“We” is greater than “Me”
by Keith Scandone
Let’s use this election season’s “me” and “we” campaigns run by each candidate to discuss its philosophical parallels in regards to our community collaboration efforts in Philadelphia.
There are several fantastic Meetups, events, workshops and hang outs that are happening in Philadelphia and each of these are run by a collection of well-intentioned companies, organizations and individuals. There are some really great ones that immediately come to mind in the design community such as the PHLDesign Co and Creative Mornings. They both have a strong and loyal following, and bring together great content and great networking.
Philly Startup Leaders is another great organization and initiative, but what’s even more impressive is their latest Amplify Philly program. They’re leading the charge, in conjunction with several other Philadelphia-based businesses, to have a strong presence at SxSW in Austin, Texas. Their goal is to share the Philadelphia brand on a national stage and to represent Philadelphia as a city of innovation and creativity in arts, technology and business.
The primary reason why all of these events are successful, in my opinion, is because they are all about something bigger than one organization, individual or company. They are focused on the “we” vs. the “me” mentality in creating meaningful, lasting, collaborative experiences and in doing so, they are making their industries stronger, and the city stronger as a community. They’re not focused on owning an event, having huge financial gains because of the event, or just amplifying their brand with the event. They’re focused on bringing together a committed group of individuals who have commonalities, all while shining a positive light on Philadelphia.
There are also a slew of other events that have tremendous value in the design and tech communities, but are not succeeding in the same way. Why is that?
There are several reasons but let’s just focus on a few possibilities:
- There are too many of them, several of which are focused on a very similar subject matter and mission which is creating market confusion as to which to support.
- The financial motivation behind the event, which is not very well hidden, turns people off.
- The company or people associated with organizing the event you deem a competitor and don’t want to support it.
“We” happen to have a little bit of experience dealing with this paradox with the Forge Conference. Forge is a UX and Product Design focused event in its 3rd year and is being held at the Penn Museum on September 26th. The conference suffers a little bit from all 3 of the aforementioned bullet points, but it suffers the most from the last one. Since it is hosted by our company, O3 World, there is a sense that it’s put in place merely to boost our brand, and by supporting it many think they would be supporting and propping up a competitor.
I understand the argument.
I disagree with it.
An interesting, albeit far-fetched solution to Forge, and to all of these events, is to bring some collaborative, business-minded order to these efforts. While the grassroots mentality and homegrown passion is what has gotten many of them started, scaling anything takes time, organization and money.
In order for it to happen, I don’t believe it could happen organically though. Right now it happens casually in a quid pro quo sort of way. I’ll promote your event if you promote mine. Although that’s not really accomplishing much of anything. I believe it would have to be a more systematic approach. You would need to establish a board and then potentially sub committees responsible for working together on the events.
This is actually quite feasible, but in order to be successful, everyone would have be required to looking at if they want “we” to succeed or “me” to succeed.
Keith Scandone is a co-founder and CEO of O3 World, a digital product agency in Fishtown, Philadelphia. He is a co-founder and co-organizer for the Forge Conference, a User Experience and Product Design event. Keith is also a board member of the Awesome Foundation, a global community of fully-autonomous chapters dedicated to supporting awesome projects through monthly micro-grants. You can find more information on the Forge Conference at Forgeconf.com and more information on O3 World at O3World.com. He can be found on twitter at @KeithO3World
Originally published in Philly Ad News Magazine.
