The Tipping Point Experiment

Cory Darby pinged me on Google Chat last week & told me about this little experiment based on Gladwell’s Tipping Point. A cute and interesting, not to mention inspiring, story I thought I just had to share…

In Cory’s words:

Recently while sitting in a local Tim Horton’s coffee shop, I started reading Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point. The style of the book was very interesting, but as it was applying the principle of small things leading to epidemic changes, I was a little skeptical. Particularly with examples used–that were not focused on internet successes I could relate to, but more on real life examples of how STDs can spread, crime rates, etc.?

In other words, a more direct impression of what I thought of the book eight pages into it was, ‘This book is full of bullshit.’ I was determined and now I had a mission to prove this theory of small things can lead to an epidemic wrong. I decided to put the very foundation of what the book was backing to the test. I noticed the Haiti donation box at the store’s front where the cash register was, I had intended to donate to the cause but hadn’t done so yet…

I called over the store manager and asked if I could pre-pay the coffee for the next few customers. The manager was fine with the idea and I agreed to donate $110, or 82 medium coffees. My mindset was, ‘If the book is correct than my small good deeds to others should lead to a widespread of good deeds and specifically, I had figured the likely outcome is they’d donate to the box at the cash register.

I had predicted that a handful of people would donate when they found out their coffee was free, I mean, they had the money already in hand when and the box was directly in front of them…

What happened next was mind blowing and honestly, caught me entirely off-guard. The book’s principle of small things leading to epidemic change was proven because of the 82 people who got a free medium coffee 65 of them ended up donating.

I estimate it was roughly equal (if not greater than) myself directly donating the $110 to the box but the key thing is now 82 people have a story. The experiment allowed me to ‘double dip’ because I was able to donate indirectly exactly what I could have directly donated, provided 82 people with coffee, potentially changed 82 Canadian lives and gave those 82 people a story that I hope spreads the good will to others.

Special thanks to:

Bill Liao, for getting me into business and his life changing book ‘Stone Soup’.
Brett Wilson , for being such an amazing role model for me.
Malcom Gladwell, author of ‘The Tipping Point’, the book that changed my life in eight pages.”

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ALI’s Social Media for Government Conference: Edmonton Jan 25-28

If you noticed it’s been quiet around here, one of the (many, *sigh*!) reasons is I’m speaking next week at the Advanced Learning Institute’s Social Media for Government Conference in Edmonton.

It was a last minute opportunity I couldn’t pass up… And fortunately I have a last minute opportunity to pass on to you as well. If you’d like to attend the conference (and can swing it in a week!) you can save 50% on your registration by mentioning my name!

Register here!

If you are attending, please let me know. I’ll be speaking on the topic of using social media to initiate change in Government (aka become a Gov 2.0 social media champion) and using case studies of people actively doing exactly that in government. Hope you can make it!

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A much needed re-design… What do you think?

If you’re reading in an RSS reader, please click through and have a look…

Seriously, I’m feeling a huge sense of relief. When I chose my previous theme (Bella) over a year ago, I loved the look of it, but had issues from the start. Most notably it was difficult to customize and often loaded painfully slow. I only found out a couple weeks ago from a tip from a reader that my titles were flash-based, which can not only crash your browser, but sucks for my SEO.

To be honest, I hate choosing a new Wordpress theme. It usually takes me hours upon hours, as I’m really picky, but indecisive. Also I like to customize my themes and make them really feel like ‘mine’. But my HTML/CSS skills are getting a little rusty, so I at least need a theme that’s well organized and easy to figure out, which my previous one was definitely not.

Also, I discovered this time around that not all themes will work. A few months ago I installed the Mainstream theme by Woo Themes. Very modern, clean and customizable… However when I activated it, it was a mangled mess. I was discouraged. Yesterday I found a similar theme I loved, called Charade, by HTML Rockstars. Again though, I activated and it was a mangled mess. After tweeting my frustrations, I was told it’s likely because the theme was developed for a previous version of Wordpress and may not work on newer ones.

Ready to give up and just shut my blog down (seriously, I get really worked up over this!), I continued to search through recommendations of sites from my Twitter followers, and eventually found this theme–Producer. I love it because it’s elegant, clean and attractive right ‘out of the box’, however it also has tons of configurable options, and easy to work with CSS files.

So hopefully, I’m sticking with this one for a while, and over time I hope to customize it and really make it mine. I’d love to know what you think and I’m open to any suggestions you may have. After all the look of my blog is really for your benefit.

Also, here’s a list of sites to find Wordpress themes, courtesy of my awesome followers:

• Top WP Themes – Thanks to @Jkozuch
• A list of where to find WP themes – Thanks to @meshwerk
• Smashing Magazine – (Lots of great design info in general, love this site!) Thanks to @christaggart
• Blog Oh blog – Thanks @statikpulse
• Best WP themes – Thanks @markmaloney
• Woo themes & Studiopress – Thanks @FrancescoCerv

So please, leave a comment with any feedback. And I’m certainly not looking for an ego-stroke here. I’m wondering if you think the text is too small, or if the archives are too difficult to find, or if the red makes you feel angry and want to leave, whatever pops into your head. I’m going to maintain a wish list of tweaks for me to make whenever I have the time (which is not often enough!) So I appreciate any feedback you may have.

Tags: Add new tag, Cascading Style Sheets, HTML, RSS, Search engine optimization, Templates, twitter, wordpress
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Networking in the New Year with IABC Ottawa

Just a quick note to let you know the Ottawa Chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators is hosting a ‘Networking in the New Year’ event next Wednesday. If you’re in communications and looking to learn more about a specific area, there will be designated experts on hand to answer any questions and talk with. There’s also going to be food, so you won’t leave hungry either!

It’ll definitely be worth the price, but book before Sunday, Jan. 17 for the early bird!

Register now!

(disclosure: I sit on the board of IABC Ottawa, but that doesn’t stop this from being a great event!)

Tags: International Association of Business Communicators, networking, Ottawa
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