Something You Should Know - SYSK Choice: How Music Effects You & Understanding “New Power”

Episode Date: October 3, 2020

No one enjoys getting a shot at the doctor’s office. But there is something you can do to ease the pain. We begin this episode with a little strategy that can cut the pain in half. But you have to do it just right. https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27514-hold-your-breath-to-dampen-the-pain-of-an-injection/ Music plays an important role in our lives – but why? We don’t need it to survive yet every culture on the planet has music of some sort. John Powell, author of the books Why You Love Music (https://amzn.to/2IC5PTG) and How Music Works (https://amzn.to/2kcOYrP) joins me to examine the fascinating role music plays in our lives and why we like the music we like. Buying something that is biodegradable or has biodegradable packaging sound like a good thing. However, things don’t really biodegrade in a landfill like you think they would. Listen as we explore that topic. http://www.sustainablebabysteps.com/biodegradable-waste.html Have you heard of the “New Power”? It is the power of connecting communities. Uber does it. Airbnb does it. Facebook does it. Their power comes not from owning something but from connecting people to something. Henry Timms has explores this in his book, New Power: How Power in Our Hyperconnected World – and How to Make it Work For You (https://amzn.to/2IzIDB7). He joins me to explain how it works and how you can put it to work for you and your organization. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Melissa and Doug. Wooden puzzles and building toys for problem solving and arts and crafts for creative thinking, Melissa and Doug makes toys that help kids take on the world. Because the way they play today shapes who they become tomorrow. Melissa and Doug. The play is pretend. The skills are real. Look for Melissa and Doug wherever you shop for toys. Today on Something You Should Know,

the next time you or your kid get a shot from the doctor, there's something you can do to make it hurt a lot less. Then the fascinating ways music affects you and why you like the music you like. We have a particular affinity, or most human beings have a particular affinity, for the music that we heard in our late teens and early twenties. And if you ask somebody to give you their 10 favorite tunes, about half of them will be chosen from that period of their life. Plus, if you think you're helping save the planet by buying biodegradable products,

think again. And understanding the power of creating community in our hyper-connected world and how to use it to your advantage. I mean, that's why you'll see some of these kids on YouTube having audiences much, much bigger than some of the traditional media, because they've worked out this new set of skills around building a community or engaging with the crowd. All this today on Something You Should Know. This winter, take a trip to Tampa on Porter Airlines. Enjoy the warm Tampa Bay temperatures and warm Porter hospitality on your way there.

All Porter fares include beer, wine, and snacks, and free fast-streaming Wi-Fi on planes with no middle seats. And your Tampa Bay vacation includes good times, relaxation, and great Gulf Coast weather. Visit flyporter.com and actually enjoy economy. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life today. Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. And we start the podcast today with some practical advice you can use in your life today or at least the next time you go to the doctor to get a shot. Nobody likes getting shots, but did you know that if you hold your breath, the pain won't be as bad?

Spanish scientists found that a sharp intake of breath triggers the brain to dampen the nervous system, leaving a person less sensitive to pain. What they did was they squashed the fingernails of volunteers for five seconds. Some people, they did it while they were breathing slowly, and the other people, they did it while they were breathing slowly, and the other people, they did it while they held their breath. Those who held their breath reported the pain as much less severe, by about half. Now, the technique only works when you know the pain is coming,

and it also only works when you start to hold your breath beforehand. And that's what makes it perfect for the next time you get an injection at the doctor. And that is something you should know. Music is so interesting to me because it's part of everyone's life to a greater or lesser degree. We all listen to it. Some of us play an instrument or sing. We all have our favorite songs, and we associate some of those songs with certain times in our lives. Everyone likes some kind of music, and it's a huge business. We spend a lot of money on music. But why? Why is music so important? It isn't necessary for our survival.

It's really just entertainment. Or is it? John Powell is a scientist and a musician who has studied our relationship with music. He's the author of two books, How Music Works and Why You Love Music. And he's here to shed some light on why music is so important to us. Hi, John, welcome. So let's start with why people like the music they like. I mean, I have my taste in music, you have yours. You may not like what I like, and I may not like what you like, but why do I like

the music I like? Well, we have a particular affinity, or most human beings have a particular affinity, for the music that we heard in our late teens and early twenties. And we retain that love of that particular sort of music. And if you ask somebody to give you their ten favorite tunes, you can probably work out what their age is, because about half of them will be chosen from that period of their life. Isn't that interesting? I wonder why it is at that point in your life where it sticks so well. Well, several psychologists have worked on this, actually, and they found that we develop our personality in our late teens and early twenties. We choose who we want to be, and we choose all sorts of things, like what sort of novels we want to read, what sort of toothpaste we like, and so on. There is something that happens later on, is that if you chose a rather simple sort of music, like, say, punk, it is very straightforward.

But as we get older, we start hankering after something which is a bit more complicated than what we were listening to. Maybe it was rock, maybe it was pop music. And we want something which is not quite so forecastable. So as people get older, they tend to drift towards jazz and classical because although you can build up a set of expectations about what you're going to hear next, which is one of the ways we get pleasure from music, classical and jazz aren't so forecastable. So a lot of people will generally

move towards more complicated music as they get older. But they'll always retain this love, a particular love of the music that they heard in their late teens and early twenties. You know, it's interesting to me how time tends to be kind to music that, you know, when the Beatles first came out and all the other rock and roll that followed it, it was dismissed by older people as being crap and trash and rubbish and everything else. Yeah, yeah. But over time, time has been very kind to the Beatles.

People look back very fondly at the Beatles and people look at all the nuance and everything in the Beatles music that no one talked about back then. Yes, that's perfectly true. One of the reasons why the Beatles have become accepted everywhere is because they're played everywhere. The people who dislike them, you know, the parents of the teenagers who first liked the Beatles, they never got to like the Beatles and they eventually died. So one of the reasons why the Beatles are almost universally popular is because the original enthusiasts are now among the de-aged population,

and their parents are all dead. And everyone since then has heard the Beatles a lot on the radio, and we love music we're familiar with. It's one of the main things that attracts us to music. You can persuade yourself to become attracted to any sort of music by listening to it a lot. So if you decided that you wanted to learn to enjoy bluegrass banjo, all you have to do is get a couple of CDs, put them in your car, and eventually you'll be able to build up a set of expectations about the music,

and that will make you fall in love with it. And so you can actually change your own taste, if you wish. Having spent many years in the radio business, I mean, that was kind of the core of music radio, was the way you made a hit song was to play it a lot. You just play a lot, and people will love it. That's right, yeah. And I don't know whether you've ever had that experience of hearing a pop song and loving it initially and then suddenly going off it after about 30 plays.

Oh, I've done that, yeah. Well, there's a reason for that. It comes back to something I was saying earlier about complexity. Because when you first hear a piece of music, it sounds more complicated than it is because you haven't heard it before. But as it's repeated a few times, it becomes more and more obvious what's happening. And eventually it will slip off your range.

It'll become too boring for you. And that's why we suddenly go off a pop song that we looked for the first 25 plays. One of the things that I find interesting about contemporary rock and roll music is I have a son who's a teenager, and he is very familiar with the music that I grew up with, the rock and roll of the 60s and 70s. He knows who the Beatles are. He knows who many of the artists are from that era. When I was his age, I was completely unfamiliar with my father's music. I didn't like it. Nobody listened to it. It was hard to find on the radio.

It's as if rock and roll from the 60s and 70s has much more staying power than music from, say, the 30s or the 40s or the 50s. The music of the 50s and 40s, A, there's not a great deal of it compared to what there is of the 70s and 60s, the pop music. And also, it's not easy to get hold of. So people aren't exposed to it so much. But you will find that young people today are making playlists where they'll have... The musical taste of young people today is much more eclectic than it used to be.

In my day, when I was an 18-year-old, my particular thing was prog rock. And all my friends listened to that. We didn't listen to any other sorts of rock. We're very limited in what we listen to. We loved it, of course. What kind of rock? Progressive rock.

Oh, okay. Bands like Yes and Genesis and so on. And that dates me... You'll probably get my date within about three years from that. I'm 63 actually. But I was in that era. The young people of today are much more athletic in their tastes. Because they can access music much more readily, one of them will get keen on Frank Sinatra and share some of that with his friends. Some of them will be interested in African drumming, so that will get shared around.

Some of them are interested in 70s pop music. And so they have playlists which are really diverse, which I think is a wonderful thing. And they're not so tribal as we were in the old days. Why do you think it is that music is so universal, is so loved, is such a big part of our lives, when really, in terms of our survival and success and everything else, it is somewhat frivolous, and yet it is a huge business, it is so important, and people must have it. Why? Well, there's an answer, surprisingly enough. When I was working on my second book, I found that there was a lot of recent research into why music should be so widespread.

Darwin worked out in his theory that anything that was very old and very widespread must be linked to survival. His idea, so he looked at music and thought, you know, this is really weird. Why should music be linked to survival? And he assumed and worked out that it was to do with sexual display, that, you know, like birds sing to each other to show how big and strong they are so they can attract partners. And he thought this must be the link to humans. But that's completely wrong because people don't sing to their potential partners. And he thought this must be the link to humans. But that's completely wrong, because people don't sing to their potential partners. If you go to a student party,

they're not all carrying guitars and instruments to show off to each other. They're not saying, I'm musical, therefore go out with me. So it really isn't that. It's really much more to do with a chemical called oxytocin. Oxytocin is a chemical that we generate inside ourselves, like we generate adrenaline when we're frightened. There's a chemical called oxytocin, which actually makes human beings bond together. So if you imagine being in a small tribe 200,000 years ago,

there's maybe 40 of you, and if you sang together, you'd last longer because you would be bonded by having this chemical released in your system, which makes you all feel better bonded. And so if a threat came along, you'd deal with it better. And music does that. So does breastfeeding and sex. But music does it to the whole group at once.

And this is a Darwinian reason why music exists. There's another one, actually, and that is music as a nurturing tool because mothers have a sing-songy approach to their babies. They sing to each other, in fact. The reason why we need it as a survival tool is that we, singing that is, is that if you're an ape, your baby can cling to your hair. And so the mum can do whatever she wants to do while the baby

clings on and everything's fine. But humans don't have that sort of body hair. So the babies can't cling to their mums. And human babies are not very good at modulating their emotions. They get very worried and frightened and scream a lot if they're put down, if they're not sure what's going on. So the mother can't do anything. The mother can't make the meal. So we need a non-contact method of calming babies. And singing is a superb one.

And so that's why you find lots of mums singing to the babies. It reassures the baby that the mother's nearby, and also the tone of voice in the singing reassures the baby that the mother's not in danger. So there you have two genuine Darwinian reasons to do with survival while we have music. We're talking about music, and my guest is John Powell. He's the author of two books, How Music Works and Why You Love Music. Metrolinks and Crosslinks are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress. Please be alert as trains can pass at any time on the Bumbel knows it's hard to start conversations.

Hey. No, too basic. Hi there. Still no. What about hello, handsome? Who knew you could give yourself the ick? That's why Bumble is changing how you start conversations. You can now make the first move or not. With opening moves, you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches.

Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. So John, ever since music became available digitally on CDs and MP3s that you download and all, there's been this debate about whether or not it sounds better or worse, that vinyl is better or that digital is better or that somehow digitizing music sucks the soul out of it or that the warmth of the vinyl is what makes it sound so good. Frankly, I've always thought that digital sounds better because it doesn't click and pop and skip and all that. But what do you say?

Yes, this is an old one. This is basically technology nostalgia. In the 1930s, they made vinyl records. Well, they weren't vinyl then, but they made, you know, discs discs much higher quality all of a sudden by the technology they used. And people used to complain, they used to write letters to the newspapers saying they didn't like the new discs because at the orchestral climaxes there wasn't so much distortion. And they wanted the distortion because it's exciting. So people are always in love with old technology. Basically, what's called the sampling rate nowadays is so high that a human being can't tell. And they've had quite a few blind tastings, if you like,

of vinyl and CDs. The earliest CDs weren't very good, just as the earliest digital photographs weren't very good. You know, they were quite blocky. But once you've got the dots in your digital photograph so close together that you can't tell whether it's analog or digital, then they are equivalent. And with music systems now,

there's absolutely no way a human being can distinguish the distance between the dots, if you like, on the photograph. Digital is now more accurate. When you look at all you've looked at, at music and all, what are the things that are either the most interesting, that people find surprising, or like this one thing about, you know, why do 10 violins only sound twice as loud as one? That kind of thing. And why do 10 violins only sound twice as loud as one? That kind of thing. And why do ten violins only sound twice as loud as one? Well, there's two reasons. One's in the physics of how waves travel across the room to your ear. And the other is how your senses work. Let's look at senses first. Your senses are

there to keep you alive. That's their basic reason they exist. And they're very sensitive, very low levels of stimulus. So that if you're sitting in the dark in a cave and someone lights a candle, it's made a huge difference to your world. If you light a second candle, it makes less difference, but it's still quite a lot. And so on. And by the time you light the 35th candle, it doesn't make any difference at all. It's still a candle, and it's still being lit. But because your senses are tuned to deal with very small stimuli, then adding more and more doesn't add, you know,

10 plus 10 doesn't equal 20 as far as your senses are concerned. The same is true of sound. We are designed to hear very quiet sounds, like a snake coming to the grass at you. And so we're very sensitive to low levels of sound. But you wouldn't hear the difference between 20 snakes and 21 snakes, even though there's been extra snake throwing involved, because it's not useful.

So basically, that's one reason why ten violins only sound twice as loud as one. But in fact, if we just went for that, the ten violins would probably sound about as loud as five violins. But there's something else going on as well. The one violin is basically vibrating and sending ripples through the air of pressure to send your eardrum in and out. The next violin next to him starts up, and his ripples won't be in step with the first ripples.

Some of his ripples will be pushing, but the other guy's ripples are pulling. And so the waves don't add together. One plus one does not equal two in this case. Everybody has their favorite music. Everybody likes some kind of music. But it also seems that people dislike some kinds of music. And in fact, you talk about Council had a bit of a problem. It had become fashionable for teenagers to hang around

the shopping malls. And the teenagers weren't doing anything wrong. They weren't doing anything illegal. They were just hanging around and it was putting people off the shopping. And so Sydney wanted

to get rid of them. So they tried getting the police involved. And the police, the teenagers weren't bothered. They weren't doing anything wrong. So that caused a bit of a problem. They tried high-pitched noises, but the teenagers ignored them.

And then somebody had the brilliant idea of playing Barry Manilow music into the shopping malls. And Barry Manilow is considered to be so fashionable amongst teenagers in 2006 that they all left immediately. It had an instant effect. And teenagers then didn't go to the shopping malls because Barry Manolo was playing there. And amongst music psychologists, it's called the Manolo effect. But at a Barry Manolo concert, everybody doesn't leave.

Absolutely, absolutely. But they're not teenagers. No. They're usually, you know, middle-aged folk. Is there any real evidence that, you know, playing certain kinds of music to children or to unborn babies or any of that, that it has anything to do with your ability to think or be smart or anything? This question comes up a lot.

This is the Mozart effect. A particular researcher linked a, quite rightly linked an IQ test that she was doing with people listening to Mozart beforehand. There were three groups of people. One sat in silence, one listened to some Mozart, and another one, yes, they had some relaxation instructions for about 10 minutes before they did this little IQ test. Then they all did the test, and the people that listened to Mozart had an IQ improvement of 8 or 9 points, which is considerable.

And so this got into the papers, and suddenly there was music being played in nurseries, and classical music, there was Beethoven being played in prisons and so on as well. And lots of psychologists got on the bandwagon to find out what was going on. And they did the test again, and they found, yes, it was true, the Mozart did work. And then they found that Schubert worked and Beethoven worked.

So they've got classical music working. Then they tried pop music. And with young people, pop music worked. And they even tried Stephen King stories. And that worked too. And they even tried Stephen King stories, and that worked too. And what they eventually worked out was, if just before an IQ test, you give somebody something which they enjoy, and which is slightly stimulating, not exciting, but slightly stimulating, as long as it's both those things, their brain will be woken up and in a good mood. And if

you're fully awake and in a good mood, you'll do better in an IQ test. So all that Mozart music was doing, it was nothing to do with music, actually, nothing to do with Mozart, certainly. It was just that Mozart piano music is slightly stimulating and enjoyable. Well, thanks, John. It's a really interesting topic

that I think everyone can relate to who doesn't like music. John Powell has been my guest. He's a scientist, a musician, and the author of a couple of books on music. One is called How Music Works, and the other is Why You Love Music. And there's a link to his books in the show notes. Thanks, John. No problem. See you again. Bye-bye. This is an ad for better help. Welcome to the world. Please read your personal owner's manual

thoroughly. In it, you'll find simple instructions for how to interact with your fellow human beings and how to find happiness and peace of mind. Thank you, and have a nice life. Unfortunately, life doesn't come with an owner's manual. That's why there's BetterHelp Online Therapy. Connect with a credentialed therapist by phone, video, or online chat. Visit BetterHelp.com to learn more. That's BetterHelp.com. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives,

and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Thank you. CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson, discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. We're all very connected today through the internet. We're all part of this huge community,

and this connectivity has allowed the creation of smaller communities and businesses. For example, Airbnb and Uber. Airbnb is a business that allows you to book a place to stay, but Airbnb doesn't own those places. They've just connected the community that allows people to rent places from each other. Uber doesn't own a fleet of cars. Instead, they've connected people who do have cars with people who need a ride. This ability to connect people creates power for those who do it well. It has been called new power, and it's something we can all understand and benefit from.

Henry Timms has studied this carefully, and he's the author of a new book called New Power, How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World and How to Make it Work for You. Hey, Henry, thanks for coming on. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And we're obviously thrilled to be part of this podcast. You guys are amazing. So explain what you mean in more detail than I just did. Explain what you mean by new power.

The argument we've made is that there is this new skill that everybody needs to learn. And that is the skill of kind of harnessing the energy of the connected crowd. And so you look across our world, look at the unexpected victories of a Trump or an Obama, look at the amazing power of the platforms like a Facebook or Uber, look at the social movements like Me Too or Never Again. What they all have in common is they've worked out this critical skill, which is building the power of the crowd. And that's what we call new power. Now, we don't think old power is on the way out. So old power, if you think about old power, it's a set of skills that we all learn, anyone who's been successful over the last decades,

learn how to be a good manager and learn how to influence internally and learn how to think about kind of raising money and command the attention, writing the right press releases. But that set of skills now needs to go alongside this set of new power skills. And those people who can master old power and new power are the people who are winning right now. So this ability to harness this interconnected world, I would imagine that people would hear examples like Uber and Airbnb and other people that you and your co-author mentioned

and think, well, but I'm not them. Well, how does this apply to me? Yeah, that's right. So I think, well, let's take a smaller example. There was a group of Girl Scouts in Washington, and they were offered $100,000 by a donor. The donor said, here's $100,000, just one thing. None of the money can go to support transgender girls. And so what they did was they launched a campaign. It was called Hashtag for Every Girl. And it celebrated how inclusive that branch of the Girl Scouts were. And not only did it make a broad statement to the wider community about what they stood for,

but they ended up raising over $300,000 from a connected crowd. And that's one of many examples of the kinds of way that everyday people are grabbing the same skills that Facebook or Uber use so well and bringing them into their everyday lives. And what's the secret sauce for doing that?

Why is it that some GoFundMe pages raise millions and others raise 10 cents? Well, there's no question there's a bit of luck in this sometimes. But I think there's also something else going on, which is how you really think about community dynamics. One of the dangers, I think, with new power is lots of organizations will try something once in a while. So once a year, they'll have a sweepstake to invite their community to, you know, send in their ideas for a new product. Or once a year, the CEO will roll out and do a kind of ask me anything on YouTube. And then the rest of the year, they'll go back to business as usual. But the people who do new power well, are those people who do it all of the time, day after day after day, they're thinking about building these muscles around how you connect with the crowd. But isn't the essence of power is that you have something other people don't, that you have power

over them to some extent, that if everybody is powerful, then nobody is powerful because then we're all the same. Well, think about something like the Me Too movement. Now, that began with Tarana Burke, the activist, but has spread now to make many women around the world more powerful. It hasn't ended up with one person becoming super famous and taking up all one individual. That's how the old power world worked. And there were some real dangers to that. Obviously, it was an effective strategy. But lots of times we saw these movements rise up, all these organizations rise up, where they got built around the figure of one very powerful, charismatic individual. And when that powerful, charismatic individual stepped aside or fell out of favor, the movement they led fell over with

them. But if more and more people are exerting this new power, the only way you can exert new power over a community is to get their attention, to get their time, to get their involvement. Well, I only have so many hours in a day to give to all these people with their new power so the more of them who asked me the fewer of them will get the less powerful they become as more people exert their new power I think that's a very good insight and I think that outlines actually the the great challenge of our time so if you think about people are spending what almost an hour a day now on Facebook why why are they doing that? It's because Facebook's offering them this very meaningful, this very rewarding route to participation. They're feeling invested, they're feeling agency, they're feeling belonging. And that's drawing them away from a lot of the traditional sources of power, a lot of the advertisers, a lot of the things that had our attention before have lost our attention because something like Facebook has come along. So the future, and I think you're right to point this out, is going to be this battle for mobilization. Whoever actually manages to mobilize the crowd best is going to win.

And so what are the skills we need to learn to win that battle? How do we end up making sure that we can get this set of new power skills, which blended with our old power skills, can move the needle? So what are some of those new power skills? So in a new power world there's this interesting equation emerging about how you think about products and it has three key characteristics. The first bit of the participation premium is an economic exchange right if you sell a fridge you expect to get a fridge. The second part of this premium is a sense of higher purpose right you're seeing time and again now think about any campaign that is kind of coming

out on top you're blending together both an economic exchange and a more sense of kind of philanthropic engagement people want to feel like they're a part of something so you know ben and jerry's have done this well for a long time. But the third bit of this equation is where it really gets more interesting, which is how you then create space for participation. So it's economic value plus an opportunity to feel higher purpose, supercharged by offering people the chance to add their own frame and add their own flavor. So I'll give you an example from China. There's a company called Xiaomi, which is a phone company, and they're about to do an IPO which will be in the billions of dollars.

A hugely successful startup. And what's interesting about the phone company is they have a good product. So they have these cheap phones, which work really well. So that's the product piece. They have this sense of higher purpose that they've created this kind of fan culture around their Mi fans. And these me fans now self organise their own events all over the country around the products of the company, because they feel so invested in the purpose and culture. Imagine your phone company in the US,

are they able to organise events of their fans? Would their fans show up with their fans organised for them? I think that the answer is probably no. But what they tie to a good product and this sense of kind of higher purpose is their whole organization is dedicated to increasing routes to participation. So every Friday, they actually open up their user interface so their fans can help improve their product. When I think of a company that uses new power, as you describe it, who connects with a community i think of uber and yet uber's had a lot of problems i mean there was the whole delete uber movement uh last year i think it was where people were upset with them and lots of people canceled their accounts so so new power hasn't worked all that well for them. Yeah, I think that's right.

And I think the delete Uber moment is a good example of why organizations who build their new power need to keep faithful to it. Because what happened with Uber was in the end, they had this amazing new power model, right? Their ability to harness the energies of the crowd was incredible. But their values were actually very old power values. They were very competitive with everybody. They didn't build strong alliances with people. It was kind of very top down. And in the end, that cost their CEO his job when the pressures came that the crowd wasn't there to support Uber. So the interesting parallel is actually Lyft, if you think about their competitor. Now now what lyft is trying to do is they're trying to say look we've got this amazing new power model but we've also got values that honor and respect our crowd so lyft is trying to carve out a space

which is actually much mount much more around a kind of community proposition than uber has and you can certainly imagine a world and we we did some research on this with some of the people in there, is that drivers actually enjoy driving for Lyft a great deal more. In some ways, listening to you talk about this, it all sounds so, you know, just do what you want and connect with others and be powerful. And it's all very loosey-goosey. But if you're a business, at the end of the day you know you're a business we're here to make money we have to make decisions somebody has to be the boss there has to be some structure it can't just all be this sideways everybody's equal

loosey-goosey kind of thing i think one of the challenges with this work is that people assume there's this binary. You can either have complete control or there's complete chaos. And that isn't actually what's going on. What's going on is the organizations who are working this stuff out are creating really smart ways of structuring for participation. They're working out structures which actually allow order and they allow businesses to run. But they can do that which involves people at a scale and connects people at a scale that their predecessors never could. So let's take Airbnb.

Airbnb is a new power model through and through. And there's no analysis of Airbnb, I think, that doesn't say that they've worked out how to put together an interesting model in terms of what they do. But it's not anarchy. It's very thoughtful. They think a lot about how they structure for trust. They think a lot about how they unite all of their hosts in different areas around the world. They think a lot about what statement it makes for you about being a part of the Airbnb community and what that means. They've done all of this thinking essentially around how they can manage this huge distributive group of people off their payroll, but as a part of their community, and get them moving in the right direction. And so if you want to hint as to kind of how these

businesses look, that's the kind of structural form that I think we're looking to encourage people to start thinking about. So it's not just, you know, throw everything out, open everything up and see what happens. It's actually thinking very carefully about how you build the participation. So I think you've explained pretty well what it is, what the new power is, and given some excellent examples of who does it well and maybe who doesn't do it well. But how do I do it? How do I, on a very practical one, two, three, step by step, how do I exert my new power? There are three things, three kind of characteristics your idea is going to need. And let's take an example everybody knows well, the ice bucket challenge, right? Hugely successful around the world. So why did the ice bucket challenge

catch on, right? It was something very different than the kind of the old telethon model that it replaced. It caught on for three reasons. Number one, it was actionable. In this age of participation, it asked people to do something, which was tip water over your head or find someone to tip. It was connected, number two. It connected people to your peers.

We all nominated each other, but it also connected us to this higher purpose of the ALS. And number three, it was extensible. It was an idea that wasn't like a franchise. It didn't have to be the same every single time. In fact, it was strong because it was different every single time. So some people tipped ice over their heads. But the the actor, the Shakespearean actor in the UK, Ian McKellen, did this amazing thing where he, sorry, Patrick Stewart, I think about it. Patrick Stewart, he didn't pour ice over his head. He dropped some ice into a glass and poured some whiskey on top and said cheers to the camera and then wrote a check. Now, that raised hundreds of millions of dollars because it was actionable, it was connected, and it was extensible. So we call that an ace idea. So if you're looking to spread your ideas in the world, those are three characteristics that you can build into the idea.

So other people can take your idea and take it somewhere else. But don't you think, because we really haven't talked about this, that a lot of this is about how to create power with your idea. But it still has to be a good idea. 100%. power with your idea but it still has to be a good idea a hundred percent there are lots of lots of bad ideas in the old power world and there are lots of bad ideas in the new power world that hasn't changed the question is who is capable of the good ideas and that's what has changed I mean that's why you're seeing some of these kids on YouTube having audiences much much bigger than some of the traditional media because they've worked out

this new set of skills around building a community or engaging with the crowd, which is something which is very different than the playbook of the people they're replacing. Yeah, well, I mean, that's the perfect example of these guys on YouTube with millions and millions of viewers. And when you watch some of them, you think, what? What is it that PewDiePie and these other guys do that, you know, the guy with the six cat videos that nobody watches but his mother, what did he do different? These YouTube stars are offering agency and they're offering belonging. Now, that's motivated human behavior forever. There's a sociologist called Marilyn Brewer, and she has this idea of optimal

distinctiveness. And that's the idea of how do people function best. And she thinks people function best if they feel just the right amount of the same and just the right amount of different. And so what these YouTube stars will often do, although not always, is they'll build a very strong kind of community around their brand, which is about kind of engaging with their community and making them feel connected. But they'll also make sure that there are lots of routes for people to participate and add their view and engage. So the fan forums, the comment walls, all of these routes to participation are very much part of the content itself. It's less like the download TV model where we would all just sit there and ingest the content. And it's more like a world where they're trying to

create a world of participation around their brand. And if you want a really good example of that, look at someone like Lady Gaga. So Lady Gaga has obviously been hugely successful. Think about how careful she is, not about making sure she's the superstar, but making sure her community is the superstars. And everything from the social network she created from her fans to the iconography of her work to her songs themselves are about reversing the power dynamic and making it about making her fans feel more agency and belonging. And that's very different than how people would react with their fans back in the day. Well, it's a very different way of looking at power and creating community and clearly has the potential, if you do it right, to make money and to make someone very, very powerful.

Henry Timms has been my guest. His book is New Power, How Power Works in Our Hyper-Connected World and How to Make It Work for You. There's a link to his book in the show notes. Thanks, Henry. Thanks so much, Mike. I really enjoyed it and take care. Does it make you feel good when you buy products that are packaged in biodegradable packaging? Well, don't feel too good. Because while reusable and recyclable products are good, biodegradable doesn't really mean what you think it does. Why?

Well, for anything to biodegrade, it must be exposed to oxygen, light, and water. And there is very little of that in a landfill. In fact, landfills are tightly packed to prevent those things. That's why when products and packaging and food are dug up in landfills 50 years later, they look fine. They didn't biodegrade at all. A banana peel will biodegrade in a home composting pile in a few weeks. In a landfill, a banana peel may never biodegrade. To help the environment, stick to products that can be reused or recycled. But don't put too much stock in biodegradable.

And that is something you should know. If you like this program, I invite you to share it with someone you know. It will help us grow our audience, and it will also impress your friends with how smart you are. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Hey, hey, are you ready for some real talk and some fantastic laughs? Join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa D. Mons, for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? We're serving up four hilarious shows every week designed to entertain and engage

and, you know, possibly enrage you. In Don't Blame Me, we dive deep into listeners' questions, offering advice that's funny, relatable, and real. Whether you're dealing with relationship drama or you just need a friend's perspective, we've got you. Then switch gears with But Am I Wrong, which is for listeners who didn't take our advice and want to know if they are the villains in the situation. Plus, we share our hot takes on current events and present situations that we might even be wrong in our lives. Spoiler alert, we are actually quite literally never wrong. But wait, there's more. Check out See You Next Tuesday, where we reveal the juicy results from our listener polls from But Am I Wrong? And don't miss Fisting Friday, where we catch up, chat about pop culture, TV and movies. It's the perfect way to kick off your weekend.

So if you're looking for a podcast that feels like a chat with your besties, listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lining, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot.

Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.