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The Culture of Conscience
IT’S enough to kick off a revolution: zero privacy threatening our personal liberty, rising sea levels threatening our homes, and a rising tide of rage at accelerating income disparity, among other things. Our interconnectedness has heightened our awareness of the impact we—and the businesses from which we buy, for which we work, and in which we invest—have on humanity and our planet. This in turn intensifies the demand for positive agency and meaning not only in what we do but in all the decisions we make. It’s a clear meta-trend, a mass movement for good, that’s been gaining momentum for forty years.
And now, the movement is reaching its tipping point. Broad awareness of social injustices and environmental risks, concurrent with emerging technology innovations, has given rise to new rules, expectations, behaviors, participants, and structures. And the conflux of forces that are redefining how we live, interact, work, and play are giving rise to a new global culture. This emergent culture—the Culture of Conscience—is all around us; indeed, we already inhabit it.
A Culture of Conscience is taking hold so broadly that some might dismiss it as too ubiquitous to characterize as a sociologically momentous event. But with it comes new priorities and accountabilities that are steadily transforming the way we work, live, prosper, and measure success. The consequences are not confined to one or two business sectors; indeed, every business, large and small, will be affected by it. It’s an epochal cultural shift. The question is, how will your business thrive in it?
The values and assumptions that are fueling a new wave of business innovation are highly distinct from the system that preceded them. The next generation of leaders and managers, those young people who have grown up with high-speed connectivity as a basic utility, and with access to and the ability to manipulate media as a basic assumption, already believe it’s possible to catalyze broad and positive change, both as individuals and through their engagement with business. They readily assume the responsibility of their own power to change the world with the casual effortlessness of riding a bicycle.
But moving from one culture to another can be disorienting, to say the least. The most perplexing—and for business, failure-inducing—aspects of a new or different culture can be the very things you don’t see. A new culture doesn’t always induce culture shock. Far worse is culture blindness.
I moved from California to London a decade ago, and I thought I was merely moving my belongings to a place where people had charming accents, sipped tea, and were unfailingly polite. Like all American arrivals, I assumed that beyond these quaint and aspirational cultural tics, my new neighbors and colleagues and community were mostly just like me—English-speaking people who listened to the same music and watched the same movies and television. As far as I could tell, I had no reason to consider changing the way I worked. I had always gotten great feedback on the way I communicate, collaborate, and lead.
And so, with this assumption in mind, I acted exactly as I would in San Francisco. I remember one of my first business meetings in the London office. I started it with typical American can-do. With a broad grin, fists confidently resting on the conference table, I boomed out “Okay, team, together we’re gonna make this thing HAPPEN!”
If you’re British, or if you’ve lived and worked in Britain, you are already grimacing. If you haven’t, here’s a tip: the last thing you should do in the culture of the United Kingdom is to start a business meeting with boisterous cheerleading. In fact, it’s unwise to start a business meeting with any business at all. Here, in this gentler, more subtle and tactful culture, you need warm up first. So, you start by talking perhaps about the incessant rain, a few minor frustrations, and even perhaps your hangover. You offer a biscuit (a cookie) and pour some tea. But never, ever, “Go team!”
At the time, my leadership style in the United States was seen at best as cheerleader-coach-optimist and at worst as highly focused and perfectionist. But in the U.K., I was perceived to be fake, unrealistic, and overbearing. I had no idea. Until the company, wisely, sent me off to cultural training. Really, it was cultural reconditioning. It changed everything.
Here’s the thing. One of the trickiest situations for individuals and businesses is the sudden immersion in a culture that looks familiar but is utterly different. It’s why cross-cultural understanding has been an imperative for global corporations for decades. Geert Hofstede shed light on cultural dissonance in his cultural dimensions theory, a framework for cross-cultural understanding and communication that emerged from his work with IBM in the 1960s and 1970s. His research and analysis established a means of understanding differences in values and assumptions across a range of dimensions, from power to uncertainty to indulgence, many of which are invisible, operating below the surface of directly perceived behavior.
And thus, the most powerful lesson I learned in my course, from a charismatic coach named Matthew Hill, is something called the Iceberg Model.
Consider an iceberg. Actually, consider two icebergs, floating lazily in the sea. There’s what you see above the surface, shining white in the Arctic sunshine, and there’s what you don’t see below the water’s surface, which is where most of the mass lies.
“Cultures are like icebergs,” Matthew told me. “There’s what you see, and there’s what you don’t see, but it’s all part of the whole. And like an iceberg, most of it, you can’t detect.” The undetectable? That’s the deep stuff. Years of unspoken assumptions. Personal and collective experiences that shape those assumptions. Value systems held so close to the heart that, although they inform everything, they might be and usually are utterly invisible to the visitor.
The U.K. and the U.S. are a unique pair of icebergs, unique in the world, in fact. Because what you see—the shape of the icebergs above the surface of the water—is so very similar. Similar foods, popular media, and interests. Lots of mutual admiration and co-opting of symbols. But what’s under the surface is as different as any alien culture’s. Even the same words have different meanings. “Are you alright?” in the U.S. means that the asker is concerned that you might be ill. In the U.K., the question means “How are you doing today?” The underlying differences between the U.K. and the U.S. are indeed as vast as the differences between, say, the U.S. and Russia or the U.S. and Nigeria.
When cultures seem so similar but are in fact so very different at the core, migration from one to the other is even more challenging than when the expectation is that the culture to which you’re migrating is dramatically and visibly different. In other words, because I’d expect it to be tough to live in Lagos, Nigeria, my adjustment wouldn’t be as difficult. I’d automatically know that I needed to change my behavior, modulate my voice, and learn the rules before speaking out. Because if I didn’t, I’d likely fail. Or at least, alienate nearly everyone.
Here’s why this is important to understand.
When you look around yourself, even though you’re living in it, the Conscience Culture doesn’t look very different from the business environment to which we’re accustomed. The most significant changes—dramatic, deeply felt, and probably permanent—are not visible on the surface. Life looks more or less as it did before. People seem to be behaving in similar ways. They work, they shop, they drive, they stress out, they go to the movies.
It doesn’t look like anything dramatic is going on. Or does it? Gay weddings conducted on a live broadcast of the Grammys in 2014? Even I wouldn’t have predicted that. But there are other signs of change too. Supermarket shelf space expands dramatically for organic produce in mainstream supermarkets—including at Walmart and Kroger. McDonald’s offers Rainforest Alliance-certified espresso. An African American descendant of slaves serves as First Lady in the White House. Social media and content-sharing rises exponentially, absorbing increasing hours of our leisure (and work) time. A closer inspection of everyday life yields richer evidence of what’s happening below the surface. So let’s take a tour of the most indicative aspects of this new culture. I’ve clustered them under three categories: beliefs, expectations, and players. And I invite you, as you peruse them, to consider where you and your business stand, on a virtual sliding scale, in relation to each.
Conscience Culture Beliefs
These are the emergent core beliefs and motivations that propel behavior and inform life choices—how to connect and communicate, what to buy, how to make a living.
Collective Self-Actualization
“What’s good for we is good for me.” The emergent culture is deeply self-centered. But that “self” at the center is a different construct from that which preceded it. It’s a collective self. Me as we.
Psychologist Abraham Maslow missed a layer in his iconic pyramid of the hierarchy of human needs, which, in a typically Western-inflected logic, put personal self-actualization at the pinnacle. As the theory goes, we’re unlikely to pursue higher levels of needs in the pyramid until we’ve fulfilled those at the foundation, like food, shelter, and belonging. There are two things Maslow couldn’t have considered: the implications of global interconnectivity and interdependence, and the increasing prevalence of a non-Western and more collective self-orientation.
For a new generation raised with social connectivity and hooked on social media, the boundaries between “me” and “we” are blurrier than ever before. Tightly interwoven and continuously reaffirmed affiliation with family, friends, and a tribe of like-minded people has generated a collective sense of “self.” And thus, we don’t self-actualize alone, we expect to do it together. Even personalized solutions—playlists, outfits, bicycles, cars—are built on a backbone of social recommendations and group approval. The new baseline assumption is: what’s good for you is also good for me. And its corollary is: I want what’s good for me to be good for you too. It doesn’t mean that there’s no place for competitiveness or individuality. Far from it. It means that improving life for others is as important as improving ourselves. Businesses that not only appeal to this motivation in their communications but offer solutions that allow it to be enacted are poised to thrive. Businesses that engender a deeply felt sense of shared mission will be poised to attract and keep the most talented and committed employees.
Optimism
“We can create a better world. So we will.” Young populations in high-growth markets are positively exuberant, believing (often for good reason) that the quality of their lives will be better than that of their parents, and that the future will be brighter than the past. Remember Amit and Raghuvesh, whom we visited in Delhi in chapter 1? Yes even in recession-prone Europe and America, millennials believe that it should be possible to improve their world.
Optimism can, and does, breed frustration when the rest of society doesn’t join the party. Because a core assumption in the Conscience Culture is that everyone can and should focus on making life better for all. And businesses have a special responsibility to do so. That means yours. Optimistic businesses have a clear, jargon-free vision of their role in a better world, and they discuss it publicly all the time. Which means that their fans discuss that vision, and that business, too. You don’t have to be a technology company—indeed, it’s even more interesting if you’re not—to be in the middle of the cultural conversation about changing the world.
Fairness
“Everyone has the right to live a great life. Everyone.” Nothing outrages the new culture more than sheer unfairness. Everyone has a right to a decent life. This is obvious, as one example, in the international outrage that boiled over on social media over Russia’s policies around gay “propaganda” as the country hosted the 2014 Winter Olympics. It’s also what’s driving the “equality” movement (which I’d prefer we re-dub the “fairness movement”). The new culture is by no means anti-success (that corner of the debate is coming from an older and frankly more bitter generation). Mark Zuckerberg, who with his wife has just topped the 2013 Chronicle of Philanthropy list of top donors, is a hero (and a villain). The transparent justification for the pricing of your products and services, the consequences of your manufacturing and supply chain, and your company’s role in empowering and liberating increasing numbers of people are all domains for harnessing the emotional pull of fairness.
Well-Being
“We expect to be and feel healthy in body, mind, and spirit.” In the Culture of Conscience, all products and services should enable better health and well-being. This is a culture that wants to know how its food was produced. A culture that creates and pursues health fads with a vengeance, from superfoods to fasting to gluten-free products. No couch potatoes here; triathlons, mountain treks, music festivals, and overseas adventures are the province of leisure time. Bicycling is a veritable symbol of the culture. From workouts to yoga to meditation to spiritual and religious community participation, well-being is at the core of the agenda. Health care is a right, not a privilege. What are you doing for your employees? What’s your position on the issue, and why? Because it’s going to get talked about by your next wave of customers.
Transparency
“We crave knowing everything, so if you don’t tell us, we’ll find out for ourselves.” Here’s a direct consequence of the Internet—the expectation that all should be knowable, discoverable, seeable. Even if you, as a business, don’t provide information about yourself, it’s going to get hacked, found out, discovered, broadcast. Calories, sodium, and fat. Environmental and social impact. Employee policies. Factory conditions.
But transparency is about more than sharing information. It’s about breaking down the walls of your business. Think open-kitchen restaurant. So open up: encourage us to explore your business like we’re a part of it, because we are. Show off your shining production line. Let us get to know your people. Bring us into the boardroom and the R&D lab. If you’ve already patented it, why not let us get our hands on it? We’ll help you turn it into something we need. Make transparency an everyday operating procedure.
Authenticity
“We see right through fake, so keep it real.” A subset of transparency, this is both behavioral and material. It was recent big news when a haul of “cashmere” scarves turned out to have been woven from rat fur. Unsavory product adulterations are nothing new, but they’ve also never been easier to discover and broadcast than they are now. An authentic company is a trustworthy company. And in this culture, trust is the paramount currency.
Authenticity is conveyed through material ingredients and processes, too. In categories like food, artisanal small-batch is a paragon of authenticity. But high-tech materials and mass production are equally authentic when there’s a really good reason to innovate with them. See the previous section on transparency. Even a single authentic ingredient or component can make all the difference in the perception of your value. Your quality of construction adds to your value—not only in terms of product robustness, but as a sustainability message—because planned obsolescence is arguably unethical from a resource perspective. Clarifying consumer understanding about where you produce, and why, can add to your value. Even factory robots can be authentic, when we get to know them. And even “artificially flavored” can be authentic, if you celebrate it. See “irreverence,” below.
Disruptive Irreverence
“Let’s turn it all upside down.” No system, business model, or tradition is immune to irreverent reinvention in the new culture. Everything is up for disruption; indeed, substantial energy goes toward finding new sectors to reinvent. Hotels? Let’s rent a guest room on Airbnb instead. Taxi transport? Why not carpool instead?
Meanwhile, holier-than-thou political correctness is a turnoff. The lighthearted buzz of irreverence is far more fun and insouciant. It’s a sign of self-empowerment, because the empowered citizen can afford to laugh. Indeed, the Culture of Conscience is light, because people feel they can make a difference. It loves to be a little naughty. It loves to show off its newest tattoo and its latest scrape-up from the skateboard. It reads Vice. So don’t preach to the world how lofty your company’s environmental track record is. Grin and admit to us how badass you are as you protect the planet. And make sure you understand how your own sector is going to get kicked around—and either get ahead of it, engage in it, or batten down the hatches, because it’s inevitable.
Sensible Environmentalism
“If it’s bad for the planet, it’s not for us.” ’Nuff said. Note the word sensible. “Responsible” is patronizing and out of sync with the new culture. The next generation wasn’t introduced to environmentalism as a fringe movement; they grew up with it as a given. The more your business does to operate in an environmentally sensible way, the more contemporary (read: sexy) it is. It’s not a cost center or a sideline activity. Alternative energy is today an aspiration more than an everyday reality for most of us, but the demand will rise in the wake of continued climate change. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the market for renewable energy is forecast to grow steadily year over year. Renewable energy sources already drive upward of 12 percent of U.S. electricity supply. Nothing says “modern success” like a roof paved with solar panels. And nothing says “we care” more than an ecologically sensible headquarters.
Throughout its decade-long reign as the world’s mobile phone leader, Nokia was also the leader in sustainability. Make environmental sensibility a core principle of your innovation agenda, invest in it, and you might discover, as Procter & Gamble recently did, better, lower-cost materials. Mayakoba, a resort in Cancun, has differentiated itself and attracted some of the world’s most high-net-worth travelers, who are drawn to the biodiversity of wetlands the resort protected, areas that would have otherwise been overdeveloped. Environmentalism can be the business value driver.
Global Citizenship
“We are part of something bigger.” The old trope “think globally, act locally” is being turned on its head. Now, it’s “think locally, act globally.” We focus on our immediate community because that’s where we live. But we buy things that signify our participation in broader movements and aspirations. Even local neighborhoods (right now, it’s Brooklyn) become globally aspirational, inspiring restaurants, retail concepts, fashion, and lifestyle. In fast-developing markets, the adoption of global products, services, and values is a sign of sophistication and upward mobility.
To stay in sync with the culture, your business should adopt a way of working that synthesizes localized thinking with global action. Local knowledge and empathy for local value systems is vital. But high-value brands will refuse to adapt to local values when those values are wildly out of sync with broader and more aspirational global belief systems. Sexism, for example, is just not a good global look. Meanwhile, make your own local knowledge, sourcing, manufacturing, operations, and people a part of your appeal. Even brag about it! “Proudly made by Anya, mother of two kids we’re helping send to school.”
Conscience Culture Expectations
Conscience Culture thrives in the near-complete synthesis of virtual technology and the physical world. Its denizens are the most tech-savvy of populations, and their lives are saturated with innovative technology, yet they also place a higher-than-average value on remaining present in the real and natural world. This is a culture that systemically rediscovers and restores physical spaces, time-honored traditions, foods, and manufacturing processes. You might call the people at the forefront of this culture hipsters, and you wouldn’t be wrong. They believe that small-scale organic farming is glamorous, cheese making is noble, and vinyl delivers better audio quality.
So it’s not impossible to envision a resurgence of paper and print. The moans about the end of print have filled the mediasphere since the launch of Wired magazine. (“Why paper?” the founders were consistently asked twenty years ago. “Because it’s still the best technology for delivering high-resolution, portable, and interactive information that’s not dependent on a battery” was the answer.) Admittedly, many currently reject paper in favor of e-reading, but given the tendency, in our virtualizing world, to celebrate the merits of physicality and craftsmanship, it might be only a matter of time before this new culture adopts and subsequently renews paper—perhaps embedded with digital capabilities—as the ultimate interactive material. After all, re-shoring and near-shoring of both paper recycling and printing processes will streamline print production and distribution.
The following technology enablers make this synthesis of physical and digital experience possible.
Mobile Connectedness
“I never stand still. I take it all with me, everywhere.” Smartphones introduced us to a whole new way of connecting and computing. Cloud computing makes data and media even more portable. Multiscreen, multi-speaker—it’s not just about seeing, but hearing, too. We want to port our content, productivity, and identity across multiple devices and contexts. And we want to do it in multiple ways. Sometimes we’ll carry it, sometimes we’ll wear it, sometimes we’ll leave all the gear at home except for a “key” and access our own stuff elsewhere.
The next chapter of mobility? Mobilizing place-based domains like learning, healing, banking, governing. The new hardware? Cars, public transport, airplane seats. Why is mobility an enabler of Conscience Culture? Because it liberates people to get out into the real world and even up in the air without leaving the empowerment of connected information behind. It provides affordable access to information and resources on low-cost devices. It improves driver safety by detecting road (and driver) conditions and enabling the vehicle and the driver to adapt. Shortly after off-loading its handset manufacturing division to Microsoft, Nokia announced a $100 million fund for start-ups focused on optimizing the in-car computing and location-based experience, suggesting a new locus for mobile innovation beyond the smartphone. The bigger question here: Is policy (transportation law, safety standards, privacy protection, and so on) keeping pace?
Do you have a robust mobile strategy, one that goes beyond a mere shopping app or mobile-friendly website? Because the portability of information offers more than an in-everyone’s-pocket advertising channel—indeed, marketing that interrupts or creates a lag between intention and action is set to fail. But mobile capability can nudge you and your customers closer together in the real world. Virtual reality on a tablet or smartphone can enable your customers to see through walls (and packaging) and gain a better understanding of you and your offering. Location-based services on a map interface can guide customers to services they need—power charging, ATMs, bathrooms—thus creating an association between your brand and the help that the customer needs.
Human Connection
“I don’t buy what businesses say. I buy what real people say.” We turn to one another—to wikis, to our Twitter stream, to Instagram. We want personal points of view, recommendations, social graphs, customer service, the Apple Genius bar. Why is human connection a Conscience Culture enabler? Because conscience itself is human, and cannot be calculated and conveyed through an algorithm. At least not yet. Human intuition, emotion, and experience are effective outcome predictors, as Malcolm Gladwell spelled out in his landmark book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. Our brains are adept at processing multiple multisensory inputs like facial expressions and body language, and interpolating them with personal history and experience. Face-to-face is still the most effective means of communication. And there’s nothing more conscientious than bringing people into closer contact with one another. How human is your business? How authentic and empathetic are your service people? Is your business enabling customers to meet one another and you? Where are the points of human contact? Are you cutting them? Or increasing them?
Contextual Relevance
“Give me everything I need but only precisely when and where I need it.” It’s not that we’ve become greedy or picky. It’s that our mobile devices are equipped with a range of GPS and other contextual sensors and supported by intelligent Internet services that can self-adjust to our location, our behavior habits, and our circumstance. It means that we have every reason to expect that businesses will only provide us what we need, when we need it. No more clutter, interruption, or distraction. Real-time data can be automatically filtered and adapted to address where you are, what you’re doing, who you’re with, what your intent is, and what someone else’s intent is for you. How can your business eliminate its information clutter, and instead deliver only the relevant message at the right moment, the moment when it’s most needed and most likely to be acted upon?
Actionability
“We don’t just want to know it. We want to do something about it.” A friend tells me a story of how his two-year-old was in tears the first time she experienced a flat-panel TV, because when she touched the screen, nothing happened. The age of the passive “consumer” is over. The new culture is used to making things happen at the touch of a finger. They create, remix, remake, and broadcast their own media. They use apps to impact what happens to them next, wherever they are. They bake from scratch. They start companies. They overthrow governments with their mobile phones. They transform anything they can get their hands on. How can your business make it easier for people to make an impact on their lives—how can you help them start a business, change their community, or create something new, whether it’s a meal, a piece of music, or a program that helps their community? Are your solutions—and your communication—immediately actionable?
Smarter Everything
“We expect everything—our house, car, bike, gear—to learn from us and get smarter.” For years, the Internet of Things was a conceptual prediction, but Google’s recent $3.2 billion acquisition of Nest, the smart thermostat, has put it squarely in the center of the next wave of business innovation. What types of products and services could be augmented by smarter hardware? And what objects could gain new value by becoming smart themselves?
It’s time for all businesses to plan for the Internet of Things. Because businesses that make physical products should consider how those objects can become smarter, more useful, and more valuable. Cars and home appliances like washing machines and refrigerators will be among the first in this wave, but it’s set to impact everything—as in, the stuff that’s in the car, refrigerator, and washing machine. When a customer is considering your product, its smartness will be as much a factor in the decision as its quality and price. And businesses that provide services must consider how those services can be enhanced and even delivered by smart objects. Smartness will be the new core utility.
Adjustable Anonymity
“We expect to decide who knows us and what they do with that knowledge.” Young people are turning away from the massive Class of 198X High School Reunion that is Facebook (after all, it’s populated with millions of middle-aged gen Xers like me), and interacting with each other on more ephemeral platforms like Instagram and Snapchat. The next frontier of innovation in networked connectivity will be the development of solutions that offer greater anonymity, fluidity, and individual control of our identity management. Peer-to-peer solutions, self-destructing communications, and biometric log-ins will be key ingredients in the new anonymity. There is significant business opportunity in solving a current quandary: how to deliver the accessibility benefits of the cloud (a new generation is happy to expose much of themselves in return for a positive benefit) while negating the hazards of exposure and its potential to overstep personal civil liberty.
Customization and Personalization
“We’ll hack it, build on it, take it apart, remake it, personalize it.” The open source movement started it, and its consequences continue. The new assumption is that anything can be toyed with, adjusted, remade, reused, upcycled, fixed, recoded. Increasingly affordable and accessible 3D printing will bring open source thinking to the physical world. And our understanding of the genetic code, which will soon be supplemented with more health data collected by connected biosensors, means that biological innovation is set to be open sourceable too. How intentionally open and hackable are your products or services? How radically open could they be?
Shareable Content
“If it’s not shareable, it’s not worth it.” First it was media—pictures, music tracks, recipes. Now it’s physical stuff too. Our cars, our homes, our commutes. Coworking spaces. Why own when you can share? This trend suggests the beginning of a shift in the very notion of ownership. We’re moving steadily toward content and service subscription models and other systems that facilitate sharing. From music that we “rent” and stream to homes that we can trade with others, the sharing phenomenon—and new business models that support it—is on the rise. Digital information and online identity management ensure that we have portability, fluidity, and transparency, three key ingredients in making it possible to share goods, services, spaces, and media. This will give rise to all sorts of new service providers that make sharing easier, less risky, and more fun.
Competitive Fun
“Entertain us, or else we’ll entertain ourselves.” Previous generations universally, if begrudgingly, accepted that some aspects of life—work, for example—just weren’t going to be fun. Suffering was tolerated as a fact of life. But a new generation has never been weaned off the immediate and free gratification of always-available entertainment. Gamification will spread into the sphere of social and environmental benefit. Why is this part of Conscience Culture? Because when something is addictively fun and even more importantly, visibly and socially competitive, people are motivated to participate in it and advocate for their performance in it with more zeal. Competitive fun breaks down barriers between people or communities and those things they don’t really want to do. Getting to know your own health, improving leadership skills, supporting social entrepreneurs, monitoring microinvestments—all of these things could be gamified. Could filing taxes become a source of competitive pride? How can you build more playfulness, humor, and motivation into your products, services, and communications? Because when you do so, you nudge people toward behaviors that are not only better for them but better for your profit margin. And when something is fun, and when we get ourselves onto the leaderboard doing it, we are more likely to talk about it.
Beauty Matters
“Good design shows that you care about us.” Aesthetics aren’t skin deep; they are part of our quality of life. Design savvy and visually fluent, the new culture talks in pictures, on Snapchat and Instagram. Do your brand and your products convey stylish swagger, aspirational pull? Your product had better have a style that says and means something. This means that your business has to stay in tune with the shifts of fashion and the cutting edge of visual culture, and intentionally position itself either knowingly apart from or directly within it. This is not only critical for product companies, by the way—it’s also crucial for service businesses. Distinctive design shows that you solve problems elegantly. Style shows you have a point of view. It attracts talented employees as well as dedicated customers. And it looks good on Instagram—a picture is worth a thousand tweets. In the Conscience Economy, these considerations are not superficial. A better world is a more beautiful world.
Conscience Culture Players
There is such a wide-ranging and continuously expanding cast of players that it would be impossible to commit a complete list to print. But what they all have in common is a mission for good. Here are some categories of key players today.
Social Enterprises and Incubators
A hybrid of for-profit commerce and social-impact agenda, it’s been estimated that social enterprises already contribute upward of $200 billion to the U.S. economy. They can take some of the strain off of overstretched public programs (which is why the U.K. government invests in them).
One of the first and most famous social enterprises was the restaurant Fifteen, founded by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. It’s not only a successful restaurant (years later, it’s still tough to get a reservation), it’s famous for its apprentice program, which trains young people who, in Oliver’s words, “have faced enormous challenges in their lives,” helping them enter society with both professional skills and dignity. The restaurant donates all of its profits to charity while enhancing the Jamie Oliver brand emblazoned across his for-profit businesses. But the model does generate profit and has inspired a new generation of people to imagine and build enterprises that have positive social impact at their core. Ben & Jerry’s (prior to its acquisition by Unilever) was also considered a pioneer in social enterprise, with its emphasis on the “double bottom line” and the socially progressive mission that was not only stated as its core but delivered through its supply chain.
Social enterprise harnesses the passion and energy of entrepreneurship as a force for good. At an event where the newest round of social enterprises (those that had won a spot in Telefónica’s prestigious program) were making their pitches, the energy was amazing. “Every dollar, pound, or euro you spend is a vote,” one of the young founders explained to the packed room, “but most of us don’t know what value system or social or environmental consequence we’re voting for. Our software will reveal it, so you can use your votes the way you want to.” He was offering a contextual, mobile decision engine based on personal values. Only a Culture of Conscience could generate such an innovation. Are you engaging with social enterprise? Are you learning from it? Could part of your business even become one?
Certification Associations
“Badness-free accountability.” “Green” products—from chocolate to detergent—promote the notion that by buying them, we are minimizing harm to people and the environment. Fair Trade certification—in which companies are audited by Fair Trade USA and earn the right to use the Fair Trade Certified label—has been one of the more successful of these models. It’s widely recognized and well branded, and the term has become part of the general lexicon for many people. But even the Fair Trade model, though in my opinion a laudable advance, is an economically imperfect system, as it arguably manipulates pricing albeit for a humane purpose. Carbon offsetting, the ability to “offset” your “carbon footprint” by funding programs that, through a carefully thought-out calculation, claim to put things right again, sends a good message, but does offsetting really solve the root cause of the problem it highlights?
Today, there are a range of recognizable labels and certification standards, including organic, cruelty free, and Fair Trade. These indicators vary country by country (as indeed the regulatory and legal environments in which they exist vary, too) and it’s worth noting that some are actual enforceable standards imposed by government, some have been created by voluntary certification bodies, and others are marketing signals with no legally enforceable accountability. Still, they proliferate. Consumers are drawn to them, and indeed, they help brands signify good intent. But great as they are as signposts of conscientiousness, the efficacy and accuracy of these marks will continue to come under increasing scrutiny.
Given the dynamics of social media and the increasing availability of real-time information, it’s possible that in the near future more decentralized “associations” will assess and approve supply chain processes and corporate operations. Just as traffic maps can be crowdsourced, roving virtual bands of citizens aligned with a common purpose and incentivized to be vigilant could improve accountability and efficacy of production and trade processes.
Goodness Marketplaces
“Where to buy and sell good goods.” These marketplaces, both online and real world, aggregate conscientiously sourced and created products and experiences. Etsy started the online trend and continues to be among the most visible brands, although a 2013 update of its guidelines, downplaying “handmade” products and focusing instead on “unique” products has resulted in an exodus of many of its original vendors. These revised definitions and subsequent terms of service have enabled mass producers of cheap imports, many from Asia, to promote their goods on the site (which are, as you’d imagine, priced considerably lower than the artisanal products upon which Etsy built its initial brand). The controversy is instructive, as it has created opportunities for emerging online marketplaces and communities like Zibbet, DoGoodBuyUs, and Fashioning Change.
Outgrow.me merges the concept of a goodness marketplace with crowdfunding, featuring Kickstarter-funded products. (Warning: it includes so much well-designed and well-intentioned innovation that it’s addictive.)
Goodness marketplaces also include physical retailers committed to selling conscientious goods and services, from farmers markets and small-scale retailers to Whole Foods (I can’t resist noting the irony of their seeming monopoly on the goodness category) to the School of Life. The latter is both an actual storefront in London and an online community that sells learning experiences. These experiences include field trips with experts and Sunday morning “sermons,” which are decidedly secular TED Talk-style lectures from thinkers, artists, and philosophers.
How might your products qualify to be included in such marketplaces, or could you build or enable one yourself?
Democratizing Enablers
“Accessible impact.” Domains of human endeavor that were once inaccessible or reserved only for the elite are becoming available to all. Crowdfunding and microfinancing are modalities for providing direct fiscal support to entrepreneurs as well as causes that we personally believe in. They’re evidence of this desire to enact something, to impact directly rather than relying on secondary or tertiary impact. Out of this desire comes the “frugal tech” movement, with its mission to provide the benefits of computing with extremely low-cost materials. Among the movement’s successes is Raspberry Pi—developed by the nonprofit Raspberry Pi Foundation—a low-cost single-board computer that empowers children to learn computer programming. Meanwhile, online communities like iFixit.org are harbingers of an increasing desire to collectively and individually repair and extend the usefulness of the things we already own.
Built-In Philanthropy
“Helping by buying.” This arena includes what are currently called “one-for-one businesses,” like TOMS Shoes and One Water. You buy a bottle of water and you concurrently give a bottle of water. In the case of One Water, some of the purchase price funds the renovation of a village water pump in sub-Saharan Africa. It’s an easy model for consumers to understand, although TOMS Shoes—which provides a pair of shoes for the poor for every pair you buy, found itself criticized for not addressing the root cause of poverty. The company promptly adjusted its model with TOMS Glasses, which supports and funds vision care in disadvantaged communities rather than providing a straight product-for-product donation.
These models aren’t easy to sustain, particularly in the FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) category. One Water has struggled to get footing in supermarkets because mass retailers that carry FMCG products force margin down so low that it’s next to impossible to make a profit while delivering the social benefit. But people will pay for brand prestige, and context is everything. Starbucks carries One Water because of the premium and conscientious message it sends about the Starbucks brand.
Other emergent in-built philanthropy models are experimenting with incentives that facilitate automated micro-donations to social or environmental causes. For example, Mogl, a restaurant loyalty app in California, automatically donates a percentage of your restaurant bill to feeding people. You collect “meals donated” instead of points, so that the amount that you give is a new kind of “loyalty” currency. It’s an effortless incentive to use the service and eat out more—and it’s a differentiator for the service provider and the participating restaurants, as well as a braggable for the person using it.
Impact Investing and Socially Responsible Investing Vehicles
“Investing for the common good as well as a good return.” Impact investing is both a philosophical approach to investing and a fast-growing category of financial instruments. Unlike socially responsible investing (SRI), which uses a negative screen to avoid certain investments, this type of investing deploys a proactive approach, a positive screening process, to solve social and environmental problems. Both types are growing, and if you surf the financial and investment press, you’ll quickly see that both are buzzy, even if some of the parameters to describe them are fuzzy.
Here’s what catches my eye, though: although they don’t always deliver a competitive return, these vehicles continue to attract investment, suggesting that some investors value more than personal gain. Research by JP Morgan and the Global Impact Investment Network showed that investor groups had planned to commit $9 billion to this asset class in 2013. In India alone, the impacting investing category has been estimated to be growing by 30 percent annually. According to an article in the Financial Times, it’s difficult to measure the size of the category, but one estimate suggests that impact investing could attract upward of $1 trillion over the next ten years. Socially responsible investing leads the trend; by 2012, more than $3.7 trillion was invested in this category in the U.S. alone, and the growth continues.
In traditional investing, decision factors boiled down to a simple binary truth: “either you make money or you don’t.” In the Conscience Economy, it’s “you make money and make a difference, or you make more money and pass on the real costs to others.” This is an evolution worth watching because it signals a motivational shift among a particularly rigorous and demanding sector of people. Huge gains are not the only investment motivator, which suggests that in the future there might be different kinds of profit. Emotional profit and time profit, for example. It’s been called the next revolution in finance, following on the heels of venture capital as a major driver of innovation and economic transformation.
Media
“The voices of the movement.” Trade publications like CSRWire and Business Ethics, aimed at CSR professionals and sustainability specialists, have proliferated for more than a decade. More recently, new consumer lifestyle media properties like GOOD.is, SHFT, and Upworthy appeal to a young cohort driven by a passion for making a positive difference in the world. TED Talks have become a widely respected forum for Conscience Culture ideas to get airplay. But mainstream media brands regularly report on increasingly conscientious business and social phenomena, too. Not a day goes by when I don’t spot something in the news, in the media, or online that expresses a Conscience Culture point of view, whether it’s a story about renewable energy, genetic engineering, food safety and security, social entrepreneurship, ethical (or unethical) business practices, conscientious consumerism, diversity in the boardroom, dilemmas of sensor technology and privacy, or debates on financial reform.
Role Models
“Thinking big, speaking out, giving back.” Visionary business leaders and entertainment celebrities personify the status aspirations and lifestyles of the new culture. Although philanthropy as an overt demonstration of wealth goes back generations, there is a renewed glamour associated with making a real difference in the world. Many of our most admired role models now augment their glamour and success by using it to advocate for and support social good. Whether establishing major foundations, building schools, adopting a virtual Benetton advertisement of diverse children into their families, becoming U.N. Goodwill Ambassadors, or speaking out on topical human rights and environmental issues, the world’s most visible and famous people are no longer mere paragons of success, wealth, and sex appeal.
Actors Jane Fonda and Paul Newman may have been the forebears of this new kind of fame. Steve Jobs brought rock star status to visionary tech leadership. Today, new entrepreneurs like Lauren Bush Lauren and Blake Mycoskie are heroes among a generation of socially motivated entrepreneurs as they each build ventures that seek to convert consumers into cause-oriented donors and community participants. At the 2014 SXSW (South By Southwest) conference, septuagenarian Star Trek veteran and social media sensation George Takei did a standing-room-only interview, dazzling thousands of fans with his no-nonsense message of diversity. (Shout-outs from the audience included “Run for office, George!”) Edward Snowden, divisive among some, is an iconic voice for those concerned about what’s happening with our online data. Even Pope Francis has impressed a new generation of nonreligious people with his media savvy and his leaning toward inclusivity. Perhaps more than ever before, status and celebrity are enmeshed with a call to change the world for the better.
Professional Services and Consultancies
“Helping make it happen.” A broad range of specialized professional services have been evolving for over a decade. Most were purpose-built to bring professional strategy support, management advice, business reengineering expertise, financial analysis, and marketing communication support to nonprofit organizations. The expertise is beginning to move in the other direction; knowledge gained in the public and nonprofit sectors is increasingly applicable to for-profit businesses.
This category of service providers includes CSR strategy agencies, design firms, sustainability consultancies, social impact practices within the big management consultancies, and environmental and cause marketing agencies.
Staying Relevant
Obviously, any business needs to be relevant in the wider culture in which it exists. This means operating in sync within the cultural value system, meeting and exceeding cultural expectations, and being one of its players. The most robust businesses are those that not only function within the culture but drive it forward. By leading the next wave, your business can become an icon of it. Iconic businesses dominate public and customer conversation; they are included by default at the forefront of people’s minds when it’s time to make a purchase decision. They are thus more likely to be chosen, and enjoy significant leads in value share in their categories.
Some businesses are closer to future-proof category leadership in the Conscience Economy than others (Whole Foods in the supermarket category, Google in technology, TOMS Shoes in one-to-one), but no company has secured its position yet. Even those out in front have their vulnerabilities—for example, for Whole Foods, it’s pricing (is there anyone who doesn’t call it “Whole Paycheck?”) and some of its business practices, and for Google, increasing privacy and monopoly concerns. In the race for dominance in the emergent culture, the top spots across the Conscience Economy are still up for grabs. The only way to get there is to directly incorporate the emergent beliefs and expectations into your own business, and to simultaneously determine what kind of player (or players) your business can be.
A new generation believes in the imminent possibility of a better world, and they’re determined to manifest it. The culture they inhabit—a culture that’s quickly becoming mainstream—will be the context in which your business needs to thrive. And in order to do so, you will need to attract people not only with the utility of your product or solution but, even more crucially, with the emotional magnetism of your brand.