The Frustrated Activist: A Series on Selling Social Change

Photo by Ross Findon on Unsplash

Have you ever wondered how to make change happen faster? Have you ever wondered how to stop undesirable social changes? Never mind for now what kind of change is involved. What if I told you about a set of tools and techniques that activist types on the Left and the Right overlook or aren’t even aware of?

That’s true!

Management consultants and entrepreneurs have invented many techniques they use in brainstorming, decision making, and strategic planning. Those tools must work reasonably well. Why? People who have to be careful with their time and money keep buying the books and paying for the classes and hiring the consultants.

Therefore, whatever works for those people is worth a look from folks in the social change game. Right? Right!

If you agree, please follow along as I write about some of the best business innovation tools and apply them to some social problems in the news.

You’ll get some tips on key subjects for all social changers, social entrepreneurs, and nonprofit executives. You will learn how to:

• raise more money with less effort.
• design better social marketing campaigns.
• develop better policies and laws.
• focus on the right thing at all times.
• find killer new ideas and opportunities.
• fix problems with your ideas, before you act on them.

I know that sounded like the beginning of a spam email about some stupid network marketing scheme. Considering this little spin-off series of mine is all about selling ideas, the sales-y beginning works.

In plain language, this is going to be a series about brainstorming, decision making, strategic planning, and innovation tools and tactics in general. I’ll explain one thing at a time and illustrate how to use it with an example. If you’ve read stuff on creativity, problem-solving, or decision making then you’ll have heard of things like:

• Random input
• Morphological analysis
• SCAMPER
• The 5 Why Technique
• Provocative Operations

Now I hope you’ve got a better idea of where things are going. Clap if you like my direction. Share if you really like my direction. Either way, please comment if you’d like to see a specific tool, technique, or activism challenge covered here.