30 Days of Starting a Movement - 10 Years On

So, I think I’ve been procrastinating getting here because this was the one activity I look on as a failure. But, in reality, making the movement a success was not the metric. In reality, I did the work and tried quite hard to promote and find a first follower. Reflecting on this and rewatching the talks helped me feel a little better about that.

Starting a Movement was based on two TED Talks - Seth Godin and another Derek Sivers short. You can read the original outline of the activity here. Below are the sketchnotes for the outline and reflection.

How this has evolved

Since completing this activity, I have done a lot of other things in my life that (a) have helped me understand the natural limitations that mean I am unlikely to ever be the hype person for a movement and (b) have pushed me into the position of being ‘out there’ a lot more. I think I’ll talk about this more in the next activity as well, but it was nice to reflect on this and really see that I’ve probably been a bit harsh on myself about the outcome of this activity.

Moving into training and facilitation has definitely increased the skills I might use to try to start a movement. I’m also much better at connecting with others now. But, the biggest issue was biting off a massive idea and creating something a little too complex. I can really see now how challenging that concept was going to be at the time - hell, I train cognitive bias and people are still too challenged in safe spaces for the most part. I should have tried my light, fluffy concept instead.

I don’t think I will try to start another movement, not like this one anyway. There are things I like to try to get people to be more aware of but a movement? That’s really not me.

And the new website

For those of you who have been here before, you might notice the website looks a little different. That’s because I’ve finally combined my personal and business website into one - moving them to Squarespace in the process. This has taken a long time to finally get to - I will inevitably write more about that later as well.