What happens when the world suddenly reconfigures itself around a very different kind of relationship? The last 20 years of social innovation has leaned into weak ties: distant social relationships that allowed us to trust and extract value on platforms like Yelp, LinkedIn and Facebook. But the next 20 years are already shaping up to look very different.

Strong social ties, our close-knit relationships with frequent interactions, are starting to emerge as the dominant threads of the social fabric. In this new era of increased intimacy with our immediate network, what we value and what we create move in a markedly new direction. We co-buy homes with friends, form politically aligned living communities, go deep into conversational chambers and band together in vision-led DAOs.

The way we relate to one another is more profound, but also more narrow. What we demand of our network communities, and the brand landscape in general, becomes more high stakes.

In this house episode, we’re talking to Concept Bureau’s Chief Strategist Jean-Louis Rawlence, about the huge implications for tech innovation, community building and business. When strong ties become the future of community, community becomes the new brand.

Links to interesting things mentioned in this episode and further reading:

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22: Strong Ties vs. Weak Ties in the Next Era of Brand Innovation

Episode description