The Mesh - Lisa Gansky [18]
The same study reported that word of mouth is the “primary factor” behind between 20 and 50 percent of purchases, and emphasized the expanded role of information networks in driving this development. Further, marketing campaigns based on “considerable” word of mouth turn out to be more effective than traditional advertising.
We’re in the midst of a social phenomenon at takeoff. When someone shares his experience of using RedesignMe, UpMyStreet, MOG, BigCarrot, or ParkingCarma on Facebook, Bebo, or Twitter, he educates the friends and colleagues who are following him. And they are far more likely to trust what he says over what the company says about itself. This is the “curator effect,” a term coined by marketing expert Steven Addis. The phenomenon represents an enormous change from the days when companies could carefully protect their brands, confident that people were getting their information from three TV networks. As Addis writes, “It’s not your consumer power that terrifies marketers. It’s your sway over millions of other consumers as a curator. A curator with unlimited resources to research products, review them for others, and expose the disingenuous. A curator with the ability to transmit on a mass scale. And a curator with credibility corporations have all but squandered.”
Kickstarter, a new platform for micro-funding new arts projects, is self-consciously taking advantage of social networks and the curator effect to expand its business. It has made an explicit effort to invite artists who are influential and have a following to participate on its site.
very meshy. very cool.
People who support new artists on Kickstarter or make wine with Crushpad feel that they are smarter and lighter, at the forefront of a new wave. They feel cool. That’s a big part of being Mesh happy. The Mesh businesses and a Mesh lifestyle are aspirational. People will feel drawn to the Mesh the same way they once felt compelled to buy an MP3 player, a mobile phone, or an SUV. They will Mesh their lives by simplifying them, reducing their stress. Using the Mesh will confer status. Meshy is going to be good.
Customers will like saving money and feeling richer, through reducing the costs associated with owning things. But the Mesh sharing experience can also make people feel wealthy in other ways. Throughout the world, there is a palpable hunger for a greater sense of community. I was fascinated by one project that an educational charity group called the Eden Project launched in July 2009 throughout the U.K. They called it “The Big Lunch.” Nearly a million people came out, put a table in front of their home, brought out some food, and had lunch with their neighbors on the streets. I saw it in stories, photos, and videos of the event that were uploaded on Flickr, YouTube, and other sites. It was wonderful to witness. I was struck that the British, who are not known to be the most outwardly effusive group on the planet, felt that they wanted to reinspire community in this wide-reaching way.
Mesh businesses, because they generate more information and contact with communities, can help provide these rich social experiences. In the Mesh, opportunities abound to rub up against an eye-opening idea that inspires new thinking about the quality of life or work. For Mesh businesses, it is an ongoing imperative to understand the community, what its members consider valuable, and how to deliver