Business, society and the nuturing of communities

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.”

Unfortunately, there was not enough time to really get stuck into the topic.

Its 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 requires 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 its not marketing to extract value, its not education as a cheese factory, its 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, its 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. Its 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 its about something far more unflexible. Though we do know that there are significant policy changes going on in this area

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.

But 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 acheive

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.

Its no bad thing in my book.