Domino Theory Blog

A Billion for a Billion

Today I came across this video on YouTube. I know a lot of people are starting to get desensitized, and a even "sick of hearing about" world hunger. "Please, not another hungry kid in Africa!" Or, "What about hunger here in the U.S?" Honestly, I have that reaction at times also. But, I'm not going to let that get in my way of sharing this video for a few reasons:

1. It speaks directly to the point of Domino Theory and the mission of Topplers: to inspire and motivate people around the notion that when one thing leads to another amazing/suprising things can happen.
2. What if you could do something like this, then track how it lead to others, and so on? If the domino topple fell and you could actually see your domino in the chain? That's the whole idea behind starting Topplers. Giving people a way to set big things in motion, see their impact, and in doing so inspire themselves and others to set other things in motion. We're working to build a social impact network that does exactly that.
3. And of course, maybe this video motivates you to act, and even if we can't track it all, we can know something happened that might not have otherwise.

One last thing: I'm very close to posting "Kate's Topple." I'm really excited to get this going and see how Topplers can help Kate accomplish an important and inspiring dream. It just happens that her topple is related to children in Africa.

Yes, It's Been A While

Hello Readers.

A little Bird chirped the other day and reminded me just how long it had been since the last blog post. I was actually just getting ready to write a few new posts, and the chirp was just the motivation I needed to get moving!

For my first post a little news…

Non-Profit Status
We’ve made great progress on becoming a 501c3 non-profit organization. The IRS process isn’t easy, and it’s definitely time consuming. We hope we’ll be granted non-profit status by the end of the year. Having this in place is essential to our goals for the rest of this year and 2010+.

Board Update
Last spring the board completed Toppler's first strategic plan. Each month we have an “official” board meeting to review our progress and discuss open issues. We also meet weekly to keep things moving between board meetings. Over time we’ve learned how important it is that we do a few things well vs. all the things we would like to do (including blogging/updates/etc). We regularly prioritize what “must” get done vs. what we would “like” to get done. All in all, we’re making great progress on the “musts” and we expect that will pay off over time. The “likes” still inch along, including the Blog, Facebook updates, and Twitter/tweets.

New Website
Honestly, this has been one of the more frustrating experiences for the Topplers team this year. We’re so anxious to improve what we currently have, but at the same time we need it to be “right.” We’ve met with a number of generous organizations and individuals who have volunteered a lot of know-how regarding building and promoting the kind of site we’re envisioning. They have all rightly asked that we narrow our focus for the first version of the site. We’re working on that, and still hope to have a new site up this year (even a if it’s just a baby step along the way to our grand vision).

2010 Plans to release 10,000 Dominos
The board is currently reviewing several plans to release up-to 10,000 dominos next year. We expect that dominos will be released in waves in conjunction with events/programs throughout the year. We’re also evaluating a “big bang” approach.

We will certainly do our best to keep everyone informed, and please know that we’re working hard to bring Topplers to life and make a big impact in 2010. As our plans firm up there will be lots of ways for “Friends of Topplers” like yourselves to help.

I have 2-3 new blog posts in the works. My plan is to have those published over the next couple weeks.

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 [email protected].

@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.

How Dominos Move From Person to Person

I was recently asked about the mechanics of tipping dominos.  Here's you go:

Five Steps:

1. You get a domino. 
2. You register the domino.
3. You learn about the history of the domino and it's "purpose" (how to keep the topple going).
4. You "TIP"the domino (pass it on).
5. When the domino is registered by the next person, you confirm the registration.

More details...

Getting a Domino
Someone TIPS one to you.
You request one by sending email to [email protected]
You sign up for a Toppler's Event (announced via the blog or Facebook).
Order one online (coming soon).

Registering a Domino
Done at topplers.org.  Takes about a minute.  Has the option of being totally anonymous. 

Learn about the Purpose
Every domino has a purpose.  The hope is that the people that receive the domino will read the purpose, see the history of notes collected regarding the domino's journey, and feel inspired to pass on the domino (and possibly request more dominos).

TIPPING
This is the best part - the joy that comes with keeping the topple going.  Some people hand it directly to a person with a personal request to help expand the topple, others pass them on anonymously.

Confirming Registration
After the domino has been TIPPED and then registered by the new owner, a message is sent to the previous owner confirming the TIP.  After this, you can track the domino as it continues on it's journey, knowing that you made you made it all possible.

The topplers.org website makes this all possible, but it's a very basic "first cut."  We have a new site in the works - stay tuned.

What's Up?

Time for an update on Topplers and Domino Theory...

News from the Board:
We continue to meet weekly and make excellent progress pulling together all the things we need to bring Topplers to life. This includes: 2009-2010 strategic plan, IRS filing for non-profit status, simple one-pager describing the organization, and requirements for topplers.org v2.0. Our lawyer recently provided his first round comments, and it looks like we can officially file in the next week or so. At that point, all our attention will be on the v2.0 requirements, and lining up people to help build it.

2009 Domino Award:
Topples is proud to sponsor the Domino Award at the University of Colorado. This years winners were both freshman: Mike Ton and John Mai. They wrote outstanding essays honoring someone from the field of computer science, and were judged for their ability to clearly communicate how the honoree’s work set in motion a “series of dominos” that changed the world. There will be separate post to the blog regarding the Domino Award (including links to their papers).

Twitter:
Yes, twitter is all the rage these days, and now Topplers has joined the fun. Follow us at http://twitter.com/topplers. It turns out that twitter is a great avenue for Topplers to communicate that there are dominos all around us waiting to be tipped into motion, and that people are doing it all the time!

Facebook:
We're here too. In fact, Facebook has become the main communication channel for Topplers lately. We'll keep the blog going, but for now Facebook is the best way to stay up-to-date on what we're up to. We have a group on Facebook with about 140 members. We'll be moving that to a Facebook "page" shortly. The move from a "group" to a "page" gives us more functionality. Once it's ready we'll make the announcement (shortly) and you can "become a fan."

Volunteers Needed:
Topplers is currently an all volunteer organization. We currently have needs in the following area:

• Graphic design skills to help with the look and feel of our blog and website
• Copywriters to help clean up establish a standard for our content
• User-experience professionals, web developers and programmers of all types
• to help us design and build version 2.0 of the website
• Social media and community experts to help us with facebook, twitter, our
• blog and other cool ways to connect with and grow our community

Domino Theory
Herb continues to develop new thoughts on Domino Theory. He's planning to share some of that on the blog in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.

It’s My Birthday

Normally I don't draw attention to my birthday. But this year is different.

The first public thing I did was signup for a "birthday wish" on Facebook. How it works is that all my friends get notified that I have made a wish to have 10 people donate $41 dollars to the Red Cross (I could have selected another charity). It took me less than 5 minutes to set up the wish, and as of right now 4 people have donated more than $100. Pretty cool. In addition to the money that I raised for the Red Cross, I received nice messages from friends, some who I haven't spoken with since high school! Amazing how generous people are. Even the people who didn't donate saw that I did, and might be motivated to do the same when their birthday comes up. I wonder how much money will be raised for charity on Facebook because I got over my hangup that I should not advertise my birthday? I wonder how many people think, "Herb's always up to something these days, maybe I'll do something too?" I'm not trying to say I'm Mr. Popular and influence people with my coolness (far from it!). My point is that I took less than 5 minutes and already have $100+ going to the Red Cross to show for it.

Another thing about my birthday…

In 2007 I was thinking about my upcoming 40^th birthday. At the time I was working at Me.dium (now OneRiot) as the CTO. In many ways I loved the job, in others, well… After a particularly difficult time in the Feb. 2007 I was thinking, "I'm going to be 40 in about a year, I hope that the second half of my professional life is defined by making the world a better place vs. deal with shit like this." For the next several months my thoughts turned more and more to doing something with my thinking about Domino Theory. Eventually the time at Me.dium came to an end in Oct 2007, about 3 months before my 40^th bday. This gave me a once-in-a-life time opportunity to step back and examine my life as I approached THE BIG 40. Once again, it seemed like dominos were everywhere I looked. During this time I started this blog. And, as one who believed in Domino Theory would expect, big things got set in motion.

Today I'm 41. I'm one of 5 founding board members of Topplers – the result of asking myself what I was going to do to make a big impact. I know for sure that I've impacted people's lives (they've told me). I also know, that the domino topple I set in motion is only going to grow bigger, with more energy, and more impact.

I'm more comfortable not talking about my birthday. But, history has shown, if I get out of my comfort zone it tends to be a good thing. So there you have it… A blog post announcing my birthday. Happy Birthday to Me!