Self-Development Feature: New Power

Why do some leap ahead while others fall behind in today’s chaotic, connected age?  In New Power, Australian Jeremy Heimans and Brit Henry Timms confront the biggest stories of our time – the rise of mega-platforms like Facebook and Uber; the out-of-nowhere victories of President Barack Obama and Donald Trump; the unexpected emergence of movements like #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo.

For most of human history, the rules of power were clear: power was something to be seized and then jealously guarded.  This ‘old’ power was inaccessible to the vast majority of people.  But ubiquitous connectivity has made possible a different kind of power. ‘New power’ is made by the many rather than the few.  It is open, participatory, and peer-driven.  It is BuzzFeed compared to the Murdoch media’ YouTube compared to network television.  It works like a current, not a currency – and like water or electricity, it is most forceful when it surges.

In New Power, Heimans and Timms look to the cultural phenomena of our day, from GetUp to the Ice Bucket Challenge to Airbnb, uncovering the new power forces that made them huge.  Drawing on examples from politics and social justice, as well as the study of organisations like LEGO, NASA, Reddit and TED, they explain how to generate 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’.

In a world increasingly shaped by new power, this revelatory book gives us the narrative we need to make sense of this age of tumult, and tools to master the future.

Content supplied by Pan MacMillan