22: Strong Ties vs. Weak Ties in the Next Era of Brand Innovation

What happens when the world suddenly reconfigures itself around a very different kind of relationship? The last 20 years of social innovation has leaned into weak ties: distant social relationships that allowed us to trust and extract value on platforms like Yelp, LinkedIn and Facebook. But the next 20 years are already shaping up to look very different. 

Strong social ties, our close-knit relationships with frequent interactions, are starting to emerge as the dominant threads of the social fabric. In this new era of increased intimacy with our immediate network, what we value and what we create move in a markedly new direction. We co-buy homes with friends, form politically aligned living communities, go deep into conversational chambers and band together in vision-led DAOs. 

The way we relate to one another is more profound, but also more narrow. What we demand of our network communities, and the brand landscape in general, becomes more high stakes.

In this house episode, we’re talking to Concept Bureau’s Chief Strategist Jean-Louis Rawlence, about the huge implications for tech innovation, community building and business. When strong ties become the future of community, community becomes the new brand.

Links to interesting things mentioned in this episode and further reading:

• Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid (The Atlantic)
• We Went to Anti-Vax Burning Man (VICE News)
• Friends are buying homes together. Here's why. (NBC News)
• The New Get-Rich-Faster Job in Silicon Valley: Crypto Start-Ups (New York Times)
• Community ≠ Marketing: Why We Need Go-to-Community, Not Just Go-to-Market  (Future, a16z)
• Shareholder Democracy Is Getting Bigger Trial Runs (New York Times)
• The Community Garden: The Case for Leaving FAANG Companies for Crypto (Paradigm)
• Crypto millionaires are pouring money into Central America to build their own cities (MIT Technology Review)
• The Town That Went Feral (The New Republic)
• Meet Moxie, a Social Robot That Helps Kids With Social-Emotional Learning (IEEE Spectrum)

Check out our website for more brand strategy thinking, and come connect with us on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.