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Speaker 1: We just can't solve the challenges we face from within

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Speaker 1: the story that created them, right like we We can't

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Speaker 1: solve a crisis of loneliness and mental health from within

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Speaker 1: a story that says we're independent isolated individuals. Can't You

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Speaker 1: can't solve across of inequality from a story that says

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Speaker 1: that the society is a lot of you climb the

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Speaker 1: most important, like most viscerally to me. You can't solve

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Speaker 1: an ecological crisis from a story that says we're separate

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Speaker 1: from nature. Welcome to How does Citizen with Baritune Day,

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Speaker 1: a podcast that reimagine citizen as a verb, not a

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Speaker 1: legal status. This season is all about how we practice democracy,

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Speaker 1: what can we get rid of, what can we invent,

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Speaker 1: and how do we change the culture of democracy itself.

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Speaker 1: We're leaving the theoretical clouds and hitting the ground with

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Speaker 1: inspiring examples of people and institutions that are showing us

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Speaker 1: new ways to govern ourselves. If you're new to this podcast, Welcome,

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Speaker 1: make sure you check out the first episode of this

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Speaker 1: season with Adrian Marie Brown, the organizer, facilitator, and artist

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Speaker 1: who shared ways we can deepen our citizen practice and

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Speaker 1: bring it home In this episode, I'm joined by someone

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Speaker 1: who has spent a lot of time thinking about stories,

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Speaker 1: how they come into being, what they mean, and how

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Speaker 1: they informed the way we live with each other. The

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Speaker 1: first time I met John Alexander, we were both guested

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Speaker 1: on a podcast called From What If to What Next

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Speaker 1: with Rob Hopkins. Like me, John was also using citizen

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Speaker 1: in this inclusive, participatory sense, and we just clicked. He's

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Speaker 1: the author of citizens Why The Key to Fixing Everything

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Speaker 1: is all of Us? And he's also the founder of

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Speaker 1: the New Citizenship Project, a social innovation lab that works

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Speaker 1: with organizations to shift their culture and practice by helping

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Speaker 1: them think of people as citizens. First. It's one thing

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Speaker 1: to catalog projects. His book does that, and so do

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Speaker 1: we with this podcast, but it's a completely different thing

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Speaker 1: to have a staff, facilitators, workshops, and clients who are

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Speaker 1: really trying to implement things. I mean, there's no how

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Speaker 1: to citizen institute, not yet. I respect that. While John

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Speaker 1: is talking and writing about making citizenship a practice, he's

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Speaker 1: also practicing it himself, and it's a far cry from

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Speaker 1: the work he was doing before this. John Alexander is

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Speaker 1: a former admin. During his time in that world, he

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Speaker 1: won awards for telling the consumer story until it made

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Speaker 1: him sick, actually physically sick, and he couldn't continue selling

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Speaker 1: a narrative he didn't believe in, so he decided to

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Speaker 1: fight for a different story. John is helping us take

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Speaker 1: a narrative turn toward the citizens story, one where we're

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Speaker 1: not simply independent, but interdependent. We don't just compete, we collaborate,

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Speaker 1: and our leaders don't just serve, they facilitate our participation

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Speaker 1: in democracy. How would we show up? What would we

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Speaker 1: build together if we told ourselves we were citizens not consumers?

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Speaker 1: To find out, I met up with John in Los

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Speaker 1: Angeles along with our live studio audience. Be a zoom

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Speaker 1: who you are here from? At the end of the

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Speaker 1: episode After the break, John Alexander on why being a

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Speaker 1: conscious consumer is not the same as being a citizen y'all.

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Speaker 1: John Alexander is the author of Citizens Why the key

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Speaker 1: to fixing Everything is all of Us. He's the co

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Speaker 1: founder of the New Citizenship Project, a book and a

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Speaker 1: company that works to shift the dominant story of the

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Speaker 1: individual in society from consumer where two citizen. He began

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Speaker 1: his career with a decade in the advertising industry, so

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Speaker 1: he knows exactly what's wrong, and I'm so excited to

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Speaker 1: have him on how the Citizen. Welcome John, thank you

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Speaker 1: so much for having me. Let's start here. Your work

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Speaker 1: is about analyzing and reimagining the narratives that inform how

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Speaker 1: we live and relate to the world around us. And

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Speaker 1: you identified three stories. The story of the subject, the

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Speaker 1: story of the consumer, and the story of the citizen.

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Speaker 1: I want to start with a focus on the first two.

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Speaker 1: What is the subject story and where did it begin?

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Speaker 1: The subject story begins all the way back with the

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Speaker 1: first name king in Sunario in two thousand BC. And

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Speaker 1: with the first king came the first wolves came, the

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Speaker 1: first writing that was initially used to time to track

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Speaker 1: how much people owed tax and these kinds of things.

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Speaker 1: And that story started with this idea that the god

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Speaker 1: given few no best and if the rest of us

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Speaker 1: keep our heads down there's we're told, get what we're

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Speaker 1: given and do as the God given a few tell us,

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Speaker 1: then that is how the best society will result, the

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Speaker 1: best benevolent dictator idea. But we all know where that

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Speaker 1: usually ends up. Ultimately, this is the story that leads

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Speaker 1: you into colonialism and patriarchy and all those big things,

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Speaker 1: and it goes a long way back, and it was

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Speaker 1: dominant for an awful long time. And when we are

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Speaker 1: in times of uncertainty, in times of chaos, in times

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Speaker 1: when we don't know exactly what to do, then the

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Speaker 1: subject story has a powerful attraction, right because we want

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Speaker 1: to find some safety, we want to find some securities

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Speaker 1: and certainty. Well we might think we want someone to

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Speaker 1: tell us what to do. And in those moments like

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Speaker 1: the possibility, the promise of the kind of strongman leader

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Speaker 1: vibe is really strong, and I think that's a big

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Speaker 1: part of what we're seeing in this moment in time.

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Speaker 1: So the subject story lasted an awful long time, intensified

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Speaker 1: around the world. Really only became properly dominant in the

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Speaker 1: kind of sixteen hundreds with the age of Discovery, and

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Speaker 1: then after the Industrial Revolution, the rise of the middle class,

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Speaker 1: that the idea that there were a god given you

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Speaker 1: who knew best and they would tell us what to

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Speaker 1: do kind of fell in on itself, and in many

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Speaker 1: ways I believe that the two World wars resulted from

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Speaker 1: that breakdown of story, resulted from that kind of collapse

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Speaker 1: of the systems and structures by which we organized ourselves

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Speaker 1: and out of them we stepped into what was a

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Speaker 1: better story, right Like from the subject story, the consumer

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Speaker 1: story is a liberating shift. So the subject story and

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Speaker 1: effective goes to a made up sounding king and a

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Speaker 1: made up sounding place argon of Sarka had or something

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Speaker 1: like that. What is this consumer story then, and so

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Speaker 1: when does it emerge? The consumer story is the story

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Speaker 1: that's I think still dominant in our world today. The

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Speaker 1: consumer story is the story that says that, actually, the

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Speaker 1: right thing to do is to pursue self interest on

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Speaker 1: the basis that if everyone pursues self interest, if everyone

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Speaker 1: chooses the option that suits them best from those that

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Speaker 1: are offered, that will add up to the collective interest

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Speaker 1: that by pursuing self interest we will create the best

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Speaker 1: society that's possible as a whole. I mean the Milton

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Speaker 1: Friedman famous Milton Friedman is and the social responsibilit te

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Speaker 1: of businesses to maximize its profits is a perfect articulation

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Speaker 1: of of consumer morality. Actually, like it's saying the right

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Speaker 1: thing to do really explicitly, the right thing to do

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Speaker 1: is to pursue self interest on the behalf of the corporation,

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Speaker 1: on the behalf of the individual, because that is what

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Speaker 1: will add up to the best society. Yeah. So it's

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Speaker 1: not just an economic incentive. It's a patriotic incentive, right,

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Speaker 1: you serve best, you support your nation best by buying stuff.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you could even say it's a kind of

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Speaker 1: human incentive. The reason why I went into the advertising

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Speaker 1: industry in the first place. I was nineteen at university

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Speaker 1: trying to figure out what to do with my life

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Speaker 1: when the World Trade Center came down yea, and the

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Speaker 1: leaders of the free world came out and told us

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Speaker 1: to go shopping right, right, And at some level I

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Speaker 1: think I went into the advertising industry thinking unconsciously, conscious

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Speaker 1: that I was making a contribution. Wow. The kind of

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Speaker 1: key moment actually was my first boss described my job

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Speaker 1: to me by saying, what you've got to remember, as

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Speaker 1: the average consumer see something like three thousand commercial messages

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Speaker 1: a day. This was back in two thousand three, and

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Speaker 1: he said, your job is to cut through that. You've

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Speaker 1: got to make yours the best. And did you feel

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Speaker 1: motivated by that? Was it to do that? Yeah? And

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Speaker 1: it's hugely intellectually stimulating, right, You're like, oh, there's all

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Speaker 1: this stuff out there, there's so much noise and I'm

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Speaker 1: going to make mind the thing. I mean, I'm look,

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Speaker 1: I'm a six ft athletic white guy, Like that's what

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Speaker 1: I like to do, right, It's another conquest and attention

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Speaker 1: conquest a man. And then over time and probably it

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Speaker 1: took me longer than it should have. In retrospect, I've

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Speaker 1: started to ask what are we doing to ourselves when

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Speaker 1: we tell ourselves we're consumers? Three thousands of times a day?

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Speaker 1: What does that do to us? What does it do

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Speaker 1: to our relationships with one another? What does it do

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Speaker 1: to what we think is possible, what we think humans

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Speaker 1: are capable of? Yeah, what are the sort of products

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Speaker 1: and services you were advertising? All sorts of stuff, man,

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Speaker 1: I mean I worked on big brands in the UK,

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Speaker 1: particularly like Cadbury and Orange, like a big phone company.

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Speaker 1: Was at the agency where we we produced the Cadbury Gorilla,

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Speaker 1: which was like a big moment, a grilla playing the

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Speaker 1: drums to Phil Collins. That was we go. My friend,

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Speaker 1: I worked on Sony like we were Agency of the

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Speaker 1: year a couple of years that I was there, Like,

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Speaker 1: these were the big brands, This was the big stuff

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Speaker 1: in the Consumers story. You point out the four was

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Speaker 1: a key moment. What was it about? I mean? And

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Speaker 1: it starts with the launch of the Apple Macintosh with

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Speaker 1: the most famous ad in history, which is the takeoff

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Speaker 1: of All Worlds eighty four, like troops training down a

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Speaker 1: corridor and Big Brother's voice and then a woman in

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Speaker 1: glorious technicolor runs onto the screen, smashes the screen big

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Speaker 1: Brothers talking from and you get this voice over that

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Speaker 1: concludes and I'm going to do a horrendous American accent

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Speaker 1: in the US here it comes. On January, Apple will

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Speaker 1: release Macintosh and you'll see why four won't be four

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Speaker 1: this moment. But also that year you had two other

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Speaker 1: of the great super brands arrived. So Nike sold the

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Speaker 1: first pair of Air Jordan's Virgin Atlantic, so the virgin

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Speaker 1: brand arrived on the global stage. But then the pick

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Speaker 1: your thickens because you get body Shop floated on the

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Speaker 1: Stock Exchange, bringing the idea you can buy stuff to

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Speaker 1: save the planet. You get band Aid that year, the

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Speaker 1: idea you can buy stuff to solve global poverty. You

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Speaker 1: get the minor strike and the first privatization in the UK.

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Speaker 1: So politics shifting in this kind of consumer direction. And

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Speaker 1: my favorite actually of all of them, the l A Olympics,

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Speaker 1: which were the first Olympics ever to be funded by

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Speaker 1: commercial sponsorship. L A was the only city to apply

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Speaker 1: to host the eight four Olympics because other cities have

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Speaker 1: made such a financial loss, and they had the IOC

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Speaker 1: over a barrel and the rules changed and suddenly you

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Speaker 1: could buy stuff to fund global sporting culture. So that

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Speaker 1: consumer story is winding its way into so many different

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Speaker 1: areas of our lives. We're liberating so many of our

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Speaker 1: activities allegedly through this, and you're involved in it, right

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Speaker 1: and later in this timeline, you're involved in crafting these

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Speaker 1: stories and selling these products, and there's an adrenaline rush,

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Speaker 1: and there's excabining, there's true creativity, and it's exciting until

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Speaker 1: until it is it right? So when did your excitement

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Speaker 1: to get involved and serve in some way through advertising

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Speaker 1: start to crack? I remember being in a meeting talking

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Speaker 1: through hero products for a big retailer's Christmas advertising in May,

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Speaker 1: which was a bad start, and we got to the

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Speaker 1: one pound Christmas tree bary tune day here with a

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Speaker 1: very quick explainer. Tunday, we're talking about pounds as in

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Speaker 1: the British currency, not the way now back to John's

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Speaker 1: story and we got to the one pound Christmas tree

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Speaker 1: and someone at the table said, the one pound Christmas tree,

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Speaker 1: you can almost smell the exploitation, and everyone laughed and

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Speaker 1: it was and it was just this moment of like

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Speaker 1: feeling the flame inside you turned down. Like it was

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Speaker 1: really like a series of kind of investigations. I worked

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Speaker 1: on her on a report on ethics and advertising. Um,

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Speaker 1: I pretty much got sacked off the back of that,

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Speaker 1: but really interrogating this question ultimate of what are we

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Speaker 1: doing to ourselves when when we're surrounded with this story

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Speaker 1: and coming to the understanding that actually I was essentially

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Speaker 1: kind of preaching up what's the religion that I didn't

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Speaker 1: believe in? Not championing values that I did. And I

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Speaker 1: went through a like super dark period at this time,

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Speaker 1: and I wasn't the most constructive individual around this period.

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Speaker 1: Like I sometimes think if I started a company at

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Speaker 1: this point, it would have been called the Consumer Doom Project,

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Speaker 1: not the New Citizenship Project, right, Like I was staring

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Speaker 1: into the chasm, which I think so many of us

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Speaker 1: are trapped doing now in these darker period was this

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Speaker 1: physical you were you ill? Where was the behavior that

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Speaker 1: you weren't proud of like what did the manifest? But

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Speaker 1: there was a day, there was well there was a week,

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Speaker 1: actually week I ended up resigning where I stood on

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Speaker 1: the platform Oxford Circus tube station and in my office

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Speaker 1: and just watched tubes come and go and like felt

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Speaker 1: this like revulsion inside me. I honestly don't remember what

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Speaker 1: exactly I was. And then I was physically sick, like

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Speaker 1: I threw up on the platform and it was just

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Speaker 1: like this feeling of of just I mean, I guess

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Speaker 1: kind of self hatred actually, like a real kind of

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Speaker 1: rejection of the role I was playing and what I

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Speaker 1: was doing. And I kind of had to get out

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Speaker 1: at that point. It sounds like an overdose almost like

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Speaker 1: you over you oded on the consumer story. Maybe you

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Speaker 1: got high on your own supply, right, and some part

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Speaker 1: of your body maybe new this isn't for me anymore.

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Speaker 1: I can't, you know, I can't separate the kind of

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Speaker 1: intellectual journey from the from the physical rights. You're asking

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Speaker 1: deep enough questions and you've just got to a point

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Speaker 1: where I was overwhelming. But yeah, I was a difficult

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Speaker 1: guy to be around all that time. Can I talk

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Speaker 1: to those people? Yeah, Well, you know that some of

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Speaker 1: the best of them are are still closest friends now

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Speaker 1: and some of them are still working in the ad industry.

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Speaker 1: And look, I'm not trying to demonize all of those guys,

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Speaker 1: Like I think the the important thing to recognize when

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Speaker 1: you start to see these as stories, when you start

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Speaker 1: to see it in this way, is that you're not

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Speaker 1: just talking about like it's the problem is consumption, The

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Speaker 1: problem is advertising, Like, it's much more about the storytelling

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Speaker 1: of our society. It's the fact that what I would

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Speaker 1: describe what we live in today as a consumer democracy

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Speaker 1: where our only agencies to choose between a fix set

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Speaker 1: of options that are offered to us, where we're actually

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Speaker 1: encouraged to make that choice on the basis of our

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Speaker 1: own individual self interest. Like it's infused that that story

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Speaker 1: is pervaded everything. And I guess I focus on advertising

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Speaker 1: because it was the part I played, and your focus

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Speaker 1: on advertising it resonates with me because I spent a

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Speaker 1: lot of time in media and in advertising, which is inseparable.

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Speaker 1: And I remember realizing at a certain point that the

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Speaker 1: folks who were making the ads felt as legitimate as

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Speaker 1: storytellers as the content they were sitting next to. And

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Speaker 1: it's true. I mean they're selling and telling the story

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Speaker 1: of who we can be through our purchases, and there's

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Speaker 1: so much more money in that than just the art world.

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Speaker 1: So you are I think we're at the kind of

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Speaker 1: the eye of the storm for the story, because ads

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Speaker 1: are little stories that try to nudgest into thinking differently.

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Speaker 1: We're behaving differently, and all of them have that kind

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Speaker 1: of underlying or overarching kind of meta frame that you

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Speaker 1: are a consumer, you are an individual. Your agency has

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Speaker 1: to choose between things in these choices. And in one

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Speaker 1: meeting years ago, I remember stopping and saying, can we

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Speaker 1: just call them people? Just that the links on the

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Speaker 1: slides on the wall. It was just like consumers consumers

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Speaker 1: and the conductingsumer wants this and the consumer wants there.

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Speaker 1: And when I repeat that word, it consumes me. It

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Speaker 1: makes me think of consumption, not the active eating food,

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Speaker 1: but the disease and as we used to refer to it,

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Speaker 1: and so we will devour ourselves by referring to ourselves

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Speaker 1: in that way. And there's actually a heap of evidence

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Speaker 1: that even the word is damaging. Right. So there's a

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Speaker 1: couple of different studies, one one where you were involved

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Speaker 1: in replicating where like, So you give two thousand people

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Speaker 1: of resourced dilema scenario. You say you're one of four

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Speaker 1: households depending on a single wealthyr water supply and the

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Speaker 1: world is starting to run dry, so you need to

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Speaker 1: use less water. Okay, So you're asked two questions, to

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Speaker 1: what extent are you prepared to use less water? And

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Speaker 1: to what extent you trust the other three households to

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Speaker 1: use less water? Clever bit is, for half the sample,

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Speaker 1: the word household is replaced with the word consumer. And

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Speaker 1: for people for whom the word is consumer, to what

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Speaker 1: extent you prepared to compromise, to what extent you trust

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Speaker 1: the other three consumers? That's lower, significantly lower. So when

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Speaker 1: we use that language, even the word and it's not

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Speaker 1: again it's not just the word, it's the story. But

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Speaker 1: the word carries the story. Right, when we use that

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Speaker 1: word inside organizations were effectively I think of it like

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Speaker 1: as the scaffolding, right, like or the or the train

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Speaker 1: tracks or something like. There is no other possible we

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Speaker 1: are thinking, right, that's right. We limit our imaginations, right,

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Speaker 1: and we can only see a person as this subset

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Speaker 1: of themselves, this function and the only path we can

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Speaker 1: imagine to a better society is channeling people's self interest

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Speaker 1: in the service of because we assume people are only

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Speaker 1: capable of that. I've come to think of consumers and

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Speaker 1: essentially as a kind of species level self hatred complex.

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Speaker 1: It's like, it's like we're telling ourselves we're not good

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Speaker 1: enough to deal with this stuff. It's giving away some power.

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Speaker 1: It's like, all I have is this right, I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna do. I'm gonna lean into this. I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: be the best version of this I can. But I'm

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Speaker 1: not going to think of it all the other things

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Speaker 1: that could be because I don't have the language for it. Language.

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Speaker 1: A third story. We've talked subject, we've talked consumer, the

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Speaker 1: citizens story. When does this as an alternate frame occur

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Speaker 1: to you? The citizens story occur to me personally? And

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Speaker 1: what does it? What does it mean? Give me a

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Speaker 1: brief overview, and then tell me when it enters your mind. So,

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Speaker 1: in the subject story, people are dependent, they have stuff

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Speaker 1: done to them. The role of organizations and leaders us

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Speaker 1: to come on them, and the role of subjects is

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Speaker 1: to obey and receive. And the consumer story, people are independent,

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Speaker 1: they have stuff done for them. They demand and choose,

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Speaker 1: and the role of organizations and does is to serve them.

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Speaker 1: In the citizens story, we're interdependent. We do stuff together

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Speaker 1: with and through organizations. The role of organizations and leaders

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Speaker 1: is to facilitate and hold the space for that. And

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Speaker 1: what we most deeply want to do and are capable

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Speaker 1: of doing is participate and create and that structure. When

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Speaker 1: you start to see that and think like that, I

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Speaker 1: think you start to see this story everywhere, like just

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Speaker 1: beneath the surface. But to your question before, like living

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Speaker 1: and working in the ad industry, I couldn't really see

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Speaker 1: it because I was so in so in frame, and

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Speaker 1: so when the first place I came across it was

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Speaker 1: weirdly like an ideal we came up with. I'm still

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Speaker 1: not sure quite how we did. And this is the

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Speaker 1: idea that one that creative idea of the year old,

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Speaker 1: which is an idea called my Farm, where we tried

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Speaker 1: to hand over decision making on a real working farm

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Speaker 1: to the public by online voting debate. This is back

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Speaker 1: in nearly killed me in several animals. Maybe what's interesting

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Speaker 1: about this is it is it did actually come out

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Speaker 1: of trying to think of ways to build an organization,

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Speaker 1: ways to sell an organization. Oddly, I was working on

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Speaker 1: the National Trust, which is a big conservation organization in

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Speaker 1: the UK. They own and run five odd places of

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Speaker 1: historic interest and natural beauty all over the country, and

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Speaker 1: we were going like, how do we how do we

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Speaker 1: get people to understand and value this organization and sort

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Speaker 1: of accidentally stumbled into this idea before I have this

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Speaker 1: language of consumer and citizen that was like, what if

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Speaker 1: we involve people in it rather than just do it

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Speaker 1: for them. Let's not just sell people sustainable food, Let's

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Speaker 1: involve them in sustainable food production. And the model and

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Speaker 1: the approach. I mean, we've had crowdfunding, crowdsourced ideas, we've

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Speaker 1: had participatory all kinds of things, but in that world

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Speaker 1: like inside the consumer story, that's a very radical approach

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Speaker 1: because you're seeing people as something other than purchasers. You're

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Speaker 1: seeing them as producers and contributors and creators and collaborators

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Speaker 1: and just competitors right in testing. Are there villains and

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Speaker 1: heroes in the citizens story? I think there are, but

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Speaker 1: I think they're more people who are an organizations who

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Speaker 1: are co opting the the modes of the citizens story

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Speaker 1: and service of something else example, what does that mean?

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Speaker 1: So one of the like craziest experiences of the research

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Speaker 1: for the book was I went not very deep, but

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Speaker 1: deep enough into the into the q and On world.

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Speaker 1: And the starting point of that journey is we need

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Speaker 1: you mm hmm, come help. Yeah, we need your energy,

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Speaker 1: we need your resources, we need your ideas. And I

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Speaker 1: mean that's coming from that's coming from subject story world.

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Speaker 1: It's coming from a desire to take charge and create

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Speaker 1: tribe and tell people what to do. But it's wearing

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Speaker 1: the clothes of participation. And I think that speaks a

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Speaker 1: lot to the moment in time we find ourselves in. Right,

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Speaker 1: Like the way I would describe it, I've already mentioned

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Speaker 1: this idea of like consumer democracy, like I think, I

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Speaker 1: think too many of those in the positions of parent

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Speaker 1: influence in our society today can only see two stories.

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Speaker 1: They can see the consumer story as the status quo,

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Speaker 1: and they can see the subject story rising and they

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Speaker 1: see the authoritarianism. But as a result, they see their

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Speaker 1: role as being to defend the consumer story. And the

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Speaker 1: danger of that is that we just can't solve the

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Speaker 1: challenges we face from within the story that created them.

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Speaker 1: Right like we we can't solve a crisis of loneliness

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Speaker 1: and mental health from within a story that says we're independent,

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Speaker 1: isolated individuals. You can't solve across of inequality from a

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Speaker 1: story that says that the society is a ladder you climb.

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Speaker 1: And most important, like most viscerally to me, you can't

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Speaker 1: solve an ecological christ. It's from a story that says

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Speaker 1: we're separate from nature right in. Our only way forward

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Speaker 1: is to destroy the thing we depend on most. And

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Speaker 1: so that story, the consumer story, is crumbling, like it's

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Speaker 1: falling apart, and you can't. Ultimately, we're going to have

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Speaker 1: to shift. And so the danger of this moment, I think,

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Speaker 1: is that these these tools and approaches of the citizen

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Speaker 1: world are kind of emerging, and they're so powerful and

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Speaker 1: so exciting and so creative, and if we don't adopt them,

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Speaker 1: then those who would actually create a subject world will

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Speaker 1: coop them, will steal those clothes. When you told the

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Speaker 1: story of Q and I, I think you started hinting

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Speaker 1: at what some of these tools of the citizens story are.

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Speaker 1: Can you be a bit more specific about it. If

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Speaker 1: we don't pick these up, someone else, well, what are

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Speaker 1: what are the things? What are the tools are the

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Speaker 1: citizens story? Well, I mean it's the stuff you talked

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Speaker 1: to her. It's like crowdsourcing, crowd funding, It's like it's

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Speaker 1: like inviting people in. I mean, you've talked to Audrey Tang,

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Speaker 1: I know, on this podcast and like what the Taiwanese

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Speaker 1: government did in their response to COVID that fast funfair.

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Speaker 1: Listen to that episode, my friends. But the tools begin

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Speaker 1: with asking people a question and saying like so in

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Speaker 1: the Taiwanese example, it was, we don't know how to

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Speaker 1: get through this challenge of the pandemic. What we do

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Speaker 1: know is that we'll get through it best if we

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Speaker 1: tap into the ideas and energy and resources of everyone,

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Speaker 1: Like we know we'll do it best together. That's the stop.

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00:23:27,240 --> 00:23:30,879
Speaker 1: Then the challenges, how do you create the structures and

433
00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:33,199
Speaker 1: process of that enable people to contribute and make it

434
00:23:33,240 --> 00:23:35,720
Speaker 1: meaningful and joyful for people to get involved. In taime On,

435
00:23:35,800 --> 00:23:38,280
Speaker 1: they did some lovely stuff, like high tech stuff like

436
00:23:38,359 --> 00:23:41,080
Speaker 1: challenge prizes and these sorts of things, but they also

437
00:23:41,280 --> 00:23:44,600
Speaker 1: my favorite story, they created a phone line where any

438
00:23:44,760 --> 00:23:48,119
Speaker 1: citizen could ring in with ideas, right like I'm working

439
00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:50,920
Speaker 1: suggestion box, and then they actually listen to the messages

440
00:23:51,040 --> 00:23:54,359
Speaker 1: and adopted them. And it's so this stuff is not

441
00:23:54,480 --> 00:23:57,320
Speaker 1: rocket science, a lot of it, right, but but it's

442
00:23:57,480 --> 00:23:59,960
Speaker 1: most fundamentally that shift in mindset, and then the shifting

443
00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:02,600
Speaker 1: tools kind of follows from that. The other example I'm

444
00:24:02,600 --> 00:24:04,440
Speaker 1: thinking of when I when I think about the framework

445
00:24:04,480 --> 00:24:07,720
Speaker 1: that we've tried to hold too with our principles, which

446
00:24:07,800 --> 00:24:12,240
Speaker 1: overlap so much participation, investing in relationships, understanding power of

447
00:24:12,280 --> 00:24:15,439
Speaker 1: value in the collective. And I look at our school

448
00:24:15,480 --> 00:24:18,480
Speaker 1: board meetings in the US, which have become so violent

449
00:24:18,680 --> 00:24:21,919
Speaker 1: and the sight of intimidation physically, and I look at

450
00:24:21,920 --> 00:24:24,760
Speaker 1: who's showing up to political rallies and it's armed people.

451
00:24:25,440 --> 00:24:28,479
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, they're showing up and participating. They're invested

452
00:24:28,520 --> 00:24:31,200
Speaker 1: in relationships. People go to Trump rallies over and over

453
00:24:31,280 --> 00:24:35,240
Speaker 1: again and know each other and build friendships. They're understanding

454
00:24:35,240 --> 00:24:37,720
Speaker 1: their power. The attacks on education in our country in

455
00:24:37,800 --> 00:24:40,720
Speaker 1: terms of not teaching our real history is well funded

456
00:24:41,560 --> 00:24:44,359
Speaker 1: and distributed to the very edges of society. It doesn't

457
00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:46,760
Speaker 1: just live inside of our belt way. It's my friends

458
00:24:46,800 --> 00:24:48,719
Speaker 1: who live in the suburbs and somewhere in Texas are

459
00:24:48,720 --> 00:24:53,280
Speaker 1: getting mailings at home scaring them and then telling them

460
00:24:53,359 --> 00:24:57,479
Speaker 1: who to harass. So that's in a very effective model,

461
00:24:58,080 --> 00:25:01,160
Speaker 1: but in service in your words, of a subject model. Right,

462
00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:04,000
Speaker 1: So it's it's in cheap's clothing, right in the in

463
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:07,480
Speaker 1: the sheep is the citizens story. This is where like

464
00:25:07,560 --> 00:25:10,600
Speaker 1: the process design of this stuff is so crucial, right,

465
00:25:10,680 --> 00:25:13,439
Speaker 1: and particularly to those who fear that in in the

466
00:25:13,520 --> 00:25:15,400
Speaker 1: U s maybe things are two polarized for this sort

467
00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:19,080
Speaker 1: of approach to work. My favorite example of of really

468
00:25:19,119 --> 00:25:23,000
Speaker 1: clear kind of process design and doing this really powerfully November,

469
00:25:24,440 --> 00:25:28,280
Speaker 1: just before the impeachment proceedings began, Like like the US

470
00:25:28,400 --> 00:25:33,320
Speaker 1: was super polarised the first impeachment. There you go, I'd like,

471
00:25:33,359 --> 00:25:37,720
Speaker 1: forget about it. You're back, You're back fifty years ago,

472
00:25:37,840 --> 00:25:40,160
Speaker 1: I know. But there was a there was a project

473
00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:43,080
Speaker 1: called America in a room, you know about this. So

474
00:25:43,320 --> 00:25:47,160
Speaker 1: they got five d and twenty six American citizens represented

475
00:25:47,200 --> 00:25:50,600
Speaker 1: in the national population on all key demographics including political affiliation,

476
00:25:51,440 --> 00:25:55,919
Speaker 1: thirty self identified as extremely liberal, thirty odds self identified

477
00:25:55,920 --> 00:25:59,040
Speaker 1: as extremely conservative. Came together in a conference suite in

478
00:25:59,080 --> 00:26:02,600
Speaker 1: Dallas for four days, split into small groups, deliberated on

479
00:26:02,640 --> 00:26:05,160
Speaker 1: all sorts of all the issues of the day. Basically

480
00:26:05,720 --> 00:26:10,480
Speaker 1: a whole load of like consensus emerged like lightly. There

481
00:26:10,480 --> 00:26:13,439
Speaker 1: were shifts away a little bit from a high federal

482
00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:16,800
Speaker 1: minimum wage because people are like engaging with the diversity

483
00:26:16,840 --> 00:26:20,720
Speaker 1: of the economic conditions across America. But the critical finding

484
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:24,520
Speaker 1: the most powerful thing. So in the literature on polarization,

485
00:26:24,520 --> 00:26:27,359
Speaker 1: there are two different types of polarization, right there's issue

486
00:26:27,359 --> 00:26:31,520
Speaker 1: polarization where I disagree with you, barton and then there's

487
00:26:32,200 --> 00:26:37,520
Speaker 1: effective polarization, which is you're evil barton By. And what

488
00:26:37,560 --> 00:26:40,439
Speaker 1: they found in this process was that affective polarization went

489
00:26:40,480 --> 00:26:45,560
Speaker 1: through the floor. Okay, they rehumanized each other, even to

490
00:26:45,560 --> 00:26:47,320
Speaker 1: the extent where I was told that in some of

491
00:26:47,359 --> 00:26:50,840
Speaker 1: the communities that people were going back to these individual participants,

492
00:26:50,880 --> 00:26:54,080
Speaker 1: they saw affective polarization drop. There's a great New York

493
00:26:54,119 --> 00:26:56,240
Speaker 1: Times piece on it actually, m so if you want

494
00:26:56,240 --> 00:26:57,919
Speaker 1: to check it out there, And it was run by

495
00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:00,720
Speaker 1: a gang called the Hellna Projects stand for the University

496
00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:03,040
Speaker 1: James Fishkin was involved in it was it was in

497
00:27:03,080 --> 00:27:06,000
Speaker 1: the process that's called deliberative polling, was the kind of

498
00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:13,080
Speaker 1: methodology underpinning it. When I think about corporations, most governments,

499
00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:15,800
Speaker 1: it seems to me there'll be a lot of risk

500
00:27:16,280 --> 00:27:19,800
Speaker 1: to them in embracing a citizens story that tries to

501
00:27:19,840 --> 00:27:23,400
Speaker 1: facilitate and that dominate, that tries to encourage participation. Wrangle

502
00:27:24,119 --> 00:27:28,120
Speaker 1: so many different opinions heard cats. What reasons do they

503
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:32,920
Speaker 1: have to make the shift into this different story and potentially,

504
00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:37,040
Speaker 1: at least in a short term view, give up some power. Well,

505
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:38,880
Speaker 1: there's two things I would say that it's. The first

506
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:42,560
Speaker 1: is just a kind of set the premise a little bit.

507
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:45,520
Speaker 1: So I think we talk a lot about people trusting

508
00:27:45,560 --> 00:27:48,840
Speaker 1: government right and trying to get people to trust government

509
00:27:48,840 --> 00:27:51,360
Speaker 1: more and the sort of thing, And ultimately I think

510
00:27:51,400 --> 00:27:53,720
Speaker 1: that's a flawed premise. Like what we have to understand

511
00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:55,119
Speaker 1: is that what we're trapped in at the moment as

512
00:27:55,119 --> 00:27:57,600
Speaker 1: a vicious circle, Like we're trapped in a in a

513
00:27:57,720 --> 00:28:01,960
Speaker 1: state where people because our institutions are trapped within the

514
00:28:01,960 --> 00:28:04,040
Speaker 1: consumer story, they're trying to solve the problems of our

515
00:28:04,080 --> 00:28:07,400
Speaker 1: time from within that story, and you can't. People are

516
00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:11,040
Speaker 1: seeing that our institutions aren't up to the tasks and

517
00:28:11,119 --> 00:28:15,720
Speaker 1: that's why they're losing trust in them, and then they're

518
00:28:15,760 --> 00:28:22,320
Speaker 1: behaving a little angrily, and institutions again understandably see that

519
00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:28,000
Speaker 1: and respond by withdrawing, by bringing power in and then

520
00:28:28,040 --> 00:28:31,600
Speaker 1: people get angrier because right, and then you're in a loop.

521
00:28:32,280 --> 00:28:34,240
Speaker 1: And that is the way I think we need to

522
00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:36,879
Speaker 1: understand the moment in time we're in and so that

523
00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:41,560
Speaker 1: the task and the only place, Like Audrey says this again,

524
00:28:41,800 --> 00:28:45,640
Speaker 1: this this idea that actually it's not about people trusting

525
00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:48,920
Speaker 1: government so much. That is about government trusting people. It's

526
00:28:48,960 --> 00:28:53,840
Speaker 1: about institutions trusting people, which is difficult and that needs

527
00:28:53,840 --> 00:28:57,840
Speaker 1: to be met people, right, and some of them the worst.

528
00:28:58,880 --> 00:29:02,760
Speaker 1: But understanding that anger and frustration is comes from something.

529
00:29:02,760 --> 00:29:04,680
Speaker 1: And I really want to be clear, I am like,

530
00:29:04,720 --> 00:29:06,800
Speaker 1: I'm not. It's kind of easy for me to say, right,

531
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:09,480
Speaker 1: like I'm I don't want to be that guy. But

532
00:29:09,560 --> 00:29:12,000
Speaker 1: there is a reason why that's happening, and we're certain

533
00:29:12,120 --> 00:29:14,960
Speaker 1: way down that cycle. So a part of the answer

534
00:29:14,960 --> 00:29:16,600
Speaker 1: to your question is I think we have to we

535
00:29:16,640 --> 00:29:19,320
Speaker 1: have to break the cycle somehow, and that I think

536
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:23,160
Speaker 1: is the intervention point. The second part, and maybe the

537
00:29:23,240 --> 00:29:26,640
Speaker 1: more kind of hopeful and joyful part, is to say

538
00:29:27,480 --> 00:29:32,080
Speaker 1: it just works. If you're into things that work, try this,

539
00:29:32,840 --> 00:29:35,440
Speaker 1: like there's a reason why, Like the business world is

540
00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:40,000
Speaker 1: going in this direction actually, like we're seeing big corporations

541
00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:44,280
Speaker 1: like ge use crowdsourcing processes. We're seeing NASA use it.

542
00:29:44,320 --> 00:29:46,440
Speaker 1: We're seeing some of the fastest growing businesses in the

543
00:29:46,480 --> 00:29:48,160
Speaker 1: world like that. I talked in the book about a

544
00:29:48,160 --> 00:29:50,680
Speaker 1: company called brew Dog, which is started in Scotland with

545
00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:52,959
Speaker 1: two guys and a dog bringing their own beer and

546
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:55,480
Speaker 1: is now it was the only company to be in

547
00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:58,040
Speaker 1: the Sunday Times a hundred fastest Growing Companies eight years

548
00:29:58,040 --> 00:30:00,200
Speaker 1: in a row, I think it was. And what they're

549
00:30:00,240 --> 00:30:03,280
Speaker 1: doing is crowd sourcing their recipes, Like they have a

550
00:30:03,320 --> 00:30:05,320
Speaker 1: thing called d i y Dog where they open source

551
00:30:05,360 --> 00:30:08,160
Speaker 1: those recipes once they crowd sourced them and then sell

552
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:11,360
Speaker 1: brewing kits as well as beer and even train people

553
00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:14,240
Speaker 1: to be like a Samelio but for beer like that again,

554
00:30:14,360 --> 00:30:17,760
Speaker 1: like what that's doing is powering that organization because people

555
00:30:17,800 --> 00:30:19,840
Speaker 1: are buying into a cause in the in the world,

556
00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:23,440
Speaker 1: buying into something that can drive energy, build energy. And

557
00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:26,240
Speaker 1: then look at Taiwan. It's the most successful codd response

558
00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:29,320
Speaker 1: in the world. Right fast, funfair second lost death rate

559
00:30:29,400 --> 00:30:31,920
Speaker 1: never went into lockdown. Do you see examples of the

560
00:30:31,960 --> 00:30:38,800
Speaker 1: citizens story masquerading as a consumer story maybe for increased

561
00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:43,800
Speaker 1: palatability or comprehension. I think we can make the citizens story.

562
00:30:44,280 --> 00:30:47,120
Speaker 1: We can and should make the citizen story appealing and

563
00:30:47,200 --> 00:30:50,440
Speaker 1: joyful and creative, right, Like, that's not a bad thing

564
00:30:50,480 --> 00:30:53,360
Speaker 1: to do. I think there is a line where the

565
00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:56,000
Speaker 1: consumer story maybe can co opt the citizen story. Could it?

566
00:30:56,040 --> 00:30:58,560
Speaker 1: Could we end up with something like citizen washing happening,

567
00:30:58,760 --> 00:31:01,520
Speaker 1: like we could write. And I think brew Dog is

568
00:31:01,560 --> 00:31:04,160
Speaker 1: an interesting case in point because actually, like they've behaved

569
00:31:04,160 --> 00:31:07,360
Speaker 1: pretty badly in some ways recently. What they've found is

570
00:31:07,400 --> 00:31:11,000
Speaker 1: that the energy of this has grown the company so fast,

571
00:31:11,760 --> 00:31:13,840
Speaker 1: and then the founders started to kind of believe their

572
00:31:13,840 --> 00:31:16,440
Speaker 1: own hype. It's how I understand it, and they effectively

573
00:31:16,440 --> 00:31:19,320
Speaker 1: invented equity crowdfunding. Back in two thousand nine, they sold

574
00:31:19,320 --> 00:31:22,040
Speaker 1: a load of the company to their customers. They've now

575
00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:24,880
Speaker 1: got something like two hundred thousand equity punks, they call them,

576
00:31:25,520 --> 00:31:28,000
Speaker 1: so again, really creative, cool way of doing it. But

577
00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:30,280
Speaker 1: then they sold and they said they would never sell out,

578
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:32,480
Speaker 1: and they sold a big portion of the company to

579
00:31:32,880 --> 00:31:36,400
Speaker 1: VC fund. And then there's there's been accusation from within

580
00:31:36,440 --> 00:31:39,640
Speaker 1: the company of them treating employees pretty badly. But what's

581
00:31:39,640 --> 00:31:43,120
Speaker 1: so interesting is the group of employees who are starting

582
00:31:43,160 --> 00:31:44,960
Speaker 1: to kind of fight back and hold them to account

583
00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:48,760
Speaker 1: and push them are calling themselves punks with purpose, So

584
00:31:48,800 --> 00:31:51,640
Speaker 1: they're sort of naming themselves from within the idea of

585
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:55,239
Speaker 1: the organization and challenging the founders from that place. And

586
00:31:55,280 --> 00:31:58,200
Speaker 1: so the really interesting question in that organization is who's

587
00:31:58,240 --> 00:32:01,480
Speaker 1: co opting whom right like? And once you start to

588
00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:05,600
Speaker 1: authentically build a citizems story, you can't stop it right yeah,

589
00:32:05,760 --> 00:32:08,680
Speaker 1: and it'll it'll find a way, may be delayed, but

590
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:12,080
Speaker 1: it may not be indefinitely deferred. One of the things

591
00:32:12,080 --> 00:32:15,239
Speaker 1: that I really admire about you is that you're not

592
00:32:15,280 --> 00:32:17,720
Speaker 1: just writing about these things. You're helping put them in

593
00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:21,120
Speaker 1: their practice. You've got the New Citizenship Project. You do reports,

594
00:32:21,240 --> 00:32:24,320
Speaker 1: but you also do like activations to take a word

595
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:28,680
Speaker 1: from the brand and advertising world, workshops, tool kits. Have

596
00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:32,000
Speaker 1: you got boot camps? How do you go about helping

597
00:32:32,040 --> 00:32:35,920
Speaker 1: folks embrace and implement the citizens story? Can you walk

598
00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:40,280
Speaker 1: me through your design process to help folks take idea

599
00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:43,680
Speaker 1: into action and the new story. So it's basically one

600
00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:46,640
Speaker 1: of the tools, key tool really that we've created. The

601
00:32:46,720 --> 00:32:50,320
Speaker 1: three principles of participatory organizations. You can take the boy

602
00:32:50,320 --> 00:32:52,360
Speaker 1: out of advertising. You can't take the alliteration out of

603
00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:55,000
Speaker 1: the boy. Right. So, so the three principles of purpose,

604
00:32:55,040 --> 00:32:58,480
Speaker 1: platform and prototype. Okay, and actually just this is actually

605
00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:00,720
Speaker 1: a hack on one of the key kind of mental

606
00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:03,920
Speaker 1: models of the consumer story. So the first edition of

607
00:33:03,920 --> 00:33:06,400
Speaker 1: a marketing textbook was written that talked about the four

608
00:33:06,440 --> 00:33:10,080
Speaker 1: principles of the marketing mix, product, price, promotion, and place

609
00:33:10,560 --> 00:33:13,800
Speaker 1: here you go. And that is that the textbooks that

610
00:33:13,800 --> 00:33:16,280
Speaker 1: that's in is still taught in every embody course anywhere

611
00:33:16,280 --> 00:33:19,520
Speaker 1: in the world. And so the problem is even organizations

612
00:33:19,520 --> 00:33:23,320
Speaker 1: that are trying to think differently pulled back into that

613
00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:26,680
Speaker 1: story because the boxes. So the three principles, the three

614
00:33:26,720 --> 00:33:30,560
Speaker 1: piece purpose, platform, prototype is an attempt to sort of

615
00:33:30,560 --> 00:33:33,560
Speaker 1: offer a different front alternative. Yeah, so we help people

616
00:33:33,600 --> 00:33:36,880
Speaker 1: go Like the question for each purpose is, what are

617
00:33:36,920 --> 00:33:38,400
Speaker 1: you trying to do in the world that's so big

618
00:33:38,440 --> 00:33:40,280
Speaker 1: you actually need people to do it with you. You

619
00:33:40,360 --> 00:33:43,040
Speaker 1: can't do it for that's already. I just want to

620
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:46,320
Speaker 1: parse you on that. What's an idea that's so big

621
00:33:46,360 --> 00:33:50,280
Speaker 1: that you need other people? What's something you can ask

622
00:33:50,320 --> 00:33:53,360
Speaker 1: of people. One of the things I feel is that

623
00:33:54,240 --> 00:33:58,360
Speaker 1: we haven't been asked to do very much. Maybe come

624
00:33:58,360 --> 00:34:00,560
Speaker 1: and vote every couple of years and at least spend

625
00:34:00,640 --> 00:34:03,840
Speaker 1: some money, take on debt, and otherwise kind of keep

626
00:34:03,840 --> 00:34:09,399
Speaker 1: your head down, protect yourself in your little homestead. And

627
00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:11,640
Speaker 1: that's that's all. That's all we got. Our list of

628
00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:14,879
Speaker 1: requests and demands and opportunities for your participation is very low.

629
00:34:15,200 --> 00:34:18,080
Speaker 1: So already starting with a big enough purpose that you

630
00:34:18,120 --> 00:34:21,399
Speaker 1: need other people. It's just a very dynamic shift from

631
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:23,920
Speaker 1: what most of us experience. I think, keep going and

632
00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:26,040
Speaker 1: the power of a question in that space is really

633
00:34:26,239 --> 00:34:28,239
Speaker 1: huge as well, Right, how can we do this? We

634
00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:29,839
Speaker 1: we don't have the answers, we're not going to be

635
00:34:29,880 --> 00:34:31,919
Speaker 1: able to do it for you, but we can frame

636
00:34:31,960 --> 00:34:36,120
Speaker 1: the question that we can answer together purpose platform, What

637
00:34:36,239 --> 00:34:38,560
Speaker 1: are the structures and processes that you create to make

638
00:34:38,600 --> 00:34:40,880
Speaker 1: it meaningful and joyful for people to get involved in

639
00:34:40,880 --> 00:34:44,280
Speaker 1: that like not easy and convenient, not learningful and enjoy

640
00:34:44,520 --> 00:34:47,640
Speaker 1: meaningful and joyful. So again like the time one, stuff

641
00:34:47,680 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 1: that brew Dog, stuff like that, those are examples that

642
00:34:49,760 --> 00:34:51,960
Speaker 1: speak to that thing. And so we walk through with

643
00:34:52,120 --> 00:34:55,960
Speaker 1: organizations helping them develop their ideas to offer those opportunities.

644
00:34:56,239 --> 00:34:57,880
Speaker 1: And then the prototype one is really just how do

645
00:34:57,920 --> 00:34:59,680
Speaker 1: you build the energy for this? Because you can't flip

646
00:34:59,760 --> 00:35:02,480
Speaker 1: you to opien switch and become a completely different thing overnight.

647
00:35:02,880 --> 00:35:04,560
Speaker 1: So how do you build the energy? Is the third?

648
00:35:04,600 --> 00:35:10,560
Speaker 1: And are you generally working with young institutions, old institutions,

649
00:35:10,640 --> 00:35:14,200
Speaker 1: large or small? Like all of the above, it all

650
00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:17,360
Speaker 1: figures across every sector. Like the only thing you can't

651
00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:19,399
Speaker 1: do this stuff with is is something that doesn't really

652
00:35:19,400 --> 00:35:22,200
Speaker 1: have a purpose, right but without which nothing is something

653
00:35:22,239 --> 00:35:26,680
Speaker 1: that people want to participate in. Without which, Oh you

654
00:35:26,719 --> 00:35:30,640
Speaker 1: were using real English on me. I'm quite up to you.

655
00:35:30,680 --> 00:35:33,360
Speaker 1: I'm like people without it is the prower with target

656
00:35:33,360 --> 00:35:35,720
Speaker 1: to do a British game. Sorry, he uses the language

657
00:35:35,880 --> 00:35:41,600
Speaker 1: purposefully overly posh moments there it goes m I sometimes

658
00:35:41,680 --> 00:35:43,240
Speaker 1: like to think of myself as the kind of anti

659
00:35:43,280 --> 00:35:46,160
Speaker 1: Boris Johnson. His name is his name is actually Alexander Johnson.

660
00:35:46,200 --> 00:35:49,040
Speaker 1: I'm John Alexander with both the degrees in Ancient Greek

661
00:35:49,080 --> 00:35:52,879
Speaker 1: and Latin, like I can push it with the best

662
00:35:52,880 --> 00:35:55,520
Speaker 1: of them. So maybe what I'll say is because the

663
00:35:55,600 --> 00:35:57,600
Speaker 1: last four and a half weeks, like I'm in l A,

664
00:35:57,760 --> 00:36:00,280
Speaker 1: because I'm I'm going around the world right now, literally

665
00:36:00,320 --> 00:36:03,360
Speaker 1: around the world. I've been in Athens, Singapore, Melbourne, Sydney,

666
00:36:03,640 --> 00:36:06,560
Speaker 1: New Zealand. And there's a couple of things I'm learning

667
00:36:06,600 --> 00:36:08,760
Speaker 1: through that and thinking about as a result. The first

668
00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:13,400
Speaker 1: is this is not a new story, and spending time

669
00:36:13,440 --> 00:36:17,040
Speaker 1: with first nation's philosophers, particularly in Australian New Zealand, and

670
00:36:17,080 --> 00:36:20,239
Speaker 1: going like, actually, the citizens story is not like a

671
00:36:20,280 --> 00:36:24,000
Speaker 1: new creation. It's deep in us UM. Guy called Tyson

672
00:36:24,080 --> 00:36:26,239
Speaker 1: Young Corporter, who you need to get on this, you

673
00:36:26,239 --> 00:36:29,200
Speaker 1: would love. Tyson wrote a book called sand Talk, How

674
00:36:29,239 --> 00:36:32,600
Speaker 1: Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World, and he basically speaks

675
00:36:32,600 --> 00:36:35,400
Speaker 1: and sits in a sixty thousand year worldview just by default.

676
00:36:36,160 --> 00:36:38,640
Speaker 1: And the thing he said to me was like, don't

677
00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:41,920
Speaker 1: worry John. I was getting a little stressed because don't

678
00:36:41,960 --> 00:36:44,320
Speaker 1: worry John. Were you like it's going to take humans

679
00:36:44,320 --> 00:36:46,800
Speaker 1: a good bit longer to forget how to be human,

680
00:36:47,080 --> 00:36:49,239
Speaker 1: how to be the custodian species as the way he

681
00:36:49,280 --> 00:36:53,359
Speaker 1: called it. Thank you for that acknowledgment too, because I

682
00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:57,320
Speaker 1: think we're both pretty young, certainly relative to the human

683
00:36:57,440 --> 00:37:01,960
Speaker 1: experience where nets. But it can be very tempting to

684
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:04,960
Speaker 1: think we need something new to get us out of

685
00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:08,080
Speaker 1: this new challenge. And the challenges really aren't that new.

686
00:37:08,280 --> 00:37:11,800
Speaker 1: They're repackaged, they're rebranded, and many of the solutions in

687
00:37:11,840 --> 00:37:17,000
Speaker 1: the pathways forward involve something we've lost or forgotten, but

688
00:37:17,280 --> 00:37:20,759
Speaker 1: not entirely new, is it. There's my yoda for you

689
00:37:23,440 --> 00:37:25,920
Speaker 1: after the break, more on making the shift to the

690
00:37:25,960 --> 00:37:34,040
Speaker 1: citizens story. For years, a lot of us have heard

691
00:37:34,080 --> 00:37:37,200
Speaker 1: this message that we should vote with our wallets become

692
00:37:37,200 --> 00:37:40,240
Speaker 1: a conscious consumer. Right, that's that's a better way forward.

693
00:37:40,560 --> 00:37:44,960
Speaker 1: What's the difference between conscious consumption and a full blown

694
00:37:44,960 --> 00:37:48,640
Speaker 1: citizens story? How close can they get to one another? Like,

695
00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 1: I mean they all the calling the close. Um. The

696
00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:55,080
Speaker 1: way I would put it is that we all what

697
00:37:55,160 --> 00:37:57,840
Speaker 1: we are told to be. Um, you are what we

698
00:37:57,880 --> 00:38:01,360
Speaker 1: are told to be. And that is consumers who occasionally

699
00:38:01,440 --> 00:38:06,520
Speaker 1: vote and bring bring the identity construct and the mode

700
00:38:06,520 --> 00:38:08,800
Speaker 1: of the consumer to bear on the act of voting.

701
00:38:09,719 --> 00:38:14,640
Speaker 1: What we are becoming, I think, or rebecoming remembering into

702
00:38:14,640 --> 00:38:19,520
Speaker 1: the future is citizens who sometimes consume and might bring

703
00:38:19,760 --> 00:38:22,800
Speaker 1: the citizen orientation to bear on the act of consumption.

704
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:26,640
Speaker 1: Like it's not like there's consumption is over right, Like

705
00:38:26,680 --> 00:38:29,120
Speaker 1: it's not. The problem is the story, not the act.

706
00:38:30,080 --> 00:38:35,080
Speaker 1: The problem is consumerism, not consumption. And so that's a

707
00:38:35,160 --> 00:38:38,200
Speaker 1: matter of degree, right, But then the other difference is

708
00:38:38,239 --> 00:38:42,759
Speaker 1: like it's just much more fun man like that trying

709
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:46,040
Speaker 1: to be good within the consumer story is hard like

710
00:38:46,200 --> 00:38:49,440
Speaker 1: and guilt inducing, right, Like to be good within the

711
00:38:49,480 --> 00:38:53,560
Speaker 1: consumer story, like you have to never use a disposable cup,

712
00:38:53,600 --> 00:38:56,480
Speaker 1: never flood, never even and that stuff's important. Right, Don't

713
00:38:56,480 --> 00:38:59,040
Speaker 1: get me wrong. I'm not saying individual behavior change doesn't matter,

714
00:38:59,600 --> 00:39:02,600
Speaker 1: but atally, like our true agency is collective, right Like

715
00:39:02,640 --> 00:39:06,680
Speaker 1: if if individual behavior changes one plus one plus, it's collective.

716
00:39:06,760 --> 00:39:10,880
Speaker 1: Change is multiplies multipli and it's it's raised to something right, Right,

717
00:39:11,200 --> 00:39:13,719
Speaker 1: we're in the exponential realm now there you go. Yeah,

718
00:39:13,880 --> 00:39:16,239
Speaker 1: and it's just joyful, right, Like it's just good to

719
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:19,480
Speaker 1: do stuff together. But maybe if I could, because I'd

720
00:39:19,520 --> 00:39:21,399
Speaker 1: love your view on this. Like one of the things

721
00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:25,200
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about as a result of this trip is

722
00:39:25,239 --> 00:39:29,920
Speaker 1: like I think increasingly I'm like, this is us, like

723
00:39:29,960 --> 00:39:32,920
Speaker 1: we are citizens by nature, Like people are doing it everywhere.

724
00:39:33,320 --> 00:39:36,440
Speaker 1: It's underneath the surface, but it's kind of happening. And

725
00:39:37,239 --> 00:39:39,440
Speaker 1: we saw it in COVID in particular. Right, you know

726
00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:43,680
Speaker 1: it's mutual A yeah, so what is it that that

727
00:39:43,800 --> 00:39:47,280
Speaker 1: flips the story? So there there is work of muscle building.

728
00:39:47,400 --> 00:39:49,520
Speaker 1: I love the frame, and I think, did you use

729
00:39:49,560 --> 00:39:52,480
Speaker 1: this citizenship as a muscle you build or is that yeah?

730
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:54,719
Speaker 1: Maybe when we talked on the other show, I brought

731
00:39:54,760 --> 00:39:57,359
Speaker 1: it up because the gym metaphor was strong in me.

732
00:39:57,520 --> 00:40:00,480
Speaker 1: There you go, man, So the other up the work,

733
00:40:00,520 --> 00:40:02,680
Speaker 1: I think is is what I'm increasingly think about is

734
00:40:02,719 --> 00:40:05,200
Speaker 1: these like critical moments when the story can shift at

735
00:40:05,200 --> 00:40:08,560
Speaker 1: a societal level. What does it look like to two

736
00:40:08,600 --> 00:40:11,960
Speaker 1: more intentionally find or even create and kind of curate

737
00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:15,440
Speaker 1: those moments? Like how might we spot the opportunities for that?

738
00:40:15,920 --> 00:40:18,120
Speaker 1: So in Australia I ended up talking to loads of

739
00:40:18,120 --> 00:40:20,440
Speaker 1: people about the new government has committed to holding a

740
00:40:20,520 --> 00:40:25,239
Speaker 1: referendum on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, the Indigenous Voice

741
00:40:25,239 --> 00:40:27,520
Speaker 1: to Parliament and when is that? So there was a

742
00:40:27,520 --> 00:40:30,280
Speaker 1: statement what's called the Statement from the Heart, a gathering

743
00:40:30,320 --> 00:40:33,360
Speaker 1: of First Nations leaders came together in Uluru in the

744
00:40:33,400 --> 00:40:36,799
Speaker 1: center of Australia and produced a set of recommendations for

745
00:40:36,880 --> 00:40:39,959
Speaker 1: how the voice of Indigenous people could be better heard

746
00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:44,000
Speaker 1: in Australian government. And they put that forward. The then

747
00:40:44,080 --> 00:40:48,040
Speaker 1: government rejected it out of hand. The new government has

748
00:40:48,120 --> 00:40:52,319
Speaker 1: said we want to do this. It's a constitutional shift,

749
00:40:52,360 --> 00:40:55,399
Speaker 1: so it requires referendum. So there will be some time

750
00:40:55,440 --> 00:40:57,160
Speaker 1: in the next few years there will be a referendum

751
00:40:57,200 --> 00:41:00,440
Speaker 1: on this at the moment. So that's a moment. So

752
00:41:00,480 --> 00:41:03,520
Speaker 1: how do you design for that? Because the referendum, trust me,

753
00:41:03,560 --> 00:41:06,440
Speaker 1: I'm British, can can take your country in a dark direction.

754
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:10,960
Speaker 1: I'm a Californian. We have so many referenda out here.

755
00:41:11,160 --> 00:41:14,200
Speaker 1: Because the referendum in and of itself is a consumer moment, right,

756
00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:17,239
Speaker 1: Like it's just pick. But how you would lead up

757
00:41:17,239 --> 00:41:20,279
Speaker 1: to that, how you have conversations and deliberate there you

758
00:41:20,360 --> 00:41:23,319
Speaker 1: go over that moment could really shift the outcome and

759
00:41:23,360 --> 00:41:26,560
Speaker 1: the feeling you have about the outcome. Right, And then

760
00:41:26,680 --> 00:41:28,640
Speaker 1: I arrived in New Zealand and I look at like

761
00:41:28,880 --> 00:41:32,480
Speaker 1: the conversation about climate there is really ripening, and it's like,

762
00:41:32,520 --> 00:41:36,200
Speaker 1: how might we bring into that some of these ideas

763
00:41:36,719 --> 00:41:39,120
Speaker 1: but also like draw on the depth of the of

764
00:41:39,160 --> 00:41:42,040
Speaker 1: the Maori wisdoms and even the process that. One of

765
00:41:42,040 --> 00:41:44,080
Speaker 1: the lovely things I came across on this trip was

766
00:41:44,120 --> 00:41:46,799
Speaker 1: the Maori concept of pap and a hole, which is

767
00:41:46,840 --> 00:41:49,200
Speaker 1: the word for the joining space between the two holes

768
00:41:49,200 --> 00:41:51,560
Speaker 1: of an ocean going canoe and when when they had

769
00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:53,799
Speaker 1: a moment of uncertainty, they would gathering the space and

770
00:41:53,840 --> 00:41:56,479
Speaker 1: like and and draw on the wisdom of the people

771
00:41:56,520 --> 00:41:58,440
Speaker 1: who read the stars best and the people who read

772
00:41:58,440 --> 00:42:01,000
Speaker 1: the currents best, and figure out what to do together

773
00:42:01,680 --> 00:42:04,680
Speaker 1: in a process of storytelling and story sharing and wisdom sharing,

774
00:42:04,960 --> 00:42:08,040
Speaker 1: like how might we draw them back? And then here

775
00:42:08,040 --> 00:42:10,719
Speaker 1: in l A, I mean, this is the place of

776
00:42:10,800 --> 00:42:15,000
Speaker 1: story right, this is the global hub. And remember what

777
00:42:15,040 --> 00:42:17,960
Speaker 1: we said about the Olympics and four right, like yeah,

778
00:42:18,120 --> 00:42:20,239
Speaker 1: then twenty eight Like so we could we could have

779
00:42:20,280 --> 00:42:22,920
Speaker 1: a do over and do something different If if l

780
00:42:22,960 --> 00:42:25,719
Speaker 1: A helped accelerate the consumer story by bringing brands to

781
00:42:25,760 --> 00:42:28,040
Speaker 1: the Olympics, could it help accelerate the citizen story by

782
00:42:28,120 --> 00:42:29,839
Speaker 1: bringing people to it in a different way? And how

783
00:42:29,920 --> 00:42:33,600
Speaker 1: might we do that? And wouldn't it be great? Excited

784
00:42:33,640 --> 00:42:36,960
Speaker 1: to get local man? So, so what are some other ways?

785
00:42:37,560 --> 00:42:39,880
Speaker 1: Sadly our listeners do not all reside in l A

786
00:42:40,400 --> 00:42:43,840
Speaker 1: or New Zealand, which would be really really perfect ways

787
00:42:43,880 --> 00:42:46,799
Speaker 1: to help us make that mental shift into the citizens story.

788
00:42:46,880 --> 00:42:49,560
Speaker 1: Somebody is hearing this now and they're fired up, They're

789
00:42:49,600 --> 00:42:53,360
Speaker 1: ready to go. How do we help tell the story?

790
00:42:53,800 --> 00:42:56,279
Speaker 1: How do we help join in it? From where we're

791
00:42:56,320 --> 00:42:58,080
Speaker 1: at right now, what are some of the one ramps

792
00:42:58,080 --> 00:43:01,600
Speaker 1: you've seen? So? I mean I have a pretty simple

793
00:43:01,719 --> 00:43:04,640
Speaker 1: kind of three step thing which I've broadly stole from you.

794
00:43:04,719 --> 00:43:09,040
Speaker 1: I think a right here, we come from my way

795
00:43:09,080 --> 00:43:10,640
Speaker 1: of languages, so so you see what you make it

796
00:43:10,680 --> 00:43:14,600
Speaker 1: this one, But it's basically like step one, find home, like,

797
00:43:14,719 --> 00:43:18,720
Speaker 1: decide what the realm, whether it's your workplace, your local

798
00:43:18,840 --> 00:43:22,080
Speaker 1: place like, or something bigger or something we should we

799
00:43:22,239 --> 00:43:24,040
Speaker 1: You have to call it a realm though, It's just

800
00:43:24,080 --> 00:43:25,640
Speaker 1: it's more powerful when you refer to it as a

801
00:43:25,680 --> 00:43:28,840
Speaker 1: realm as opposed to a workplace or a neighborhood. Right, okay,

802
00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:32,640
Speaker 1: so find your home, find home, find home? Step to

803
00:43:32,800 --> 00:43:36,440
Speaker 1: find the others? M M, put up the bat signal,

804
00:43:36,560 --> 00:43:38,480
Speaker 1: right like? Who else is? Who else wants to make

805
00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:43,960
Speaker 1: this realm better? And then step three on only step

806
00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:47,640
Speaker 1: three like, decide what the first thing to do is together? Right?

807
00:43:48,719 --> 00:43:52,520
Speaker 1: I mean that that sequencing actually feels very important. It's

808
00:43:52,520 --> 00:43:57,319
Speaker 1: not I have an idea to fix X. I need

809
00:43:57,360 --> 00:44:00,560
Speaker 1: you to help me get it done, right. It's hi,

810
00:44:00,880 --> 00:44:04,040
Speaker 1: I'm here, you're here too. Where are we? Now? What

811
00:44:04,120 --> 00:44:07,160
Speaker 1: do we want to do? What's important to us, not

812
00:44:07,320 --> 00:44:11,040
Speaker 1: just to me, and just establishing that shared reality, that

813
00:44:11,040 --> 00:44:14,799
Speaker 1: shared narrative, that shared story, with the sequencing of that

814
00:44:14,880 --> 00:44:17,319
Speaker 1: just it actually feels really important because I know so

815
00:44:17,360 --> 00:44:20,880
Speaker 1: many people, including myself, who are like, that's wrong. I

816
00:44:20,920 --> 00:44:24,400
Speaker 1: got an idea. Let's go, here's my petition, here's my

817
00:44:24,400 --> 00:44:27,400
Speaker 1: sign up sheet to join me and my thing, and

818
00:44:27,440 --> 00:44:29,640
Speaker 1: hopefully you'll feel like it's you're a thing too. Whereas

819
00:44:29,640 --> 00:44:32,279
Speaker 1: if you develop it in community, then it has a

820
00:44:32,320 --> 00:44:35,759
Speaker 1: different potency, in a different sense of co investment. Okay,

821
00:44:36,480 --> 00:44:39,160
Speaker 1: when you think about because so much of the new

822
00:44:39,200 --> 00:44:43,959
Speaker 1: Citizenship project work that I've seen is institutional. So let's

823
00:44:43,960 --> 00:44:48,960
Speaker 1: say my realm is my neighborhood. And okay, so I've

824
00:44:49,000 --> 00:44:53,200
Speaker 1: I've chosen my home. Find others am I am? I

825
00:44:53,280 --> 00:44:56,799
Speaker 1: calling a meeting and I inviting people over for cupcakes?

826
00:44:58,160 --> 00:45:02,160
Speaker 1: How specific is my invit tation to these others before

827
00:45:02,239 --> 00:45:05,200
Speaker 1: we decide what it is we might want to affect

828
00:45:05,280 --> 00:45:08,399
Speaker 1: or change. I mean, it's it really varies. It's what

829
00:45:08,520 --> 00:45:11,239
Speaker 1: feels feels right to the group, I guess. I mean,

830
00:45:11,480 --> 00:45:15,879
Speaker 1: I think maybe a couple of examples from my sort

831
00:45:15,880 --> 00:45:18,680
Speaker 1: of story gathering that speak most powerfully to this. One

832
00:45:18,680 --> 00:45:20,399
Speaker 1: of my favorites is the story of a place called

833
00:45:20,440 --> 00:45:23,000
Speaker 1: Grimsby and on the northeast coast of England. That's like

834
00:45:23,120 --> 00:45:25,319
Speaker 1: the place that's been most screwed over over the last

835
00:45:25,320 --> 00:45:28,880
Speaker 1: fifty years or so. And what happened there was the

836
00:45:29,320 --> 00:45:33,800
Speaker 1: council called a meeting and there's a couple of guys,

837
00:45:33,800 --> 00:45:36,560
Speaker 1: this guy Billy, who wasn't going to go because he said, like,

838
00:45:36,719 --> 00:45:39,160
Speaker 1: it will just be people complaining and the council saying

839
00:45:39,160 --> 00:45:41,000
Speaker 1: they can't do anything. So what's the point of our

840
00:45:41,000 --> 00:45:43,440
Speaker 1: seen that meeting? We've all seen that meeting. And a

841
00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:45,719
Speaker 1: friend of his said, our moms would have gone, and

842
00:45:45,800 --> 00:45:48,840
Speaker 1: guilt tripped him into it, and he went to the

843
00:45:48,880 --> 00:45:51,440
Speaker 1: meeting and like got so frustrated that he stood up

844
00:45:51,440 --> 00:45:53,680
Speaker 1: in the meeting and said, look, I'm just going to

845
00:45:53,760 --> 00:45:57,520
Speaker 1: go clear one Street tomorrow. Anyone who wants to join me,

846
00:45:57,520 --> 00:45:59,640
Speaker 1: I'd love you to join me, and then we'll just

847
00:45:59,680 --> 00:46:01,839
Speaker 1: see what we do from there, because this is too

848
00:46:01,920 --> 00:46:05,160
Speaker 1: much like dwelling in the pain. I think it was

849
00:46:05,200 --> 00:46:06,920
Speaker 1: like I didn't get the numbers wrong, but let's say

850
00:46:06,920 --> 00:46:08,839
Speaker 1: it was like fifteen people turned up. Next day they

851
00:46:08,880 --> 00:46:11,280
Speaker 1: agreed to do it again two weeks later, on different streets.

852
00:46:11,320 --> 00:46:15,160
Speaker 1: Thirty came fast forward four years. These guys now have

853
00:46:15,239 --> 00:46:17,840
Speaker 1: a magazine called The Proud East Marshan. This is in

854
00:46:17,840 --> 00:46:20,400
Speaker 1: the East Marsh in Grimsby. They have a six monthly

855
00:46:20,520 --> 00:46:22,960
Speaker 1: arts festival called the Sun and Moon Arts Festival, and

856
00:46:23,000 --> 00:46:26,640
Speaker 1: they've just closed pretty recently a half million pounds community

857
00:46:26,680 --> 00:46:29,920
Speaker 1: share offer raising money, and that amount of money in

858
00:46:29,960 --> 00:46:34,040
Speaker 1: Grimsby will buy ten houses, refit them, using good local

859
00:46:34,160 --> 00:46:36,960
Speaker 1: jobs and let them out as a social landlord. Creating

860
00:46:36,960 --> 00:46:39,279
Speaker 1: a sustainable revenue stream for the rest of the organization.

861
00:46:39,760 --> 00:46:43,440
Speaker 1: Started with a litter pick and then another in a

862
00:46:43,480 --> 00:46:46,440
Speaker 1: totally different realm. There's a thing that I believe is

863
00:46:46,440 --> 00:46:49,920
Speaker 1: still live right now. Last time I checked to a

864
00:46:49,960 --> 00:46:53,799
Speaker 1: group of McKinsey consultants. Yeah, man, see this is the

865
00:46:53,880 --> 00:46:59,520
Speaker 1: Range East Marjians, the Mackensey. There we go a group

866
00:46:59,560 --> 00:47:01,560
Speaker 1: of I think it was eleven of them, originally an

867
00:47:01,600 --> 00:47:04,560
Speaker 1: open letter to the partners calling them to discuss the

868
00:47:04,719 --> 00:47:09,360
Speaker 1: fossil fuel relationships kind of ignored to start with. Last

869
00:47:09,400 --> 00:47:13,520
Speaker 1: time I heard McKinsey consultants had like signed up to

870
00:47:13,560 --> 00:47:19,399
Speaker 1: this letter. So to your thing, like those eleven might

871
00:47:19,440 --> 00:47:23,840
Speaker 1: be enough, fifteen might be enough. Like, it doesn't necessarily

872
00:47:23,880 --> 00:47:27,920
Speaker 1: mean like you have to find all of the others

873
00:47:27,920 --> 00:47:31,719
Speaker 1: some others. You're such a storyteller and the story gatherer,

874
00:47:31,920 --> 00:47:37,080
Speaker 1: as you just called yourself. Are there certain phrases, certain

875
00:47:37,160 --> 00:47:42,480
Speaker 1: narrative bullet points, certain language choices that you've seen people

876
00:47:42,640 --> 00:47:47,600
Speaker 1: using consistently across these examples when they make that invitation,

877
00:47:47,640 --> 00:47:49,279
Speaker 1: when they try to show up, when they try to

878
00:47:49,400 --> 00:47:52,879
Speaker 1: establish the WII, that tends to be successful more than

879
00:47:53,200 --> 00:47:56,520
Speaker 1: a different set of language choices. I'm literally thinking about

880
00:47:56,560 --> 00:48:01,759
Speaker 1: the sign on Facebook or master done that Twitter, or

881
00:48:01,880 --> 00:48:05,080
Speaker 1: on the posts you know, the power line that the

882
00:48:05,080 --> 00:48:08,040
Speaker 1: powerpoll in my neighborhood. It's a great question and when

883
00:48:08,080 --> 00:48:11,400
Speaker 1: I want to think about more, and but my immediate

884
00:48:11,440 --> 00:48:15,759
Speaker 1: reaction is that spirit of question and that language of

885
00:48:15,800 --> 00:48:20,279
Speaker 1: like of being needed briefly to kind of theory that's like,

886
00:48:20,320 --> 00:48:25,000
Speaker 1: there's a really powerful concept called safe uncertainty. And the

887
00:48:25,040 --> 00:48:27,239
Speaker 1: idea here so it comes from therapy, originally a guy

888
00:48:27,280 --> 00:48:29,320
Speaker 1: called Barry Mace And and the idea essentially is that

889
00:48:29,360 --> 00:48:31,440
Speaker 1: anyone who comes to therapy is in one of two places.

890
00:48:31,440 --> 00:48:34,279
Speaker 1: They're either unsafe uncertain I don't know what to do,

891
00:48:34,880 --> 00:48:38,200
Speaker 1: or unsafe certain I'm bad, and I know I am.

892
00:48:38,200 --> 00:48:41,160
Speaker 1: And what they think they want is safe certainty. Tell

893
00:48:41,200 --> 00:48:43,880
Speaker 1: me what to do to fix it. You can see

894
00:48:43,880 --> 00:48:46,320
Speaker 1: this right, This is the subject story, the consumer story.

895
00:48:46,360 --> 00:48:49,359
Speaker 1: Both play in that space. By this or do this.

896
00:48:50,800 --> 00:48:53,680
Speaker 1: And what this guy says as safe uncertainty is about

897
00:48:53,800 --> 00:48:56,640
Speaker 1: holding the space, standing the side rather than in front

898
00:48:56,680 --> 00:49:00,640
Speaker 1: of and saying we don't know exactly what's gonna happen,

899
00:49:00,640 --> 00:49:02,440
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to pretend to you that we do.

900
00:49:03,400 --> 00:49:05,920
Speaker 1: It's a billion Grimsby didn't stand up and say, if

901
00:49:05,920 --> 00:49:07,879
Speaker 1: we go and pick the litter off one street, will

902
00:49:07,880 --> 00:49:10,480
Speaker 1: have solved Grimsby in full years time. We'll have will

903
00:49:10,520 --> 00:49:12,160
Speaker 1: have bought some house this and will be a social

904
00:49:12,239 --> 00:49:15,320
Speaker 1: landlord and will be we'll be breaking it down. He said,

905
00:49:16,160 --> 00:49:19,120
Speaker 1: there are some things we can do. Oh man, Yeah,

906
00:49:19,239 --> 00:49:23,200
Speaker 1: you're blowing my mind a bit, just connecting to the

907
00:49:23,280 --> 00:49:27,880
Speaker 1: consumer stories, infiltration of philanthropy and the need for returns

908
00:49:27,960 --> 00:49:33,200
Speaker 1: and business plans and projections and scale and people with

909
00:49:33,280 --> 00:49:37,080
Speaker 1: significant resources only funding things that can prove all these

910
00:49:37,120 --> 00:49:42,319
Speaker 1: other downstream effects. Whereas they would have ignored the guy

911
00:49:42,360 --> 00:49:44,920
Speaker 1: in Grimsby, Right, you don't have a plan, right, what

912
00:49:44,960 --> 00:49:46,680
Speaker 1: are you gonna show me. You're gonna show me your metrics,

913
00:49:46,760 --> 00:49:49,400
Speaker 1: show me. I need to just see your deck and

914
00:49:49,400 --> 00:49:52,200
Speaker 1: and the intention of just gathering, which we have pre

915
00:49:52,280 --> 00:49:55,239
Speaker 1: a Parker in this season as well, And so there's

916
00:49:55,239 --> 00:49:57,800
Speaker 1: a there's a beautiful overlap with some of these thoughts

917
00:49:57,840 --> 00:50:00,560
Speaker 1: to kind of find their way into a person who

918
00:50:00,600 --> 00:50:02,120
Speaker 1: was like, all right, I think I know how I

919
00:50:02,239 --> 00:50:06,120
Speaker 1: might start this. What do you think the world would

920
00:50:06,160 --> 00:50:09,880
Speaker 1: look like if we made the transition to living in

921
00:50:09,880 --> 00:50:13,000
Speaker 1: the citizens story? What would be practically different? What would

922
00:50:13,000 --> 00:50:16,000
Speaker 1: our experience feel like? I find this question kind of

923
00:50:16,040 --> 00:50:22,279
Speaker 1: hard because it's like, no, but I'm at a level

924
00:50:22,280 --> 00:50:24,760
Speaker 1: where I'm like, some of it is that I don't

925
00:50:24,800 --> 00:50:28,319
Speaker 1: think we exactly know. Are you practicing safe uncertainty with

926
00:50:28,440 --> 00:50:31,600
Speaker 1: you right now? Working on you? But but it is

927
00:50:31,640 --> 00:50:34,000
Speaker 1: like I'm kind of serious, right, Like a big part

928
00:50:34,040 --> 00:50:36,439
Speaker 1: of the joy of this whole thing is the act

929
00:50:36,480 --> 00:50:39,640
Speaker 1: of creating it. Yeah, I hear you on on truly

930
00:50:39,640 --> 00:50:43,840
Speaker 1: on the safe uncertainty, and you're also kind of practicing

931
00:50:43,840 --> 00:50:46,120
Speaker 1: what you just described, which is you're not overpromising a

932
00:50:46,160 --> 00:50:48,759
Speaker 1: specific outcome when I ask you that question. I have

933
00:50:49,040 --> 00:50:50,759
Speaker 1: one last question for you, and then we'll go to

934
00:50:50,800 --> 00:50:55,719
Speaker 1: our live, not in studio audience. We embrace citizen as

935
00:50:55,719 --> 00:50:59,359
Speaker 1: a verb here at how to Citizen. So you missed

936
00:50:59,360 --> 00:51:03,040
Speaker 1: the storyteller words Smith. If you are interpreting citizen as

937
00:51:03,040 --> 00:51:05,480
Speaker 1: a verb, how do you define it? What does it

938
00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:08,960
Speaker 1: mean to citizen? I mean I listened to your first

939
00:51:09,080 --> 00:51:13,600
Speaker 1: episodes Salary Core Eric Loue. Yeah, when I was like

940
00:51:13,880 --> 00:51:18,120
Speaker 1: writing the book, and honestly, I've been like fan boying.

941
00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:23,080
Speaker 1: But where I got to the way I do it

942
00:51:23,160 --> 00:51:25,600
Speaker 1: is I talk about because nouns are important to me

943
00:51:25,680 --> 00:51:28,520
Speaker 1: as well, because nouns become identity constructs. That's why it's

944
00:51:28,520 --> 00:51:32,279
Speaker 1: important to understand the consumer, not just the act of consumption.

945
00:51:33,680 --> 00:51:35,640
Speaker 1: But the way I talk about it is is I

946
00:51:35,719 --> 00:51:40,920
Speaker 1: make the distinction between citizenship of status, which has become consumerized.

947
00:51:40,920 --> 00:51:44,080
Speaker 1: It's become a product. Can buy it, You can buy

948
00:51:44,080 --> 00:51:49,640
Speaker 1: it the Golden visa versus citizenship is practice. And that's

949
00:51:49,680 --> 00:51:54,120
Speaker 1: basically you this stuff is this part right, like the

950
00:51:54,160 --> 00:52:02,200
Speaker 1: citizenship has practices is citizen's verb. Yeah, John Alexander, It's

951
00:52:02,200 --> 00:52:04,840
Speaker 1: been so good to see you in person here in

952
00:52:04,880 --> 00:52:09,880
Speaker 1: the same room. Um, welcome belatedly to Los Angeles. And

953
00:52:09,960 --> 00:52:12,319
Speaker 1: at this point I want to turn it over to

954
00:52:12,360 --> 00:52:15,480
Speaker 1: our guests to see what's on their minds. Let's see

955
00:52:16,160 --> 00:52:20,520
Speaker 1: what magic we might have been missing. Jens Innoviation, come

956
00:52:20,520 --> 00:52:24,799
Speaker 1: on down. This is Jennine from Philadelphia. John. You were

957
00:52:24,840 --> 00:52:27,759
Speaker 1: talking about your origin story more or lesson. You said

958
00:52:27,840 --> 00:52:30,480
Speaker 1: something like about two thousand and three and you said

959
00:52:31,239 --> 00:52:33,680
Speaker 1: how much noise it is to have to go through,

960
00:52:33,800 --> 00:52:35,960
Speaker 1: you know, three thousand ads to get your ad out.

961
00:52:36,000 --> 00:52:37,640
Speaker 1: And I was like, wow, I remember when we thought

962
00:52:37,640 --> 00:52:41,120
Speaker 1: two thousand and three was noisy. Imagine what you know?

963
00:52:41,120 --> 00:52:43,000
Speaker 1: What I mean? That was really quaint, Like that was

964
00:52:43,040 --> 00:52:47,160
Speaker 1: before Facebook really took over. So my question is, what

965
00:52:47,239 --> 00:52:50,239
Speaker 1: do you think as a storyteller, like a professional storyteller,

966
00:52:50,560 --> 00:52:52,839
Speaker 1: what do you see as the impact social media has

967
00:52:52,880 --> 00:52:56,200
Speaker 1: had on the relationship between all of us civilians like

968
00:52:56,600 --> 00:53:03,319
Speaker 1: public and storytelling meaning making? And I guess story choosing right,

969
00:53:03,360 --> 00:53:06,600
Speaker 1: because you're talking about our ability to choose our stories

970
00:53:06,640 --> 00:53:10,200
Speaker 1: and make stories and opts in and out. And I

971
00:53:10,320 --> 00:53:12,759
Speaker 1: just want you to reflect on what these technologies are

972
00:53:12,800 --> 00:53:17,759
Speaker 1: doing to that. The first thing I would say is

973
00:53:18,600 --> 00:53:21,399
Speaker 1: to your kind of charting back through time, I think

974
00:53:21,560 --> 00:53:26,759
Speaker 1: we also need to remember and what we thought the

975
00:53:26,760 --> 00:53:28,799
Speaker 1: promise of these things were so a good friend of

976
00:53:28,800 --> 00:53:31,400
Speaker 1: mine as woman called Amozine Khalifa, who you again should

977
00:53:31,400 --> 00:53:34,040
Speaker 1: have on here, and she was one of the organizers

978
00:53:34,040 --> 00:53:39,400
Speaker 1: of the Tennisian Revolution and using social media in beautiful

979
00:53:39,440 --> 00:53:42,959
Speaker 1: ways when we all thought Facebook was the answer, right,

980
00:53:43,680 --> 00:53:46,120
Speaker 1: And I think I do believe that social media have

981
00:53:46,360 --> 00:53:49,880
Speaker 1: that potential, and like I do see everything through the

982
00:53:49,960 --> 00:53:52,239
Speaker 1: lens of these stories, like and the way I would

983
00:53:52,280 --> 00:53:55,760
Speaker 1: frame it is that we build our technologies from within stories.

984
00:53:56,719 --> 00:53:59,760
Speaker 1: So when we build them from within a consumer story,

985
00:53:59,800 --> 00:54:02,680
Speaker 1: they then speak back to us as consumers Facebook and

986
00:54:02,960 --> 00:54:05,640
Speaker 1: Twitter and sort of like they're designed for us as consumers.

987
00:54:05,800 --> 00:54:08,200
Speaker 1: I think the most powerful analogy really is actually more

988
00:54:08,320 --> 00:54:10,920
Speaker 1: like what was originally called the sharing economy, right, like

989
00:54:10,960 --> 00:54:12,839
Speaker 1: the airbnb s and Ubers of this world, where we

990
00:54:12,840 --> 00:54:15,640
Speaker 1: were like, I mean, these were these were out just

991
00:54:15,680 --> 00:54:18,640
Speaker 1: forming when I was starting to really develop this language,

992
00:54:19,000 --> 00:54:20,400
Speaker 1: and I was like, maybe I don't need to do

993
00:54:20,440 --> 00:54:22,319
Speaker 1: this because like we're just going to share everything, And

994
00:54:22,360 --> 00:54:24,839
Speaker 1: like the whole dream was that every transaction would become

995
00:54:24,840 --> 00:54:27,680
Speaker 1: a relationship. But because they were built from within the

996
00:54:27,719 --> 00:54:30,560
Speaker 1: consumer story, what's actually happened is that every relationship becomes

997
00:54:30,560 --> 00:54:33,919
Speaker 1: a transaction. We just become consumers of each other. It's

998
00:54:33,960 --> 00:54:36,160
Speaker 1: the story that I would look to and maybe to

999
00:54:36,200 --> 00:54:40,879
Speaker 1: this thing about critical intervention points like Twitter right now

1000
00:54:41,080 --> 00:54:45,359
Speaker 1: is super fascinating, right, like, what what might happen in

1001
00:54:45,400 --> 00:54:47,879
Speaker 1: that space? Well, what what might master don become? Or

1002
00:54:48,120 --> 00:54:51,000
Speaker 1: like if in this moment we can seize on the

1003
00:54:51,080 --> 00:54:55,000
Speaker 1: collapse in that space and build something from within the

1004
00:54:55,040 --> 00:54:59,040
Speaker 1: citizens story, maybe we could have genuinely social media. Absolutely,

1005
00:54:59,280 --> 00:55:03,040
Speaker 1: I love that. I have too many thoughts on that myself,

1006
00:55:03,160 --> 00:55:06,720
Speaker 1: Janine as well. They align largely with what you shared John.

1007
00:55:07,120 --> 00:55:09,279
Speaker 1: What social media has done to us is turned the

1008
00:55:09,280 --> 00:55:13,960
Speaker 1: consumer story up to eleven thousand, all right, and atomize

1009
00:55:14,040 --> 00:55:16,440
Speaker 1: us and chop us up and sell us off for parts.

1010
00:55:17,080 --> 00:55:21,439
Speaker 1: And so it's much much more violent than what we've

1011
00:55:21,480 --> 00:55:26,520
Speaker 1: experienced with traditional media and advertising, etcetera. So let's go

1012
00:55:26,640 --> 00:55:30,360
Speaker 1: to the next question we've got. Ray. I'm Ray Kennedy.

1013
00:55:30,400 --> 00:55:33,480
Speaker 1: I'm here in the Cotchella Valley in southern California. Had

1014
00:55:33,480 --> 00:55:36,680
Speaker 1: the pleasure of driving into l A last night to

1015
00:55:36,800 --> 00:55:40,399
Speaker 1: see John at the book tour event and just wanted

1016
00:55:40,400 --> 00:55:43,320
Speaker 1: to ask one of the things that that I remember

1017
00:55:43,360 --> 00:55:46,880
Speaker 1: reading years ago, I think two thousand five it was,

1018
00:55:47,600 --> 00:55:51,120
Speaker 1: is the book on the wisdom of crowds, and I

1019
00:55:51,200 --> 00:55:55,120
Speaker 1: was wondering if that was something that had played a

1020
00:55:55,280 --> 00:56:00,800
Speaker 1: role in your thinking as it evolved. Thank you, Ray.

1021
00:56:01,160 --> 00:56:02,680
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of a way to make a

1022
00:56:02,680 --> 00:56:06,279
Speaker 1: longer answer than yes, you don't have to give this time.

1023
00:56:07,200 --> 00:56:09,000
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll just say that, I mean it was off

1024
00:56:09,000 --> 00:56:10,560
Speaker 1: the back of the wisdom of crowds actually that the

1025
00:56:10,560 --> 00:56:14,360
Speaker 1: original concept of my farm developed because we were like, actually,

1026
00:56:15,560 --> 00:56:18,640
Speaker 1: we might get different intelligences into the space. Maybe one

1027
00:56:18,680 --> 00:56:21,560
Speaker 1: thing I will say on this, Actually, I think this

1028
00:56:21,680 --> 00:56:25,480
Speaker 1: is where the corruption of voting is a really good

1029
00:56:25,520 --> 00:56:29,439
Speaker 1: way to understand the corruption of voting. So voting, if

1030
00:56:29,480 --> 00:56:34,440
Speaker 1: it's an act of collective intelligence, can be a decent methodology, right,

1031
00:56:34,480 --> 00:56:36,760
Speaker 1: But to do that, we all have to be asking

1032
00:56:36,920 --> 00:56:39,520
Speaker 1: the same collective question. This is one of the points

1033
00:56:39,520 --> 00:56:42,759
Speaker 1: that Siriaki may makes in Wisdom of Crowds. Everyone has

1034
00:56:42,800 --> 00:56:45,319
Speaker 1: to be asking what's the option here that's in the

1035
00:56:45,320 --> 00:56:48,480
Speaker 1: best interest, in the best collective interest. But one of

1036
00:56:48,480 --> 00:56:51,960
Speaker 1: the things that's happened through the consumerization of our politics

1037
00:56:52,400 --> 00:56:54,720
Speaker 1: is that we're no longer all asking what's in our

1038
00:56:54,760 --> 00:56:59,640
Speaker 1: collective interest. Instead, we're individually asking what's in my interest? Yeah,

1039
00:57:00,080 --> 00:57:03,040
Speaker 1: the way we asked the question what question we ask?

1040
00:57:03,200 --> 00:57:06,120
Speaker 1: And and also are our bots answering the questions are

1041
00:57:06,120 --> 00:57:10,000
Speaker 1: they real humans? There was there was a simplicity to like,

1042
00:57:10,239 --> 00:57:12,240
Speaker 1: just put it up for a crowd vote and that'll

1043
00:57:12,280 --> 00:57:15,319
Speaker 1: solve it. And there was the process design was weak

1044
00:57:15,360 --> 00:57:19,640
Speaker 1: when it came to defending against actors, information warfare, artists

1045
00:57:19,840 --> 00:57:22,120
Speaker 1: and all of this that could corrupt such a such

1046
00:57:22,160 --> 00:57:24,320
Speaker 1: a process. Thank you so much. Ready for that question,

1047
00:57:24,520 --> 00:57:28,480
Speaker 1: Let's see, I'm going to ask this on behalf listeners.

1048
00:57:28,480 --> 00:57:32,439
Speaker 1: Submitted question from Jonathan asked what do you think about

1049
00:57:32,480 --> 00:57:37,120
Speaker 1: using behavioral economic insights to encourage citizen like behavior over

1050
00:57:37,160 --> 00:57:40,720
Speaker 1: consumer like behavior? Can you use the master's tools to

1051
00:57:40,840 --> 00:57:42,960
Speaker 1: free the enslaves? Can you use the tools of the

1052
00:57:43,000 --> 00:57:48,040
Speaker 1: consumer story in service of a citizens story? Look? I

1053
00:57:48,080 --> 00:57:52,240
Speaker 1: think using good design, using creativity, framing things carefully like

1054
00:57:52,480 --> 00:57:56,240
Speaker 1: is all part of this. I do worry about the

1055
00:57:56,240 --> 00:58:00,880
Speaker 1: phenomenon of notch M because I think the the underlying

1056
00:58:00,960 --> 00:58:04,240
Speaker 1: premise of that so often is do you define that briefly?

1057
00:58:04,840 --> 00:58:08,720
Speaker 1: Nudging is this idea that you sort of unconsciously prompts

1058
00:58:08,760 --> 00:58:11,200
Speaker 1: someone to behave in a certain way, so you like

1059
00:58:11,320 --> 00:58:13,840
Speaker 1: you get people to keep their towels in our hotel room,

1060
00:58:13,880 --> 00:58:18,400
Speaker 1: because you say most people do that rather than appealing

1061
00:58:18,440 --> 00:58:21,360
Speaker 1: to the kind of the moral argument which motivates fewer people.

1062
00:58:21,400 --> 00:58:25,880
Speaker 1: So you're like and like that there's nothing inherently wrong

1063
00:58:25,920 --> 00:58:28,040
Speaker 1: with that. The My worry, though, is there's two things.

1064
00:58:28,120 --> 00:58:31,800
Speaker 1: The first is that we underappreciate what's actually kind of

1065
00:58:31,840 --> 00:58:34,880
Speaker 1: the biggest nudge in history, which is the fact that

1066
00:58:34,920 --> 00:58:37,880
Speaker 1: we've got this story three thousand times a day plus

1067
00:58:37,960 --> 00:58:41,120
Speaker 1: I mean, to Janine's question, the latest estimates or anything

1068
00:58:41,200 --> 00:58:44,200
Speaker 1: up to ten thousand times a day for certain cohorts,

1069
00:58:44,760 --> 00:58:48,680
Speaker 1: and so that's behavior economics right there, right. The other

1070
00:58:48,720 --> 00:58:52,320
Speaker 1: thing is that I think what results from that, and

1071
00:58:52,480 --> 00:58:56,240
Speaker 1: so often these approaches come from here, is you're actually, um,

1072
00:58:57,080 --> 00:59:00,640
Speaker 1: some people call it sustainability by stealth, m right, okay,

1073
00:59:00,680 --> 00:59:03,840
Speaker 1: And it's like tricking people into doing the greener thing, essentially,

1074
00:59:03,840 --> 00:59:07,160
Speaker 1: because that's the only way we can possibly imagine trust them,

1075
00:59:07,560 --> 00:59:10,760
Speaker 1: right to just do the better thing for our collective self.

1076
00:59:11,240 --> 00:59:13,520
Speaker 1: And in a way it's like, because I think the

1077
00:59:13,560 --> 00:59:16,400
Speaker 1: towels thing is kind of interesting, right, because when you

1078
00:59:16,480 --> 00:59:19,920
Speaker 1: see that as a kind of grand victory, you're starting

1079
00:59:19,960 --> 00:59:22,720
Speaker 1: so far down the down the futureain because you're not

1080
00:59:22,760 --> 00:59:25,200
Speaker 1: sharing the big question that goes, how might we like,

1081
00:59:25,640 --> 00:59:28,000
Speaker 1: how might we make our society is sustainable? How might

1082
00:59:28,040 --> 00:59:31,480
Speaker 1: we make this city regenerative? Like if you hold that

1083
00:59:31,600 --> 00:59:33,760
Speaker 1: question this question we were talking I was talking about

1084
00:59:33,760 --> 00:59:36,600
Speaker 1: with Wellington City Council in New Zealand, how might Wellington

1085
00:59:36,720 --> 00:59:40,640
Speaker 1: become the first regenerative city in the world. Oh, that's

1086
00:59:40,640 --> 00:59:44,240
Speaker 1: a great question. Requires a lot of people, right, rather

1087
00:59:44,320 --> 00:59:47,880
Speaker 1: than like, Okay, we need to decrease the water footprint

1088
00:59:47,920 --> 00:59:51,200
Speaker 1: of Wellington's hotels, like let's this percentage point with this

1089
00:59:51,280 --> 00:59:53,680
Speaker 1: little nuge. So I don't want to be too like

1090
00:59:53,760 --> 00:59:56,880
Speaker 1: black and white about it, like I but there's there's

1091
00:59:56,880 --> 00:59:59,120
Speaker 1: no answer to an I think it is. There's I

1092
00:59:59,200 --> 01:00:02,720
Speaker 1: have a temptation often of you know, we're at war

1093
01:00:03,720 --> 01:00:07,400
Speaker 1: and the other side is deploying all of these advanced weapons,

1094
01:00:08,080 --> 01:00:11,760
Speaker 1: and are we gonna unilaterally disarmed? Right? So I'm already

1095
01:00:11,800 --> 01:00:14,840
Speaker 1: choosing the language of combat and war. But it sometimes

1096
01:00:14,880 --> 01:00:17,800
Speaker 1: feels like that truly, And so are we being naive

1097
01:00:18,720 --> 01:00:21,000
Speaker 1: in saying, well, no, we'll just we'll just tell people

1098
01:00:21,000 --> 01:00:23,360
Speaker 1: the truth and they'll figure it out. When they're being

1099
01:00:23,480 --> 01:00:25,880
Speaker 1: lied to ten thousand times a day. Is that a

1100
01:00:25,920 --> 01:00:28,960
Speaker 1: fair way to show up to a battle for a

1101
01:00:29,040 --> 01:00:32,480
Speaker 1: home planet that we could all live on, or justice

1102
01:00:32,600 --> 01:00:35,440
Speaker 1: and access to resources for many people who've never had

1103
01:00:35,480 --> 01:00:37,800
Speaker 1: it before. I don't think there's a simple answer to it.

1104
01:00:37,800 --> 01:00:39,960
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure a war metaphor isn't gonna get us

1105
01:00:40,120 --> 01:00:44,160
Speaker 1: to peace sustainably. But there's also a reality check on

1106
01:00:45,280 --> 01:00:50,120
Speaker 1: what tools, what time, for what duration and being cleared

1107
01:00:50,200 --> 01:00:52,880
Speaker 1: with here's I'm spending more time on us than I intended,

1108
01:00:52,920 --> 01:00:56,040
Speaker 1: but I think it's just so fascinating. What rubs me

1109
01:00:56,200 --> 01:00:59,160
Speaker 1: mostly the wrong way is the lack of transparency when

1110
01:00:59,200 --> 01:01:02,400
Speaker 1: these techniques are used on and I find out later

1111
01:01:02,960 --> 01:01:05,120
Speaker 1: and that we can trust even more, right, I'm like, oh,

1112
01:01:05,120 --> 01:01:08,400
Speaker 1: so I'm a subject to your experiment and you couldn't

1113
01:01:08,440 --> 01:01:12,760
Speaker 1: just tell me why and how and still give me incentives.

1114
01:01:12,800 --> 01:01:17,880
Speaker 1: Incentives are fine, but the manipulation without consents or transparency,

1115
01:01:18,120 --> 01:01:20,920
Speaker 1: that feels like a real problem. That's really interesting. And

1116
01:01:21,040 --> 01:01:24,360
Speaker 1: it's like, and then what we're validating, right, and if

1117
01:01:24,400 --> 01:01:28,160
Speaker 1: we're becoming, if we're becoming the thing, then we're just

1118
01:01:29,000 --> 01:01:32,640
Speaker 1: now we're citizen washing right, all right? We have Martha

1119
01:01:32,680 --> 01:01:35,439
Speaker 1: Toray with our last question, and if we have time left.

1120
01:01:35,520 --> 01:01:40,040
Speaker 1: Some closing remarks. Hello Martha, Thank you very kindly, John Alexander,

1121
01:01:40,160 --> 01:01:45,120
Speaker 1: this has been most thought provoking. I think we're in

1122
01:01:45,160 --> 01:01:48,440
Speaker 1: a situation which is comparable to the end of the

1123
01:01:48,480 --> 01:01:53,960
Speaker 1: Bronze Age. We are, in many ways really at mercy

1124
01:01:54,000 --> 01:02:00,000
Speaker 1: of individuals, authorities, and etcetera, over which we have no power,

1125
01:02:00,000 --> 01:02:04,640
Speaker 1: are and with whom we have no community. And it

1126
01:02:04,760 --> 01:02:10,440
Speaker 1: strikes me as crucial that we developed community with the

1127
01:02:10,520 --> 01:02:15,560
Speaker 1: people on whom we depend thoughts. Thank you so much,

1128
01:02:15,600 --> 01:02:19,680
Speaker 1: Martha Joan. I think like I hear a lot of

1129
01:02:19,720 --> 01:02:23,560
Speaker 1: what you're bringing to this in the sense that we're

1130
01:02:23,600 --> 01:02:26,120
Speaker 1: in it now right, Like these challenges are not things

1131
01:02:25,920 --> 01:02:30,400
Speaker 1: that scenarial planning exercise for a distant, possibly dystopic future.

1132
01:02:30,440 --> 01:02:34,280
Speaker 1: There's thirty three million people displaced in Pakistan, there's bushfires

1133
01:02:34,320 --> 01:02:39,040
Speaker 1: and wildfires, and like it's we're in it, and the

1134
01:02:39,120 --> 01:02:44,280
Speaker 1: likelihood is that there are some collapses. That said, I

1135
01:02:44,320 --> 01:02:49,920
Speaker 1: am also like there's a lovely Bioka Malafe, amazing Nigerian

1136
01:02:49,920 --> 01:02:54,320
Speaker 1: philosopher says a couple of remarkable things, well, many remarkable things,

1137
01:02:54,360 --> 01:02:55,960
Speaker 1: but one of them is times are urgent. We must

1138
01:02:56,000 --> 01:02:59,960
Speaker 1: slow down. Some of this work is like, let us

1139
01:03:00,080 --> 01:03:02,240
Speaker 1: take the opportunity to come together, because if we rush,

1140
01:03:02,320 --> 01:03:05,360
Speaker 1: that is precisely what will force us into the into

1141
01:03:05,400 --> 01:03:09,040
Speaker 1: the arms of the subject story again. And maybe in

1142
01:03:09,080 --> 01:03:12,840
Speaker 1: that light, I'll put forward my my preferred historical analogy,

1143
01:03:12,880 --> 01:03:15,960
Speaker 1: which is the aftermath of World War Two, which was

1144
01:03:16,000 --> 01:03:20,680
Speaker 1: a moment of incredible institutional innovation. Like you think what

1145
01:03:20,760 --> 01:03:23,360
Speaker 1: was created in those years, right, the u N and

1146
01:03:23,400 --> 01:03:26,400
Speaker 1: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European colon steel

1147
01:03:26,440 --> 01:03:28,600
Speaker 1: community that became the EU, the i m F and

1148
01:03:28,640 --> 01:03:31,480
Speaker 1: the World Bank in the UK, the National Health Service

1149
01:03:31,560 --> 01:03:34,320
Speaker 1: like and all of it really from within the consumer story,

1150
01:03:34,360 --> 01:03:36,560
Speaker 1: all with the best intentions, but all with this frame

1151
01:03:36,600 --> 01:03:39,280
Speaker 1: of service and with the idea that that trade brings peace.

1152
01:03:39,360 --> 01:03:41,960
Speaker 1: And that's because we are consumers and so if we

1153
01:03:42,400 --> 01:03:45,160
Speaker 1: fulfill our kind of material needs, then we won't fight.

1154
01:03:47,280 --> 01:03:49,640
Speaker 1: In this moment in time that we need an institutional

1155
01:03:49,680 --> 01:03:52,040
Speaker 1: innovation on the same scale. But what we need is

1156
01:03:52,080 --> 01:03:55,960
Speaker 1: it to be the ideas and energy and resources of everyone, right,

1157
01:03:55,960 --> 01:03:57,960
Speaker 1: like we we need to run those processes in a

1158
01:03:57,960 --> 01:04:01,680
Speaker 1: way that genuinely taps into all the wids that um

1159
01:04:01,680 --> 01:04:04,800
Speaker 1: and probably frankly, the people who looking sound like me

1160
01:04:05,600 --> 01:04:08,360
Speaker 1: getting quite seriously out of the way of that and

1161
01:04:08,400 --> 01:04:12,480
Speaker 1: if anything, helping hold the space rather than dominating that space.

1162
01:04:13,200 --> 01:04:15,840
Speaker 1: And that I think is totally possible, and I think

1163
01:04:15,880 --> 01:04:18,800
Speaker 1: it can still be in time. That we need a

1164
01:04:18,840 --> 01:04:21,720
Speaker 1: new universal dectoration, we need new institutions of our scale,

1165
01:04:21,760 --> 01:04:25,160
Speaker 1: but we need to do it really differently. The good news,

1166
01:04:25,200 --> 01:04:27,880
Speaker 1: I think is that we can only do it really

1167
01:04:27,880 --> 01:04:32,800
Speaker 1: differently now there's no going back. John. Thank you for

1168
01:04:32,920 --> 01:04:37,200
Speaker 1: doing this podcast with me live in person with our

1169
01:04:37,320 --> 01:04:40,760
Speaker 1: virtual audience, and so appreciate everything you're up to. Thank you,

1170
01:04:40,800 --> 01:04:48,040
Speaker 1: my friend. It's been great to be here. There's so

1171
01:04:48,120 --> 01:04:50,760
Speaker 1: much that we've built in our society that is about

1172
01:04:50,800 --> 01:04:57,080
Speaker 1: empowering the individual to essentially live alone. We've got automated

1173
01:04:57,160 --> 01:05:02,160
Speaker 1: voice assistance across every device, enough delivery and service apps

1174
01:05:02,200 --> 01:05:06,160
Speaker 1: to never leave our homes, and so many TV shows

1175
01:05:06,200 --> 01:05:10,800
Speaker 1: and podcast that we can just observe conversations instead of

1176
01:05:10,880 --> 01:05:14,440
Speaker 1: having them. Now, for the record, this podcast is obviously

1177
01:05:14,520 --> 01:05:17,200
Speaker 1: part of the solution, not the problem. But you get

1178
01:05:17,280 --> 01:05:22,960
Speaker 1: my drift. We're supposed to be these rugged, individualistic armies

1179
01:05:23,000 --> 01:05:28,200
Speaker 1: of one and for what who benefits from that? Who

1180
01:05:28,240 --> 01:05:31,480
Speaker 1: benefits from us feeling alone and trying to satisfy that

1181
01:05:31,600 --> 01:05:37,480
Speaker 1: loneliness with purchases. It's those who profit from the consumer story.

1182
01:05:38,920 --> 01:05:43,200
Speaker 1: And listen, I don't see all advertising as evil. Some

1183
01:05:43,240 --> 01:05:46,720
Speaker 1: of my best friends work in advertising. I'm just saying,

1184
01:05:46,840 --> 01:05:50,240
Speaker 1: like I think, if we were hit with thousands of

1185
01:05:50,320 --> 01:05:54,280
Speaker 1: messages a day telling us we are citizens, agents of

1186
01:05:54,280 --> 01:05:57,160
Speaker 1: our own future, members of a collective who have the

1187
01:05:57,200 --> 01:06:01,120
Speaker 1: power to shape our communities through collaboration, instead of messages

1188
01:06:01,160 --> 01:06:04,200
Speaker 1: telling us to buy ship all the time, I just

1189
01:06:04,240 --> 01:06:15,120
Speaker 1: think we'd live in a better world. And now it's

1190
01:06:15,160 --> 01:06:19,920
Speaker 1: time for some actions. We've grouped these into three categories. First,

1191
01:06:20,680 --> 01:06:23,880
Speaker 1: try this as an internal reflection. You can do this

1192
01:06:24,240 --> 01:06:29,200
Speaker 1: all by yourself. Think about the three stories, subject, consumer,

1193
01:06:29,440 --> 01:06:32,960
Speaker 1: and citizen. Where do those stories show up in your life?

1194
01:06:33,480 --> 01:06:37,040
Speaker 1: Maybe you're a subject with your parents, or a consumer

1195
01:06:37,240 --> 01:06:41,919
Speaker 1: in your neighborhood in what spaces, communities or realms all

1196
01:06:42,000 --> 01:06:45,560
Speaker 1: of the word realms? In what spaces? Are you already

1197
01:06:45,640 --> 01:06:49,000
Speaker 1: living the citizens story? Where else could you show up

1198
01:06:49,040 --> 01:06:53,880
Speaker 1: that way? Second, become more informed by reading about John's

1199
01:06:53,920 --> 01:06:57,560
Speaker 1: citizen work. Yes you should read his book, but a

1200
01:06:57,560 --> 01:07:00,240
Speaker 1: shorter way in is the BBC Future Art of Cool

1201
01:07:00,600 --> 01:07:03,800
Speaker 1: Citizen Future. Why we need a new Story of self

1202
01:07:03,840 --> 01:07:08,600
Speaker 1: and society. Also, just visit the New Citizenship Project online.

1203
01:07:09,000 --> 01:07:11,720
Speaker 1: They've got a number of resources to help you or

1204
01:07:11,800 --> 01:07:15,640
Speaker 1: your organization shift into that citizens story. We've linked to

1205
01:07:15,680 --> 01:07:20,000
Speaker 1: both in the show notes. Finally, here's something you can

1206
01:07:20,040 --> 01:07:24,040
Speaker 1: do to publicly participate. I keep thinking about John's question,

1207
01:07:24,840 --> 01:07:26,440
Speaker 1: what are you trying to do in the world that's

1208
01:07:26,520 --> 01:07:30,040
Speaker 1: so big you actually need other people to do it

1209
01:07:30,080 --> 01:07:33,280
Speaker 1: with you? So I want you to think of something

1210
01:07:33,560 --> 01:07:37,160
Speaker 1: like that. It can actually be small. It just has

1211
01:07:37,200 --> 01:07:39,840
Speaker 1: to be too big for you to do alone, because

1212
01:07:39,880 --> 01:07:43,440
Speaker 1: we're done doing things alone. Maybe it's fixing defense around

1213
01:07:43,480 --> 01:07:47,440
Speaker 1: your yard, organizing a fundraiser at your school, or envisioning

1214
01:07:47,440 --> 01:07:50,360
Speaker 1: a future for your company. Ask someone to help you

1215
01:07:50,400 --> 01:07:52,920
Speaker 1: do it now. I know some of us have a

1216
01:07:53,040 --> 01:07:56,240
Speaker 1: harder time asking for help than others, so I also

1217
01:07:56,320 --> 01:07:59,600
Speaker 1: want you to offer help to someone you're connected to.

1218
01:08:00,160 --> 01:08:03,080
Speaker 1: Just ask them, is there something you're trying to do

1219
01:08:03,400 --> 01:08:06,680
Speaker 1: that I can help you with. I promise you'll feel

1220
01:08:06,680 --> 01:08:10,200
Speaker 1: better and you'll make your community better. If you take

1221
01:08:10,360 --> 01:08:13,560
Speaker 1: any of these actions, please brag about it online and

1222
01:08:13,680 --> 01:08:17,800
Speaker 1: use the hashtag how to citizen. Also tag our Instagram

1223
01:08:17,840 --> 01:08:20,880
Speaker 1: how do citizen? I am always online and I really

1224
01:08:20,880 --> 01:08:23,519
Speaker 1: do see your messages, so send them. You can also

1225
01:08:23,600 --> 01:08:26,599
Speaker 1: visit our website How the Citizen dot Com, which has

1226
01:08:26,680 --> 01:08:31,559
Speaker 1: all of our shows, full transcripts, actions and more. Finally,

1227
01:08:31,840 --> 01:08:35,280
Speaker 1: see this episode show notes for resources, actions and more

1228
01:08:35,320 --> 01:08:38,800
Speaker 1: ways to connect. How Do Citizen with barrettune Day is

1229
01:08:38,800 --> 01:08:42,400
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio Podcasts and row Home Productions.

1230
01:08:42,880 --> 01:08:47,639
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Me, barrettun Day, Thurston and Elizabeth Stewart.

1231
01:08:48,120 --> 01:08:51,920
Speaker 1: Our leave producer is Ali Graham. Our associate producer is

1232
01:08:52,000 --> 01:08:57,200
Speaker 1: Donia abdel Hamid. Alex Lewis is our managing producer, and

1233
01:08:57,320 --> 01:09:01,320
Speaker 1: John Myers is our executive editor. Our mixed engineer is

1234
01:09:01,400 --> 01:09:07,120
Speaker 1: Justin Burger. Our audience Engagement Fellow is Jasmine Lewis. Special

1235
01:09:07,120 --> 01:09:09,760
Speaker 1: thanks to Joel Smith from My Heart Radio and lay

1236
01:09:09,840 --> 01:09:19,680
Speaker 1: La Being John is pushing the bounds of how we

1237
01:09:19,720 --> 01:09:23,080
Speaker 1: can practice democracy if we live in the citizens story.

1238
01:09:23,720 --> 01:09:27,200
Speaker 1: But even within the existing boundaries and models, we can

1239
01:09:27,240 --> 01:09:32,799
Speaker 1: do more. So we're going to talk about voting, Yeah, voting.

1240
01:09:32,840 --> 01:09:37,360
Speaker 1: How do we take this often uninspired, tedious practice and

1241
01:09:37,400 --> 01:09:41,360
Speaker 1: infuse it with a sense of community and culture. Fear

1242
01:09:41,560 --> 01:09:45,240
Speaker 1: is a powerful motivator. Anger is a powerful motivator. The

1243
01:09:45,280 --> 01:09:48,439
Speaker 1: problem is that it is not sustainable that people burn

1244
01:09:48,520 --> 01:09:52,840
Speaker 1: out and tune out, and what I'm proposing is much

1245
01:09:52,880 --> 01:09:56,679
Speaker 1: more sustainable. I say that joy is a renewable resource

1246
01:09:56,720 --> 01:09:59,519
Speaker 1: that we can continue to tap back into. That people

1247
01:09:59,600 --> 01:10:01,479
Speaker 1: want to come and hang out with us, they want

1248
01:10:01,520 --> 01:10:03,720
Speaker 1: to come and volunteer with us, they want to come

1249
01:10:03,720 --> 01:10:07,800
Speaker 1: and donate to our efforts because there's a nine ft

1250
01:10:08,560 --> 01:10:13,479
Speaker 1: person walking around and like singing show tunes, keeping voters

1251
01:10:13,680 --> 01:10:19,080
Speaker 1: entertained um and keeping people's spirits high. Next episode, we

1252
01:10:19,160 --> 01:10:34,600
Speaker 1: do just that with in Sea Row Home Productions