Succeeding in the Relationship Economy, with Jerry Michalski

Business advisor, keynote speaker and futurist, Jerry Michalski helps organizations navigate the transition from the consumer mass-marketing economy to the Relationship Economy, the new economic model driven by trust and conscious capitalism. Drawing from decades in the corporate world, specifically as a technology analyst during the DotCom Era, he is the founder of REX, the Relationship Economy eXpedition, a think-and-do tank focused on researching, preparing for, and accelerating that transition. He has consulted for companies such as Best Buy, Havas Media and non-profits like the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and the Institute for the Future.

SPEAKING.COM: What is the Relationship Economy?

MICHALSKI: We are currently nostril-deep in Consumer Mass-Market Capitalism, which trades invasions of privacy and multichannel stalking for shiny objects like social networking services and cute apps. Even as mass marketing is no longer needed, marketers continue to use its precepts, annoying their prospective customers.

Underneath this familiar economy, groups around the world are rediscovering connections, trust, relationships and society. They’re doing this through movements such as the sharing economy, the Internet and open-source software, traffic calming, unschooling and peer-to-peer lending. These trust-based movements constitute the Relationship Economy.

SPEAKING.COM: What observations led you to believe that we’re undergoing a major economic paradigm shift?

MICHALSKI: Eloquent critiques of today’s Capitalism abound. The system is trashing the planet and shaping our needs in ways that endanger our well-being. I don’t think Capitalism needs to be buried – I think it needs to be fixed. I was overjoyed to realize in the Nineties and Noughties that movements around the world were already doing this. Then, I started to focus on the principles they shared, which took me to trust.

SPEAKING.COM: What changes do businesses need to make in order to stay competitive in the Relationship Economy?

MICHALSKI: Now that we’re free of broadcast-only media that Producers could control, those Producers need to act more like peers in the arena with the people who use their products and services. Power has shifted, though not completely.

This means that businesses should do things that humans do to build trust: address one another with respect (no more “consumer”), act with good intentions over time (becoming trustworthy), minding the Commons (instead of extracting “infinite” Natural Resources), and being vulnerable now and then (like admitting and fixing mistakes, or being transparent even when it’s uncomfortable). Advanced businesses should learn to Design from Trust, so they can become their customers’ Trusted Allies.

SPEAKING.COM: One of the major reasons you founded REX is “to accelerate” the transition from “the consumer mass market economy” to the Relationship Economy. Why is this change important to you?

MICHALSKI: The Consumerization of our world has made us stupider than we really are. Our only job as Consumers is to choose between what’s on offer. We’re no longer Citizens in a relationship. Healing this will fix many connected problems, from voter apathy and student boredom to worker alienation.

SPEAKING.COM: Why do you dislike the word “consumer”?

MICHALSKI: Aside from its definition as a term of art in marketing, “to consume” is to destroy, often wastefully, as in “consumed by fire.” We look down on consumers, though we definitely want them to spend more of their money on our products — whatever the effect on their lives. It’s not a responsible, sustainable relationship.

SPEAKING.COM: How can you spot if a product or system is designed from mistrust?

MICHALSKI: First question: Does it treat you as a Citizen or Consumer? Do you know who is behind the curtain and what they are doing? Do you have real choices or the make-believe choices of Consumer Mass Marketing? Just read the box labels in your supermarket’s detergent, toothpaste or shampoo aisles to see what I mean.

SPEAKING.COM: What steps can organizations take to build trust with customers?

MICHALSKI: It sounds like I’m wagging a finger, but be honorable. Don’t just obey the laws that keep you from hurting customers: go far beyond that so you become trustworthy. Crises give you a chance to earn trust, as Tylenol’s managers did in 1982. If the crisis is due to your negligence, as is brewing in the Equifax mess of 2017, you likely have much farther to dig.

SPEAKING.COM: Who is a good example of a company or institution built and run on trust?

MICHALSKI: Patagonia. The Internet. Airbnb (What?! Strangers are going to sleep in my house while I’m away?), Craigslist, Wikipedia and companies that are Public Benefit Corporations.

SPEAKING.COM: What is “TheBrain”?

MICHALSKI: Mind-mapping software. If you draw lily-pad diagrams of related things when you brainstorm, you know the concept. Twenty years ago, when I was a tech-industry trends analyst, a little company from LA showed me this software, and I was hooked. You can browse my Brain for free at JerrysBrain.com, and there’s an app with my face on it called Jerry’s Brain in the iOS App Store.

Perhaps more importantly: imagine if you had all the things worth remembering over the last 20 years in a single mind map, available at your fingertips. I do.

SPEAKING.COM: What do you hope people take away from “The Brain”?

MICHALSKI: After 20 years of curating what I care about in TheBrain, my biggest lesson has been that our lack of tools like this — in fact, our oblivion to this need — has made us an amnesic civilization. We have no way of making sense of the world together, so we are easier to spin and manipulate.

To bring business and technology speaker Jerry Michalski to your organization, please contact Michael Frick at: Mike@Speaking.com