Update: Part 2 is posted — a video preview of campaign creation (7/14/08)

This April, after six months in beta, we stopped and asked ourselves, “Knowing what we know now, if we started The Point today from scratch, what would it look like?” Later this month, we’re releasing a major upgrade that answers that question.

In brief, these changes make The Point simpler, more flexible, and easier to integrate as a tool for other online communities. We’ve also added a few new ideas, steps forward in our understanding of campaigns that yield powerful new applications.

This is the first in a series of posts that will showcase the changes in our upcoming release. Please let us know what you think!

Dangle a Carrot

The Point was designed to allow people with a shared problem to find each other, reach critical mass, and exercise their power – by boycott, strike, or some other collective action – to not merely ask for change, but force it. So instead of acting by yourself to stop a t-shirt company from using sweatshops, organize with other customers, and start a boycott only once enough join for the boycott to be a greater cost than legitimate labor.

Our users, however, observed another technique of persuasion: Instead of threatening to take business away, promise to bring it. Show that t-shirt company how many new customers they’d gain by changing policy. It’s a perfect compliment to The Point’s toolkit. Ultimatum campaigns are the “stick,” and this gives us the “carrot.”

We think of carrot campaigns as petitions evolved. By backing your demand with the promise of action, you’re not just asking for change, you’re showing how it can be in everyone’s best interest. Here are a few examples:

• We pledge to eat at Dave’s Diner if they offer more vegetarian choices.
• We promise to volunteer for the first Congressional candidate in Chicago to take the Change Congress pledge.
• We are raising a pot of money that can be collected by whoever unlocks the iPhone 3G. No one’s credit card is charged unless it happens.
• We will buy our shoes from the first major brand to move its manufacturing facilities back to US soil.
• We’re putting money in a pot for our friend Adam, who looks exactly like Big Boy, if he dresses like Big Boy this Halloween. No one’s credit card will be charged unless he does it.
• We will all buy bicycles from the first store to offer us a 20% discount.
• We are pledging money towards the purchase of a polka dot iPod, if Apple agrees to make one. The money will not be collected unless it happens.
• We will donate to Uwe Boll’s favorite charity, but only if he promises to never make another movie.
• We will move our business to the first eBay competitor that charges sellers less than 3% per transaction.
• We will help pay Hillary Clinton’s campaign debt if she pledges to neither seek nor accept the Vice Presidency.

Rounding off the model

It’s easy to cook up a carrot campaign for nearly any situation. They’re no more structurally complex than petitions, but far more powerful. This is in contrast to ultimatum campaigns, which often demand up-front research to determine a tipping point that satisfies the cost-benefit analysis.

And notably, carrot campaigns are a nice way to induce change. This is particularly useful for dealing with small businesses, where you want to engage your target in something that feels more like a conversation than an argument.

Carrot campaigns are a logical extension of The Point’s big idea: Create the conditions for collective action to be worthwhile, and people will participate.

Coming up in part 2, we’ll preview the new interface for starting campaigns.

-Filed in The Point