Thoughts on Guardian Changing Media Summit

I was speaking at the Media Guardian Changing Media Summit yesterday.

One of the topics discussed was “finding new ways to connect with consumers in a collaborative world.” It’s interesting to me that the focus was purely on “consumers and consumption,” as I believe that the changes we are witnessing at a societal level require us to think about these issues in a wider context.

First and foremost, my view is that if we have migrated from a static mass (cold) media to a social (hot) media, where the revolution is in the explosion of peer-to-peer communications, then that requires businesses/organisations by default to build into their behaviour a social dimension. So it’s not marketing to extract value, it’s not education as a cheese factory, it’s not health care as we know it. Especially if they/we want to succeed in this new marketplace/ecology.

Something that has occurred to me is this: In a super-connected world, valuable knowledge can be created by a more disparate and geographically dispersed group of people. And the value created through a commons-based peer production is not just economic, it is personal and it has a uniquely social dimension.

I met up with Hilary Cottham of RED at the Design Council last night and continued my musings with her and Adrian Bailey, where essentially we discussed the idea of empowerment through collaborative approaches to business, organisational, political, and social challenges.

By taking a horizontal and collaborative approach, one has the opportunity to engage people into a community focused on solving a common goal. It’s more contextual. This is where industrial age marketing falls flat on its face. Because “we” can have no ownership, we know that broadcast-style comms or factory style teaching is about control.

We know that our education system is not really about unlocking “my” true potential; it’s about something far more unflexible.

What, in my mind, is more powerful is a bigger idea about the role and purpose of a brand, an organisation, and living that purpose - inside and outside the organisation. This requires greater organisational fluidity and trust. But the benefits can far outweigh the growing pains.

John Seely Brown said

The collaborative peer production acheived througth pull platforms can be radically more efficient than classically structured corporations can achieve.

Also, we cannot ignore the erosion of masculine and feminine approaches to life. In the agricultural and industrial ages, we were very male-dominated. But in a knowledge economy where value is created more by how we are connecting and collaborating, communities and collaborative approaches instinctively feel more feminine - there is by default more nuture.

This is no bad thing in my book.

Cross-posted at Communities Dominate Brands

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