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The folks at Brains on Fire, an agency that specializes in creating movements, have just published a smart new book called Brains on Fire: Igniting Powerful, Sustainable, Word of Mouth Movements. To celebrate that, here are 3 questions for BoF “Courageous President” Robbin Phillips:

Q1: All marketers are trying to do something to rally passion around their products or services. What’s the #1 thing you see marketers doing wrong in pursuit of that goal?

The mistake I see most marketers making is focusing on the wrong things.

Frankly I am not sure the word passion is on the minds of most marketers. And it should be. Often they’re more concerned with creating a product conversation vs. supporting a passion conversation.

The shiny new technology tools in the room are also a huge distraction. Chris Sandoval, a technology expert with a large company says in an interview. “When it comes to technology, what’s exciting and shiny today will be frickin’ dead tomorrow.” If you find yourself in a room talking about your twitter strategy, start over.

When it comes to igniting movements (as opposed to creating campaigns), we won’t get anywhere until we stop focusing on ourselves (or technology) and focus on the people we went into business to serve in the first place.

It’s about people.

Q2: Are there some products or services that are passion-proof? I.e., have you ever had to tell a customer, “I’m sorry but there is not much we can do to build a movement around your Xtra-Klingee Kling-Wrap.”

First of all, if Xtra-Klingee Kling-Wrap is a horrible product, no amount of marketing is going to build long term success. But if it’s really awesome Kling-Wrap, well then we’ve got something to work with. Because it can make people’s lives better.

Your question actually illustrates the problem we see most marketers struggling with. Igniting movements is about the passion conversation, not the product conversation. It is the foundation of all that we have learned. I’m certain you can’t create a movement around scissors or checking accounts or Xtra-Klingee Klingwrap. Real people don’t sit around and talk about Kling-Wrap unless it is extremely remarkable and disruptive. So we have to stop thinking about the product first. And instead start looking for the authentic passion and people behind the product, like scrapbooking, creating a simple financial life, or packing sandwiches with love.

It’s about people.

Q3: One thing I admire about you guys at Brains is that you use your talents to fight for things that matter — for instance, your work sparking movements to fight teen smoking and sexual trafficking. It must be difficult to balance business imperatives with, for lack of a better phrase, soul imperatives. Any advice for others who are struggling to find that elusive equilibrium?

One of my favorite lessons is the bonus lesson at the very end of the book:

Movements fight an injustice.

Injustice is easy to spot in cases like Love146, where the horrors of child sex-slavery are obvious. For businesses it’s likely there, but has to be first found and then defined. For Fiskars, fighting injustice meant putting a stop to personal attacks on other’s work in online scrapbooking forums. The Fiskateers set out to change the negativity and ignite a movement to celebrate all levels of crafting by creating a safe place to share.

So, my advice — dig deep, find the injustice in your industry and blaze a trail to save the day. People want to be a part of something bigger than themselves. Most of us want to get up in the morning and make the world we live in a better place.

And after all, it really is all about people.

Lynda Obst says that the “word around Hollywood” was that Inception would be only a minor success. Too weird, too hard to explain, etc.  Then the PR team took over and made it into a Movie Event. In her telling, here’s how they did it:

They turned Chris Nolan into a star—not a movie star, but a cinema star. No director had accomplished this, except Spielberg. […] The materials cut by the WB team were taut, dramatic, consistent, and told a narrative:

1. This is an event.
2. This Director (Capital D)—who made Dark Knight—is the Real Thing.
3. It’s about dreams.
4.  This movie is cool.
5.  Here’s all the story you need.
5.  It’s action: mucho action.
6.  Here’s Leo.
7. He goes home.
8. Visuals are mind-blowing.
9. More action.
10. You have never seen anything like this.

In honor of the recent paperback release of The Blue Sweater, as well as the release of Switch, Jacqueline Novogratz and I decided that we’d swap short Q&As. Three questions each.

Novogratz is the CEO of the Acumen Fund, and I’m a big fan of the work that Acumen does. (Learn more about it below.) Her book, The Blue Sweater, reflects on her work using investment as a tool to fight poverty. It is a fine book — part memoir and part rallying cry — and full of the kinds of stories that help you see why it’s so hard (and yet so essential) to get development work right. And now for the interview:

Heath: Most of us are familiar with two tools for combating poverty: aid programs and microcredit. But you’re adding a third. You founded the Acumen Fund to make investments in organizations that could improve the lives of the poor. (A “venture capital fund for the poor,” as you write.) Why have you committed yourself to building organizations instead of assisting the poor directly?

Novogratz: When 3 billion people on the planet are living in poverty, you have a systems problem. We don’t need more small programs serving a few thousand people, but new constructs and approaches to solving big problems of poverty altogether. Markets alone have not solved problems of poverty; and tradition top-down aid or charity alone too often create a sense of dependence rather than dignity. We need a middle way, one that lies between the markets and traditional charity. I believe the world is ready for new models that recognize that unbridled capitalism will not create a world in which all people can pursue their dreams. Patient capital is one such way. By investing long-term in organizations that see the poor not as passive recipients of charity but as agents who want to change their own lives, I’ve seen patient capital bring affordable, quality services to millions in the developing world. That’s where dignity starts.

Heath: If you wanted to make a believer out of someone — to show them firsthand the power of Acumen’s approach to fighting poverty — where would you take them? Whose work would you want them to see?

Novogratz: There are many places I’d take them now, which is the good news! I might start with taking them to harsh, drought-ridden fields where some of the poorest farmers in the world scratch out hardscrabble lives growing and selling crops like tomatoes and okra, often earning less than a dollar a day. For decades, development agencies have tried to help the 200 million smallholder farmers in India alone, providing them with seeds and other inputs that for various reasons did little to improve their productivity. On the other hand, Israel has been using drip irrigation to transform desert lands to emerald fields since 1960, and yet the price of their technology is too high for the smallholder farmer to afford.

Amitabha Sedangi, founder of IDE-India, was fascinated with the Israeli model. He asked what it would take to re-design the drip irrigation technology to be affordable – and useful – to the smallholder farmer. He determined he needed to follow three principles based on how farmers themselves make decisions (rather than starting with what he thought they needed). First, Miniaturization: if a typical smallholder farmer has one acre of land, he will risk no more than a quarter-acre to try an untested technology. Systems built for farms of a thousand acres had to be “miniaturized” down to fit a quarter acre. Second was Extreme Affordability: a farmer would need to see his investment returned to him after a single harvest to feel comfortable investing in the new technology. And third, Incremental Expandability: with the profits earned from the first quarter acre, the farmer could buy a second; and so on….

To date, IDE-India has sold more than 400,000 drip irrigation systems to some of the world’s poorest farmers. These farmers have experienced, on average, a doubling or tripling of their yields and income levels. That means more than two million people are benefiting from higher crop yields due not to charity but because low-income farmers are able to make their own decisions and invest in a way that creates real economic returns to themselves and their families. This is the power of customer-oriented innovation combined with patient capital, for it creates sustainable, scalable change – systems change that enable us to imagine a different kind of world.

Heath: I suspect your book and your TED talks will create a lot of “sympathetic spectators” — people who support your efforts but can’t write you a $100,000 check or contribute to the fieldwork. Are there little things we can do to support you?

Novogratz: Thanks for asking that question! There are so many things people can do. First, any contribution to Acumen Fund is appreciated, and for every dollar WE invest, we see an additional $4 in co-investment in our companies. I remember a seven year old girl who sent me an envelope filled with twenty $1 bills – that was one of my favorite contributions. Second, people can blog about Acumen as well as The Blue Sweater to get the word out that there is a new kind of approach, a middle way to effecting social change by investing patient capital in social entrepreneurs who are building systemic approaches to change. Third, you can join Acumen Fund’s community and find not only a group of like-minded, committed individuals from around the world, but also a host of ideas for other ways to get involved! You might also join one of our 40 communities around the world. Fifth – and importantly – you can support Acumen by integrating the ideas of patient capital and treating the poor as agents who want to make their own decisions into the work you already do.

We need a new way of solving poverty and it must begin with how we think about poor people altogether. And then we need examples of what works — and a commitment to talk about what fails as well so that we can accelerate learning around the world. Imagining, and then creating, a world without poverty starts with changing the way we think about the poor, and then building systems that enable greater freedom, greater choice, and, ultimately, the ability of each and every one of us to reach our greatest potential.

Our latest column for Fast Company is online. Here’s the lead:

Football coaches pore over game film to spot things they’d never see in real time. Check it out: When the defense blitzes, the free safety picks up the running back. So by picking off the safety, the middle of the field will be wide open for a screen pass. The value of this meticulous observation is intuitive in the sports world. After all, coaches get a week to review a 60-minute game. In the organizational world, where every day is game day, such analysis is less common. It’s unfortunate because studying the game film can yield unexpected insights. … [read more]

The philosopher Peter Singer wrote a moving book called The Life You Can Save, which makes a powerful moral case that all of us should be doing more to help the poorest of the poor.

The video below provides a 3-minute intro to his thinking. (Disclosure: I helped to create this video, along with my friends Jeff Sims and David Hamburger.) You can learn more at his website*.

I desperately want Singer’s idea to stick: We can, and we should, save lives. If you agree, will you help me spread the word about his work?

Here’s a suggested Tweet*: “I’m IN to end poverty. http://bit.ly/ca490h”

* Special thanks to Brains on Fire (and Justin Gammon) for their extraordinary work on the site. Also thanks to Paul Rand for the slogan.