Boundaryless Conversations Podcast S3 Ep. 12 Jon Alexander – The citizen story: stepping into a many-to-many society
Jon Alexander began his career in advertising, winning the prestigious Big Creative Idea of the Year, before making a dramatic change. Driven by a deep need to understand the impact on society of 3,000 commercial messages a day, he gathered three Masters degrees, exploring consumerism and its alternatives from every angle.
In 2014, he co-founded the New Citizenship Project with Irenie Ekkeshi to bring the resulting ideas into contact with reality. Since then, they have been on a mission to figure out how to use our skills — not just to sell stuff — to Consumers, and involve people in the decisions that affect their lives as Citizens.
In this engaging conversation, Jon shares some great insights from his latest book Citizens: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us. We also explore how we can move away from being a passive consumer to being an active agent, how collective power leads to exponential results, the responsibility we have to build our own systems, and what a Citizen democracy means for the government.
A full transcript of the episode can be found on our website: https://boundaryless.io/podcast/jon-alexander/
Key Highlights- Defining Citizenship
- The Subject and Consumer stories versus the Citizen story
- How leaders of organizations can help to empower people to be Citizens
- Becoming active agents of change and investing in the future
- Twitter: twitter.com/jonjalex
- Website: www.jonalexander.net
- New Citizenship Project: www.newcitizenship.org.uk
- Book: Citizens: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us
- Ouishare Fest: www.ouishare.net/fest
- Arlie Hochschild, The Deep Stories of Our Time: onbeing.org/programs/arlie-hoch…tories-of-our-time
- Dark Matter Labs - #BeyondTheRules with Indy Johar and Annette Dhami: boundaryless.io/podcast/dark-matter-labs
- Gov0 in Taiwan: g0v.asia
- Rob Davies, Phasing out Russian Oil: How UK Consumers Can Help the War Effort, 2022: theguardian.com/environment/2022/…-the-war-effort
- Better Reykjavik: citizens.is/portfolio_page/better_reykjavik
- The Liège Food Belt: communitiesforfuture.org/get-inspired…elt-belgium
- Why Blockchain Should Be Plural: Cosmos and Inter-Blockchain Communication – with Ethan Buchman: boundaryless.io/podcast/ethan-buchman
- Rebecca Solnit, A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster, 2010: amazon.com/Paradise-Built-He…es/dp/0143118072
Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at boundaryless.io/resources/podcast
Thanks for the ad-hoc music to Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: boundaryless.io/podcast-music
Recorded on 13 March 2022.