Jon Alexander - From Consumers to Citizens; Unlocking The Power of Citizen-Led Change

The Impossible Network

My guest this week is Jon Alexander, the author of "CITIZENS: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us," and the co-founder of the New Citizenship Project; a strategy and innovation consultancy with a mission to catalyze a shift to a more participatory, citizen-led society and driven by a belief that, given the right opportunity, people can and will shape the things that matter to them for the better.

Jon began his career in advertising, working at agencies including BBDO and Fallon, making ads for some of the world's biggest brands. However, Jon became disillusioned with the industry and realized he was caught up in a story he didn't believe in: the consumer story.

Through his book and his organization, Jon advocates for a new way of thinking, shifting the dominant story of the individual in society from consumer to citizen; reframing the moment in which we're living as a time of huge civic opportunity, emphasizing the world of possibility for countries, cities, organizations if they embrace the Citizen Story

Jon’s book may be the most important book I’ve read in years and I am convinced the story shift he’s advocating and fighting for will be pivotal if we are to overcome the meta-crisis we are facing as humans and as a planet.

Now over to Jon

Social

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Twitter

NCP Twitter

What we discuss

00:00 Intro

02:30 Who is Jon?

06:30 Who or what made Jon?

13:45 What Jon is working to achieve with Citizens Story

16:30 The subject story

17:40 Jon’s role

20:00 Examples of the Citizen story is emerging

28:28 Discoverability of initiatives

30:35 Three key phases - naming, connecting and illustrating

33:30 The Taiwan example

36:30 The Steps people can take

40:00 Other examples of Citizen story emerging

42:30 The Tower Analogy

43:55 The Citizen Index

48:30 Spreading the message

49:30 Growth and the Citizen story

53:00 How to Market differently and consider growth

56:45 Growing Citizen agency

1:00:20 The 3 P’s - Purpose, Platform, Prototype

1:02:30 Jon on AI

1:04:30 Designing AI from within the Citixen story

1:08:30 Citizen story in the USA

1:13:00 Cooperatives role

1:15:00 Emergence of Citizen story

Links in the show

Citizens Book

New Citizen Project

PFG Doncaster

Berkana Institute

Citizen University

How to Citizen

Marshall McLuhan

Sand Talk

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