Barack Obama – millions of participants enlisted to create their own political campaign
John Lewis – a business model that inspires business and political leaders alike Kiva – transforming the concept of ‘charity’ Refresh – Pepsi’s massive crowd-sourced charity platform
These cases illustrate the growing movement within media towards more open systems, greater collaboration and experiments in co-creation. And perhaps even a new operating model for society, organisations and brands.
John Grant calls this movement “Co-Opportunity”, and it’s the title of his latest book on social media, social ventures, social change movements and social innovation.
And on 14th April he discussed one aspect of Co-Opportunity, namely Pro Social Media.
Using examples based on his own adventures in pro social media such as Tweehive (the Twitter bee colony), the work of Tamsin Omond (independent MP candidate extraordinaire), and We20 (“hold your own G20 meeting”), John discussed how by harnessing new technology and social media consumers can – and in many cases already do – take an active part in shaping brands, culture and society.
John was a co-founder of St. Luke’s and is author of four other books: ‘The Brand Innovation Manifesto’, ‘The New Marketing Manifesto’, ‘After Image’, and ‘The Green Marketing Manifesto’. His clients include Department for Transport, IKEA, ING, Innocent drinks, Royal Mail, and Unilever.
In his talk he examined how social media can be used for the common good, picking up on themes such as co-funding, buyer-power, social learning and Slactivism. With examples of pro-social media in action – from Pepsi’s refresh site to Quiet Riot – and a lively Q&A session, the night gave us all much food for thought and was an excellent kick-off to our 2010 series of talks.
(Video not available)
You can follow John’s blogs at Co-Opportunity http://www.coopp.net/ The Green Marketing Manifesto http://greenormal.blogspot.com/