We can change the unchangeable

My media project was done on change, and how change doesn't necessarily turn into something better. I did try to narrow my approach to change that is designed, not caused by external factors. For example, one of my examples was the creation of calculators that inhibits learning, not global warming. But as I was thinking all of this through, I kept considering all the external factors. In my first blog post, I wondered if we could ever really design change to be effective, because there are so many external factors that go into it---the environment, the type of people it affects, how these people react to the change, etc. It goes on and on.

After reading Tipping Point, I feel the same way. The book discusses three major factors that affect whether a trend will have a "tipping point". With a tipping point, effective change can then occur. These three "rules of tipping points" are: The Law of the Few, The Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context.

In recent years, the honor society that I am president of has a survey for general members to voice their opinions. Tonight we had our reevaluation meeting to go over the responses we got. We do this so that we can change the society for the better and react to everyone's viewpoints, not just our own. This is a very big honor society of around 5000 members on campus, so when we consider any type of change it's important that we consider everyone and really think about the society's mission (promoting academic excellence in freshmen and making a difference in our campus and community). We've done a lot in the past 2 years that I have been on the executive board, and when I think back on all of the major changes in the honor society I realize how much they fit in place with the three factors.

About 8 years ago, the society at the U of I campus was not active at all. This is difficult to imagine because in the last 2 semesters, we have received an award from TIS for Most Outstanding RSO and an award from the Dad's Association for Most Outstanding Organization, both based on impact and differences made on campus. The change happened when the executive board 8 years ago realized that the society was not accomplishing anything since it was so large. By creating a point system for members to receive honor cords at graduation, the participation rate went to about 150 members, with about 10 members receiving enough points to graduate with honor cords the first few years it was instilled. Now, we have about 40 honor cord graduates, with about 300 active members. We are still growing, but I think there will come a point when we are limited by the number of members motivated to get an honor cord, and thus to participate in service events and make an impact on the community. Receiving an honor cord today sounds appealing because you would be one of 5000 members to receive one; you also get enough attention at events since chairs still have time to ensure you are accountable for attending, etc. The Power of Context says that when you make people accountable for their actions, the tipping point can happen. The group 8 years ago made a large organization that did nothing into essentially a "smaller organization" by creating the divide between active and inactive members. This is the Power of Context. It also tells me that some day we will be limited by the same rule.

Since I have joined the executive board, one of our goals has been to incorporate a social dynamic into the honor society. This is to facilitate member to member interaction. When members become friends and have someone to go to events with, they are more likely to participate. In the last 2 years, we have had a social committee. As of tonight, we voted a new social coordinator to the executive board to begin in 2010-2011. Perhaps that is the reason that I am writing this blog tonight. I think it's a very exciting change for us to have, and will help to make our message even "stickier". Having people do service events or tutoring students with their friends makes the event seem more appealing, and thus the events will be more likely to stick with members.

With all of these changes, I feel that we are really growing in participation. Perhaps one day, getting more members to participate will no longer be a goal of ours. Instead, we can move onto another of the rule of epidemics---the law of the few perhaps by being even more selective in our committee chairs and then eventually exec members which we are already pretty selective in.

Maybe we can't stop global warming or swine flu, but we can reinvent things to help slow the destructiveness down. We can go green; we create vaccines. Doing these things may seem small for change that happens on such a large level. But small things make a difference. We can make large organizations seem smaller if the cause of ineffectiveness is the size. There are things that we cannot change, and then, there are things that we can.