New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World—and How to Make It Work for You

by Jeremy Heimans

A key dynamic in the world today is the mutual incomprehension between those raised in the Tetris tradition and those with a Minecraft mindset.

The future will be a battle over mobilization. The everyday people, leaders, and organizations who flourish will be those best able to channel the participatory energy of those around them—for the good, for the bad, and for the trivial.

what is emerging—most visibly among people under thirty (now more than half the world’s population)—is a new expectation: an inalienable right to participate.

Those with a new power mindset have an aversion, which often comes with a dollop of disdain, for the centralized bureaucratic machines that drove the old power world.

Our world is a little more Yelp and a little less Frommer’s.

In the old power toolkit, our hammer and wrench were the slogan and the sound bite.

The rise of new media changed things. Organizations and individuals began to bypass big media and tell their

Yet when the medium changed, the messaging didn’t always.

“Craft and blast” remained the dominant approach.

The job now is not simply to create sound bites, but what we call “meme drops”—whether images or phrases, across every type of media—that are designed to spread “sideways,” coming most alive when remixed, shared, and customized by peer communities, far beyond the control of the meme creator(s).

six qualities the Heaths see behind a sticky idea: Simple—simplicity is the key Unexpected—surprises you and makes you want to know more Concrete—creates a clear mental picture for people Credible—uses statistics, expert endorsements, etc. Emotional—appeals to deep human instincts Stories—takes you on a journey that helps you see how an existing problem might change

but in a world of manic participation, awash in information, how do we “make it spread”?

Creating Actionable ideas is about more than trolling for “likes.” It asks an organization to consider how action by its community can be embedded in the very structure of its communications.

your community members are there to do more than simply consume or comply.

“People actually begin changing behavior when [an] idea gets validated by their community, rarely when it has not.”

Content goes viral when it spreads beyond a particular sphere of influence and spreads across the social web via…people sharing with their friends.”

going viral is not just an explosion of sharing.

one of the key signs that you have launched a successful movement is that it starts moving without you.

Airbnb’s brand voice is built to cultivate a sense of community and participation,

Hilton relies on the value proposition that has sustained it for decades. Its biggest claim is that its brand is “recognized.” It sees its advantage in admiration, not activation.

Research on crowdfunding shows that deadlines are everything—most funds raised in crowdfunding campaigns are in the final seventy-two hours.

Reddit.com is not your main asset. Reddit’s users and community are your main asset.”

Any new power community has three key actors—its participants, its super-participants, and the owner or stewards of the platform.

super-participants are some of the most influential voices inside a new power community.

systems that establish reputation and build trust have enabled all kinds of seemingly far-fetched new power models to come to life.

The next “buy local”–style movement could very well be “ride human.”