New Power

How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World--and How to Make It Work for You

by Jeremy Heimans , Henry Timms

Number of pages: 336

Publisher: Doubleday

BBB Library: Communication, Politics and Public Affairs

ISBN: 978-0385541114



About the Authors

Jeremy Heimans : Jeremy Heimans is a lifelong activist and the co-founder and CEO

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Henry Timms : Henry Timms is president and CEO of the 92nd Street Y,

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Editorial Review

     New Power shines fresh light on the cultural phenomena of our day, from #BlackLivesMatter to the Ice Bucket Challenge to Airbnb, uncovering the new power forces that made them huge. Drawing on examples from business, activism, and pop culture, as well as the study of organizations like Lego, NASA, Reddit, and TED, Heimans and Timms explain how to build new power and channel it successfully. They also explore the dark side of these forces: the way ISIS has co-opted new power to monstrous ends, and the rise of the alt-right's intensity machine.    

Book Reviews

“This book will inform and inspire all those wanting to make change . . . and achieve a goal against all odds.”

“The networked age has revolutionized the way the public engages withinstitutions and organizations.New Poweris an essential and extremelyinsightful guide for anyone who wants to maximize the opportunities forprogress and impact in today’s new tightly connected world.”

“A must-read,New Poweris a gift to our movements. It’s not just about going viral—it’s about connecting millions of people to roll up our sleeves and create the changes we long for.”

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Wisdom to Share

New power operates like a current. It is made by many. It is open, participatory, and peer-driven. It uploads, and it distributes. It’s most forceful when it surges. The goal with new power is not to hoard it but to channel it.

Old power and new power values are very different mindsets that battle in today’s world.

New power models reinforce the human instinct to cooperate (rather than compete) by rewarding those who share their own assets or ideas, spread those of others, or build on existing ideas to make them better.

In a networked world, collaborating with your neighbor or someone on the other side of the world is both much easier and more frequently rewarded.

In an era in which young people share the most intimate details of their lives on social media, it shouldn’t be surprising that in the workplace they are now demanding that their bosses share information previously considered strictly confidential.

We can think of maker culture as the “do-it-ourselves” mindset. Makers are less dependent on institutions. They figure out how to avoid the intermediaries.

ISIS propaganda machine is multi-platform, multi-pronged, and distinctly modern. It has invested in old power strategies such as the creation of centralized media outlets like the Amaq news agency that pump out content and broadcast messages from its leaders. And it has created a decentralized “content strategy” perfectly adapted for the social media age.

If you’re trying to build a movement or grow a crowd, you’ll need to unlock a series of new power behaviors.

Anyone building a crowd should be on the lookout for storms that might galvanize their base, and be prepared to act on them within minutes or hours.

The best way to build a crowd is to embrace the fact that a storm is at your doorstep and let yourself get swept up in it.