We tell ourselves we are consumers 3000 times a day. A new book asks: what if we told ourselves we were citizens?

From “Citizen Shift”

Jon Alexander’s shift from Consumer to Citizen - a shot of democracy into organisations which we have highlighted regularly on A/UK - is finally going to result in a book, Citizens - out in February 2022, but available for pre-order now. Here’s an excerpt of the blurb:

What are we doing to ourselves when we tell ourselves we're Consumers 3000 times a day?

What would it look like to put the same creativity and energy into involving people as Citizens?

What would you do in this time, if you truly believed in yourself and those around you?

Jon Alexander spent the first decade of his career in the advertising industry, selling some of the world's biggest brands. Then he realised he was caught up in a story he didn't believe in – the Consumer Story.

Here, with New York Times bestselling writer Ariane Conrad, he shows us what we need to do to step into a bigger idea of ourselves as Citizens: collaborative, caring, creative creatures who can shape our communities, organisations, and nations for the better.

Citizens traces human history from the Subject Story of kings and empires to the current Consumer Story, bringing together the evidence that we have always been Citizens by nature. It sets out the tools we need to reinvent our organisations and our politics, equipping us to face the many challenges of our time. It shows us what we must do to survive and thrive – as individuals, as organisations, even as a species.

If you’d like an early rehearsal of this case, see the paper “Citizen Shift, from Alexander’s consultancy the New Citizenship Project. Here’s a table from the paper: