Occupy: Changing the message, giving hope

In all the disruption created by the recession, I see how a collective sense of purpose has had a timely convergence with popular mythology to create the lightning bolt that is the Occupy Wall Street movement. Like many others, I have so much at stake. The challenge living between jobs is to keep the narrative of my life on a course that makes sense. And just how does one do that? They say you’ve really got to pay attention to the messages you internalize.

The job search industry message flourishes by helping people navigate the preparatory maneuvers for getting hired. It’s a mix of networking, presentation skills, and the summation of all that you have to offer, your personal brand. In fact, professionals need to see themselves as a start-up, a constantly evolving, improving machine of business efficiency and innovation.

Alongside this conventional wisdom runs a cross-current that is trying desperately to envision life and work beyond the demands of commercial markets. For those who feel betrayed by working for the typical corporate structure, the search for alternative messaging finds itself right in the heart of the Occupy movement. It takes no convincing for the truth to resonate among the ninety-nine percent who have already sold their personal brand enough times to know their efforts aren’t making a difference. Mechanisms that once provided a balance to capitalism are now dismantled and the resulting inequities weaken its ability to make people believe that they can profit at all. So while the popular advice for servicing the corporate system still prevails, our collective impulse compels us to create an ethos that promotes fairer participation. Therein lies the beauty of living in a hyper-connected world.

The birth of the Occupy movement coincides magnificently with so many supporting social trends:

*        the work of social psychologists like Dacher Keltner, Brene Brown, and others that cede we are built for cooperation and connection, not just competition

*        the emergence of collaborative consumption, (eloquently explained in What’s Mine is Yours¹) that may shift the predominant ownership paradigm to one of more autonomy and control through shared networks of access to products and services

Indeed, mastering the moment through appropriate messaging has never been more abundant with possibilities. My challenge is in making sure I’m listening to the right ones. The predictable corporate-speak that prefers I see myself not as a person, but a resource of free agency traded on the market, never counted on alternative currencies, alternative trade, alternative networks.

                What gives me hope is that now more people are listening. They are paying attention and sorting things out. They know the process will hit snags, be uncomfortable. And none of that will necessarily be any harder than the lives they are already living. Maybe it will, and that won’t be surprising. But if what evolves is a greater distribution of functional livelihoods for all those who seek them, then perhaps the new message will replace the dysfunctional status quo. It obviously isn’t working. Not everyone sees themselves as an entrepreneur, not everyone sees themselves as a knowledge worker. Resources might fit in boxes, people don’t. Why do we pay so much lip service to notions of innovation and imagination, passion and creativity, and then have no courage to embrace what the results might be? I think we are going to answer that question sooner rather than later. And I can’t wait.  

¹ Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers, What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption, (HarperCollins Publishers, 2010).