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: boundaryless.io/podcast/jon-alexander/

Key highlights

We discussed:> 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/> Jon Alexander, 'Citizens: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us', 2022: www.amazon.com/Citizens-Why-Key-…ing/dp/191245484X

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: rethinking organizing #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: www.theguardian.com/environment/202…-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: www.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.