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

To Find Out More About Jon's Work:

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

Other References and Mentions:

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.

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