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: 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.