INTERVIEW:New York advertising executive Cindy Gallop wants to change the world, one good intention at a time, through a new website that encourages action. Fiona McCanntalks to her and one of her Irish advocates
IT SOUNDS LIKE a wishlist: “If I ran the world, I would feed the children”; “If I ran the world I would get the web to more people”; “If I ran the world, I would make every able-bodied man, woman and child ride a bike.”
These are just some of the aspirations that are being converted to actions through a new website, simply called ifwerantheworld.com.
It’s the brainchild of advertising consultant Cindy Gallop, who has spent three years making her idea a reality. “I thought this is one of those ideas that I have to make happen or die trying.”
For Gallop, it’s about harnessing what she sees as one of the world’s greatest untapped resources – “human good intentions that never translate into actions”.
“I read the paper, I see a story, I think ‘That’s terrible. I have to do something about that,’ and I turn the page. The moment is gone.” So how to turn that moment of goodwill into something that makes a real and concrete difference? By making these aspirations not only achievable, but fun in the process. And by getting businesses on board, too. “Another equally untapped resource is corporate good intentions, the good intentions of companies who know that in order to earn the right to do business today, they have to be socially responsible . . . I decided I wanted to find a way to bring these two things together: human good intentions and corporate good intentions, and activate them together to produce shared actions that would produce shared results.” So how will it work? In a way, Gallop promises, that will be as entertaining as it is effective. “I wanted to find a way of doing good that was sexy as hell, for individuals and compelling for businesses.”
She went about designing ifwerantheworld.com, a website where people can break down their good intentions into achievable goals, invite others to help them out, and build their own online profile in the meantime, based on their actions, rather than their words. “I wanted to find a way to integrate doing something into everyone’s day-to-day lives online as much as doing nothing currently is,” explained Gallop. “People spend hours playing Farmville , writing on walls, and I thought ‘imagine spending all that time and effort doing something that has an impact in the real world’. It had to be as entertaining and as fun as all of that. It had to work like a game. It’s not a game per say, but we designed it based on game theory and game principles. We’re leveraging the human competitive spirit.” Gallop also hopes it will help give a rounder, more real indication of the people behind the now ubiquitous online profiles. “These days the first thing anybody does when they encounter you is google you. They usually get pretty quickly to your Facebook profile,” she points out. Ifwerantheworld provides an alternative port of call. “It becomes a representation of your real world CV in terms of the actions you are taking.”
The website, launched in February, is still at the teething stage. “We are in the process of real world testing it at the moment.” Which is where Ireland comes in. Back when the idea was still just that, Gallop gave a magazine interview about the concept which was read by Dubliner Lucy Masterson. “I got in touch with her,” says Masterson, whose first email to Gallop outlined all the reasons she believed Ireland would make the perfect test ground for just such a project.
“The timing is perfect for something like this for Ireland,” says Masterson. “We do have needs greater than this economic boom we’ve had. We do have higher goals. The Irish have this altruistic outlook. People may say it’s all got muddied in the past few years, but it’s still there. We have core values of community, of helping the underdog. For such a small nation we actually outbox any other nation in terms of what we give.”
Add to that our English-speaking, technologically savvy population and high internet uptake, and Ireland seemed like a good place to start. “We can start things going in little hotbeds of communities all over Ireland, people working online to make the communities that they’re living in or the country as a whole a better place. I really think this is challenging the status quo to make a change.”
For Masterson, the site is an opportunity for people to take their future into their own hands. “It’s the only way we can create a sustainable future for the next generation of Irish people.”
Gallop was quickly persuaded. “I call this a landmark social experiment, and it is very much in the experimental stage of development. But I have proof that this is a social experiment that the world would like to see happen and that participants would like to see work,” she says. “The spirit of the Irish is just the kind the spirit I’d like to infuse in order to make this test phase work.”
The site is currently free for individuals to sign up, but businesses will be charged to use it; gallop intends to make ifwerantheworld a profitable enterprise. “I deliberately designed this as a for-profit venture,” says Gallop. “I observed that non-profits get marginalised, in the same way that corporate social responsibility in business also gets marginalised. If I would like to help to drive and create the businesses of the future, I have to be one myself. I have to prove that I can do good and make money if I’m going to convince anyone else to do so.” Ifwerantheworld is already up and running, with people signing on daily to test the site and give feedback about what works or doesn’t. While glitches remain, and a promised search function that will allow people to enter their availability and resources and find actions to join, is still in the pipeline, it’s already achieving results, and the word is spreading. “I thought, if you could take all those good intentions that people have on a daily basis, and harness that, you could unleash a source of energy,” muses Gallop. And if the experiment works, and the site grows to operate as its creator envisages, it’s the kind of energy that could change the world.
See ifwerantheworld.com
How Cindy's world works
Annie Grantham (21)
If I ran the world, I would encourage transition-year students to become more involved in the lives of the less fortunate people in their communities. That’s my action platform. Within that, some of my micro-actions are really easy, and take less than an hour, like donating food to a local food pantry. Some of them are a little more involved, where you organise a tent city, or you spend time at a nursing home and get to know someone who might not have anyone else to talk to otherwise.
It took me a little while to navigate the ifwerantheworld site and figure it out, but once I understood how to go about doing it, it was really quick. People who have done micro actions with me are listed on my page, and it says three micro actors are acting on this action platform.
I really like the website. I think it’s really empowering for kids my age and even younger or older. We talk about things we want to do all the time and how we could make a difference, and we really have that opportunity with ifwerantheworld, and getting our friends to join us and take the time to do a micro-action and be a part of something and work towards an end goal. It’s so easy. All you need is a computer and one thing that you care about a lot. And if you care about it, there are a hundred other people out there who care about it just as much. And if they join ifwerantheworld and see that your micro-action is already there, they can join yours, and you’re off.
