Want to change the world, your school, your neighborhood, your country's economic system. Ssome basic principles for
successful social change are outlined here:
1. Targeted innovation – focus on social and technological innovations that attack the root of a problem, not just
one or more symptoms.
2. Empirical approach – Use data, systematic observations, and formal analytical tools to understand the current
situation and the impacts of your own efforts. Don’t let terms like “empirical” and “formal”
disturb you; the concepts aren’t hard to apply.
3. Leverage – Look for ways to attack a social problem that will give the best results for your resources.
4. Formalism – Use a system to structure and explore challenges, create evaluation criteria for ideas, generate
ideas, evaluate ideas, decide what to do, and monitor results. Again, this is not as complicated as it might seem.
5. Marketing Mindset – Think of yourself as being in sales or advertising, with your services or ideas being “sold”
to benefit people.
6. Design Thinking – Consider how your idea fits with the culture, economic situation, physical infrastructure,
available technology, and the political climate.
7. Values Thinking – Your idea must fit with prevailing values, lifestyles, beliefs, and attitudes; the closer
the fit, the greater the odds of success.
You can learn more about the application of those principles in several books. One of those books is my forthcoming The
Creative Activism Guide.
