Domino Theory Blog

New Thought about Domino Movement

The other day I was thinking about how the Domino Theory core principles are playing out with regards to the Topples I’ve been working on for the last year and a half. Put another way, why (or why not) have my dominos started other dominos in motion.

After thinking about this for a while, and reviewing the Core Principles, I’m realizing there’s something new to consider: Topples stall when dominos “teeter” and aren’t “encouraged” to tip. In some cases encouragement means a gentle reminder, other times it takes restating of the purpose of the topple, inspire them once again, explaining what to do next, and motivating them to keep the topple in motion. In a real domino topple it's not uncommon to see people assist the topple keep going when a domino doesn't fall.

This brings up an interesting point…

It takes courage to tip a domino (pass one on), and even more courage to say “hey, have you passed your domino yet.” No one likes to nag.

This got me thinking just how important it is for topplers.org to have some kind of “reminder system” to let you know you have a standing domino, and encourage you to keep the Topple in motion by passing it on. This takes the personal nag out of the equation.

We will definitely have this functionality built into the new website (as always if you want to help with topplers.org v2.0 let me know). For now, I will try to get a hack in place to make the current site do this. Obviously no one would be happy with a website that nags a lot, but I think one or two gentle reminders via email would be fine. Also, we could let the previous domino owner know that the next domino in the chain is teetering (and then they can decide if they want to encourage action.

Overall Toppling gets easier when there’s an underlying system like topplers.org to support it. When the new site launches I’m sure dominos will tip with more frequency and the Topple won’t “stall” as much.

But, Domino Theory isn’t all about the website. It’s more generally about how to take a dream/idea/hope and make it happen by inspiring, educating, and motivating people around you to help. And in turn, asking that they do the same through a simple act, thus creating an ever expanding group of people helping the dream/idea/hope come true.

When there’s not an “email reminder” to assist, and a domino teeters, you must find the courage to follow-up and ask again. Or, make sure you tip LOTS of dominos to increase the chances that some fall without follow-up. The problem with the “wider” approach is that this needs to be continued over and over. It’s one thing for the originator to set up a lot of dominos, but another thing to expect a domino later in the topple to tip lots of other dominos next (because they are rarely as inspired or motivated as the topple originator).
Next step for me: a gentle reminder to all the people who have dominos one down the chain from me. I will remind them of why they received the domino, what to do next, and motivate them to act. Automated or not, this is the next, because experience has taught me, often a domino needs a little assistance to tip over and keep the Topple in motion.

Some activity at Topplers.org

In case you haven't checked out topplers.org lately I wanted to let you know a few things:

- We recently made some small changes to the main page. Added some widgets (blog and twitter), and moved the news stories front and center.
- Also, there have been a few dominos moving. You'll see that in the news feed.
- Lastly, we just finished our requirements document for Topplers v2. Lots of neat ideas in there, and hopefully we'll find someone to help us make it happen. If you know anyone who is a web designer, web programmer, etc., who could help please have them contact info@topplers.org.

@topplers

I've been using twitter for over two years. It's been amazing watching it grow, especially the last few months. Funny that all that time I never saw the obvious connection between twitter and my goal of advancing the concepts in Domino Theory!

I set up the topplers account on twitter last fall, but it sat idle until recently. Lately I've been enjoying putting out quick messages on twitter. When I think of something regarding Topplers/Domino Theory it's easy to shoot that out. But, even more interesting is the notion of retweeting (RT) and replying (@xxx) other people's tweets that have something to do with Domino Theory. Most are random act of kindness kinds of things.

Sure, it's cool to see what others are doing. But, there's more to it than that. What if all these people could somehow track their impact? What if you took one small act, a tweet, and could see that it lead to another act, that lead to another, that ended up doing something really cool. It's a PERFECT example of what we mean when we say "Setting Big Things in Motion."

It would be cool to brag that tens of thousands of people were following Topplers on twitter - and there are ways to make that happen. However, that's not the strategy we're following.

The idea is to tip a few dominos and see what happens. If it ends up with a bunch of people following Topplers that's great. Or, when we eventually have more dominos ready for people to pass on to each other maybe the twitter world will gobble them up? That would be good too. But for now, this is just one more step in the grand experiment I started called Domino Theory - now a production of Topplers (cool).

here's the link to follow us on twitter.

2009 Domino Award Winners

One of the things I am most proud of is the Domino Award. It was an idea that I came up with a few years back: get computer science students at the University of Colorado (my alma mater) to see how others have impacted the world, encourage them to do the same, help them along the way, and track their progress.

This year was the third year of the award. As topples go, at times it looked like the dominos weren't going to fall this year, but thanks to help and support of my partner in crime Professor Clayton Lewis, they tipped. And now, we have two more young minds in this world thinking how they can make a big impact!

Special thanks to this year's judges:

Assoc. Professor Ken Andersen
Professor Clayton Lewis
Ret. Professor Evi Nemeth
Kelly Anne Shuster (pervious winner)
Ben Whaley (previous winner)

Here's the official announcement that Professor Lewis put together. I look forward to seeing how these dominos tip in the years ahead!

Finally, we're hoping to expand the program and are looking for financial support. Even small amounts help. If you are interested please contact me.

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Computer Science students Michael Ton and Jonathan Mai were recently named recipients of the 2009 Domino Award. The Domino Award is given annually to Computer Science students for an outstanding essay honoring the impact that other computer scientists have made on modern society. Essays were judged for their ability to clearly communicate how the honoree's work set in motion a "series of dominos" that changed the world. The award is based on Domino Theory:

... a framework that helps people understand that no matter how large or small your hopes and dreams are, you can meet them by seeing the world around you as a set of dominos. Sometimes the dominos need to be "set up", other times the dominos are just waiting to be tipped over. Either way, one tip leads to the next, and before long something big is happening. No longer will you be saying to yourself, "Oh, I just can't make a difference so why try." All it takes is one small strategic action to Set Big Things In Motion!

The Domino Award was created by serial entrepreneur and CU Computer Science alumnus Herbert Morreale (BS 1991) and CS Professor Clayton Lewis.

Winners receive a $500 cash award and an all expenses paid trip to the next Telluride Tech Festival, a "Celebration of the Past, Present and Future of Technology".

Ton's essay recognized William Shockley, Walter Brattain, and John Bardeen, inventors of the transistor, while Mai's reviewed the career of Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft.

Clayton Lewis
Professor of Computer Science
Scientist in Residence, Coleman Institute for Cognitive Disabilities
University of Colorado
http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~clayton

Topple Video

It's been a while since I posted a video. I like to post them because they convey important Domino Theory concepts. A few that stand out in this one:

• Setting in things in motion is fun, and people of all ages "get it"
• Sometimes no matter how much work you put into setting off a chain reaction it might not go as you had hoped (several places in this topple fail to fail despite the obvious expertise of the creator).
• There are different elements in a topple (towers, bridges, tricks, etc.) These are very impactful but harder to setup.

I want to eventually see Topplers go out to schools and setup topples like this. But, while doing so explain to the kids that the world is just like a set of dominos. Each of us is sets things in motion all the time. But, we can learn to do it with purpose, and get better and better all the time to increase our positive impact on the world.