaking piece of investigative journalism, but a twenty-five-question quiz that allowed readers to find their “personal dialect map,” the place in the United States where people used language and phrases most similarly to them.