How to wield the power of one
Megatrends | Part 6 | Collective power
Long gone are the days when those in charge could make decisions with relative impunity. Whether well- or ill-informed, everyday people wield enormous power to both drive and stop change as well as to keep others accountable.
You may have heard that ants outnumber humans by a ratio of at least 2.5 million to 1. They do so without compromising the ecological or social systems they depend on. Tiny and vulnerable individually, they literally recast landscapes because they may have mastered what we are just now grappling with: their collective power.
Image credit: Virvoreanu Laurentiu. Licensed under CC.
On the Megatrends series
I have earned an international reputation for leveraging global trends to create positive transformation. Having (1) introduced this concept and (2) set the stage through earlier posts, I now guide you through a 360-degree tour of today’s change landscape!
See if you might read actively. Consider these questions:
How does this trend manifest in your world? Society at large? Your family, community, or team(s)? Your investors or donors? The people your purpose calls you to serve?
Importantly, how does it play out in you? In your own motivations or struggles?
What shifts in what is possible, acceptable, or both underpin this trend?
Who — brands, politicians, non-profits — ride this trend? Do they succeed or fail? Why?
What does this trend make possible that was impossible before?
Having covered Gluttony, Abstraction, and Permeability, our tour continues with Collective power.
The advent of the World Wide Web allowed every human being on earth to catalyze and participate in even the most profound global change. Just consider that Change.org, an advocacy organization with a solid track record of inhibiting deforestation, banning food additives in school meals, and saving architectural landmarks from demolition, has 542.56 million signatories (participation that has more than doubled in a decade), boasting 102,024 victories in 196 countries.[1]
Able to organize globally and in real-time, children accelerated climate action through protest (inspired and fueled by individuals like Greta Thunberg) and consumers “cancel” negligent brands seemingly overnight.
This trend is also manifest in the surging demand for genuine diversity, dispersing power to an increasingly emboldened choir of gender, race, age, sexual orientation, perspectives, experiences, and more. What better illustration than this very platform, when some individual publications have over 1.3 million subscribers?
A decentralized collective of individuals agreed to bet against the “gravity” that is the stock market and buoyed GameStop stock in 2021. Similarly, while crowdsourcing isn’t new, big data analysis is yielding to the collective power of individual minds through “citizen science.” Blockchain technology takes this to another level: an entirely new global accounting, identity, and land records system is possible because individuals — not corporations — decide to underwrite it.
The clean energy future is interactive
Having always worked on the frontier of emerging innovation, I have had a soft spot for solutions that advance the so-necessary-and-why-not clean-energy future. That future relies on energy that is tied to place and time. For example, solar energy can only be generated where and when the sun shines. To avoid the transmission losses that plague us today (hauling oil or coal around the world to burn it before sending the resulting electricity miles and miles away via wires), clean energy — solar, wind, thermal — should be consumed as close to the source of its generation as possible. This means that if I have, say, solar panels that sometimes generate more energy than I need, the world benefits from me selling it to a neighbor that needs it at that time. For example, a school that runs an energy surplus on the weekend could send it to the nearby shopping district, making some money while the the shopping district saves compared to what it would otherwise pay to the grid. In this scenario, the electricity grid is no longer a monopoly but rather public infrastructure, like roads or bridges.
That — and more — is exactly what is happening at T77 in Bangkok, Thailand, the world’s largest peer-to-peer energy trading community created by a collaboration between the local utility BCPG and a former client, Powerledger.io. Its quick animation is worth a watch!
Sadly and ridiculously, however, this sharing of energy is against the law almost everywhere in the world. A hurdle that is being overcome by a worldwide army that would welcome you into their ranks. If you find this interesting, I have published quite a bit on the topic, summarized most recently in Extreme Green Buildings eBook (p. 102) by TheFifthEstate. In that piece, I offer “a glimpse of the future” (a building block of transformation identified in my book, Change-maker’s Handbook) by describing a day in the life of the person managing a grid-interactive precinct.
Imagine that you — as an individual household — can monetize spare clean energy so well that investing in energy storage outperforms the stock market — and allows you to power your community at times of need? Heck, imagine a future where such batteries rank as top graduation or housewarming gifts?
Like most aspects of the future worth having, the interactive clean-energy future depends on the collective power of individual decisions.
That quote by Margaret Mead
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has,” said Margaret Mead, probably having no idea how many times she would be quoted because even as the global population has crossed eight billion people, the power of a single individual to affect global change has never been as high as it is today.
To lead or not to lead?
Let’s not indulge undue individualism here.
Too many — way too many where history and my personal opinion are concerned — read Mead’s quote and think, what do I start? What do I lead? Often, that reaction is the product of the individualistic Western worldview. However, any movement you would recognize (and Change.org itself) shows that active following — putting all our weight behind another’s idea — accounts for some of the most effective changemaking out there.
Given that most of today’s “influencers” follow rather than generate new products or ideas, it is ironic that the term “following” seems to have acquired an air of passivity. While there may be a better term, I’d like to address this unfortunate stigma head on.
Would you launch a “competitor” to Greenpeace when the images of its action protests dominated media cycles? Would you create an alternative to #OccupyWallstreet when it was in its prime? To #ArabSpring? To the #WomensMarch in 2016? To #BlackLivesMatter or #MeToo? While none of these movements were perfect, most changemakers would rightly join and amplify those initiatives rather than compete with them.
Ideas abound. But by themselves, they rarely equal change. Rather than call for new ideas, change — actual regenerative transformation that brings the world closer to a state where all can thrive in harmony with our planet — demands that we humble ourselves to refine and follow ideas already geared to make a difference.
What good change can count on you?
Reflection
Now, let’s revisit the framing prompts to absorb and apply:
How does this trend manifest in you world? Society at large? Your family, community, or team(s)? Your investors or donors? The people your purpose calls you to serve?
Importantly, how does it play out in you? In your own motivations or struggles?
What shifts in what is possible, acceptable, or both underpin this trend?
Who — brands, politicians, non-profits — ride this trend? Do they succeed or fail? Why?
What does this trend make possible that was impossible before?
We would cherish any answers you are comfortable sharing!
[1] https://www.change.org/impact. Accessed November 22, 2024.
I love this: “active following — putting all our weight behind another’s idea — accounts for some of the most effective changemaking out there.” You talk about this in your book too and I think of it often.