Forget Serpents & Apples.
I incline to think Original Sin is “giving up”, no longer trying, that sin is lethargy, apathy, and resignation to “how it is”. And the Digital Age is a riposte to this kind of original sin, an open invitation for people to shape the world as they want to reshape it.
I believe our digital world makes it that bit easier for world-changers to start the changing... and to this belief, I offer up 3 exhibits, businesses, where “digital” is making the formerly impossible possible.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, I give you...
Exhibit A: MOFILM (www.mofilm.com)
MOFILM runs with the by-line, “Inspiring filmmakers to create videos for big brands and social causes.”
To my mind, MOFILM wholly reflects the sense of burgeoning empowerment that “digital” has brought to the table. In an analogue world, MOFILM would not have been possible, would have been a pipe-dream notion kept forever out in the cold, far beyond the film and ad industry’s castle keep.
In a post-analogue world, MOFILM is an exemplar for how conventional industry models are being subverted and the former middle-men deftly assassinated.
In their own words,
“Our revolutionary new process is transforming the video creation industry by connecting brands more directly with film-makers and eliminating multiple layers of bureaucracy and administration which waters down creativity and inflates costs in traditional processes.”
Source: www.mofilm.com
Very simply, MOFILM runs open competitions, inviting anyone with an idea and a camera to submit their efforts. And there’s the thing, “anyone with a digital camera” is pretty much everyone these days. So anyone can take on the top ad agencies and show them what a “TV ad” should really look like.
Exhibit B: The Domino Project (www.thedominoproject.com)
The Domino Project sees best-selling Author & Marketing Guru Seth Godin join forces with Amazon. Their mission, “to change the way books are built, sold and spread.”
Seth is a huge fan of ideas being like viruses, spreading, and being like dominos, toppling, all the time gaining momentum and mass.
Like MOFILM, The Domino Project aims to be a rule-breaker, to be a “publishing house organized around a new distribution channel, one that wasn’t even a fantasy when most publishers began.”
For me, The Domino Project is a great neon-lit illustration of how digital is providing the means, inviting people to “have a go”, where before, they’d have been frozen out of the game, the very thought of being granted such opportunity being a thing of fantasy.
As far as Seth Godin’s concerned, the only thing fine in life is trying, trying, then trying some more. Seth looks on failure as that simple road to eventual success; the only thought irreprehensible to him being to stop walking that road. With The Domino Project, he’s encouraging and making it a little bit easier for everyone to walk that Road-to-Somewhere with him.
Exhibit C: RockCorps
My third and final “exhibit” is wrapped up in one of those very positive kinds of positive thoughts.
Ready?
Think: “Internet” as an input, “Social Responsibility” as an outcome.
I believe a more (technologically and therefore immediately) Connected Society is able to develop a more intimate sense of being a Collective. And this “collective-awareness” naturally helps breed a greater sense of social Consciousness.
While not a “digital business”, I believe a company like RockCorps is hugely indicative of living on a Digital Planet, proof that sometimes it really is All Good.
“RockCorps is a pro-social production company that uses music to inspire people to volunteer and get involved in their community. To date, over 80,000 volunteers have attended more than 30 live concert events. The company launched in the US in 2005, in the UK in 2008, France in 2009 and Israel in 2010. RockCorps’ principal idea is “Got 2 Give to Get (U.S.), Give, Get Given (UK). Tagline: Moving a Generation to Change the World.”
Source: Wikipedia
This business model is built on “enlightened self-interest”, pure and simple. RockCorps are bank-rolling “social currency pay-back”, based on a pay-it-forward karma-credit, the pay-back taking the form of exclusive concert experiences featuring big names like Lady GaGa, Razorlight, Snoop Dog, Mark Ronson and Plan B. To get to see these kind of headline acts, you have to give up 4 hours of your time, rock up at a RockCorp organised volunteer event, and roll-up your sleeves.
RockCorps concerts invariably generate 5,000 volunteers a time, banking 20,000 hours of do-gooding.
It’s a shrewd acknowledgement of what social commentators and marketeers have commented on and acknowledged since teens began (a truth that extends to almost all of us, in fact). We part-build our self-esteem through bragging rights, whether it’s experience-based, or simply being able to say we know about something first. And most of us are happy to pitch in with some light-to-heavy(ish) lifting to earn those rights.
“Digital” is how RockCorps can reach its audience, mobilise them, bring people together and bring about some good. Kindness, crowd-sourced.
If God really did give Rock ‘N’ Roll to us, I think he’d approve of what’s being done with it.
SP.