Capitolo 1
The Power Shift: How Digital Networks Are Transforming Our World
In an age where a hashtag can topple a Hollywood mogul and teenagers can mobilize millions for a cause, we're witnessing a fundamental transformation in how power operates. Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms have captured this seismic shift in their groundbreaking work that has become required reading for leaders across sectors. Championed by Richard Branson as "the book every entrepreneur should read" and praised by Jane Goodall as "a must-read for anyone who wants to understand how the world is changing," this exploration of power dynamics has influenced organizations from the National Health Service to LEGO. The book's insights have proven so prescient that political campaigns, social movements, and Fortune 500 companies have restructured their strategies based on its framework. At its core lies a compelling question: In a world where both ISIS recruiters and cancer patients are harnessing digital networks to reshape reality, how do we channel these new capabilities toward building a more equitable future?
Capitolo 2
Old Power vs. New Power: The Fundamental Shift
Power has traditionally functioned like currency-something to be hoarded, jealously guarded, and deployed from the top down. This "old power" model has dominated human societies for millennia, with leadership concentrated among elites who carefully control access and participation. But today, a new model is emerging that operates more like a current-made by many, open, participatory, and peer-driven.
The contrast between these models is vividly illustrated in the fall of Harvey Weinstein. For decades, Weinstein embodied old power, using his position to make or break careers while allegedly sexually harassing dozens of women. His influence allowed him to silence victims through lawyers, non-disclosure agreements, and threats. Yet his downfall came through new power in action-when actress Alyssa Milano shared the #MeToo hashtag, unleashing a current of shared experiences that quickly transcended borders and industries.
What made #MeToo so powerful was precisely what old power structures lack: it was ownerless, with no single leader directing the movement. Each individual story gained strength from the larger current, transforming isolated experiences into a collective force for change. The movement adapted across cultures (#BalanceTonPorc in France, #QuellaVoltaChe in Italy) and industries, demonstrating how new power operates through participation rather than permission.
This shift is reshaping every aspect of society. In healthcare, platforms like PatientsLikeMe enable people to share medical data across 2,700 conditions, challenging the traditional doctor-as-gatekeeper model. When Letitia Browne-James discovered through fellow patients that brain surgery could treat her epilepsy-something her neurologist never mentioned-she fired her doctor, got the surgery, and has been seizure-free for five years.
Even terrorist recruitment has been transformed by new power dynamics. When Scottish Muslim Aqsa Mahmood joined ISIS at 19, she became a devastatingly effective recruiter by building intimate girl-to-girl networks through social media. Her peer-driven approach, offering personal advice about everything from ideology to practical matters like bringing coconut oil to Syria, proved far more effective than the U.S. government's old power tactics of dropping cartoon leaflets from fighter jets.
What connects these diverse examples is how they channel people's increasing desire to participate. While humans have always organized collectively, today's hyperconnectedness enables unprecedented ways to come together with velocity and reach. New power is about having the means of participation literally in our hands, changing not just what we can do but how we expect to engage with the world around us.
Capitolo 3
The Clash of Values: Two Competing Worldviews
The conflict between old and new power extends beyond models of organization to fundamental values about how society should function. The 20th century was built around top-down systems with ordinary people playing standardized roles in a great machine. But the rise of new power is creating an expectation of participation, especially among those under thirty, who increasingly expect to be creators rather than consumers.
This values clash is visible across multiple dimensions. In governance, the new power mindset favors informal, networked, opt-in approaches over centralized bureaucracy. DonorsChoose exemplifies this tension-founder Charles Best champions teachers directly crowdfunding classroom needs ($400 million raised for 18 million students), while critics argue education funding should follow formal democratic processes through elected representatives.
The divide between competition and collaboration is equally stark. New power models reward cooperation and sharing, with platforms like Twitter measuring success by how effectively users promote others' ideas. Open-source engineers build on peers' work without immediate benefit, and even corporations like GE now emphasize collaboration. By contrast, old power values celebrate competition, viewing success as zero-sum with clear winners and losers-exemplified by Donald Trump and early Uber under Travis Kalanick, whose culture prized "fierceness" and "hustle."
Perhaps most dramatically, the clash manifests in attitudes toward information. Old power, exemplified by Hillary Clinton's leaked speech comments, believes in a separation between public and private positions, keeping the "sausage-making" of politics hidden. New power demands radical transparency, with younger generations sharing intimate details online and expecting the same openness from institutions.
This tension extends to expertise versus maker culture. New power celebrates a "do-it-ourselves" approach that values creation over consumption. From amateur pornography to 3D-printed medical devices, makers bypass traditional intermediaries. This shift coincides with declining trust in traditional expertise-we increasingly value peer opinions over professional critics, becoming "a little more Yelp and a little less Frommer's."
Even institutional affiliation has transformed. While Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone" lamented declining civic participation measured by traditional organizational membership, new power creates different forms of engagement. People today are less likely to maintain decades-long institutional relationships but more likely to float between groups, visibly affiliating with multiple causes through social media.
Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber's thriving Denver congregation embodies these new power values through its "anti-excellence, pro-participation" philosophy. First-time attendees might deliver liturgy, as the church immediately "trusts you with the holy things." Rather than forming formal committees with long-term commitments, they simply announce meeting times and let whoever shows up plan major services. By offering increased agency, flattened hierarchy, and diversity, they fill a gap for millennials who believe in God but reject traditional religious institutions.
Capitolo 4
From Sound Bites to Meme Drops: The New Rules of Spreading Ideas
The way ideas spread has fundamentally changed in the new power landscape. While old power relied on perfectly crafted slogans distributed through controlled media channels to mass audiences, today's "meme drops" are designed to spread sideways through peer communities.
The Ice Bucket Challenge exemplifies this transformation. What began as a British pub game called "Neck and Nominate" evolved through various iterations until Pete Frates, a Boston baseball player with ALS, catalyzed its global explosion. The campaign ultimately generated 17 million videos viewed 10 billion times, raising $115 million for the previously obscure ALS Association.
The Ice Bucket Challenge succeeded not as perfect content but as a compelling context for action that participants could customize and propagate. It embodied three essential principles for ideas designed to spread in a new power world: it was Actionable (designed to make you do something beyond consuming), Connected (promoting peer connections with like-minded communities), and Extensible (easily customizable and remixable).
BuzzFeed's meteoric rise stems from prioritizing sharing over mere consumption. Unlike traditional media like The Economist that aims to "create value in your head," BuzzFeed designs content specifically to be shared. Editor Ben Smith explains their high bar: "It's one thing to enjoy reading something, and quite another to make the active choice to share it with your friends."
The power of connection was demonstrated in Facebook's 2010 election experiment. When comparing three groups-those who received an informational voting message, those who saw friends who had voted, and a control group-researchers found striking results. The informational "billboard" group voted at the same rate as those who saw nothing, but the "social" group with friend images was 2% more likely to click "I voted" and generated an estimated 60,000 additional voters.
Extensibility-the quality that allows ideas to be adapted and personalized-is perhaps the most powerful principle. When Henry Timms launched #GivingTuesday as a counterpoint to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, he deliberately designed it to be adopted and adapted. The University of Michigan transformed it into #GivingBlueDay, raising millions for their institution. Other organizations followed: Dress for Success created #GivingShoesDay, Baltimore launched #BMoreGivesMore, and Brazil's Sorocaba developed "Doa Sorocaba" with their own twist. As the movement spread globally to nearly 100 countries, it continued evolving: South America has #UnDiaParaDar, Singapore created #GivingWeek, and Russia uses #.
For an ACE idea, going viral means allowing every carrier to add mutations that make it more contagious for their networks. As the authors note: "it's only really a movement if it moves without you."
Capitolo 5
Building Movements That Last: The Architecture of Participation
In a world where movements have become mainstream assets for brands, organizations, and even bedroom-based teen communities, understanding how to build sustainable crowds is essential. The authors draw from their own movement-building experiences, particularly GetUp, which has mobilized over a million members in Australia-more than all political parties combined.
Effective crowd-building begins with finding "connected connectors"-people who share both a worldview and social networks. GetUp focused on compassionate, fairness-oriented people with communal values, typically educated baby boomers, often female. They designed campaigns hitting this group's hot-button issues (public broadcasting, refugees, climate change) knowing these concerns overlapped. Similarly, Trump's 2016 campaign leveraged alt-right online activists and Tea Party members as connected connectors, while Etsy's early growth came from feminist crafters opposed to mass production who were already connected through blogs and flea markets.
New power brands must inspire participation rather than consumption or deference. GetUp's brand was designed with this in mind-from its action-oriented name with an exclamation mark to its bright orange color scheme. The language spoke in members' voices rather than as an organization addressing subjects. Similarly, Airbnb rebranded to create "a world where anyone can belong anywhere," with a malleable logo designed to be remixed by community members.
Successful movements dramatically lower barriers to participation. When Indian activist Anna Hazare shifted from SMS messages (which generated 80,000 responses) to "missed calls"-a free, culturally familiar action in India that required zero effort-the campaign produced 35 million missed calls, possibly the largest coordinated act of protest in human history.
But lowering barriers is just the beginning. The real power comes from moving people up the participation scale, which begins with old power behaviors (complying and consuming), then progresses through sharing, affiliating, funding, and producing, culminating in "shaping"-where participants influence the community's strategy and culture without formal authority. TED exemplifies this progression: viewers consume TED talks, share them, join the community as "TEDsters," translate content, fund conferences, produce their own TEDx events, and ultimately shape the movement as super-organizers.
Finally, successful movements capitalize on "storms"-galvanizing moments of drama and urgency. They do this through storm creating (like Meu Rio setting up a 24-hour livestream of a school marked for demolition), storm chasing (like Reddit welcoming fleeing Digg users when that platform alienated its community), and storm embracing (like the Girl Scouts of Western Washington returning a $100,000 donation that came with the stipulation it couldn't benefit transgender girls, then launching #forEVERYGirl, a crowdfunding campaign that raised $338,000).
Capitolo 6
The Triangle of Power: How Communities Function
New power communities operate through a triangle of three key actors, each with distinct roles and interests that must remain balanced to prevent crisis. The platform owner (like Reddit Inc.) sets the rules, owns the brand, and controls revenue. Super-participants drive the community's energy as its most active contributors-like Reddit's moderators who shape content and conversation, Airbnb's hosts, or Wikipedia's editors. Finally, participants form the majority of users who "take part" without producing assets or organizing.
The 2015 Reddit Revolt exemplified what happens when these relationships fall out of balance. After years of neglecting moderators' needs for basic tools, the company fired Victoria Taylor, who coordinated the popular "Ask Me Anything" interviews. Moderators organized on private Slack channels and made their subreddits "private" in protest-effectively shutting down the site's traffic. CEO Ellen Pao quickly apologized, acknowledging years of poor communication and broken promises, but her message was ironically downvoted into obscurity while a petition demanding her resignation gathered over 200,000 signatures.
The ridesharing rivals Uber and Lyft illustrate contrasting approaches to managing new power communities. Though functionally similar, Uber became defined by its remoteness and "bro culture" under Travis Kalanick, who infamously referred to drivers as "the other dude in the car"-merely a cost center to be eventually replaced by automation. When both companies implemented fare cuts in early 2016, Uber announced after business hours on Friday without directly notifying drivers, imposing changes by fiat with no consultation. The result was predictable: strikes, protests, and boycott threats nationwide.
Meanwhile, Lyft took a different approach-they brought drivers together to generate mitigating initiatives like increased referral fees, free car washes, and funded meet-ups. While Uber's drivers organized pickets, Lyft helped its drivers organize picnics, proudly crediting drivers for each idea. These differences affect driver satisfaction-75% of Lyft drivers report being satisfied compared to less than half of Uber drivers.
What Arun Sundararajan calls "platform culture"-the shared norms and values among providers-functions like corporate culture without traditional management structures. Lyft demonstrates how to create positive platform culture: treating network participants as allies, showing a human face rather than just algorithmic logic, aligning incentives with fairness, and staying close to understand participant challenges.
Capitolo 7
The Participation Premium: New Economics of Engagement
Star Citizen, the biggest crowdfunding campaign in history, demonstrates how people spend, raise, and invest money in a new power context. When legendary game developer Chris Roberts announced his return after a ten-year hiatus, the PC gaming community rallied behind his vision for an immersive science fiction universe. After traditional publishers showed little interest, Roberts unveiled Star Citizen at the 2012 Game Developers Conference. The campaign quickly moved to Kickstarter with a $500,000 goal, raising over $155,000 in just 24 hours.
As pledges surged past $2 million, Roberts kept expanding the universe through "stretch goals"-each milestone unlocking new features from cockpit decorations to orchestral scores. By November 2012, the campaign closed at a staggering $6.2 million, but the funding continued. By December 2015, Star Citizen had raised over $100 million from more than a million "Citizens"-a world record for crowdfunding.
What makes this model powerful is the "participation premium" equation: (Something in Return + Higher Purpose) x Participation. Star Citizen combines "something of value" (the promised game) with a "sense of purpose" (saving PC gaming from console domination). The participation multiplier-Citizens can shape the universe, debate game features, and create fan fiction within a committed community-makes backers feel they're getting returns even before the game exists.
Xiaomi exemplifies how participation can fuel explosive growth. The smartphone company set a world record by selling 2.1 million phones in a day, powered by its enthusiastic "Mi Fans." Unlike competitors, Xiaomi built direct relationships with users, creating a friendly, countercultural community through social media, mascots, and events like the annual Mi Fan Festival. Most importantly, Xiaomi opened its development process, encouraging fans to create interface designs and test features. By 2015, Xiaomi had 40 million forum members generating 1-2 million daily interactions. This approach effectively gives them "a research and development team of 100,000 people," turning users into co-creators who feel ownership of the product.
BrewDog exemplifies new power funding in action. Founded in 2007 by two 24-year-old Scots with a modest bank loan, the company combined exceptional product quality with anarchic marketing stunts-from driving tanks down streets to dropping stuffed cats over London. Rather than seeking traditional financing for expansion, BrewDog pioneered crowd equity, raising tens of millions from 24,000 consumer "co-owners" they call "Equity Punks." This approach aligned perfectly with their anti-establishment ethos while creating a passionate community of investor-advocates who participate in annual meetings and even help create new beers.
Capitolo 8
From Castles to Crowds: Organizations in Transition
The story of Boaty McBoatface exemplifies the challenges old power organizations face when venturing into new power territory. When Britain's Natural Environment Research Council invited the public to name their new $300 million polar research vessel, they got more than they bargained for. After "Boaty McBoatface" went viral, winning the poll by a landslide with 124,000 votes, NERC rejected the people's choice, naming the ship after Sir David Attenborough instead. This decision highlighted NERC's fundamental misunderstanding of new power dynamics-they invited participation without truly being prepared to embrace its consequences.
By contrast, LEGO's transformation from a struggling company posting record losses in 2003 to becoming the "World's Most Powerful Brand" demonstrates successful transition. Under CEO Jrgen Vig Knudstorp, LEGO embraced its passionate adult fan community (AFOLs), who were once dismissed as "few in number and not worth listening to." LEGO developed programs like the Ambassador Network and LEGO Ideas platform that allowed fans to propose new sets, including the successful "professional female minifigures" line. By embracing fan ideas like Robin Sather's proposal for a formal ambassador network, LEGO created a sophisticated community of super-participants who now help grow events, develop ideas, and test markets.
For old power organizations venturing into the new power world, four fundamental questions must be considered: Strategy (Does new power genuinely fit your needs and what value can you offer participants?); Legitimacy (Do you have trusted communities ready to engage or can you build them?); Control (Are you willing to accept unexpected outcomes when you unleash people's energy?); and Commitment (Are you prepared to cultivate community engagement long-term rather than as a one-off stunt?).
As organizations transition to new power, four essential characters emerge: the shapeshifter, a new power change agent with impeccable institutional credibility who guides traditional organizations toward change; the bridge, who meaningfully connects old power organizations to new power worlds; the solution seeker, who embraces collaboration regardless of where solutions originate; and the super-participant, who creates tremendous value as the most engaged member of a community.
Capitolo 9
Leadership for a Connected Age: Signal, Structure, Shape
In a world where Barack Obama can be succeeded by Donald Trump, how do we understand leadership amid colliding old and new power forces? Obama's 2008 campaign embodied the ultimate Crowd Leader with its iconic "Yes We Can!" chant that emphasized collective power. His highly participatory campaign centered on MyBarackObama.com, empowering volunteers with real responsibility while maintaining structured participation. This approach worked perfectly for an election, mobilizing record numbers of volunteers and raising hundreds of millions in small donations.
Trump, meanwhile, represents what the authors call a "Platform Strongman"-a leader who co-opts a digital crowd to advance authoritarian values. Trump's campaign became an "intensity machine" with significantly higher social media engagement than Clinton's, with supporters showing greater enthusiasm despite his lower overall favorability ratings. Unlike Orwell's Big Brother who controlled through conformity, Trump strengthens his position by supercharging individual agency and championing previously unacceptable behaviors.
Despite promising to maintain his campaign's participatory energy, Obama failed to transition his crowd's enthusiasm into governing power. After his 2008 victory, his campaign went dark for two crucial months-what Micah Sifry called "criminal political negligence." By folding his 13-million-strong organization into the Democratic National Committee as "Organizing for America," Obama distanced himself from his supporters and alienated independents and Republicans who had connected with him.
Today's leaders must succeed not just with institutions but with crowds, requiring specific skills for effective new power leadership. Pope Francis, an unlikely new power leader who inherited a church in "terrible crisis," demonstrates these essential capabilities through his approach to reform. Through symbolic gestures like refusing the ermine cape, rejecting the elevated throne, and washing refugees' feet, Francis creates modern icons that go viral. Father Thomas Reese calls him a "walking parable," whose actions demonstrate how the powerful should relate to those less powerful.
Beyond symbolism, Francis has implemented structural reforms that push power away from Rome toward local communities. His famous "Who am I to judge?" response about homosexuality exemplifies how he shapes church norms without changing doctrine. By emphasizing mercy as his defining theme, Francis shifts focus from an old power paradigm of judgment and exclusion toward demonstrating core values.
Capitolo 10
Blending Powers: Strategic Combinations for Maximum Impact
The most effective organizations combine old and new power approaches strategically, knowing precisely when to deploy each. The National Rifle Association demonstrates masterful power blending. In 2013, the NRA orchestrated the recall of two Colorado state senators who supported gun control legislation, despite being outspent 5-to-1. Rather than leading visibly, the NRA activated its grassroots network built through years of small grants to local gun clubs, shooting ranges, and hunting organizations. This created an independent, passionate crowd exemplified by Victor Head, a 28-year-old plumber who gathered signatures to trigger the recall.
To defeat the bipartisan Manchin-Toomey background check bill, the NRA flipped its tactics, leading with old power while using its crowd as backup. Despite overwhelming public support for universal background checks, the bill was defeated when the NRA decided to "score" the vote. Their A-to-F grading system for politicians functions like an emperor's thumb, and when the NRA announced it would score the vote, 14 senators who previously supported bringing the bill to the floor switched to "no."
TED transformed from an exclusive conference into a global phenomenon by skillfully blending old and new power approaches, maintaining its elite core while democratizing access to its content. Rather than abandoning its exclusive model in the digital age, TED doubled down on exclusivity (tickets now cost up to $25,000) while simultaneously democratizing access to its content by posting TED talks online for free. Like Tiffany's jewelry store, which serves billionaires in private salons while welcoming tourists in the showroom, TED created a bifurcated value proposition: elite access for a select few and quality content for everyone else, with each reinforcing the value of the other.
In Spain, the Podemos party's meteoric rise demonstrates another powerful blend of old and new power approaches. Podemos began with a surprisingly old power move: founder Pablo Iglesias launched a YouTube TV show called La Tuerka to master traditional media messaging. After becoming a polished media figure, Podemos embraced new power principles with a manifesto championing "horizontality and transparency." Rather than building institutional structure, they encouraged supporters to create "circles"-local and online groups organized around issues people cared about most. This "hacker logic" approach made participation remarkably easy: creating a branch required only a Facebook account, email, and meeting-no membership fees or formal requirements.
By December 2015, Podemos had won over five million votes and sixty-nine seats in Spain's parliament, breaking the country's two-party system before its second birthday. Their success came from pragmatic power blending-using new power tactics while understanding when old power approaches were necessary.
