The blog is dedicated to helping provide tools to those in the fight to lead change. Specifically its about helping to move our organizations to do so. At the moment there's a confluence of social forces and technical tools that successful leaders of change will need to master to ensure success.
The change we are trying to lead can be any number of things from trying to influence the outcomes of local politics, creating awareness about a national cause or trying to get people to change from one behavior to another. In my particular case, it's about trying to get people to drive less and instead take public transportation, bike, walk and share the ride more (see companion blogs The TDM Professional and CommuterPageBlog). And we are very successful.
Those of us leading or participating in a group trying to affect change, whether small or large, non-profit, government or some other kind of organization, aren't working in a vacuum. The economy, social and demographic forces, and the motivations of today's right-brained creative class of workers presents a whole new way of organizing and doing business.
At the same time the tools for creating change have been turned upside down in the last decade. No, really the last few years. Traditional media is dying. We can't just advertise and direct mail our way to success. Web 2.0/Social media is here. Our ideas need to be "sticky" and part of the "groundswell." Our products need to be "purple cows." We're leading "tribes." We must "flip the funnel."
The right combination of building and motivating our teams to use these new tools in pursuit of change is what we call Leading Change 2.0. I hope you'll join me in figuring this all out by contributing content and joining the discussion. And together we can share and learn more to help each of us affect the change we seek.
Chris Hamilton is the Commuter Services Transportation Bureau Chief for Arlington County, Virginia, where he has been building an organization since 1993 that is leading change (getting more people to take transit, bike and walk) and trying to use the latest organizational and marketing, Web 2.0, sales and customer service tools available.
