[photo credit: JLMaral on Flickr]
I love disruption, especially when one is disrupting towards a positive end. When there is the ability to disrupt a dominant system that discriminates against people or favors those already in power – such as well, North America – I love it even more. So firstly, to outline what I propose to disrupt:
- Stereotyping – somehow, even though we examined stereotypes eons ago, the attitudes seem to persist. The problem is that now they persist in more subtle ways. Not so easy to put our finger on it and call it out, which is an issue.
- Individuality over community – this one is easy to spot and many will tell me it’s a good thing. I don’t think it is. There should be a balance, but if anything, I believe the balance should tip in the favour of community. Many studies have shown that putting community interests first actually benefits the individual more in the long-run. See: Non-Zero and The Origins of Virtue.
- No-Choice Consumerism – I’m not referring to monopolies as much as I am referring to the lack of choice we actually have in choosing to opt-in or opt-out. I love to shop. Anyone who knows me knows I have a bit of a passion for it. But when I do, I struggle to keep in charge of my own experience and outcome. There are too many situations where pressure, scare tactics, smoke and mirrors and general exploitation come into play while I’m trying to make a decision.
- Life Inc. – Also the name of an awesome book by Douglas Rushkoff, it’s also the reality of a world of people emulating corporations. I see this all of the time: people concerned about their personal brand, creating an elevator pitch for their lives, choosing friends based on ability to connect to powerful people, creating an image they can never live up to and when it falls apart, they try to sweep under the carpet. It’s emotionless, inauthentic and getting really boring if you ask me. I wrote about it a little here.
There are a few other themes, but I want to move along to the disruptions. Disruptions are unlike movements or protests or even flashmobs. They don’t require a great deal of organizing and you can’t really plan when you are going to perform them. The one thing they DO require is courage because they are about being hyper aware of the moment in which you see one of the above themes playing out and then questioning the theme openly – at the expense of being called a party pooper. But the awesome part of disruptions is that they are extremely powerful. When someone tells a racist joke and, instead of laughing, you say, “That’s not funny,” they will think twice about telling that joke again. So…here are 15 easy everyday ways to disrupt a system:
- Flip around your pronouns when storytelling, especially where they have been heavily gendered. Refer to a man caring for the kids/doing housework, refer to a woman as the CEO, etc. Not only are you breaking the cycle of bias in the brains of your listeners, you will get their attention. Like Chip and Dan Heath say in Made to Stick, the #2 way to make your idea stick is through unexpectedness.
- When talking to someone who uses gendered pronouns (or having someone tweet or blog gendered pronouns), gently suggest they read the previous suggestion. OR you can answer back flipping the pronoun if you want to be more subtle. It will make them think about it from that point forward.
- Look people in the eye and smile at them as you walk by them. Add a nod or ‘good day’ once you get the hang of it. This one is super simple and incredibly catchy. Research has shown that smiles spread.
- Diversify your examples. Find out what is happening beyond the whositwhatsits in your professional world and educate yourself on the people doing great work at the edges. In technology, it’s me looking at what’s happening in India, Europe, China, etc. as well as what’s happening in Silicon Valley. Bring up these examples in conversations that highlight the whositwhatsits over and over again until people spread it onwards.
- Call out sexist, racist, homophobic, xenophobic or any other ‘minority group as stereotype’ jokes, references, slurs or language. This sounds like a d’uh thing, but it’s really hard. Doing so makes you look like a party pooper. But really, the person making those comments should know that they look like an arse. You are doing everyone a favour.
- Don’t buy products from companies that offend you or treat you badly. Most of us do this already, but sometimes it’s really really convenient. Hell, I have a plan with AT&T. I need to not do that anymore. And I buy from American Apparel, even though their ads make me really angry. I need to stop that, too. It’s inconvenient, but important to send the message through not spending our money to support bad companies.
- Take the time to talk with people with vastly different opinions. This is really hard. I usually get about 5 minutes into these conversations and want to scream and run away, but persistence (and patience) pays off. The first step is to stop trying to get them to listen to you and listen to them. Find a point of connection. There is usually more than one of those. Hear them out. Understand where they come from. Believe it or not, we usually want the same things, we just disagree on how we get there. Once the defenses are down, you’ll find great solutions together and inform your own opinion.
- Take the time to get to know people with vastly different experiences of the world. This always blows my mind. I learn WAY more from having conversations with people who don’t fit the ‘mainstream’ experience of the world than I do from bestsellers.
- Start taking people to task who talk about new media marketing in the same way Mad Men used old media marketing. If I see another new media guru use Don Draper’s creative style as the ideal to uphold in marketing, I’ll scream. No, that ‘carousel’ episode is still the epitome of how things ‘were’ (creating some sort of illusion to sell a product) and does not represent really connecting to one’s customer. The real power in online communities comes from the ability to connect with new friends and old on a human level. Emotional. Real. It’s less about how a company can co-opt and exploit that and more about what companies can learn from this. (more about this at a later date)
- Admit to your mistakes. Openly. Brutally honestly. And take responsibility for them. Then learn from them.
- Get to know your neighbours. Even the crab apples upstairs who tell you to turn down your bass. Spend time getting involved with your neighbourhood associations, events, etc. Reach out and create a supportive community. This is something else I need to do. I find this really scary. I don’t know why. The benefits outweigh the potential rejection.
- Don’t take bribes. What I mean by this is don’t take a free voucher or delivery or whatever a company offers to you alleviate the pain they caused you with your transaction with them. Instead, ask for them to fix the problem. Take them to task and offer to give suggestions that may help them improve their service. For instance, I ordered a microwave from Future Shop and then got totally dicked around by their awful call in center. When they figured out I had >25,000 twitter followers, they contacted me offering all sorts of things, but I refused. I said, “I don’t want you to fix this issue for me, I want you to fix this issue for everyone.” Who knows if it’ll be effective. I haven’t shopped there since. I told them to call me when the call center is fixed and I’ll try them again.
- Leave product reviews. There is a reason why sites like Yelp, Chowhound and Amazon are so popular. It’s because of people like you and I leaving product reviews. I rarely buy anything – even offline – without checking the Amazon reviews. Yelp and Chowhounds are my personal foodie guides wherever I go. And in Montreal, I found this amazing list of restaurant reviews. Generous people sharing their knowledge everyday makes the world an easier place to navigate.
- Demand your data. Why? Because if this awesome group has their way, the future will be driven by the customer and then you’ll want all of the content and reputation and identity and history you’ve been depositing around the internet for years. It will be valuable for your experience and for YOU to leverage your own power. So, click on that little ‘suggestion’ tab or ‘feedback’ button and say to the networks you are making more interesting with your contributions: “Hey, have you thought about giving me the opportunity to export my reviews/tweets/photos/connections/shopping history/preferences/etc to use elsewhere?” The more requests they get, the more they’ll be pressured to do this.
- Use all the tools available to you to call out injustices and bad experiences. The beauty of the web is that there are literally hundreds and even thousands of others who have experienced similar situations. If you get pissed enough and have enough momentum, you can even start to do something about it. The United Breaks Guitars videos did an amazing job of getting dozens of people to share their experiences (and also refused to take a bribe by asking United to make a donation). And as I wrote here, even spreading the word through blogs and tweets makes a difference.
Of course, these small steps are only icebreakers to apathy, but we all get so busy that starting somewhere that fits in our schedules yet is bigger than a tweet is a good start. And each of these small disruptions packs a big punch. Good disrupting!
January 1st, 2010 at 11:42 pm
Tara, great post as usual.
It took me a while to understand the explanation of disruption method #1, “flip around your pronouns”, and even now I’m not absolutely sure that I understood correctly. I think you mean, to use the CEO example, that we can say things like “if a CEO wants to accomplish such-and-such, she can…”. I’d appreciate clarification. Thanks.
In “don’t take bribes”, would you really advise rejecting an offer of free something even when it’s just to make amends? Most of us aren’t particularly influential (no large number of followers, and no viral video), and an offer of free something can just be a way of the company’s making amends for a problem they admit was their fault. If Future Shop had offered you something modest *before* realizing who you were, would you still have turned that down? I agree that demanding a correction to the problem is important, but I doubt that refusing the free something will make corrective action happen any faster.
January 2nd, 2010 at 1:45 am
Distrupting the system = change.
Change brings fear.
Fear is the opposite of change.
So I like your tips are a slow and gradual training to evolve, to leave fear of change behind. Nice you’re posting this on Jan 01. I know it’s just a symbolic date, but with “the tips” you (we all) can concentrate on a new year of (minor and) major changes.
January 2nd, 2010 at 1:58 am
Excellent article Robb. I clicked over to read your post on personal branding as well. Being an OGOT (Old Guy On Twitter)I have seen generational iterations of branding. In the past, when there was loyalty between a company and it’s employees, there was a context for the notion of a brand. There were established social roles in lieu of a personal brand.
I’m thinking back to the mid 60s. The cultural dislocations that occurred in the late 60s and throughout the 70s are very well described in Robt. Reich’s book Supercapitalism.
As the social and moral grounding of institutions slipped away and was finally only a memory, the Tom Petersonarian view of the disenfranchised human being needing the protection of a personal brand came to the fore. Drifting, unconnected, the aught version of flower children assuming that technology and the busy emptiness of consumption will address the existential questions with which we all must come to terms became the unspoken dilemma.
I watch and I listen and I remain an optimist with regard to our young people. We each have our journeys, each generation, each person. My intuition is that our young are finding their way to something greater than themselves through their own experience of loneliness in the crowd.
I wish them God’s speed.
January 2nd, 2010 at 8:11 am
Although I do like the suggestions in the rest of your article it is slightly bothersome that the first two points, although the essentially the same, display a deep lack of understanding of the English language. I find that those who are most bothered by so-called “gendered” pronouns are people who generally have not spoken any other language but English and don’t understand that using ‘his’ as in ‘everyone should have his own shoes’ has nothing at all to do with gender. This is proper usage of a possessive pronoun in the English language. In point of fact, in any case where the addressing of a group of mixed gender is assumed, or unknown, it is correct to use the masculine form of the pronoun.
It’s always amusing when people think that somehow they’re fighting for gender equality with a construct that where no inequality exists in the first place.
January 2nd, 2010 at 9:01 am
@Ian Actually, you are pretty much wrong. Although the plural pronoun for a mixed group, say in French and Italian, defaults to the male pronoun and there are many gendered nouns (le docteur), pronouns themselves are interchangeable when we are talking generally about an example.
For instance, when listening to a VC at Le Web talk about startup entrepreneurs, he continuously said ‘he’ when referring to what a startup entrepreneur should do. Such as, “when I consult a startup founder, I tell him to get as much money as he can in the first round.” This can be translated into French. L’entrepreneur is masculine, but the VC can say Elle in reference to the entrepreneur just as a female doctor is le docteur but is still Elle when referred to. I know this because a French translation is in progress for my book and they told me, though it’s not frequently done, they will stay true to my gender switching.
To add to this, it is very impactful and powerful to do this. #1, it helps ppl imagine that both men and women are entrepreneurs and shakes up the stereotype (which is the point of disruption). #2, this serves to encourage young women, who lack the representation (I get mesages from several per week thanking me just for existing as they didn’t realize it was an option in a male heavy field). If you don’t think these are disruptive actions, you need to look closer and, perhaps try more of #8.
January 2nd, 2010 at 9:18 am
This is a thoughtful and useful list. Some elements might be further summarized by the dictum, “Seek opportunities for thoughtful rejection.” I think people fear rejection because of thoughtless groupthink — a social group which witnesses a valued member rejecting a person, an idea, or whatever, will mindlessly mimic that rejection. Fearing this, when the rejection is ignorant or ill-informed, is a reasonable reaction. We each depend on shared assumptions within our social groups, and being singled out as holding different assumptions threatens position within that social group.
But thoughtful rejection — from a bass-hating neighbor, from those who call attention to your mistakes, from those who hold wildly different opinions — is instructive, and always betters you. Those whose goal it is to correct the wrong, and not simply enhance their social status by loudly embarrassing someone else, must be sought out, groomed, cultivated and treasured.
The other side of this coin: “Provide only thoughtful rejection.” If you cannot be thoughtful about it, don’t do it. This is hard, because thoughtless rejection is so much wittier.
On another topic: Ian, you should check out what the concept of “normative” and linguistic prescription plays within inequality. Pay attention not just to the form of language, but the assumptions encoded by it.
January 2nd, 2010 at 9:59 am
@Ian I just read over my comment and realized I was being curt…which had much to do with sitting at the airport and typing it on my iPhone (so I was trying to get it done quickly). Sorry for coming off snarky. I think Bob put it better.
January 2nd, 2010 at 10:04 am
Great Point Tara. I’m going to copy them into a paper and paste them in front of my workstation so I can remember them everyday. The first two points are a great thing to do. Even if the proper form of language is to use the masculine why not change that, in fact that’s exactly what we’re supposed to be doing being disruptive.
I truly think we need to get our data not just from online stores but from those loyalty cards (hey I can learn a lot of how I shop and see if I’m doing it efficiently or whatever). I think that users controlling their own data will in fact also benefit companies as they can get user made data that will end up in more accurate offers and less cost in guessing (as Doc says).
January 2nd, 2010 at 1:41 pm
I think alot of these suggestions have merit. I personally called out a former “friend” this weekend on his blatent racism. Recently, the subject of bribes came up and I”ve had to deal with that (I think I did so successfully).
I would like to comment on two things. As far as being “brutally honest” with your mistakes, I think replacing the word “brutal” with “rigorous” is a better way to think of it. Brutal honesty with yourself or others can be hurtful. Brutal honesty can be a form of emotional bullying leading to beating oneself or others up. We’re all human and make mistakes. Beating oneself up over it isn’t the healthiest way.
And, as far as reversing pronouns in order to shake things up is concerned – I find people who do that struggle with a fear of being percieved as insensitive, sexist, or unenlightened. Additionally, it seems to me that people who do that are on some “mission” to equalize things and come across as arrogant.
I think it’s better that people use whatever pronouns are most comfortable to them given their individual experiences. I think it’s self-serving to try and take responsibility for what others may feel. Let your audience worry about translating the meaning of words and making them their own. Any enlightened, intelligent, and self-respecting group of people is going to understand.
David Kaplan
January 4th, 2010 at 9:58 am
Stereotyping is good… when you do it to yourself, and only yourself. I know my own tendencies, and stereotyping myself to the worst of them helps me to avoid them.
Good article Tara – it’s all about being balanced, thoughtful, deliberate and honest.
- Matt H
January 6th, 2010 at 9:37 am
This is such a bad ass, dead hone, makes me scream Hell Yeah type of post that I had to leave a comment.
Each thing on your list hit home with me and while I avoided doing any lists at the end of last year and the start of this year, this is the first one I’ve read that had a point, purpose and that I loved.
So glad our paths have crossed. SO very glad.
January 6th, 2010 at 9:50 am
Wow, Great post Tara. Somewhere between a rant, a motivational talk and a book of wisdom. Your points are great and I will bookmark and reread this many times. You truly align with my values here and I applaud you! Thank you for sharing this!
-Keith
January 6th, 2010 at 9:53 am
I love this list! I have to share it.
January 6th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
Actually, disruption is break something….what you have written (very well I might add) is a set of guidelines to thinking or speaking differently.
Not one of them is actually disruptive. But nice article nonetheless.
Without wanting to shamelessly self-promote, I have outlined an example of true disruption here: http://www.jonathanmacdonald.com/?p=4198