Our First Fossembly: Party in DC!

Change corporate behavior – and have fun too!

We’re throwing our first-ever “Fossembly” in Washington, DC. It’s a social movement, interactive game and private bar party all rolled into one awesome event! Meet other conscious consumers with a passion for illuminating corporate social and environmental behavior. Play innovative team games to win free drinks and other prizes. And join us for special treats afterwards at a nearby bar! Grassroots, games and good times.

Are you interested? Take just a few seconds to sign up – be sure to check the box for Washington, DC!

But wait, there's a catch. Only 20 lucky folks will be randomly selected to attend the Fossembly. So sign up by December 1 for your chance to win an invitation!

Sneak Preview Of Our New Brand: Fosfo

Introducing our new brand… fosfo! We’re sharing a sneak preview with you now, as we’ll be converting our website address, logo, color scheme and other goodies to the new brand in the weeks ahead. Check out the draft logo shown here and let us know what you think! We’ll be refining that too. Huge kudos to our volunteer designers, whose dedication and creativity made this exciting transition possible! 

What about Citizens Market? Citizens Market will remain the formal legal name of our nonprofit organization, while Fosfo will increasingly become our public face, through our website, social media pages, mobile phone applications and so on. We know many of you are fond of the name “Citizens Market,” and we are too! “Citizens Market” sums up our mission neatly, expressing the idea that citizen-consumers can and should drive the marketplace. But “Citizens Market” is a mouthful of two fairly long, dry, abstract words. Not much punch or sizzle there! We decided we need a bold, memorable, evocative brand to more effectively engage people and build our community. 

Why Fosfo? Our team put a lot of thought and energy into this. Ultimately we decided that our brand should reflect a core motif of “light,” which is aligned with the main themes of our organization:

• Consumer ethics and enlightenment 
• Corporate transparency 
• Aggregation of many small parts (photons / reviews) into a transcendental whole (light / scores) 
• Speed, convenience and technology 

We then created a new brand name – “fosfo” – that allows us to build on ideas, words, colors and images associated with light, specifically phosphorescence. The word “fos” is Greek for “light.” 

We’re already finding it much easier – and much more fun – to engage our stakeholders with our new name. For example, we can use the metaphor of light to describe our crowdsourced review model as lots of bits of light that collectively illuminate and transform corporate behavior. We can convert bland, abstract terms like “Company Score,” “Peer Rating” and “Contributor Score” into our own fresh vocabulary: “foscore,” “fosfluence”, “fotons” and so forth. With tongue firmly embedded in cheek, we can rib our users as “fosfolks” and recognize our core information contributors as “The Fosse.” 

Our work here is serious. Climate change, corporate lobbying, child labor and all the other social and environmental issues we cover are no laughing matter. But we simply can’t afford to take ourselves too seriously. In order to change corporate behavior, we need to build a critical mass of consumers using our tools. And in order to engage consumers, we need to build a critical mass of information on our website. In order to engage people to join our community and share information on corporate behavior, we need to be bold, lively and even playful. It may always be a struggle to strike the right balance in our tone; we look forward to hearing your thoughts about it! 

Stay tuned as we roll out the new brand in the weeks ahead….

Prizes for the Socially Conscious

We'd love some help brainstorming some low-budget micro-prizes that we can distribute at our first party for our information contributors.  The party will involve games where teams compete to write reviews of corporate behavior, followed by a group outing to a local bar.

We have some great ideas already.  For example, each time you write a review you can take a couple shots at our nerf basketball hoop to win a free drink at the bar afterwards.  But we'd like to add some more imaginative prizes, especially prizes that are (a) aligned with our community's interests in environmental protection and social justice and (b) under $20.  Perhaps fresh-baked cookies.  Or a gift certificate for organic snacks at a nearby market.  Or a small donation in your name to a charity like Kiva or Oxfam.  Or a trophy for your team until the next party competition.  Or... ?

Can you think of other ideas?  Have you received a memorable small gift lately?  What sort of prize would interest you?

- Stephane

Expanding Our Space

Today Citizens Market expanded into a larger office on our floor to make room for a new intern arriving this week.  It's amazing how an extra person and extra space can change the office atmosphere!  I constructed a new bookshelf to display our little library on crowdsourcing, corporate social responsibility and social entrepreneurship.  I finally unpacked those boxes that were sulking in the corner.  I brought in some art from home to spruce up the walls.  And best of all, I ordered a little basketball net to make sure we don't get too serious around here.  I figure each time we complete a milestone we can shoot for beer.  Or cheese.

We have room for one more intern here, so please pass the word to any college or graduate students who may be interested in joining our team.  We're recruiting for a Community Development Intern or a Fundraising / Development Intern.

I look forward to the company!

Small Change? It Adds Up. (A Rebuttal to Malcolm Gladwell)

In a recent article titled "Small Change" in The New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell argues against the hype about social media for social change.  His article is packed with interesting observations, but his conclusions are ultimately flawed.

I'm sympathetic to Gladwell's two main points as he sets up the article:

Meaningful social change is driven by "strong-tie" networks, such as the network of black churches that mobilized sit-ins in the 1960's.  "Weak-tie" networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, cannot achieve meaningful social change alone.

At Citizens Market we've always been interested in developing both "strong-tie" and "weak-tie" networks to recruit people to share information about corporate social and environmental behavior on our site.  In fact, we recently shifted our strategy towards building a foundation of face-to-face networks through events and partnerships, which can then be enhanced with social media tools.  We take our cues from successful online networks such as Yelp! and the Obama campaign, which were launched through carefully organized events and meetings.

"If you're taking on a powerful and organized establishment you have to be a hierarchy."

Gladwell's point here rings true for us too, at least in part.  We envision a diverse, independent, emergent network of people sharing crowdsourced content about corporate behavior, which will engage consumers and ultimately change financial incentives for companies.  But that vision depends on an organized hierarchy: our team.  It will take sustained effort to prepare fertile ground for that network of crowdsourced contributors to emerge.  We need to develop tools, partners and a core community.  In order to achieve a movement with a life of its own, we need to organize now.

So Gladwell is right to emphasize the importance of "strong-tie" networks and hierarchies in launching social change movements.  But what begins as a "strong-tie" network driven by a hierarchy might become an even larger and stronger "weak-tie" network with nobody at the reins at all.  If anyone should appreciate the potential for an organized effort to reach a tipping point with emergent behavior, it ought to be Gladwell!  Consider this excerpt from Gladwell's book "The Tipping Point":

"The Power of Context says you don't have to solve the big problems to solve crime.  You can prevent crimes just by scrubbing off graffiti and arresting fare-beaters: crime epidemics have Tipping Points every bit as simple and straightforward as syphilis in Baltimore or a fashion trend like Hush Puppies."  (p. 151, "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell)

Gladwell's logic about small efforts and big payoffs is persuasive in "The Tipping Point," but this logic is at odds with a bizarre circular argument he adopts in his New Yorker article: because "high-risk activism... is a "strong-tie" phenomenon," it therefore follows that meaningful social activism must somehow be high risk.  He takes a wrong turn here, pooh-poohing social media as a lighthearted pretender to "real" social change merely because social media tends to be low risk.  Gladwell describes a successful online campaign to register money for bone marrow transplants, but dismisses this as an example "that doesn't require that you confront socially entrenched norms and practices."  He claims that "Facebook activism succeeds not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice but by motivating them to  do the things that people do when they are not motivated enough to make a real sacrifice."

An otherwise compelling article thus ends with a shaky, condescending conclusion:  

"The instruments of social media are well suited to making the existing social order more efficient.  They are not a natural enemy of the status quo.  If you are of the opinion that all the world needs is a little buffing around the edges, this should not trouble you.  But if you think that there are still lunch counters out there that need integrating it ought to give you pause."

I don't doubt the risks incurred by activists in the civil rights movement, nor do I doubt that high-risk activism is still necessary for some causes.  But I don't see why all meaningful social activism must necessarily be risky.  Social media may be a low risk, "weak tie" phenomenon as Gladwell claims, but social media still has enormous potential to enhance "strong-tie" networks and thereby enable deeper social change.  

Sometimes a little effort by a lot of people - perhaps enabled by social media - can make a massive difference in the status quo.  The challenge may not be in the risk or hardship incurred by people, but in developing an environment in which people can more easily effect change.  In the United States today we are fortunate that the act of voting requires little effort and virtually no risk, thanks in large part to the innovations of our country's Founders.  But while voting may be easy, it certainly still matters.

At Citizens Market, our theory of change is that organizing a lot of consumers to make marginal differences in their shopping patterns will have a profound impact on the private sector and society at large.  For example, consumers interested in the issue of lobbying could use a mobile phone to scan product barcodes and - holding other factors such as price or quality equal - easily avoid brands owned by companies with nefarious lobbying practices.  At scale, this behavior would reverse the financial incentives for some companies to exert undue influence on government policies.  As with other social and environmental issues we cover on our website, we face a "powerful and organized establishment" with market-driven interests that are unlikely to change meaningfully until we change the underlying market itself.  Once we develop our tools, partners and core community, however, it will be easy for consumers to empower themselves with information, adjust their market behavior and ultimately change corporate behavior.  

As Gladwell says, we'll need "strong-tie" networks and an organized hierarchy to succeed.  But we shouldn't dismiss social media and low risk actions.  Instead, we should harness them.  Our community would expect no less.

My Stats

One of our favorite new features is My Stats, where your Contributor Score climbs each time you rate a company or receive a "thumbs up" for a persuasive review. Earn a new Level and your ratings will have more influence on a company's score!  

(My Stats is part of your profile, so you need to Sign In to check it out.)

What do you think of My Stats?  How can we make it more engaging?

Citizens Market Launches Crowdsourced Model for Ethical Consumption

Our team is very excited to share a big new release with you! Citizens Market has launched features for community participation on our website.  Now anyone can rate a company or rate someone else's review! It's a big milestone for us, and we think it's the beginning of a movement to empower all of us - as citizen-consumers - to ensure our marketplace reflects our values. Please come have a look, tell us what you think, and help us spread the word!

Here's a little tasting menu of what our volunteer developers and designers have cooked up:

• Sign In or Sign Up first to unlock the features below.
• Rate a Company. We invite anyone to rate a company on a social or environmental issue. You don't have to be an expert! Perhaps you've noticed a company's recycling habits or marketing behavior. Or perhaps you've read about a company in the media. You can also browse a collection of sources to find an issue or company that matter to you. (Currently 100 companies are available for you to rate. And soon you'll be able to add a company yourself.)
• Browse Reviews. Your "thumbs up" on a persuasive review will instantly increase that review's impact on a company score. In other words, our community determines who to trust.
• My Stats. Each time you rate a company or receive a "thumbs up," your Contributor Score climbs towards a new Level of influence on a company's score.
• My Priorities. How important is each social and environmental issue to you? Set your personal priorities now, and soon the company scores you see will be customized accordingly.

We'd love to hear your feedback! Please be blunt and use the red "Feedback" button on the left side of our website.

And if you share our passion for changing corporate behavior, please follow us or post a word about us on Facebook or Twitter. Or simply share this blog with friends to help us spread the word about our launch. Thanks!