Sohodojo’s Omidyar.net Blog

Jim and Timlynn…I dig the new blog, very cool. WRT to reinventing consumerism, while I agree personally, I also think there needs to include all levels of engagement. Some people just want their coffee for the day, and that’s okay too.

Absolutely agreed. Reinventing does not mean replacing. We don’t want to throw out the old One Right Way for a new One Right Way. It’s about alternatives and choice. There are certainly both deep and surface shoppers in our vision of the Flat World’s expanded marketplace of Globalization 3.0.

What will ‘hook’ the surface shopper is the “gravity” of the underlying deep shoppers’ experience-based community. These surface-folks will be thinking, “Hey, there’s something different and interesting going on here,” and “I may just grab a cuppa joe today, but I know I feel good about being even a small part of what is going on here.” Over time some non-trivial number of surface folks will dive deeper.

If we don’t shoot for something radically innovative and seductively compelling, Ned could end up being just another exercise in stretching the do-good/feel-good strategy of traditional retailing and marketing. “Fair trade” is fast becoming just two ubiquitous words on packaging akin to “New, Improved.”

This doesn’t mean that you have to bet the Ned farm on an “all or nothing” innovation strategy. But it does mean that you have to have a deep and compelling mission/vision from the start. That mission has to set the bar very high for what will be the Next Big Thing. Being just a tweak on 10,000 Villages or OXFAM isn’t good enough.

The Hungry Consumer isn’t yearning to fill him or herself with yet more stuff. They want something that the Big Is Good World hasn’t delivered and isn’t capable of producing.

Ned will be wildly successful to the extent that it deeply understands and delivers the “unstuff” dimension of the Globalization 3.0 marketplace of empowered Individuals.

–Sohodojo Jim and Timlynn–

Jim and Timlynn…I dig the new blog, very cool. WRT to reinventing consumerism, while I agree personally, I also think there needs to include all levels of engagement. Some people just want their coffee for the day, and that’s okay too.

Absolutely agreed. Reinventing does not mean replacing. We don’t want to throw out the old One Right Way for a new One Right Way. It’s about alternatives and choice. There are certainly both deep and surface shoppers in our vision of the Flat World’s expanded marketplace of Globalization 3.0.

What will ‘hook’ the surface shopper is the “gravity” of the underlying deep shoppers’ experience-based community. These surface-folks will be thinking, “Hey, there’s something different and interesting going on here,” and “I may just grab a cuppa joe today, but I know I feel good about being even a small part of what is going on here.” Over time some non-trivial number of surface folks will dive deeper.

If we don’t shoot for something radically innovative and seductively compelling, Ned could end up being just another exercise in stretching the do-good/feel-good strategy of traditional retailing and marketing. “Fair trade” is fast becoming just two ubiquitous words on packaging akin to “New, Improved.”

This doesn’t mean that you have to bet the Ned farm on an “all or nothing” innovation strategy. But it does mean that you have to have a deep and compelling mission/vision from the start. That mission has to set the bar very high for what will be the Next Big Thing. Being just a tweak on 10,000 Villages or OXFAM isn’t good enough.

The Hungry Consumer isn’t yearning to fill him or herself with yet more stuff. They want something that the Big Is Good World hasn’t delivered and isn’t capable of producing.

Ned will be wildly successful to the extent that it deeply understands and delivers the “unstuff” dimension of the Globalization 3.0 marketplace of empowered Individuals.

–Sohodojo Jim and Timlynn–