Conscience Economy

How a Mass Movement for Good is Great for Business

Steven Overman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781351862103
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

A generation of people around the world, from Boston to Bangkok, from New York to New Delhi, are making everyday choices in ways that defy traditional logic. They are judging where and how their clothes were made, not just how they fit. They are thinking global but buying local. They are spending their money and their time, forming loyalties, casting votes and even enjoying entertainment based increasingly upon their desire to make a positive impact on others and the world around them. This new generation believes they can and must make the world better, and they expect business and government to get with the program. The implications of the Conscience Economy are not "soft." Ignore it, and your consumer or voter base will rebel, using a host of free tools and cheap connectivity to spread their rejection to peers around the world in real time. Leverage it, and Conscience Culture is a wellspring of financial upside. The Conscience Economy is the must-read guide to this unprecedented shift in human motivation and behavior. Author Steven Overman, Chief Marketing Officer for Kodak, provides context, inspiration and some basic tools to help readers reframe how they evolve and grow whatever it is they lead--whether it's a community, a business, a product, or a marketing campaign. From the boardroom to the startup loft, from the State Department to the pulsing marketplaces of the developing world, The Conscience Economy will help international leaders, influencers, investors and decision-makers to manage, innovate and thrive in a new world where "doing good" matters as much as "doing well."

1
From Conscious to Conscience

It's 9:15 on a Thursday night and I'm leaning against the bar in a hip and underlit restaurant that sits between London's sleek and shiny financial district and its up-and-coming "Silicon Roundabout," a gritty traffic interchange speckled with both start-ups and Google offices. As candles flicker, the room buzzes with animated conversations, plates and silverware clatter, and cocktail shakers make their steady "ch-ch-ch-ch." I take in the scene, one that's replicated in conurbations of human talent, capital flow, and privilege around the world, from Singapore to Paris to Dubai to New York. It occurs to me that I could at this moment be anywhere, as I try to count the number of languages I hear, as I catalog the different accents of English that surround me.

And that's when I hear it. A line that sums up ten years of observation, thinking, and, dare I admit it, hope. A sentence that articulates why I felt compelled to write this book.

They're sitting to my left, a few barstools away. It's obviously a date. She's poised and attentive in her special-night-out black dress, hair in a perfect knot. He's almost breathless with enthusiasm in his attractively rumpled been-in-meetings-all-day business clothes. He's telling her all about his new company. Big grin, big gestures. Leaning in. He's got the confidence of a classic Young Turk, one of those good-looking, well-presenting, high-potential guys in their late twenties. In equal parts irritating and admirable, he's the kind of guy I know the venture capitalists love, because he seems by his demeanor alone that he could be the next Sergei or Larry or Steve. He oozes charisma. And although his date has surely seen this kind of chutzpah before, she's listening closely. As am I. As he says these words.

"We've just closed another nine million in financing. And you know why that makes me so proud? Because we're not just doing well. We're doing good."

Roll your eyes if you will. (Though if you're reading this book I'm pretty sure you'd agree with our Young Turk. Let's call him YT.) But this impress-the-date comment is heartfelt. And YT keeps going, beaming with pride as he explains the complexities and challenges of his business, which, from what I can hear, provides some kind of infrastructure technology that will make everyday energy utilities more sustainable and carbon efficient. If what he's sketching out during this romantic interlude (it wasn't only the young woman who was captivated at this point) actually succeeds, he will indeed be doing well and doing good. It's hard to be cynical when his earnestness for doing the right thing, while getting millions of dollars invested in doing it, is real.

But here's the better reason to eavesdrop. Not because he's unusual or provocative. Quite the opposite. The mind-set and attitude of our "change the world" YT is surprisingly unexceptional. He's typical of his generation. Understanding the emergent mind-set he represents will open doors to new opportunities for creating value and positive change. Who doesn't want to do that?

To cite an obvious and blunt example, consider the mass of young people who created a revolution—and may yet do it again—with mobile phones and Facebook accounts in Tahrir Square. Consider the hordes of church youth groups who've flocked halfway across the U.S. to rebuild towns devastated by tornadoes and hurricanes. Monitor the comments on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, on every topic from war to marriage equality to gender to the environment. Empowerment and connectedness are fueling a reordering of assumptions and priorities. When something as profound as a generational mind-set is transforming on a mass scale, it's wise to take note. Revolutions sweep through societal norms, business models, and consumer expectations as well as governments. just ask anyone in the music industry.

Back to our guy at the bar. Though he might look the same, in fact he's rather unlike the generation (mine, generation X) that preceded him.

Something Different in the Air

Just for fun, let's time travel. Let's visit YT's predecessor in his heyday.

The scene: hip-and-underlit designer martini and pizza bar, but in a different city. Let's say San Francisco, circa 1998. The din is the same: cocktail shaker "ch-ch-ch-ch," the cacophony of conversation, bullish confidence in the air.

But the words are different. Very different. "Dotcom." "Valuation." "IPO." "Exit strategy."

Our late '90s YT is a different animal. I worked with him, and with her. Lots of them, actually.

The primary motivation then? Simple. Get rich, as quickly as possible. Work the system at any cost and get out of it with a high-speed vesting schedule while laughing your way to the real estate agents. At the time, I was working with a typical San Francisco start-up, and I had suggested taking "dotcom" out of the company's name. I remember during one conversation about it, a bullish colleague said to me, "It doesn't matter what our business model really is in the end. Let's just keep dotcom in the name so we keep our valuation high."

Six months later, of course, the dotcom bubble burst. That's when I finally won the argument. But we all lost the company. So many start-up dreams blazed like fireworks, and like fireworks they simply dissolved into thin air.

That was then. There's something different in the air now.

Let's cut to the present again. This time, to a very different scene.

I'm in Soweto, the Johannesburg township that gave rise and voice to some of the greatest emancipators in a generation: Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela. I've traveled here with some of my colleagues to learn firsthand how life is for young people in this inspiring but challenging nation. After the obligatory ride past Tutu's and Mandela's now enshrined homes, and after kicking a football around in the baking sunshine with some of the local young people to break the ice, my colleagues and I are visiting what Mangaliso, the young man in front of me, calls his "concept store," smack in the heart of the township.

What is a "concept store"? It's a retail environment that doesn't specialize in one kind of product but instead sells a lifestyle by selecting and presenting a range of different types of products that all have a theme (a concept, if you will) in common.

Prior to my field trip to Soweto, I'd only visited one other concept store: Colette, on rue Saint-Honoré in Paris. At Colette, the concept on display is edgy, fashionable irony. You can browse through racks of triple-digit-price tag Day-Glo tee shirts, limited edition Coca-Cola bottles (matte white!), and small-batch perfumes (smells like hot asphalt!) that you wouldn't find anywhere else. All of which express a certain uniquely Parisian je ne sais quoi of style and savoir faire. You could, I suppose, accuse such an environment of being elitist. Except that unlike at, say, Chanel, even a fourth grader with milk money could afford something in Colette. Perhaps a Rubik's Cube key ring or a funky plastic bracelet. She just needs to know where to go and what's cool to buy. Price isn't the point. That's a concept store. It's about being in the know.

So what is a "concept store" doing in an economically deprived albeit famous township in Johannesburg? And what on earth is it selling?

Mangaliso starts to explain. He's addicted to international lifestyle magazines, and he surfs the web on his iPhone searching for new ideas from around the world. He's never been outside South Africa, and rarely has he even left the township, at least not physically. But he is well aware of Colette in Paris, of the influence that the store exerts on the world as a trendsetter, and he wants to do the same with his neighbors. And so, with his friends, he has opened his own concept store in what can only be described as a large shed on a dusty road under the simmering African sky, and the concept that his store sells can be summed up, like so many of the best ideas, on a tee shirt.

From a rack, he pulls one—extra large, to fit me I assume—emblazoned with a comic book–style illustration of a knot and two hands creating the shape of a heart. There's an African word above the illustration. "This," he proclaims, "is what we're all about. Ubuntu."

The Ubuntu Mind-Set

Ubuntu is a Zulu term that roughly translates as "human kindness through togetherness." Wikipedia does it more justice than I can here. Suffice it to say, ubuntu describes the worldview that each of us is manifest through all of us. I am me because of you. We need each other in order to be ourselves. We have a metaphysical obligation to overcome tribal or prejudicial difference by joining together into one humanity that expresses only kindness. This is the key to our strength and our survival.

Mangaliso explains all of this to me in the matter-of-fact way you might describe, say, how to download an app to your tablet. As he walks me through his merchandise, from apparel to silk-screened artworks, he tells me how the store has become a social hub for the young people in the township. He tells me how, together, he and his neighbors throw impromptu parties, how they inspire young people in the township and beyond to create products of their own that express ubuntu, because now there's a place to sell them. It's more than a store. It's a social catalyst. And in time, I suspect, an economic catalyst in his community too.

Ubuntu. This is a big concept. Indeed, concepts don't really get much bigger, or frankly, more relevant, and not only in South Africa. Here's our young shopkeeper with his eagle eye on the global marketplace of ideas, selling it on tee shirts, homemade magazines, skateboards, hats, parties. An internationally resonant philosophy that's productized, designed locally, made locally, sold locally. This could be the birth of a great brand.

My colleagues and I try to buy out the whole store, but we realize that it might impact his mission, so we leave about half of his stock behind, a decision that now, as I type this, I regret. What he's doing seems profound, while simultaneously it's very hip. It's social media made into matter. And his mission is emblematic of his generation, a cohort of around-the-world under-thirties that marketers refer to as millennials, a group that have grown up with Internet connectivity and have only ever known a world to which they are digitally and wholly connected. A group that feels they have not only the power but the responsibility to make a difference.

One more snapshot from the present:

I'm visiting Delhi, where I'm getting to know some more of these millennials, but in a different context. This time, I've been invited to spend an afternoon with some young people who live in a fifth-floor walk-up apartment in a bustling neighborhood of Delhi. As we pull up outside the apartment building, an emaciated cow saunters by. Dogs lie asleep in the shade of market stalls piled high with mangoes. People whizz past on bicycles, rickshaws, motorbikes, belching trucks, and packed minibuses. Life in Delhi is a nonstop churn of energy. It's not a carefree place, but it's full of surprising paradoxes, and it's vibrant with humanity. But nothing I've read or have been told has prepared me for the humanity of the conversation I'm about to have.

We're meeting two friends, Raghuvesh and Amit. Raghuvesh lives here with his family, and he ushers me into a spotlessly clean front room lit with a single fluorescent bulb. There's just enough space for two small wooden chairs, a bench, and a table that can hold, barely, four cups of tea. My eyes dart around the worn walls, looking for anything familiar, anything that's something like my own living room. This home could not be more different from my own.

But the smiles we exchange are universal, and our conversation begins. I'm particularly interested in how these two guys—my lanky host is twenty years old, his friend is seventeen—feel about technology and their own futures. After some typical sentiments ("I can't be without my cellphone..." "I'm very busy with my studies because I want to be successful...") the discussion shifts to entrepreneurship—which to me is surprising. India's deeply entrenched caste system is emblematic of a hierarchical society. In the very recent past, a young man like Raghuvesh would expect to start at the bottom of an established or family business and work his way up, at least as far as his caste would allow him to go.

But Raghuvesh has a different notion of his own future. He speaks softly, but with the assurance of his own conviction. "I will be my own boss. I want to start a company, so I can create opportunities for Amit, and for my other friends."

"For your friends?" I ask.

Raghuvesh glances at his cellphone, then looks up again and smiles at me. "I would do anything for my friends, because I love them. Whatever happens to them happens to me. What's good for them is good for me, and good for my family. It would be good to be in charge of our own future, and to make it happen together."

Now, to a non-Indian, perhaps Raghuvesh sounds amazingly emotionally evolved, especially for his gender. How many American twenty-year-old guys are so comfortable using the word "love" when talking about their friends? So it bears noting that India, like China and other emerging-market societies, tends to prioritize the community over the individual. And in India, the spiritual and the everyday are more interwoven than in any other culture I've encountered; indeed it is often said that Hinduism itself (one of a dozen faith traditions that suffuse the subcontinent) is more a way of life and a worldview than a religion per se. But this doesn't account for Raghuvesh's next statement. "I want to make a difference, and I believe that I can. We need to take responsibility for our future. My generation will make things happen together."

There is a fusion of forces electrifying the mind-set I am encountering in this humble apartment. I've encountered it before, in other humble rooms in burgeoning cities across the developing world. This combination of community responsibility, global Internet connectivity, and the aspiration to entrepreneurship is no longer the sole province of the privileged American West Coast university graduate.

It's so obvious that it almost blends into the background of contemporary life. But when you open your ears, this refrain of "I want to make a difference, because I can" is everywhere. From an exclusive London boîte to a dusty Soweto shed to a sitting room in Delhi.

Something has changed. A new imperative dominates conversations and decisions. It seems that around the world, there's been some soul-searching. The planet has gradually but steadily been developing a conscience.

Life Begins at Forty

Sociologists have identified an intriguing pattern in broad cultural change, and it is this: most inventions or big ideas take approximately forty years to move from the margins to the mainstream. In other words, the maturation and spread of a mind-set or innovation, from its inception to its broad-scale societal adoption, takes about the same amount of time as we human beings do to reach our adult prime of life. Life, at least for a radical new idea, does indeed begin at forty. What's especially interesting about this span of time is that the accelerating pace of technological evolution has not shortened the cycle. What took about forty years in the 1800s still takes about forty years today.

For example, the now nearly extinct electric filament lightbulb was invented in 1880 (one of the original applications of the new technology was a string of lights on a Christmas tree; it seemed wise to replace those dangerous candles). By the 1920s, large public spaces like ships were being wired and lit with tungsten bulbs. The first desktop computer was launched in 1965. By 2005, it was impossible to imagine contemporary life without one. The mobile phone was first demonstrated in 1973; today, it has surpassed the personal computer as the primary device for connecting to one another and the world. And the Internet itself? Its gestation began as a U.S. government research project in the early 1960s, but a version of the infrastructure so many of us cannot live without, in a form that would be vaguely recognizable to us today, was named "the Internet" in 1974. Forty years later its reach is still spreading by triple-digit percentages, and there's no area of modern life—from commerce to education to entertainment—that it hasn't touched and transformed.

You may be surprised to learn that 61 percent of the world's population is still not using the Internet. In effect, the net is still quite young. That's because the World Wide Web—our access to and interface with the Internet—was invented in 1990. Ordinary people didn't start getting online until the mid-90s. We're only about two decades into the web's adoption cycle. In other words, we still have much to learn about what it means to be ubiquitously and wholly connected to one another.

And yet, nearly 2.5 billion people around the world are online. And 6 billion people have a mobile device that connects them to others, and increasingly to the web. By any statistic, we are all more connected than ever before. And with connection comes knowledge and awareness. Knowledge and awareness that are set to increase exponentially as the next billion consumers come online.

Given this forty-year adoption curve, we might do well to ask ourselves: What was happening on the margins about forty years ago? What nascent trends and beliefs and technologies were born then and are now primed for global adoption, ready for their mainstream close-up?

Well, it's not a coincidence that the concept of, as well as the infrastructure for, cyberspace developed concurrently with the civil rights, women's liberation, gay pride, and environmental movements. It's not a coincidence that the movement for equal rights and the mobile phone emerged within just a few years of each other. The late '60s and early '70s were a fertile time for thinking about human liberation. A progressive and then-radical philosophy, fueled by a newly permissive and experimental environment on college campuses and by a sense of revolution against the established order and its unpopular politics (Vietnam anyone?), formed the beginning of a long-term movement.

The original cyber-thinkers were also unabashed hippies. That's because those with science and technology prowess, like avant-gar...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction: Good Is the New Bad
• 1 From Conscious to Conscience
• 2 The Big Wake-Up Call
• 3 The Culture of Conscience
• 4 The Cult of Brand Belief
• 5 The Death of CSR
• 6 The Death of Marketing
• 7 Collective Innovation
• 8 The New Accountability
• 9 What You See Is What You Get
• Notes
• References
• Index
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author