Leading the Change in Community With Diffision of Innovation & Kotter’s Process

Today in our sustainability and community relations class Dr. Kool showed our cohort two concepts which were diffusion of innovation and Kotters process. Ultimately, these two processes are used in order to promote change in the community which can be used for our projects for Colwood Council.

Diffusion can be defined as “a process in which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system”. The following picture depicts the breakdown of innovation and the parts of society that are involved in the process.

Innovators are a large minority of the innovation curve as they represent 2.5% of the total. Innovators are found to be educated and have multiple sources of information. Also these members have been shown to be susceptible to taking risks. Early adopters which are found to be 13.5% are an evolution of the innovators and can somewhat act on the innovators ideas.

Individuals that fall into the 34% of the population are the early majority group. People that fall into this group are respectable opinion leaders which serve as role models and are respected by their peers. This group typically consists of evangelists and missionaries as they possess the attributes necessary as mentioned. Overall the innovators, early adopters and late majority groups are innovators and have the drive necessary to establish and implement change.

The latter half of the diffusion curve consists of groups which are typically on the change “bandwagon”. The late majority group, which also constitutes for 34% as the early majority distinction is generally similar however they fall into the bandwagon generalization and do not exhibit change as much as the early majority would. The laggards can be synonymous with straggling behind the group and interact with peers. Laggards seldomly hold positions of leadership where they would express their opinions. As with the “straggler” mentality they typically will think longer about ideas and thus take more time to implement their thoughts.

In order to lead change, Kotter also created an eight step process which can be used also to become a leader in change. The eight step process includes:

· Establish and/or reflect a sense of urgency

· Create guiding coalition

· Developing a Vision and Strategy

· Communication for understanding and buy-in

· Empower broad based action

· Produce short-term wins

· Consolidate gains and produce more change

· Anchor new approaches in the culture and create a new culture

Establishing and reflecting a sense of urgency reflects whether or not there is a sense for change or whether or not society would move beyond the status quo. This step also realizes whether or not a vulnerability exists and if there is something wrong or a dissatisfaction with the existing status quo.

Creating a guided coalition inevitable makes the choice on what needs to be done and whom will be required to drive the project. Positive attributes for this will need to be considered as a motivator who is powerful or influential will need to be chosen that people will be willing to follow.

Once the project leader is chose a strategy will need to be developed based on the vision of the project. This is important as the strategy needs to have the vision of the overall short and long term goals in mind to effectively establish a strategy that will address the needs. Once the strategy is developed, it must be communicated effectively. How will this project be communicated to the community and how will it become engrained within the community? These are some questions to consider when analyzing the appropriate communication method that will be chose.

With communication comes the concept of empowerment. This allows how the actual enactment will take place and how it will answer the sense of urgency that has been detected from the audience. Also, if there are external persuasions and barriers the empowerment will hopefully surpass them and have the audience readily accept the idea. Perhaps rewards and incentives can be used to positively bribe the audience to the idea.

The change cannot be thought of on a long term scale and short term goals must be established. The short term goals must outline small objectives set so that when they are reached it can be reflected as a short term win. The objectives need to be effectively communicated to the audience to let them know that progress has taken place and that positive change is occurring. The gains and objectives that occur must not be taken lightly and victory cannot be declared to early as Kotter stated. These problems that were created took years to evolve and the processes that are used to change them will also take time to be successful. The continual evolvement of the growth occurring must happen in order to actually anchor the ideals into everyday society and culture. Change and behaviors can fail just as quick as they are changed. I am going to quote Kotter whom states it best by saying, “Until new behaviors are rooted in social norms and shared values, they are subject to degradations as soon as the pressure for change is removed”.

Change is continually occurring in the world we know today and it is important that if we are to influence for our own change, such as for Colwood, it must effectively be presented. Therefore, I believe that Kotters process for implementing change can be a beneficial tool for not just presenting but initiating change. Hopefully our group can incorporate this process in our wiki with the hopes of presenting an idea of change that is not just accepted with short term thoughts in mind by our audience but perhaps an elongated future in which it can readily persist.

Wiki, Tools of Change, and ADDIE

This week our cohort was introduced to the concept of creating a Wiki which will present each individual groups ideas in the proper format. BJ Eib was the representative from Royal Roads whom explained the process that happens in creating a wiki as well as some tips that can be used for editing the wiki.

A wiki is a tool used to create a project that eventually takes the format of what you would see on Wikipedia. A beneficial aspect to a wiki is that a group of individuals can edit and replace information on it at their own schedule. The wiki can also be hyperlinked in order to join it to other information as it deems necessary or if it is related to the topic being described. The wiki is a fairly efficient formatting tool that can be especially useful if working in teams. Considering the large amount of team based exercises that we conduct in our course I believe the wiki concept could be expanded to much more projects and not just limited to the project for Dr. Kool.

Another project developing tool that we were introduced was www.toolsofchange.com. This resource also provided our group in developing our project of the RRU trail systems with community based social marketing in mind. The website revolved around a planning guide which included the areas of setting objectives, developing partners, getting informed, targeting the audience and also choosing the appropriate tools of change. Upon the completion of this “fill in the blank” style program, we had a much clearer idea of where our project was heading and what specifications we needed to address. The objective included what audience we were offering our idea to as well as what they would benefit from taking part in our idea, which would include personal health as well as enjoying a somewhat sheltered green space in Colwood. The getting informed section included questions relating to the resources used by the community as well as searching for other sources that would be providing the same service to the targeted audience. In order to effectively target the audience we were asked to decide on the targeted population as well as how we would reach out to this group to get them willingly adapt to our scenario. For the RRU trail maps, our audience is quite wide and ranges from young children to senior citizens. All groups can benefit from the trails here in both good health and learning about the vast ecology that exists in Hatley Park. The final tool of change involved choosing the appropriate tools in which would effectively execute our project with maximum success. This involved looking into appropriate incentives as well as effective agents of change for the targeted community. This was decided to take the form of brochures, media coverage such as newspapers, and putting appropriate audience specific signage on the trails.

Eventhough the tools of change provided us with a good perspective on where we were heading with the trail system project for Royal Roads we decided on following the ADDIE perspective that Dr. Kool shared with us in class. The five phases in the ADDIE system includes Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation. We as a group felt that this system would be more effective in providing a better structure for our Wiki as each section is fully dependent on the other and would create a better flow for our project. The section that I chose to undertake involved the actual implementation of our ideas for the trails. This includes installing signage that appeals to an older audience by providing interesting facts about the campus as well as historical knowledge of the area. This can include a description of the numerous buildings throughout Hatley Park and what they were once used for when the Dunsmiurs inhabited them. Also there will need to be a implementation of various methods in order to attract the community of Colwood to come to Royal Roads and experience the trails that they have to offer. That was one main problem that our group agreed on with how the things exist now. The trails are not promoted in any way to the public. I’m sure that many people in Colwood are unaware of the amazing green space that Royal Roads is housed on. This would be solved by implementing advertisements in the local newspaper and also offering complementary maps to visitors to the campus. The newspaper could feature such a feature as “trail of the week” providing information on the ecology, animals, and trail difficulty. These are just a few of the many ideas we have thought up with for the Royal Roads Trail systems and hopefully they can end up from being an idea to actual reality.

Community Based Social Marketing

Recently in class with Dr. Kool we were introduced to the concept of “Community Based Social Marketing” and how it can benefit our class. Ultimately community based social marketing can help in working on our wiki and ultimately presenting our ideas to Colwood council.

Community based marketing works on the premise and information is not enough to change behavior. I agree with this because just providing facts and “cut and dried” information will not be enough to inevitably change people’s thoughts. Social Marketing is a systematic procedure where marketing is adapted to achieve specific behavioral goals for a defined social goal. An important ideal to keep in mind though is that the audience for whom you are focusing on must be thoroughly analyzed and put at the center of every decision that must be made. There must be a defined action on what you want your audience to do and also an exchange with the audience to give up or change their behavior.

There are 10 questions to ask oneself while defining the outlines for the study. First of all, what is the social/environmental problem that is being addressed? This is beneficial because it provides a starting point and a baseline for starting the research. Also, what actions will best address the problem? The audience that is connected to this action must be targeted and what they want in exchange for the adoption of this new idea must be considered. Another question to ask is whether or not the audience will believe that what is put before them is true. If the audience does not follow your view and disregards it, then your project will fail. Potential competition must also be considered because they could possibly be offering something that is far more gratifying or valuable to the community. The community will have to be reached at a time and place that works for them and where they will be most vulnerable to take in the concept that is being presented. This intervention will also need to be examined in how often, from whom and how it can be integrated with other perceptions to maximize efficiency. Finally, the resources that are required for this must be questioned and whether or not other parties will need to be involved for success.

Once these initial 10 questions are addressed, the campaign undergoes 5 steps that will benefit and make the community marketing adapt to different outcomes or scenario changes. Possible barriers and benefits are to be investigated as they pertain to the project. This involves both internal and external goals which can include literature research, conducting a focus group and doing surveys in order to gather real data. Once the barriers are outlined, focus can become directed towards mitigating and avoiding them. This can come in the form of evaluating norms, persuasion techniques and possible incentives. An initial pilot plan becomes developed by revolving around the barriers as well as the benefits.

After this strategy has become developed then the pilot plan can be ran and tested in order to see how it works. This initial testing is vital as strategies can be compared to expected results and adjustment can occur if the need arises. The fourth step is the actual implementation of the project after necessary changes have been made. This can make the plan more worthwhile and a success because potential problems have been mitigated. A project that has been thoroughly analyzed will have a much higher rate of being a success when compared to a project that has not given appropriate attention to potential problematic sources.

Once the project has been implemented the final stage is to continue the process of monitoring and adapting to possible changes that can arise. Society is always changing as peoples thoughts, beliefs and morals are always evolving. Projects that involve the community must always be aware of these changes and how they need to adapt to them. The continual monitoring of these changes ensures that the project continues successfully and does not succumb from being unprepared.

I think that community based social marketing is a great concept and can be applied to our projects for Colwood. For our project, which revolves around the trail systems for Royal Roads we have already implemented some aspects of community based social marketing. We used this process to find out our targeted population as well as the initial pilot plan for our project. Using Dr. Kools community based social marketing methods can thoroughly investigate potential problems as well as boundaries that must be considered. Hopefully using these methods will create some great projects that Colwood council can use to help with their goal of reducing carbon emissions