in search for impact
This is the first in a series of posts to come about a new event sketch we´re working on at the moment. The sketch will combine various on- and offline formats in new ways and especially take network amplifications into account. The goal: gaining impact on globally emerging topics.
But first things first, let me give you some background info about why we think the world needs a format like this (please forgive me a little bit of “simplifying storytelling” in the following):
Within the last 20 years the world wide web became the biggest connection machine ever. It connects millions of people (what also means that 5 billion people still lack internet access. Check out ahumanright.org that tries to change it!) all around the globe and enables them to communicate and collaborate in new ways. In no time we all can befriend each other, show what we like and share almost anything. So the web is an absolutly great thing and Liu Xiaobo, awarded with the Nobel peace prize 2010, even called it “God’s gift to China”.
On this “Information Level”, the “surface” of the web, we are connected and can reach out to people everywhere but we still only can share what is digital. We can sign petitions and express that we´re for or against xyz, we can talk about new ideas and spread important news in no time, but we can rarely act. It´s still hard to collaboratively develop new solutions to tackle problems in the offline world only in an online environment. Taking real action and starting to shape the world around us needs more than some clicks and ever will.
Basic change on a personal and thereby cultural and structural level can only happen as a result of common experiences.
(Graph trendistic.com)
Let´s take “Wikileaks” as an example: the graph clearly shows enormous peaks around the end of november and beginning december, when a lot of people (re)tweeted about the topic. They helped to spread the information around the globe. But as fast as the hype around wikileaks was created it collapsed. Everything back to “normal”.
So in retrospective on the “Action Level” of the following graphic more or less nothing really happened besides very few things like the internet meme Anonymous and also they did not really change something. (“Action Level” = people engage with a topic and meet for intense face to face collaboration to come up with new solutions as fast as possible.) Did you quit to use your Visa creditcard or to buy stuff at Amazon? Or did you maybe even collaboratively develop something new to mirror wikileaks servers when they were under attack, or to make it save for wistleblowers to deliver their leaks? Me neither.
And that´s exactly the point I´m trying to make here: Although I´m sure there are a lot of people out there who are not only willing to help to spread the information but would also be willing and in the position to help to develop new solutions for concrete problems this global potential is more or less left untapped so far. There are almost no fast, open, participatory, inclusive formats that enable these needed common experiences:
Formats that frame “ad-hoc opportunity spaces” where those people could collaboratively engage with the topic and create new solutions. Where they can meet in person, share time, knowledge, skills and experiences, build trusted relationships and collaboratively develop new solutions whenever a new problem of global scale is emerging. That is what I mean by “Impact Flow”, a 3rd “level” that yet has to be developed. It will fuse the “Information Level” and “Action Level” and unite the best of both “worlds”.
So to sum it up in my opinion the web helps us to connect and to talk to a much wider audience but we need new formats to unleash these “online forces” into the offline world. The 1st step was to understand the network effects, the 2nd step will be the development of concepts/ formats for the “Impact Flows” to use these network effects to positively form the world around us. Our ideas for “Impact Flow” formats will be the topic of the next post that will be published within the next few days.
To get a first idea you might want to take a look at our documentation of the visioning workshop we did with Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research: Point 3) “Filling the Gap” – Model is a first sketch into that direction.
Looking forward to read what you think. All feedback is warmly welcome!
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Harnessing the attention that current (global) problems evoke – and with it the potentially enormous amount of willingness to dedicate resources in form of time (brain cycles, energy, …), infrastructure (spaces, servers, …), materials, or funding – for building new solutions and facilitate ‘real-world’ action is a wonderful idea.
Many problems and the resulting crises might be the result of fundamental systemic problems. The throwing of huge amounts of firepower on a problem that occurs might consequently be a ‘trying to cure the symptoms’ instead of going to the root of the problem.
Example: BP’s disastrous accident in the Gulf of Mexico. We can organise to find new processes to clean up the oil spill … but a change on policy level (and even more far-reaching in the sphere of consciousness) would be necessary to avoid this occurrence in the first place.
And a caveat: the potential emergence of adverse effects due to short-term reorientation of resources to a problem (seen in the world of development, where e.g. the funding focus rapidly changes from one country and is placed on another).
And yes: I’m aware that these format could address the more fundamental sources of a problem, too… just trying to challenge you here
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I like what I’ve read;-)
Nevertheless I doubt that it is a lack of any kind of formats that prevent us from taking real action/impact. Hate to tell you! I’d rather say that WE – in the so called western world – have been trained/educated out of collective action. It’s simply no longer part of our culture. WE are missing the WE. The western world is much more about I (=me, myself & I) – so I would go for formats that bring back the WE in each of us. Then – I think – collective action/impact will follow. If WE care, we act!
@Benedikt Thank you very much for your comment and kudo!
You´re totally right that “trying to cure the symptoms instead of going to the root of the problem” is a potential danger of formats like this. Although I also see huge potential to really address the problem´s roots too:
In long lasting event formats where people focus intensively on a certain topic and share time and experiences of all kind for weeks, way more is happening than “just” the development of solutions for existing problems (= cure the symptoms):
People almost automatically have to develop a vision of a world that is changed by their solution, a world without the addressed issue. This in itself can be a sharable event-outcome worth fighting for after the event. And hopefully the event participants will start to fight for it by changing their behavior once they´re back to “normal life” (= starting to go to the root of the problem).
@ ulrike
Thank you very much for your comment!
As WE both know
really productive collaboration absolutely needs a common understanding of WE. As you say people “have been trained/educated out of collective action”, so what better way than letting them experience it again, learning by doing and very hands on? So hopefully the WE will be THE most important outcome of formats like this developed while people are working on solving problems they care about the most.