WEBVTT

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So this is Anna Hazare,

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and Anna Hazare may well be
the most cutting-edge

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digital activist in the world today.

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And you wouldn't know it by looking at him.

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Hazare is a 77-year-old Indian 
anticorruption and social justice activist.

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And in 2011, he was running a big campaign

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to address everyday corruption in India,

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a topic that Indian elites love to ignore.

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So as part of this campaign,

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he was using all of the traditional tactics

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that a good Gandhian organizer would use.

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So he was on a hunger strike,

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and Hazare realized through his hunger

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that actually maybe this time,

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in the 21st century,

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a hunger strike wouldn't be enough.

NOTE Paragraph

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So he started playing around 
with mobile activism.

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So the first thing he did 
is he said to people,

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"Okay, why don't you send me

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a text message if you support

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my campaign against corruption?"

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So he does this, he 
gives people a short code,

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and about 80,000 people do it.

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Okay, that's pretty respectable.

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But then he decides,

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"Let me tweak my tactics a little bit."

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He says, "Why don't you leave
me a missed call?"

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Now, for those of you who have
lived in the global South,

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you'll know that missed calls

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are a really critical part
of global mobile culture.

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I see people nodding.

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People leave missed calls all the time:

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If you're running late for a meeting

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and you just want to let them
know that you're on the way,

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you leave them a missed call.

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If you're dating someone and 
you just want to say "I miss you"

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you leave them a missed call.

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So a note for a dating tip here,

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in some cultures,

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if you want to please your lover,

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you call them and hang up.
(Laughter)

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So why do people leave missed calls?

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Well, the reason of course is that

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they're trying to avoid charges

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associated with making calls
and sending texts.

NOTE Paragraph

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So when Hazare asked people 
to leave him a missed call,

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let's have a little guess how 
many people actually did this?

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Thirty-five million.

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So this is one of the largest coordinated
actions in human history.

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It's remarkable.

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And this reflects the extraordinary strength 
of the emerging Indian middle class

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and the power that their
mobile phones bring.

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But he used that,

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Hazare ended up with this massive 
CSV file of mobile phone numbers,

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and he used that to deploy

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real people power on the ground

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to get hundreds of thousands of
people out on the streets in Delhi

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to make a national point of 
everyday corruption in India.

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It's a really striking story.

NOTE Paragraph

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So this is me when I was 12 years old.

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I hope you see the resemblance.

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And I was also an activist,

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and I have been an activist all my life.

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I had this really funny childhood

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where I traipsed around the world

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meeting world leaders and 
Noble prize winners,

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talking about Third World debt,

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as it was then called,

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and demilitarization.

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I was a very, very serious child.
(Laughter)

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And back then,

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in the early '90s,

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I had a very cutting-edge
tech tool of my own:

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the fax.

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And the fax was the 
tool of my activism.

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And at that time, it was the best way

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to get a message to a lot of people

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all at once.

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I'll give you one example of a fax
campaign that I ran.

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It was the eve of the Gulf War

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and I organized a global campaign 
to flood the hotel,

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the Intercontinental in Geneva,

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where James Baker and Tariq Aziz

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were meeting on the eve of the war,

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and I thought if I could 
flood them with faxes,

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we'll stop the war.

NOTE Paragraph

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Well, unsurprisingly,

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that campaign was wholly unsuccessful.

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There are lots of reasons for that,

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but there's no doubt that 
one sputtering fax machine

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in Geneva was a little bit
of a bandwidth constraint

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in terms of the ability to 
get a message to lots of people.

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And so, I went on to 
discover some better tools.

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I cofounded Avaaz, which uses the 
Internet to mobilize people

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and now has almost 
40 million members,

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and I now run Purpose, which 
is a home for these kinds of

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technology-powered movements.

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So what's the moral of this story?

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Is the moral of this story,


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you know what, the fax is kind of
eclipsed by the mobile phone?

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This is another story of 
tech-determinism?

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Well, I would argue that there's 
actually more to it than that.

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I'd argue that in the last 20 years,

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something more fundamental has changed


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than just new tech.

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I would argue that there has
been a fundamental shift

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in the balance of power

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in the world.

NOTE Paragraph

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You ask any activist how 
to understand the world,

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and they'll say,
"Look at where the power is,

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who has it, how it's shifting."

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And I think we all sense that 
something big is happening.

NOTE Paragraph

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So Henry Timms and I —

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Henry's a fellow movement builder —

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got talking one day and 
we started to think,

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how can we make sense of this new world?

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How can we describe it and give

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it a framework that makes it more useful?

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Because we realized that many

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of the lessons that we were
discovering in movements

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actually applied all over the world

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in many sectors of our society.

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So I want to introduce you to
this framework:

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Old power, meet new power.

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And I want to talk to you about
what new power is today.

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New power is the deployment

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of mass participation 
and peer coordination —

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these are the two key elements —

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to create change and shift outcomes.

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And we see new power all around us.

NOTE Paragraph

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This is Beppe Grillo

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he was a populist Italian blogger

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who, with a minimal political apparatus
and only some online tools,

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won more than 25 percent of the vote

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in recent Italian elections.

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This is Airbnb,

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which in just a few years

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has radically disrupted the hotel industry

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without owning a single
square foot of real estate.

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This is Kickstarter,

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which we know has raised over a billion dollars

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from more than five million people.

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Now, we're familiar with all of these models.

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But what's striking is the commonalities,

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the structural features of 
these new models

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and how they differ from old power.

NOTE Paragraph

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Let's look a little bit at this.

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Old power is held like a currency.

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New power works like a current.

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Old power is held by a few.

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New power isn't held by a few,
it's made by many.

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Old power is all about download,

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and new power uploads.

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And you see a whole set of 
characteristics that you can trace,

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whether it's in media or 
politics or education.

NOTE Paragraph

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So we've talked a little bit 
about what new power is.

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Let's, for a second, talk about 
what new power isn't.

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New power is not your Facebook page.

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I assure you that having a 
social media strategy

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can enable you to do just as much download

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as you used to do when you had the radio.

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Just ask Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad,

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I assure you that his Facebook page

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has not embraced the power
of participation.

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New power is not inherently positive.

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In fact, this isn't an normative
argument that we're making,

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there are many good things 
about new power,

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but it can produce bad outcomes.

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More participation, more peer coordination,

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sometimes distorts outcomes

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and there are some things,

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like things, for example, 
in the medical profession

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that we want new power 
to get nowhere near.

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And thirdly, new power is not
the inevitable victor.

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In fact, unsurprisingly,

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as many of these new power
models get to scale,

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what you see is this massive pushback

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from the forces of old power.

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Just look at this really 
interesting epic struggle

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going on right now between 
Edward Snowden and the NSA.

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You'll note that only one of 
the two people on this slide

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is currently in exile.

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And so, it's not at all clear

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that new power will be 
the inevitable victor.

NOTE Paragraph

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That said, keep one thing in mind:


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We're at the beginning of a
very steep curve.

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So you think about some of 
these new power models, right?

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These were just like someone's

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garage idea a few years ago,

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and now they're disrupting 
entire industries.

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And so, what's interesting
about new power,

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is the way it feeds
on itself.

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Once you have an experience of new power,

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you tend to expect and 
want more of it.

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So let's say you've used a
peer-to-peer lending platform

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like Lending Tree or Prosper,

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then you've figured out that
you don't need the bank,

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and who wants the bank, right?

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And so, that experience tends 
to embolden you

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it tends to make you want
more participation

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across more aspects of your life.

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And what this gives rise to is

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a set of values.

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We talked about the models

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that new power has engendered —

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the Airbnbs, the Kickstarters.

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What about the values?

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And this is an early sketch

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at what new power values look like.

NOTE Paragraph

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New power values prize
transparency above all else.

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It's almost a religious 
belief in transparency,

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a belief that if you shine 
a light on something,

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it will be better.

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And remember that in the 20th 
century, this was not at all true.

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People thought that gentlemen
should sit behind closed doors

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and make comfortable agreements.

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New power values of informal,
networked governance.

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New power folks would never 
have invented the U.N. today,

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for better or worse.

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New power values participation,

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and new power is all about do-it-yourself.

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In fact, what's interesting 
about new power

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is that it eschews some of 
the professionalization

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and specialization that was

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all the rage in the 20th century.

NOTE Paragraph

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So what's interesting about these

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new power values and these
new power models

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is what they mean for organizations.

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So we've spent a bit of time thinking,

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how can we plot organizations

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on a two-by-two where, essentially,

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we look at new power values

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and new power models

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and see where different people sit?

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We started with a U.S. analysis,

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and let me show you 
some interesting findings.

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So the first is Apple.

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In this framework, we actually
described Apple

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as an old power company.

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That's because the ideology,

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the governing ideology of Apple

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is the ideology of the perfectionist

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product designer in Cupertino.

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It's absolutely about that beautiful, 
perfect thing descending upon us

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in perfection.

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And it does not value, as a 
company, transparency.

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In fact, it's very secretive.

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Now, Apple is one of the most
succesful companies in the world.

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So this shows that you can


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still pursue a successful 
old power strategy.

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But one can argue that there's 
real vulnerabilites in that model.

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I think another interesting comparison

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is that of the Obama campaign

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versus the Obama presidency.

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(Applause)

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Now, I like President Obama,

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but he ran with new 
power at his back, right?

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And he said to people,


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we are the ones we've
been waiting for.

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And he used crowdfunding

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to power a campaign.

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But when he got into office,

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he governed like more or less 
all the other presidents did.

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And this is a really interesting trend,

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is when new power gets powerful,

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what happens?


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So this is a framework you 
should look at

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and think about where your
own organization

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sits on it.

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And think about where it
should be 


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in five or 10 years.

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So what do you do if you're old power?

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Well, if you're there 
thinking, in old power,

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this won't happen to us.

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Then just look at the Wikipedia
entry for Encyclopædia Britannica.

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Let me tell you, it's a very sad read.

NOTE Paragraph

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But if you are old power,

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the most important thing you 
can do is to occupy yourself

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before others occupy you,

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before you are occupied.

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Imagine that a group
of your biggest skeptics

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are camped in the heart
of your organization

00:11:17.944 --> 00:11:19.823
asking the toughest questions

00:11:19.823 --> 00:11:22.751
and they can see everything
inside of your organization.

00:11:22.751 --> 00:11:25.501
And ask them, would they 
like what they see

00:11:25.501 --> 00:11:27.776
and should our model change?

00:11:27.776 --> 00:11:29.639
What about if you're new power?


00:11:29.639 --> 00:11:32.273
Is new power kind of just 
riding the wave to glory?

00:11:32.273 --> 00:11:33.753
I would argue no.

00:11:33.753 --> 00:11:35.709
I would argue that there
are some very real challenges

00:11:35.709 --> 00:11:37.401
to new power in this nascent phase.

00:11:37.401 --> 00:11:40.903
Let's stick with the Occupy Wall Street
example for a moment.

00:11:40.903 --> 00:11:43.893
Occupy was this incredible example 
of new power,

00:11:43.893 --> 00:11:45.736
the purest example of new power.

00:11:45.736 --> 00:11:48.267
And yet, it failed to consolidate.

00:11:48.267 --> 00:11:50.164
So the energy that it created

00:11:50.164 --> 00:11:51.605
was great for the meme phase,

00:11:51.605 --> 00:11:54.406
but they were so committed to participation,

00:11:54.406 --> 00:11:56.040
that they never got anything done.

00:11:56.040 --> 00:11:57.831
And in fact that model

00:11:57.831 --> 00:12:00.623
means that the challenge for new power is:

00:12:00.623 --> 00:12:03.162
how do you use institutional power

00:12:03.162 --> 00:12:05.233
without being institutionalized?


NOTE Paragraph

00:12:05.233 --> 00:12:07.866
One the other end of the spectra is Uber.

00:12:07.866 --> 00:12:09.250
Uber is an amazing,

00:12:09.250 --> 00:12:11.303
highly scalable new power model.

00:12:11.303 --> 00:12:13.329
That network is getting denser and denser

00:12:13.329 --> 00:12:14.589
by the day.

00:12:14.589 --> 00:12:16.748
But what's really interesting 
about Uber is

00:12:16.748 --> 00:12:20.489
it hasn't really adopted new power values.

00:12:20.489 --> 00:12:24.561
This is a real quote from 
the Uber CEO recently:

00:12:24.561 --> 00:12:29.009
He says, "Once we get rid of the dude 
in the car" — he means drivers —

00:12:29.009 --> 00:12:32.901
"Uber will be cheaper."

00:12:32.901 --> 00:12:35.876
Now, new power models
live and die

00:12:35.876 --> 00:12:38.058
by the strength of their networks.

00:12:38.058 --> 00:12:39.991
By whether the drivers and the consumers


00:12:39.991 --> 00:12:42.332
who use the service actually believe in it.

00:12:42.332 --> 00:12:45.833
Because they're not an exercise 
of top-down perfectionism,

00:12:45.833 --> 00:12:47.781
they are about the network.

00:12:47.781 --> 00:12:49.477
And so, the challenge,

00:12:49.477 --> 00:12:51.727
and this is why it's in
no way surprising,

00:12:51.727 --> 00:12:55.983
is that Uber's drivers 
are now unionizing.

00:12:55.983 --> 00:12:57.583
It's extraordinary.

00:12:57.583 --> 00:12:59.872
Uber's drivers are turning on Uber.

00:12:59.872 --> 00:13:01.166
And the challenge for Uber —

00:13:01.166 --> 00:13:03.093
this isn't an easy situation for them —

00:13:03.093 --> 00:13:06.389
is that they are locked into
a broader superstrcuture

00:13:06.389 --> 00:13:08.074
that is really old power.

00:13:08.074 --> 00:13:11.082
They've raised more than a billion 
dollars in the capital markets.

00:13:11.082 --> 00:13:13.610
Those markets expect a financial return,

00:13:13.610 --> 00:13:15.527
and they way you get a financial return

00:13:15.527 --> 00:13:17.924
is by squeezing and squeezing

00:13:17.924 --> 00:13:20.169
your users and your drivers

00:13:20.169 --> 00:13:21.464
for more and more value

00:13:21.464 --> 00:13:23.931
and giving that value to your investors.

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:23.931 --> 00:13:27.534
So the big question about the future 
of new power, in my view, is:

00:13:27.534 --> 00:13:30.093
Will that old power just emerge?


00:13:30.093 --> 00:13:31.876
So will new power elites just become

00:13:31.876 --> 00:13:33.765
old power and squeeze?

00:13:33.765 --> 00:13:36.378
Or will that new power
base bite back?

00:13:36.378 --> 00:13:38.139
Will the next big Uber

00:13:38.139 --> 00:13:40.519
be co-owned by Uber drivers?

00:13:40.519 --> 00:13:43.302
And I think this going 
to be a very interesting

00:13:43.302 --> 00:13:45.204
structural question.

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:45.204 --> 00:13:48.486
Finally, think about new power

00:13:48.486 --> 00:13:50.853
being more than just an

00:13:50.853 --> 00:13:52.489
entity that scales things 


00:13:52.489 --> 00:13:56.205
that make us have slightly 
better consumer experiences.

00:13:56.205 --> 00:13:58.371
My call to action for new power

00:13:58.371 --> 00:14:00.779
is to not be an island.

00:14:00.779 --> 00:14:03.935
We have major structural
problems in the world today

00:14:03.935 --> 00:14:06.191
that could benefit enormously

00:14:06.191 --> 00:14:08.505
from the kinds of mass participation

00:14:08.505 --> 00:14:09.842
and peer coordination

00:14:09.842 --> 00:14:11.570
that these new power players

00:14:11.570 --> 00:14:13.966
know so well how to generate.

00:14:13.966 --> 00:14:17.479
And we badly need them to 
turn their energies and their power

00:14:17.479 --> 00:14:20.703
to big, what economists might call

00:14:20.703 --> 00:14:22.276
public goods problems,

00:14:22.276 --> 00:14:24.322
that are often beyond markets

00:14:24.322 --> 00:14:26.332
where investors can easily be found.

00:14:26.332 --> 00:14:28.222
And I think if we can do that,

00:14:28.222 --> 00:14:31.207
we might be able to fundamentally change

00:14:31.207 --> 00:14:34.738
not only human beings' sense of 
their own agency and power —

00:14:34.738 --> 00:14:37.596
because I think that's the most
wonderful thing about new power,

00:14:37.596 --> 00:14:40.348
is that people feel more powerful —

00:14:40.348 --> 00:14:42.129
but we might also be able to change

00:14:42.129 --> 00:14:43.892
the way we relate to each other

00:14:43.892 --> 00:14:47.003
and the way we relate to 
authority and institutions.

00:14:47.003 --> 00:14:49.051
And to me, that's absolutely

00:14:49.051 --> 00:14:50.622
worth trying for.

00:14:50.622 --> 00:14:51.718
Thank you very much.

00:14:51.718 --> 00:14:53.810
(Applause)