How to reach beyond the core group?

• Do "market research" - ask interested people who aren't part of the core group for their opinions as to what you should do, to reach others. And listen.


• Recognize that, to the extent that you convey to the public that joining your movement entails joining a different cultural "tribe" (and internalizing its other beliefs and values), the public will stay away. Tribal identification is powerful, primal stuff.


• Think about how innovations spread, e.g.:
  "Solar Cookers International (SCI) found that, in every village they went into, it was the same story: there were a few "hippies" among the inhabitants who would try anything new; they might be given a free cooker to test. The relatively rich among the inhabitants looked on disdainfully, pretending to ignore the whole thing; but if the cookers worked, the rich would usually buy them. The rest of the villagers only watched the rich. When these village elite began using the cookers, the rest of the village followed suit."
  


• ?

StepItUp 2007 Nevada County brainstorming

Today in Grass Valley (and 1299 other locales) citizens attended a Step It Up 2007 "things you can do to fight global warming" event. Afterwards a group discussion was held, for brainstorming ideas.

Idea: let the brainstorming happen online too, not just at events.

Until there's a better spot on the web - at apple-nc.org or at powerup-nc.org - here's a spot for our ideas.

some to start:

• Nevada County Electric Vehicle Society; people interested in getting an EV would know who to contact, to get an owner's perspective


• "My God is a Treehugger" bumperstickers
• "my next car will be electric" bumperstickers (with a url)
• College and university course registration forms should include an "I'm interested in carpooling" checkbox; software could identify other students that live nearby and are also interested (and have a similar schedule?)
• "Express" bus service between Grass Valley and Nevada City, that takes the freeway
  (and stops only at offramps; see Monbiot's column making this suggestion)
• Maidu blessings that include a moment of silence for our ancestors, should also include a moment of silence for our descendants.
  
• ..."Bulk Item Garbage Pickup" Week, where all manner of manna is left streetside for our perusal and reusal before it gets scooped into dumptrucks and carted to the magical land of 'Away'.
  (in Portland (Maine), from Jokul at The Oil Drum)
  
• (more to come)
  

please add yours in the comments

Culture change, Innovation Diffusion and the Amoeba metaphor

Highly recommended: the "Amoeba chapter" (PDF or HTML; overview) from Alan AtKisson's 1999 book Believing Cassandra: An Optimist Looks at a Pessimist's World.

"Whenever I think about cultural change, I think of the Amoeba."
- Dick Roy

"... What changed? How did Palo Alto go from "S-Word" to S-Champion? "The first thing," said Julie, "was getting the right people on board." She started talking about Innovators with new ideas, and Change Agents who are good at spreading ideas, and finding Transformers who help legitimate the ideas in the eyes of the mainstream -- all of which sounded quite familiar. And then she put up a diagram to explain this strategy: The Amoeba of Cultural Change."

"When you are informed by Innovation Diffusion Theory, you understand -- in practical as well as theoretical terms -- what it takes to move an idea from zero to broad acceptance."

"if you try to interest the apathetic, or convert the opposition, you are in for frustration and perhaps failure. But if you quietly attract the curious and the open-minded, and those hungry for something that addresses a nagging worry they have, you will start building critical mass...."