Would you do it too?

Convergence Culture, by Henry Jenkins, speaks of an entire world of services, goods and people being reduced to a single click of the mouse or call of a cell phone. As a result, he explains, the network of consumers will shape the future of the marketplace instead of responding to its present state. He argues, “The old model, which many wisely dismissed, was that consumers vote with their pocket books. The new model is that we are collectively changing the nature of the marketplace and in so doing, we are pressuring companies to change the products they are creating and the ways they relate to their consumers.” It certainly makes sense to the consumer. Why should a person have to sift through aisles of crap in a retail store when they could just go online and build their own outfit? Everyone likes the idea of a large company with all of these executives and resources bowing to the all-knowing consumer with his all-mighty dollar. Jenkins essentially claims that if everyone is educated, informed, but most importantly CONNECTED, everyone can make suggestions and as a result those who were previously empowered will now be forced to acquiesce to the mob.

Now I am going to address the big, pink elephant in the middle of the room:

What are we after? Is it the perfect consumer good? Is it the perfect customer service? No, it’s POWER. Jenkins talks of this global network and references Howard Rheingold, a journalist and digital activist. Rheingold talks of smart mobs, “Smart mobs consist of people who are able to act in concert even if they don’t know each other. The people who make up smart mobs cooperate in ways never before possible because they carry devices that possess both communication and computing capabilities.... Groups of people using these tools will gain new forms of social power.” Another term for this type of association is an “adhocracy”, an organization characterized by a lack of hierarchy. In this case, a vast number of people who can solve individualized and specialized problems work when their services are needed most. As a result, the leader is determined by the instance of the problem. Jenkins mentions the Global Frequency network, a comic book series, in which there is a central network that calls people from around the world to solve certain problems. Jenkins refers to it as rejecting the old notion of superheroes and creating a “twenty-first century equivalent of a volunteer fire department.” Now relate this notion to the information world and what do we get? Wikipedia!!! Clearly this idea has flourished in the technology age for the pursuit of information. However, is it possible this mentality can work for the marketplace as well?

The answer to this question is not a simple “yes” or “no”, but rather “sort-of”. In order to have complete influence over the world around us, the consumer, we need to be both educated and proactive. The problem with this evaluation of our society is that we have no to little more influence than we ever had, we just think we do. Executives are still in the highest floors of the tallest towers saying, “Mwa ha ha, all we have to do is show Paris Hilton holding a cell phone and then everyone will want one, and when we finally give them one, they will feel like they made us do it. It’s too easy!” Unfortunately for us, though technology has given us broader access, it has poisoned us with a lazier “trust everyone else” mentality. Why test drive a car when I can look at a review of it? Well, what would you do if everyone on Myspace.com and Facebook.com started jumping off bridges and saying it was amazing!? Would you do it too?