Revealing More About New Power

I am still reading my New Power book and am continuing to find it very engaging. The chapter 'Thinking Old Power, Thinking New Power' gives more in-depth background, exploring how it works and distinguishing New Power models and New Power values. It cites examples of NASA's use of New Power to solve problems and a church based on New Power.

Some key attributes of New Power are:

• Participation as opposed to simple consumerism

• Informal contribution as opposed to formal structures of contribution

• Collaboration as opposed to competition

• Radical transparency as opposed to confidentiality

• Makers as opposed to experts

• Transient affiliation as opposed to long-term affiliation

New Power is largely about ad-hoc collaboration

The book distinguishes between use of New Power purely as a means to an end and adoption of New Power values as outlined above. In particular, it cites the Black Lives Matter and Occupy movements as having both, however Facebook, Uber and ISIS use the New Power model but with a centralised or Old Power agenda. I can think of another example - Russian hacking organisations backed/directed by the Russian government (Four Corners).

Be wary of use of New Power methods as a means of achieving Old Power ends

NASA traditionally relied on in-house expertise to solve problems until it decided to make use of an open innovation program. One such problem it wanted to solve was prediction of solar flares, which was highly successful under the program and gave better outcomes than could be achieved in-house.

NASA Open Innovation

Another example of the adoption of New Power was with the House of All Sinners and Saints. This church uses a collaborative model to organise events and even with the presentation of services. Based in the United States, it is appealing to millennials. I like this example as there are some parallels with the meditation I do. After just six months of joining there were opportunities to guide the meditation, help with promoting and even get involved in decision making. It has no rigid structure, there are virtually no qualifications and suggestions from 'less experienced' members frequently adopted.

The collaborative nature of New Power can work well with spiritual practices

I will read on to see how I can make use of New Power! 😁